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A COLLECTION OF
THE WRITINGS
OF
.
John James Ingalls
3J±-
Essays, Addresses, and
Orations.
i >
Ad astra per aspera."
■
Hudson Kimbkklv Publishing < ".
KANSAS CITY, MO.
COPYRIGII 111). [902, BY
Mrs John J. Ingalls.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
• -7 43
•
• * ■ ■ • •
■ • •
DEDICATION.
To the People of Kansas,
FOR WHOM MY BELOVED HUSBAND LABORED, AND
TO WHOM HE OWED SO MUCH,
THIS BOOK IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED.
PREFACE.
The late Senator Ingalls wrote many things which man-
kind will forever cherish and preserve. He enriched literature,
and in so doing gave renown to his State. The history of
Kansas is an inspiration, and her high ideals have made her
immortal. The exalted purpose and glorious destiny which
her pioneers fixed for her created in themselves lofty aspira-
tions, and under their leadership she became a brilliant star in
the national tiara and a power in the Republic. And for this
proud position she owes as much to Senator Ingalls as to any
of her devoted sons.
This volume is a monument of affection. While it is mainly
of his own building, the wife of his manhood, the mother of
his children, the trusted friend and adviser of his course and
work, and the companion who walked with him in the journey
of this life, binds with her love and her wifely devotion these
polished blocks wrought by his genius. Xo one ever had a
more enduring memorial.
In preparing this work for the press, I have had the kindly
assistance of many of the friends of Senator IngalK The
selections from his writings were chiefly made by Mrs. Ingalls.
Many of his productions are known so well and loved so much
that it was imperative they should go in. All his work was of
such high order that it was a difficult matter to choose one
production and pass over another.
William Hi. sky Connelley.
Washington, September 15. [902.
INTRODUCTORY.
The readers of this volume will find on every page excellent
reasons for its publication. John James Ingalls was such a
man as does nol grow in every soil. He was Kansas incarnate.
Whatever he said, whatever he wrote, whatever he did, Kan-
sas was his theme, his motive, and his inspiration. He was
of the Puritan breed, and the traditions of his New England
ancestry were with him from his youth up; but when he first
set foot on the western bank of the Missouri and beheld the
land of his dreams, he became a devotee, a lover, a worship-
er of Kansas. His highly- wrought imagination idealized the
wooded slopes, the deep ravines, the tangled vines, and stretch-
ing to the illumitable west, the prairies solemn in their vastness
and mysterious as the sea. As one reads the history of those
early days, how clearly the truth comes to him that the actual
is not half the picture. In the deadly conflict between free-
dom and slavery, men forgot the corn and wheat, and saw only
the beauty that should come after the Right had won. The
making of a State is a grim work, and those brave State-mal
could not stop to listen to the carols of birds; but some of
them kept the music in their hearts. John J. [ngalls \v
born poet. Brilliant as was his career in the Senate, ii yet i-
certain that literature was his true field.
When Kansas finished her fight with tin- aliens, her w.n
against those who insulted her with shackles, she moved for
8 John James Ingalls.
ward, joyous in her freedom. After the war, people came to
settle there by thousands. And such a people have never be-
fore or since built up an American commonwealth. It has been
fashionable among giddv and unthinking people to make jokes
about Kansas,— jokes ranging in merit from zero to the bot-
tomless depths below zero — but meanwhile Kansas has not
paused in its march to the front. It cannot be denied that
she has had her freaks and her follies, but let us remember it
is the stupid, and not the wise, who never err. The heart of
Kansas has always been right. An educated, enlightened
people, worshiping the lights of duty, conscience, and truth.
may briefly go astray, but in the long run they will always be
found "true to the kindred points of heaven and home."
1 speak of these things only to vindicate her from the shal-
low and inconsiderate criticisms of those who do not know her
history or appreciate her true position in the Union. She needs
no defense. The twelfth census is just out. and it tells the
story of Kansas in the eloquent figures which place her in the
vanguard of the States.
The western bank of the Missouri at Atchison is lined with
bluffs whose rugged sides stand out boldly toward the river
and the opposite shore. On summer nights it needs no poet's
eye to see that it is beautiful. The Yellow, sluggish river
changes to molten silver when the rising moon plays upon it
with the witchery that makes pictures for po< ts. Once I sat
upon the bluff thai overlooks the river, when Senator Ingalls
said: 'This is my Euphrates and my Ganges, and I love to
think that these turbid waters have rolled, as long as they,
down to the all-eml tracing sea."
lie was a lover of home; and no one who was permitted to
share its sanctities can forgel how sweet a place it was. His
Introductory. 9
wife and his children were the lights of his life, — and he was
theirs. lie did not give his heart to every new-fledged stranger,
but to those who were his friends, "and their adoption tried,"
In was open and unreserved, booking back upon a friendship
of thirtv rears, I can say but this: "I knew him well; 1 loved
him well."
What brought him fame? The answer undoubtedly is:
his own genius. But there were certain collateral influences,
and mavhap the dominant voice of "Opportunity" had some-
thing to do with it. The Kansas Magazine, that brilliant ven-
ture— the child of promise, and of early death -first gave him
to me, but he had long been known to Kansas people as their
most brilliant citizen.
I was new. Arriving in December, 1871, I first found a
boarding-house, and then, studied Kansas. The Kansas Maga-
zine began its brief career in January, 1872. Henry King was
its editor. I have never known a finer literary judgment
than his. He had in him the making of a Lowell, or a Matthew
Arnold, but the St. Louis Globe-Democrat swallowed him up.
and now he is editor-in-chief, with many honors and great
emoluments.
I lived in a town untrammeled by railroads, but it was
a Kansas town, and therefore bright, cultivated, and filled
with educated people. The Kansas Magazine was a forlorn
wager bv certain enthusiasts, that Kansas could maintain a
high-class literarv monthly. They lost; but losing, they won.
Tohn J. Ingalls, the most brilliant of its contributors, became
United States senator because lu- wrote "Catfish Aristocracy'
and "Blue Grass."
His career was a stormy one: but above the stress "' events
there was always a consoling influence in win-, children, iriends,
io John James Ingalls.
and the blessed ministration of letters. I came upon him once
in the midst of a terrible senatorial struggle, of which he was
the central figure, and found him reading Charles Lamb's
"Essays of Elia.'' He was self- poised always, and I never
saw him thrown from the even balance which he habitually
maintained.
The summer preceding Mr. Ingalls' election to the Senate
was warm in more senses than one. The liberal Republican
movement, headed by Horace Greeley, was on. taking from us
many of the old "war-horses" of the party, leaving big scars in
the ranks, which sadly worried our leaders. Fresh from Wis-
consin. I became a delegate to the great Lawrence convention
of 1872, which nominated Lowe, Phillips, and Cobb for Con-
gress. The story of that convention has long since ceased to
In interesting or important. But this much I must tell: Mr.
Ingalls was made permanent chairman. I came up from
Montgomery County, very youthful and very verdant, having
behind me only six months' residence in the State. I had never
seen Mr. [ngalls, but had been captivated by his articles in The
Kansas Magazine. It was, I think, on the evening of the first
day thai the convention adjourned over until ten or eleven
o'clock the following day. After breakfast, I was introduced
to Mr. Ingalls, and we sat together in front of the Eldredge
House, enjoying the bright summer sun and air. Then — how
it came about I know not — we started for a walk down Massa-
chusetts Avenue. Before we came back to the convention,
we had talked about many things — but not one word of poli-
ties. Hooks and literature occupied a place in our hearts that
morning far above the approaching struggle in the convention.
The following winter he was elected senator, and held his
seat for eighteen years.
Introductory. ii
I shall not discuss his career in the Senate In the public
records it is amply disclosed. He was a great senator, honored
by his fellow-members, who made- him Presidenl pro tern., and
looked up to him as the best presiding officer in that body.
Great men, almost without exception, have a fine sense of
humor. To prove this, Shakespeare alone suffices. Abraham
Lincoln would have broken down under the tremendous strain
of the war. had not a merciful Providence enabled him to se<
the humorous side of daily events. The humor of Senator
Ingalls was of a most subtle character. His mind was so alert
that he could not wait the slow processes of ordinary humor,
but must burst forth spontaneously in sudden and unexpected
flashes of repartee and epigram. In debate he was without
an equal in the Senate. A Pennsylvania senator once made
an attack on Kansas. Instantly Ingalls rose to reply, and not
content simply to defend his own State, he dashed straight
into the weak points of Pennsylvania. To stand on the defen-
sive was never his way. He said: "Mr. President, Pennsvl
vania has produced but two great men; Benjamin Franklin,
of Massachusetts, and Albert Gallatin, of Switzerland." Nbtta
ing was left for the- Pennsylvania senator but to beat a hast)
retreat.
He was a scholar, and all his tastes were scholarly and
refined. His knowledge of words, and his unerring skill in
choosing always the right one, were proverbial. In debate I
believe he was superior to John Randolph, who. in his day,
was the terror of his opponents. He was such a splendid
fighter that many people think of him simply as the great mas
ter of invective and of pitiless sarcasm ; but read"BlueGi
"i- his article on Albert Dean Richardson, or his beautiful trib-
12 John James Ingalls.
ute tit Ben Hill, and the- kindly elements of his nature become
strongly and sweetly visible.
In my study hangs a frame which encloses an autograph
copy of the greatest of American sonnets. I am not at all
certain that it is not the greatest sonnet in our language. The
sonnet is a highly artificial form of versification with its mechan-
ical regularity of fourteen lines, and is therefore the easiest
kind of a poem to write. You set the clock, and when it has
run down, you have the sonnet, which almost always is a mere
piece of automatic verse, signifying nothing. The little prat-
tling poets turn them out in great numbers. But because it is
easy, the sonnet is the most difficult of all forms of verse. How
main good sonnets have been written in the English language?
( >nlv a few, and they only by the great ones. Shakespeare did
everything better than anyone else in all the world. Rut how
many of Shakespeare's sonnets do you remember? In almost
every one there are flashes of genius that mark them as Shake-
speare's legitimate offspring; but many of them are involved
and hard to understand. Mr. Installs was once visiting me in
Topeka, and we arranged to take a ride the next morning up
the west hank of the Kaw, into the country of the bluffs and
meadows. On the top of a bluff we Stopped and looked out
on the beautiful landscape touched with the morning light,—
such a landscape as is known only in Kansas, when suddenlv
he turned tome, waving his hand outward to that scene of sur-
passing beauty, and began reciting the famous Thirty third
Sonnel i >! Shakespeare :
"Full many .1 glorious morning have I seen
Flatter the mountain-tops with sovereign eye,
Kissing with golden fact, tin tm.ulows green,
Gilding pale streams with heavenly alchemy."
Introductory. 13
He knew and loved the sonnet, but he also knew its limita
tions. That fine critical judgment could never have been led
into the folly of giving to the world an ordinary, commonplace
sonnet, which is the last infirmity of shallow minds.
After Shakespeare, the great sonnets of our language were
written by Milton, Wordsworth, Keats, and Mrs. Browning,
with one or two by Landor, Leigh Hunt, and Lowell. But
when I try to think of one superior or even equal to "Oppor-
tunity,"— I seek in vain.
As 1 have said, the sonnet hangs in my study, written in
his hold, large hand, and as I read it a thousand memories
crowd upon me. From the sordid environment of this great
commercial city, I waft him a sad farewell, and beg that 1
too may be counted with those who have loved Kansas and
believed in her to the uttermost.
George R. Peck.
Chicago, November 30, 1900.
S*
(3(^i£<<f CU+<<— fitted <y Anzgsfa.. C/Acy^^u^~
S<uAL hut. fhi IVlas^ OtuiL Itde^uA //h/LCj^u
JOHN JAMES INGALLS.
Confessing Emerson's estimate of a man to be safe and sub-
stantial, it is easy to foretell the position that posterity will
award John James Ingalls. " I count him a great man," says
the Sage of Concord, "who inhabits a higher sphere of thought,
into which other men rise with labor and with difficulty, * *
who is what he is from nature, and who never reminds us of
others."
By this rule of isolated personality, John James Ingalls is
certain of racial immortality. His contemporaries may fail to
to give true judgment, because immediateness makes for exag-
geration or depreciation; but posterity will give the unerring,
infallible decision. In that higher sphere of thought where he
moved with ease and grace, few men lived. In vain do we
scan the horizon of our history for another who reminds us of
him. To him whose name is identified with one single poem,
an isolated law, or a discovery in science, enduring testimonial of
greatness is often denied. The man whose life is an impulse
to his own generation and to the generations following, who is
the center of an ever-widening influence, in whatever realm of
action, never dies. The prophetic instinct bears witness that
the memory of John James Ingalls, in oration, essay, and per
sonal impulse, will never fall within the shadow of oblivion.
For a quarter of a century lie played a distinguished part on
the stage of human events, lending lustre to the drama of our
17
18 John James Ingalls.
national life. In all those years he stood by the side of men
whom posterity now delights to honor, and suffered no de-
crease. His star was ever in the ascendant until the hour it
disappeared to shine upon a wider horizon.
In the most wonderful, most dazzling and individual-eclipsing
epoch of all history, he commanded the attention of a mighty
people, whose power and intelligence are unparalleled in the
story of man. From his colleagues, who displayed a large-
ness commensurate with the largeness of the age in which
they lived, he compelled admiration. About him men arose
whose light gleamed for awhile and then disappeared, but
his flame neither flickered nor failed. At a time when oratory
was called a lost art, he never wanted a thronging, interested,
and enthusiastic audience. In an era when the storm of
books, magazines, and newspapers cheapened literature, dulled
the aesthetic instinct, and stultified thought, his words upon
the printed page quickened the intellect and made luminous
the power of the Anglo-Saxon's language. In an age when
demagoguery abounded, rioting in deception, hypocrisy, and
lamentable ignorance, his integrity went unchallenged, his
leadership was consistent, undisputed, and without guile.
Whether in the Senate Chamber, in the forum of political
debate, or in the realm of literature, he struck and sustained
the loftiest notes in thought and speech, and made his melody
a fascination. To encompass his personality from a single
view point is impossible. Of his work and his life there will
be as many estimates as there are individuals seeking his
measure. While he lived, his every step was bitterly con-
tested by marvelous hostility, and admirably supported by
wonderful and indestructible loyalty. The State of Kansas
John James Ingalls. 19
never produced his equal; the Nation has presented but few
who were his superiors.
For the hidings of his power we need not seek far. The
qualities of mind and heart that lifted him above his fel-
lows had their secret springs in a magnificent ancestry. In
the study of his career there is no one point at which his
biographer can forget the influence of the mighty Puritan
stock from which he sprang. The blood and iron that made
this Nation supreme in all the world vitalized his every
thought and word and deed. From that same ancestry
sprang James A. Garfield, twentieth President of the United
States, and Salmon P. Chase, forever a monumental figure in
our history. Richly endowed by Nature with the mysterious
forces of ancestry, her lavish bounty flowed full and free in
the creation of his environment.
It is the destiny of genius to be presented against a dark
background. The progress of civilization is through up-
heaval, and the development of power comes by conflict with
adverse forces. Circumstances do not make the individual,
nor are they made by him. They give him the opportunity
to make himself. Had John James Ingalls remained in New
England, his name now might dwell with those of Longfel-
low, Emerson, Whittier, and Holmes in the memory of the
people. In early eollege days the prophecy of this possi-
bility was given. There- art- many who, losing the signifi-
cance of his life, regret that he refused t<> tin- sovereignty of
literature his genius, and entered the realm of politics. But
the conspiracy <>i" Pr< >\ idence is not to be challenged. I destiny
determined him as one of the great architects of a mighty
empire. The power of his personality is silhouetted against
the dark and tearful and bloody background of the stormful
20 John James Ingalls.
beating years that mark the travail of the Nation and the
birth of Kansas; the State whose sponsor was Liberty, whose
baptism was with the rich red blood of the apostles of free-
dom and the champions of an unshackled civilization.
Above the mantelpiece in the library of his beautiful
home, Oak Ridge, in Atchison, hangs a copy of a highlv col-
ored lithograph setting forth the advantages of the West —
the allurement that attracted his youthful attention and
persuaded his separation from his Eastern home and his
migration to the great Territory which was to forever bear
the impress of his life and work. His entrance into national
affairs was neither through the portal of accident nor bv the
"sesame" of influence. For him law left no place for chance.
The circumstance was fortuitous only through careful and
painstaking preparation. When the hour struck, he was
ready. Long before he entered the United States Senate, he
had resolved upon that very thing. Years before his elec-
tion by the Legislature of Kansas, careful and cautious pol-
iticians had predicted that very event. Of his years in
national affairs let his biographer, at some future date, speak
in detail. The mere announcement that lie was to speak
crowded the Senate Chamber and galleries.
Honored by the selection of his colleagues as their pre
siding officer, his execution of the duties of that office drew
from them a complimentary resolution. Upon the walls of
the library of that home may be found the original of this
resolution. It is interesting, reading thus:
"Resolved, That the thanks of the Senate are due, and are hereby ten-
dered, in 11,, ii John J In-alls, a Senator from the State of Kansas, for the
eminently courteous, dignified, able, and absolutely impartial manner in
which lie has presided over the deliberations and performed the duties of
President pro tempon of the Senate
'Attest AnsonG McCook, Secretary."
John Jamks Ixgalls. 21
The Senate, as an additional evidence of appreciation of
his services as presiding officer, bestowed upon him the clock
which had marked the time for that body from 1852 to 1890;
and it now strikes the solemn hours above the landing of the
stairway in Oak Ridge.
The agrarian movement in Kansas reached its full
force and fury in the summer of 1890. It was the sequence
of vears of hardship and disaster. The Government was
blamed for the acts of Providence. Reason temporarily
abdicated her throne, and vagary held full sway. Upon the
senior senator from the State was concentrated the storm
intended for his parly. He was the one colossal, solitary
figure in the affairs of state to the people of Kansas, and to
them he was the incarnation of the party in power, which
thev proposed to dislodge. His name became the clarion
cry for inciting the onset of foe, and for stimulating the rally
of friends. It was a national political battle, fought within
the confines of the State, and the platforms wire simply
Ingalls and anti-Ingalls. No human could stem the tide.
The people fell under the hypnotic influence of strange gods.
A sacrifice was demanded, and the proudest, manfullest, and
most potent figure in the State must be the lit offering. He
breasted the storm and contested ever) inch of -round.
Undismayed by sullen threat, he fought —fought, n »1 for
himself, his prestige, and his ambition, bul for the State thai
had given him much, and to which he had in return given
fame such as Providence had no1 granted 1 > any other fortu
nate individual to bestow upon his State. At no time in
that conflict did he consider whal meant to him.
Always present was the thoughl that if the mad effort suc-
ceeded, it must mean a blot upon the name of Kansas, the
22 John James Ingalls.
State he loved with a love surpassing woman's. When the
decision came, and with it his retirement, it held no personal
heart-hurt. If by his defeat the State would profit, he was
satisfied. At that time men predicted, and to-day men con-
fess, that in the hour of his enforced retirement from the United
States Senate, Kansas did herself a grievous hurt. Xo one
has yet replaced him, and the State holds none other who can
be accounted his peer.
Had he been less great, the word " finis" would have been
written a decade before he died. But Kansas thrust him from
the Senate Chamber, and gave him to the world. Upon the
platform, through magazine and newspaper, he wrought an
ever-increasing influence. The effulgence of his star bright-
ened continually until it swept over the invisible boundary of
life. His love for Kansas never failed ; his loyalty to the State
of his adoption never wavered. Easily her most distinguished
son, it was natural that alluring opportunities should troop
upon him with persuasion to change his residence where finan-
cial gain would be more easily and more rapidly attained ; but
these he steadfastly refused. Of Kansas he wrote and sang
and spoke. As long as the English language endures, his
tributes to her magnificence will never die. His dreamless
sleep is upon her bosom — he was faithful to her even unto
death. Xo honor that the State can bestow upon his mem-
ory will pay the final debt to this her most gifted and most
famous son,
Marvelous indeed was his genius. His mighty brain knew
neither rest nor respite. Xo vagrant moments drifted into his
life. Ik- was all energy and intensity. The boundless realm
of literature paid tribute t<> his desire lor knowledge. His
John James Ingalls. 23
style, almost a new creation, sprung full-orbed from laborious
study of the masters of the language in which he wrote and
spoke. Closely, carefully, and impartially he studied the polit-
ical and social problems of his age, never ceasing to be a
scholar and a philosophical thinker. Of his fame as an orator
and rhetorician I need not speak. His voice was a great organ
for sound and melody. The tongue that could pierce and
strike like a two-edged sword could also drip with twilight
dew and golden honey. His style was almost perfect.
For his State he was ambitious; for himself he asked but
little. For his home he dreamed dreams of beauty and hap-
piness, and accounted no sacrifice too great to make it such.
Personally careless of the honors that were thrust upon him,
he rejoiced in them only for the sake of his friends and family.
By those who knew him least he was thought to be cold and
selfish, but no heart ever beat in more reasonable consonance
with the misfortunes of the lowlv, and no human, however
obscure his estate, was there who did not receive from him the
courtesy that marks the majesty of a gentleman. In the
cities and villages that dot the wide empire which he aided to
develop, there are scores of men who yield to him the tribute
of love which his helpfulness and cheer, in their desolate and
youthful hours, commands of them. Nothing marks his
greatness as a man more than does the little incident in that
last great political campaign which he fought, when the storm
beat sorelv against him and when he saw life's hopes and
aspirations for future service to the State shadowed by the
cloud of defeat. Other men might, and doubtless would,
have refused to do what he did — give a precious hourto an
obscure and friendless lad, inspiring his youthand buttressing
24 Johx James Ingalls.
his courage by rich suggestions and rare advice — doing all this
simply because his heart was as the springtime's bloom. His
was the simplicity of gianthood.
Therefore, there can be no wonderment that his children,
adoring him as a mighty figure in the affairs of state, linger-
inglv hung about the fatherhood so full of rich and fragrant
love thai he never failed to pour in endless bounty upon them.
Proud though his dear wife might be of his honor and his fame,
her richest memory is that of the choice comradeship which,
without interruption, always existed between them. Be this
the greatest tribute to his memory, that the home — his haven
of rest from "the foolish wrangle of mart and forum" — which
he founded, was always his first and last thought.
Strange that even the heedless and the unthinking should
have believed him to be irreligious. Xo one pondered the
great facts of God and Immortality more than he. To him
life beyond the grave was a fact, irrefutable and indestructi-
ble. For him the Scriptures were exhaustless in their wealth of
thought and food for meditation. God was the All-Father who
never hated anything that He created, but loved His children
with a love beyond the comprehension of the human. When
his bark was finally launched upon "the tides that ebb for-
ever and whose waters are never darkened by the shadow of a
returning sail," his face was serene and confident. He fell
isleep, as dots a child tired from the day's work and play. The
nighl had scarcely ebbed, the day was yet crepuscular and
faint. By his side stood his youngest son; holding his hand,
his wife, the faithful sweetheart of all his years, murmured the
solemn litan) of the prayer which our Lord taught His dis-
ciples. Slowly he repeated the words after her, lingeringly he
touched her hand then the meat soul winged its way to the
John James Ingaees. 25
undiscovered country, and upon his life fell the benediction,
"Love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God,
and knoweth God."
"Then from the dawn it seem'd there came, but faint
As from beyond the limit of the world,
Like the last echo born of a great cry,
Sounds, as if some fair city were one voice
Around a king returning from his wars."
Edward Frederick Trefz.
Kountze Memorial Church,
Omaha, Neb.
MEMOIR.
CHAPTER I.
Men make a nation.
"States are not great
Except as men may make them."
National life, strong and individual in character, seemingly
the result and product of single instances and of personal action,
is, in reality, the aggregate activity of the millions who live
under the shadow of the flag. History deals largely with indi-
viduals. We talk of Washington, Lincoln, and many others, as
though each in his day held in his single person all the mighty
forces which controlled the national destiny. We speak of
Grant, and Thomas, and Sherman, and Logan, and Sheridan
as though they forged together and welded into unity the diver-
gent national elements now the foundation of our glorious
country. We write of money-kings and wheat-kings, — of polit-
ical bosses and the heads of labor unions. But as the ocean
misses one drop of all its myriads, as the giant cedars of Cal-
ifornia feel the loss of one woody fiber, so, one pennj less, a
sheaf of wheat missing, a single vote awry, one single crafts-
man outside the fold, and the money sovereign, the grain sov
ereign, the king of the ballot-box and of the crafts, consciously
or unconsciously suffer loss.
Each human soul has a potency and a value, a place to
fill in the universe. And thai is why it is a human soul.
28 John James Ixgalls.
And yet to urge that "all men are created free and equal"
is to fall into error. All men are not created free: neither are
all men created equal, and history stands ever ready to over-
throw the fallacious doctrine. While each man, like each blade
of grass, has a place and power, yet there are men and men.
Their names in the print shop range from brilliant tvpe to great
primer in lower case, and in small and large capitals above that.
"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players."
The drama of life is accurately portrayed by Shakespeare.
Men of every station appear upon the stage. They stand a
moment in full view, and then are swallowed up bv the resist-
less tide of time. Many of them play insignificant parts. And
while the play cannot proceed without them, they are not given
name and mention in the dramatis persona. So it is in the
drama of history. The lower-case men rarely get in at all by
name, though many arc heroes, and most of the real work of
the world is done by them. They assert themselves as a body,
and not as individuals. This seeming injustice is compensated
by Nature. The men who labor possess and preserve the
genius of a people; and they perpetuate the true tendency of a
nation. The cradles of the truly great in this world have been
rocked by the hand of the lowly, not infrequently by the pov-
erty stricken. But it is not to be denied that the play has
always concerned itself mainly with large and small capitals.
Now, if the figure be not too long drawn out, somewhere in
this upper casein the size of type which the perspective of time
will justify, will be set the name of John Ja'mes Engalls. In
the annals of Kansas it will be "writ large," for these annals
cannot be written withoul it.
Memoir. 29
A strange, brilliant, unique figure in our history, with few
claims to the vast elements of imperishable renown in public
affairs, he is yet an inseparable part of fan important era of our
national life, and a strong factor in the growth and glory of one
of our most illustrious States.
But beyond the man whom the world knew, or, rather,
guessed at, was the man himself — the figure inside the but-
toned-up exterior known only as thinker, scholar, poet. Be-
yond and inside this severe and formal figure buffeted about
bv the agitated tides which try and trouble men, was the
husband, the father, the friend. And since the press, polit-
ical enemies, and mere acquaintances have exploited the first
man and sat in judgment on him, it is just and fitting that
this memoir should seek to portray the true and inner man.
CHAPTER II.
Edmund Ingalls came from England to Massachusetts in
September, 1628. He was accompanied by his brother Fran-
cis. They were members of Governor Endicott's colony, and
landed at Salem in September. Francis left no male descend-
ants; his daughter Mary married Roger Belknap.
Nothing of a definite nature is known of the Ingalls family
prior to the arrival of Edmund and Francis in America. The
traditions of the family recite that these brothers came from
Lincolnshire. No proof of this is known to exist; and the
place of their birth is unknown.
These brothers seem to have been young men of enter-
prise; for immediately upon their arrival in America they
secured a grant of land from the colonial authorities. The
grant contained one hundred and twenty acres. They be-
gan at once to improve it, and followed farming and stock-
raising; they also established a tannery on their farm, where
they engaged in the manufacture of leather. Their farm was
in what is now Lynn, Essex County, Massachusetts, of which
city they were the founders and first settlers. The date of
this settlement cannot be determined exactly, but is known
certainly to have been in the winter of 1628-9.
While the Ingalls family can be traced only to the coming
of the brothers Edmund and Francis as members of the colony
of Governor Endicott, the name is known to be of Scandi-
navian origin. In the northern lands of Northwestern Europe
it was anciently borne by the royalty, IngiaUd appearing as
30
Memoir. 31
the twenty-second in the Norwegian dynasty and as the
thirteenth in the Danish dynasty. The name Ingialldr is
found in the royal lists of Sweden, one by such name having
been king of that country, A. D. 600 It is probable that
the name was carried to England in the Danish conquest,
which began in A. D. 787. The old chronicles relate that
in that year the "Danes," really the people of Scandinavia,
crossed the North Sea and swarmed along the shores of Brit-
ain. They swept up the great rivers in irresistible hordes
and began a war of extermination upon the tribes of their
own kindred, the Jutes, Angles, and Saxons, who, more than
three hundred years before, had Exterminated the ancient
Britons in those regions. These pagan barbarians undoubt-
edly carried the name — Ingalls — to England in their relent-
less conquest.
Had we time, we would find it instructive and interesting
to study these fierce old nations. Even in their barbarous
state there could be found among them the virtues for which
the Aryan race was ever noted. They fostered justice and
equality before the law, and established assemblies of the
people for the transaction of business of a public nature.
They were intolerant of tyranny and were ever lovers of lib-
erty. In their society women held a high place. They |
sessed an indomitable courage; and through admixture with
the Normans, a kindred people, they obtained
great enterprises and genius for the establishment of stable
and just government never before equalled in the world.
Their descendants, of whom Edmund Ingalls was one, came
into the rude wilderness of North America, and in turn became
the progenitors of a race with hardy and lasting virti
carried conquest from ocean to ocean. "In them was renew
32 John J ames I ng alls.
with all its ancient energy, that wild and daring spirit, that
force and hardihood of mind, which marked our barbarous
ancestors of Germany and Norway. ' '
Edmund Ingalls fell a victim to accident. In August,
1648, he found it necessary to visit Boston, then, as now, the
commercial metropolis of Massachusetts. Keeping in mind,
as the Puritans were ever prone, that life is uncertain and
death inevitable, he made his will, dating it August 28, 1648.
On the way to Boston, traveling on horseback, he fell through
a defective bridge, receiving such injuries that he died from
their effects a few days thereafter — exact date unknown.
Edmund Ingalls left eight children— among them Henry,
the sixth child and the third son. By his father's will, Henry
had the "house lot bought of Goodman West," also land in
what is now called Chelsea (Andover, Massachusetts).
This son, Henry, lived to a great age, dying February 8,
17 18, being then "about 90." He was twice married; first
to Mary Osgood, at Andover, July 6, 1653. who was at that
time of the age of twenty-one. Their second son was named
Henry; born December 8, 1656; died February 8, 1698.
Henry, the son of Henry, married Abigail, the daughter
of John Emery, of Newbury, June 6, 1688. Their fourth child
and second son was Francis; born December 20, 1694; died
January 26, 1759.
Francis married his cousin, kydia Ingalls, November 19,
1719. Their fourth son, Francis, was born January 26, 1731;
died April 3, 1795.
Francis, son of Francis, married Eunice Jennings, Novem-
ber 12, 1754. He lived in Andover, where he died April 3,
1795. Their sixth son, Theodore, was born March 30, 1764;
died November 7, 1817, at Middletown, Massachusetts.
Memoir 33
Theodore, son of Francis and Eunice, was three times
married. The third marriage was with Ruth Flint. The
only son of Theodore and Ruth Flint was Elias Theodore,
who was born October 7, 1810; died December 28, 1892.
Elias Theodore, son of Theodore and Ruth Flint, mar-
ried Eliza Chase, daughter of Samuel Chase, December 27,
1832. Their first-born was John James Ingalls, the subject
of this brief memoir.
Elias Theodore Ingalls was educated with the design that
he should become a minister in the Congregational Church,
of which his ancestors had been honored members. He grad-
uated from Bradford Academy, and was above the average
in his attainments. Poor health made it necessary for him
to abandon his intention to enter the ministry, and he began
a successful business career. He formed a partnership with
Samuel Chase, in Haverhill, in 1827. He married his part-
ner's daughter. In 1833 he established himself in Middle-
town, Massachusetts, as a merchant and manufacturer. He
was a pioneer in the manufacture of shoes by machinery. In
1859 his factory turned out six hundred pairs of shoes a day.
In conducting his business he did not forget his love for liter-
ature, but kept abreast of the advancement of the time. He
was one of the leading spirits in a society of which the poet
Whittier was a member, and was always fond of the Greek
poets. He took an active interest in the affairs of the Con-
gregational Church. He was long independent in Ins polit-
ical action, but became finally a staunch Democrat, though
originally a Whig. Later he became a Free Soiler, and then
an Abolitionist. He lived in Haverhill, Massachusetts, the
greater part of his life, and died thi re.
34 John James Ixgalls.
John James Ingalls, the oldest son of Elias Theodore and
Eliza Chase Ingalls, was born in Middletown, Massachusetts,
December 29, 1833. The ancient Hebrews numbered their gener-
ations, counting from some important epoch. Reckoning thus,
we find him in the eighth generation from Edmund Ingalls,
the Puritan immigrant from England, who, with his brother
Francis, also a Puritan immigrant, founded and first settled
the city of Lynn, in 1628. This was in the eighth year from
the landing of the Pilgrims. ' For nearly three hundred years
the family founded by Edmund Ingalls has lived in America.
Its members have done their full share in the work of build-
ing the greatest republic the world has known. Such ances-
try is illustrious.
There was nothing unusual observed in his youthful dis-
position. He was fond of sports dear to every boy. These
were, though, sometimes irksome to him. He would lose
interest in games or other pursuit of pastime or pleasure and
become sedate and even unhappy At such times he sought
the society of his mother, where he remained quiet, thought-
ful, and usually uncommunicative. He was reared in the
Church of his fathers, attending there regularly, often writ-
ing out the sermon almost word for word upon his return from
the Sunday morning service.
The bov grew into youth, and was kept in school as has
ever been the good New England custom. He was made
ready for college at the Haverhill High School and by private
teachers. He entered Williams College, at YVilliamstown^
Mass., in 1851, at the beginning of the course and remained
throughout, graduating in the elass of 1855. Few incidents
of his college days are preserved. It is known that he loved
Memoir. 35
the pranks of college students, and was not behind others in
their design and execution.
A few months prior to his graduation he was unjustly
reprimanded by the president of the college. His sense of jus-
tice was supreme, and he resolved to take substantial sat-
isfaction for what he regarded as an attempt to humiliate
him. Tie prepared his commencement oration with this pur-
pose of revenge in mind, taking for his subject "Mummy
Life." Such a castigation of solemn professors and college
officers had not before been written. It was necessary that
it should be submitted for revision, and the faculty eliminated
the major portion of it. He took the precaution to pay all
fees and dues before Commencement, exacting a receipt show-
ing him entitled to a certificate of graduation as a Bachelor
of Arts. The faculty had not thought of the declamation
of the original oration. Imagine their surprise when, in the
keen, defiant, sarcastic manner of which he was even at that
time master, he delivered his oration as it was originally
written. He was commanded repeatedly to cease speaking,
but he held forth to the end. When his diploma was handed
him at the conclusion of the exercises, it proved a blank, so
far as any testimonial of meritorious scholarship was con-
cerned. But, reiving upon his rights in the matter, and
armed with his treasurer's- receipt showing the liability of
the college, he demanded his diploma, as a matter of right,
stating firmly at the same time that he would bring a suit
in law to compel compliance in case of refusal to issue it to him
A few days thereafter he was given a diploma in due form,
and the incident was closed. Twenty-five years later his
Alma Mater chose him to deliver the annual oration, and at
that time, voluntarily and without solicitation, conferred
upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws.
CHAPTER III.
"I was a student in the junior class at Williams College," writes Mr.
Ingalls, "when President Pierce, forgotten but for that signature, approved
the act establishing the Territory of Kansas, May 30, 1854. I remember
the inconceivable agitation that preceded, accompanied, and followed this
event. It was an epoch. Destiny closed one volume of our annals, and
opening another, traced with shadowy finger upon its pages a million epi-
taphs ending with 'Appomattox.'
* it:****:}:***:*:*
"Floating one summer night upon a moonlit sea, I heard far over the
still waters a high, clear voice singing:
" ' To the West ! To the West ! To the land of the free,
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea;
Where a man is a man if he 's willing to toil,
And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil."
"A few days lat^r, my studies completed, I joined the uninterrupted
and resistless column of volunteers that marched to the lands of the free.
St. Louis was a squalid border town, the outpost of civilization. The rail-
road ended at Jefferson City. Transcontinental trains with sleepers and
dining-cars annihilating space and time were the vague dreams of the future
century.
"Overtaking at Hermann a fragile steamer that had left the levee the
day before, we embarked upon a monotonous voyage of four days along
the treacherous and tortuous channel that crawled between forest of Cot-
tonwood and barren bars of tawny sand, to the frontier of the American
Desert.
"It was the mission of the pioneer with his plough to abolish the fron-
tier and to subjugate the desert. One has become a boundary and the
other an oasis. But with so much acquisition something has been lost for
which there is no equivalent. He is unfortunate who has never felt the
fascination of the frontier; the temptation of unknown and mysterious
solitudes; the exultation of helping to build a State; of forming its insti-
tutions and giving direction to its cause."
After his graduation in 1855, young Ingalls applied him-
self to the study of law. Two years later, at the age of 24,
36
Memoir. 37
he was admitted to the Essex County bar. But Haverhill
presented few opportunities to a wide-awake young man of
studious mind and keen penetrability. It is not strange
that this young man, with the natural ambition of youth
and with a conscious sense of his power even then to sway
men with his mentality, should find in the West an alluring
field.
A lithograph of the town of Sumner, Kansas, displayed
by an enterprising real-estate agent, attracted Mr. Ingalls
to the State. In 1858, three years before its admission to
the Union, he came to Kansas and sought this town of Sum-
ner. It was at that time a thriving little frontier settlement
in the prime of its booming days, and with a promise of a
growing, prosperous future. Two years later a Kansas tor-
nado blew Sumner off the map, and Mr. Ingalls removed to
Atchison. Here for forty years he made his home; not only
that, but he gave to the city a chance to get into history
because it was the home of him who came to be in many
respects one of the most noted citizens of Kansas, and in
some respects her most illustrious son.
That Mr. Ingalls should enter politics was inevitable.
That he should soon become a power therein was likewise
inevitable. His was too intense a nature to be otherwise
than a power in anything. Whatever else he may have inher-
ited from the 'Tngialld" of the old Norwegian dynasty, or
from "Baron Ingald" of the "Doomsday Book.'' the power of
Thor was his inheritance. It was his by blood, if not in
inclination, and nu-n felt his presence and feared it, too — the
certain marks of superior mentality.
In 1859 he was made a delegate to the Wyandotte Con-
stitutional Convention that met to frame a State Constitu-
38 John James Ingalls.
tion, and he impressed himself upon the fundamental law
of the State in the phraseology in which it is couched.
The next year he was secretary of the Territorial Coun-
cil, and the next, of the State Senate. In 1862 he served as
State senator for his district. This official record served
to show his growing power in public affairs.
The Civil War found Ingalls serving in the capacity of
judge -advocate for the Kansas Volunteers, with the rank
of major. At the same time he was laying the foundation
for his reputation as a writer. During the absence of Colonel
John A. Martin, who was serving in the war, Mr. Ingalls was
the editor of the Atchison Champion. The literary instinct
ever strong in him found outlet for activity.
After only seven years' residence in the State, John James
Ingalls had come to be recognized as a force to be reckoned
with in all public affairs.
The great source of his power lay in his fine command
of words. But words are only the signs of ideas. He who
can marshal them adroitly must have a control of ideas, also
a power to think. There are many men who have this latter
power, but thev miss greatness because of a lack of ability
to give expression to it. The double gift in large measure
was the possession of this New England nobleman trans-
planted in the commonwealth of Kansas.
CHAPTER TV.
In the published accounts of great men, it sometin
happens that their family relationships are least considered.
When John James Ingalls died in August of 1900, the press
of the country gave double-column space to his picture,
column after column to his life and attainments, but only brief
mention was made of his home life and family ties. This was
well enough, for the casual reader cares little for anyone but
the man himself; and the indifferent public often judges him
from his overt acts, and rarely from his motives and influences.
And yet it is generally true that the better part of one's life is
omitted when the home influences and associations are passed
over in silence. In the case of Mr. Ingalls this is certainly truu:
to this fact those who knew him most intimately bear willing
testimony.
In 1859 Anna Louisa Chesebrough came with her father's
family from Xew York city to Atchison. Hers was a well-
reputed people, whose early ancestors were the associates of
John Winthrop in the settlement of Boston, in 1630. Her
father, Ellsworth Chesebrough, was, for a number of years, an
importer in Xew York city. At the time of his death in the
Mar 1864, he was an elector from the State of Kansas on the
Lincoln ticket.
When Mr. Ingalls had lived in Kansas ind
was thirty-one years of age, he was married to Miss Chesebrough.
The wedding took place on September 27, 1865. The wedded
life then begun lasted through thirty five years of unbroken
39
4° John James Ixgalls.
faith and love, and ended on that midsummer night in Las
Vegas, when, for the tenderly affectionate husband, the light
went out and the dawning of his new day was the sunrise of
eternity.
" One love, one home, one heaven above,
One fold in heart and life;
And the old love still will last us through
To the journey's end, sweet wife.
And reaching on, when this life is done,
It will live and thrive and grow
With a deathless flame, and a deeper name
Than our mortal loves can know."
Mr. Ingalls' home life is one that for the glory of Kansas her
future senators would do well to emulate. His wife was his
most trusted friend, his admirer, his inspiration. In her he
centered the love of his life, and he found by his own fireside
the haven of peace his soul most longed for. It was for him
the
"Golden milestone
Was the central point from which he measured every distance
Through the gateways of the world around him.' '
Mrs. Ingalls was essentially a home-maker, as her husband
was a home-lover. She was the mother of eleven children, six
of whom are still living, and seven of whom grew to manhood
and womanhood. When her fifth anniversary came, there were
four babies in the house. When the tenth came, there were six
living children, and one little grave in the cemetery. Think of
it, you mother of one troublesome child; you wife who feels
that maternity is a burden ! Six babies under ten years of age !
To the happy Ingalls family fatherhood and motherhood were
coronals of honor. Their children were the inspiration of their
lives, not the trial and burden of existence.
It was in these early years of home-making that Mr. Ingalls
did some of his best literary work. Four months before his
Memoir. 41
death, when he was health-seeking in Arizona, there fell into
his hands a circular containing an extract from the Quarterly
Report of the Kansas State Board of Agriculture for March,
1900. This circular contained a long quotation from "Blue
Grass," one of the early magazine articles that helped to make
him famous. On the back of the circular Mr. Ingalls wrote :
''Dearest Wife:
" 'Blue Grass' seems to be one of those compositions that the world will
not willingly let die.
" Those were happy days when it was written: in the little cottage
on the bluff looking out over the great river; with a roomful of babies;
obscure and unknown; waiting for destiny, so soon to come. * * *
How far away it seems!
"Your loving Husband."
Socially, Mrs. Ingalls was by birth and breeding a fit com-
panion for her illustrious husband. In his work entitled "So-
ciety in Washington, Its Great Men, Accomplished Women,"
etc., Mr. Randolph Keim says of the wife of the noted Senator
from Kansas:
"Mrs. Ingalls, the wife of the eloquent senator from the battle-ground
of the slavery contests, is one of the interesting ladies of the senatorial cir-
cle * * * Amid the cares of family, she has adorned the senator's
social life at Washington with the same distinguished success which has
attended his wonderful career as one of the striking figures in the upper
branch of Congress."
But aside from the home-keeping and social traits, Mrs.
Ingalls was her husband's true companion and helpmeet in all
his public service and literary effort. To her he paid the high
compliment of valuing her friendship with her love. She was
for him counsel and ambition. For her sake he became an
orator and a statesman. Through her inspiration he was
moved to eloquence. Through her wisdom he was discerning,
and in her love he found peace.
42 John James Ingaixs.
"How full of mournful tragedies, of incompleteness, of fragmentary
ambitions and successes this existence is!" So writes Mr. Ingalls on
the sudden death of Senator Sumner. "And yet how sweet and dear it
is made by love! That alone never fails to satisfy and fill the soul.
Wealth satiates, and ambition ceases to allure; we weary of eating and
drinking, of going up and down the earth — of looking at its mountains and
seas, at the sky that arches it, at the moon and stars that shine upon it, but
never of the soul that we love and that loves us, of the face that watches
for us and grows brighter when we come. * * * Good-night."
It is perhaps granted to few women to know a married
life of such unbroken trust, to have such sincere admiration, to
feel one's self to be of so much use and comfort to her husband
as it was Mrs. Ingalls' lot to know.
Next to his love for his wife was Mr. Ingalls' affection for
his children. His grief for the little ones taken away in early
childhood was intense.
"My bereavement," he writes to his sister after the death of little Ruth,
aged seven, "seems to me like a cruel dream from which I shall soon awaken.
The light has gone out of my life. Ruth was my favorite child. Her tem-
perament was tranquil and consoling; she gratified my love of the beauti-
ful, my desire for repose. I loved her most because she was so much like
her dear mother." And he adds at the close: "I am assured we shall
meet again."
So, too, of his little boy Addison, who died in October, 1876,
aged four, he writes to his father:
"He was the noblest and most promising of my sons, as Ruth was
the most lovely and engaging of my daughters.
************
"Yesterday, beneath the clear sky that brooded above us like a cove-
nant of peace, we laid him to sleep beside his sister, to wait the solution of
the great mystery of existence when earth and sea shall give up their dead.
* * * * if eternity will release its treasures, sometime I shall
claim my own "
Of the children who grew to manhood' and womanhood, his
daughter Constance seems to have been most beloved, although
they were all very' dear to their father. In a letter to his wife,
written in February, 1875, he says-
Memoir. 4^
"Your praises of Baby Constance find a constant echo in my heart.
Since Ruth went away, I think Constance seems a little nearer and dearer
to me than any of the rest of the sweet brood. * * *
"I would like to gather you all around the library fire this bitter night
and talk over the affairs of the day."
Constance died just eight months before her father. Her
death was a crushing blow from which he never rallied.
It would be cruel, however, to the memory of John James
Ingalls to dwell on these sad phases of family life only, and to
omit all mention of his intense pleasure in his home, his pride
in his children, his keen sense of humor, that to his political ene-
mies took the form of bitterest sarcasm, btit to his loved ones
and intimate friends was only delightful mirth. His love of
beauty, too, was an apparent trait in his daily life. Somewhere
in ever}' letter and in every speech it shone forth, not by con-
scious effort, but because it was the inherent part of a brilliant,
beauty-loving mind.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1891, he wrote to Constance:
"It is a most entrancing morning. I have just come in from a stroll
in the sunshine to and fro along the stone walk to the north gate. The
sky is cloudless, and the wind just strong enough to turn the mill slowly in
the soft air. The smoke from the chimneys rises straight to the zenith and
dissolves in the stainless blue. In the deep, distant valley the river glim-
mers through a dim silver mist woven with shifting purple like the hues
which gleam on the breast of a dove Undulating along the horizon, the
bluffs rise like translucent crags of violet, and from the city beneath col-
umns of vapor and fumes from engines and factories ascend, accompanied
by a confused and inarticulate murmur, like the whispers of protest and
pain. * * * During the night it rained, ami tlu- grass of the lawn is
green. It glitters and scintillates with the transitory gems of the frost.
Here and there are disappearing ridges of tin- snow from the storm of
Monday, and in the hollows of the grove the bron7e leaves "i" the oak-
piled high, to be dispersed by the next gale, like the ruined gold of a
spendthrift, or the vanishing hopes of men."
It is with something akin to loving reverence that the
stranger must look into the home life <.f this man. To the j>'
44 John James Ingalls.
lie he was austere; to his enemies, he was caustic — "as vine-
gar to the teeth " ; to the student of humanity, he was an enigma ;
but in the home in which he was husband and father, he was
the idol — the genial, loving, refined, thoughtful man, compan-
ionable, delightful. To have known him here, to have compre-
hended him in this phase of life where his virtues showed
serenest, is to appreciate the rare possession of the memory
that holds
"The touch of a vanished hand,
And the sound of a voice that is still."
CHAPTER V.
Senator Ingalls was not universally popular. Men believed
him cold; but they admired him, gloried in Him, took intense
satisfaction"1 in the word -battles wherein he was victor, felt a
proud sense of proprietorship in him when he brought fame
and honor to his State, cared not to question whether Ingalls
meant Kansas or Kansas meant Ingalls when he engrossed the
attention of the Nation. He "never wore his heart on his sleeve
for daws to peck at," and the populace never felt sure but that
somehow in his impenetrability he could dispense with it alto-
gether. Such a man could not, in the very nature of things,
float always with the tide, nor fall in readily with mediocrity,
nor adapt himself easily to the endless contradictions ever man-
ifest in human nature as seen in popular outcry and the froth
of public sentiment. It was imperative that Ingalls should
be Ingalls— that he should be himself and true to himself.
Whether the public understands or misapprehends a man is
never the question of great import; the vital thing is that he
shall understand himself and have the courage to plant himself
on the rock of truth.
But, leaving public affairs to their own tortuous turnings,
we seek a location "where he was known, loved, honored, under-
stood, appreciated. Even his relations with his parents and
brothers and sisters were, in their own proper degree, as delight-
ful as those which charmed and brightened his own home.
Especially was his respectful and confidential attitude towards
his father an admirable trait. "Honor thy father" was accep-
45
46 John James Ingalls.
ted by him as being the sum of human wisdom in this relation,
and he acted upon it from conviction and inclination. No
perfunctory performance here. There was something in his
nature and mentality a woman could discern and understand
and confide in. This trait manifested itself in him at an early
age and made him seek the silent society and companionship
of his mother in his moods. This strong but indescribable
characteristic had its appreciation in those friends who saw
beyond the surface the true and inner man. At the time of
his death, one of the leading daily papers of the West said
editorially :
"Mr. Ingalls was in tempernment and habit gentle and kind. Whether
he was conversing with a solemn thinker, a woman, or a ten-year old boy.
he always adapted himself to circumstances."
It was not granted to many people to know Senator Ingalls
intimately ; but to those in possession of this prized privilege,
the passing out of his life made a void never to be filled. For
fortv vears his home was in Atchison. When one of his fellow-
townsmen heard of his death, he said :
" The death of Mr. Ingalls is a great loss to the State, it is a great loss
to the nation; but it is a greater loss than all to the town of Atchison. By
his death the light in the windows of Atchison has' gone out."
Senator Ingalls never sought friendships, and, inasmuch as
few people knew him as he was in very fact, he was generally
misunderstood. Of the many newspaper estimates, we give
three quotations from the Tupeka Daily Capital, as just and
fair:
'Who can say, in truth and honesty, that he really knew — compre-
hended, understood — Ingalls? He gave so sparingly of his intimacies
that small opportunity was afforded those who were so minded to gain
an insight into his character; to Kansans generally he was an enigma. I
refer to the man; not the orator, the politician, the student of history, lit-
erature, and the elegant arts; not the legislator, the advocate, or the poet,
but the personality."
Memoir. 47
"I believe there is but one person in all the world who knew the real
man, and that person is his widow ; and he was surely remarkable, even
great, for he was ever a hero to her
• A man may misunderstand himself, but his. wife understands him;
he may deceive himself, but he cannot practice deception upon his wife;
he can hide himself from the world, but it is his wife who finds him out;
he may be all things t<» all men, but his wife sees him as he is; and the
man who is great in the eyes of his wife is truly great."
"Kansas was not just to Ingalls when he was alive; let her see to it
that this is not followed by cold neglect of his memory. He was an honor
to Kansas, and Kansas should do honor to his name; he shared his well-
won laurels with her, and she accepted them gladly enough ; she basked in
the sunlight of his success and partook of the fruits of his victories; she
was first in his thoughts in his hours of triumph, and the beneficiary in a
hundred ways of his generosity. What he had to give her, he gave with-
out stint or condition, for he loved Kansas; she was the object of his young
manhood's virgin affection."
"It was really in his home life," testifies his son vShef
field, "that the noble qualities of his heart and mind were
shown. He was devoted, kind, patient, and indulgent." After
all, what testimony could be- stronger? Few friendships, and
those few sincere, to a man of an intense, concentrated mind
and retiring, reflective disposition, more than compensate for
the babbling crowd and the "hail-fellow well-met" shallow-
ness gained in commingling with the unthoughtful.
CHAPTER VI.
"And there he stands in memory to this day, erect, self-poised,
A witness to the ages as they pass,
That simple duty hath no place for fear."
— Whittier.
In the sum of national history John James Ingalls is a unit.
A pronounced personality he was, who impressed himself upon
his time in his own individual way; and his imprint upon
state and national affairs is fadeless. To rank him with the
colossal figures in public life would be unfair. To put him
among the commonplace would be unjust. He could not be
commonplace. No one who ever knew him even slightly would
accuse him of mediocrity.
Mr. Ingalls was essentially a public man, a man of large
affairs, because he was a representative man. He stood for
Kansas, for the whole State, because he was a scholarly thinker
and an orator. He may not have represented specifically and
distinctly the man who likes social fellowship, nor the mild-
tempered, peace-loving citizen, nor the dull, unthinking plod-
der, nor the intense partisan of an opposite political faith ; but
he stood for the thought of the whole. In this capacity he was
* peerless.
For twenty-five years he was before the footlights of pub-
lic life, and for the whole decade after his retirement he was
scarcely less conspicuous than when he was actively engaged
in public affairs. Not long before Mr. Ingalls' death, a bril-
liant young Kansan, casting about for the calling in which he
could be most useful, was asked, "What subject interests you
48
Memoir. 49
most? When you pick up a newspaper or magazine, to what
theme do you instinctively turn?" His reply was: "I always
look for something from John J. Ingalls' pen. If I find any-
thing of his writing, I read it first." This young man was
only a typical Kansan in this instance. It was "the power of
Thor" (the original significance of the old "Ingiald" name),
asserting itself still. How could such a nature be other than
dominant? or, as we term it in a republic, representative ?
Kansas is a peculiar commonwealth, and even when her
fifes and drums are still and her swords are in their scabbards,
the gates of the temple of Janus stand open, and a warfare
of factions, a bloodless contention, keeps her records full of
interest.
That was a tragic chapter in the peaceful annals of the
State which records Mr. Ingalls' first senatorial accession. It
was one of those strange stampedes of Fate, unforeseen and
unconquerable.
Eighteen years later another stampede, unfortunate for
Kansas and the Nation, made fortune change front for Mr.
Ingalls.
For nearly two decades Mr. Ingalls was one of the most
illustrious figures in Washington. During this time he served
the Senate in its most responsible requirements. He was
chairman of the Commit tee < >i 1 Pensions of the District <>f
Columbia, and of the special Committee on Bankrupt Law; he
was a member of the Judiciary, of Indian Affairs, of Education
and Labor, of Privileges and Flections, and of many other
special committees.
He was a frequent debater, and made many elaborate
speeches. But to recount his public life in these words gives
no idea of the Senator from Kansas in the days when all Wash-
50 John James Ingalls.
ington hastened to the great Capitol on announcement that
Ingalls was to speak. lie was a force that once felt was never
to be forgotten. It was said of him:
•'He knew language as the devout Moslem knew his Koran. All the
deeps and shallows of the sea of words have been sounded and surveyed
by him and duly marked upon the chart of his great mentality. In the
presence of an audience he was a magician like those of Egypt ; under the
power of his magic, syllables became scorpions — an inflection became an
indictment; and with words he builded temples of thought that excited at
first the wonder and at all times the admiration of the world of literature
and statesmanship. He was emperor in the realm of expression. The Eng-
lish-speaking people will listen long before again they hear the harmony
born of that perfect fitting of phrase to thought that marked the utter-
ances of John J. Ingalls."
As President of the Senate, he was superb. His graceful
bearing, his dignity of manner, his alert apprehension, his
quick wit, his parliamentary diplomacy, all combined to make
him master of the situation. Above all these qualities was
confidence in himself. When others were excited, he was
cool; when others were uncertain, he was firm. His very calm-
ness gave him strength. Very rarely has that great and re-
sponsible office been filled by a man of the superior ability,
ripe experience, and perfect self-possession possessed by Mr.
Ingalls.
Something of the old Viking spirit reappears to-day under
modified social conditions, and enters into the mental make-up
of certain characters as a mark of strong personality. Had
Ingalls lived in the days of Norse supremacy, what a terrible
force he would have been! But coming down to a life run-
ning parallel with the last two-thirds of the nineteenth cen-
tury, he was a Viking in the realm of words; his weapons could
strike deep, and his wounds were next to mortal.
Illustrative of his quick wit, oratorical power, and telling
MEMOik. 51
sarcasm, the following story of the bout between Senator Salis-
bury, of Delaware, and Senator Ingalls will serve as an example:
Salisbury had invested in some Kansas bonds that were
repudiated, and he naturally did not think well of the State.
He arose one day, and took half an hour to express his opinion
of Kansas. When he had finished, he denounced the people,
the climate, the coal, and about everything else in the State.
Senator Ingalls uncoiled himself from his chair, and arose. In
mock humility, he commented on the rebuke Kansas had
received. Then he began a panegyric that held the galleries
entranced It was one of the most eloquent speeches ever
made by Ingalls. He went back to the days of the Missouri
Compromise, and reviewed the history of Kansas, dwelt on the
soldiers the State furnished for the Civil War, and swept down
to the date on which he was talking. Then he stopped a
moment, looked at Salisbury, and said: "And, Mr. President,
this is the State that has been assailed in this chamber by a
man who represents in part — in part, Mr. President — a State
Avhich has two counties when the tide is up and three when
the tide is down." Salisbury had nothing more to say.
It has been said of Ingalls that he was "a vivisectionist
with intense loves and hates," and the estimate is certainly
true.
Xow for the second stampede of Fate. The most noted
senator Kansas ever had came to his own by accident, as it
were. Politics has epochs. We observe the rise and fall of
conditions, or systems, or regimes, in the progress of public
affairs. One such period is limited by the term of John James
Ingalls' official life. The downfall of Pomeroy, or, rather, of all
that Pomeroy stood for, marked the elevation of Ingalls as rep-
resentative of Kansas Republicanism in party affairs. This
52 Johx James Ingalls.
Republicanism was a dominant force for nearly two decades.
It ruled the State during her years of agricultural and commer-
cial development ; it attended to the upbuilding of her schools,
to the establishment of her temperance laws, and her strong
moral statutes protecting the property rights and advancing
the civil rights of women. It held the public offices when the
plague of grasshoppers came down from the Rocky Mountains
and ravished up the fullness of the land. It dominated affairs
while the frontier pushed slowly westward; while dugout
homes and stock-corrals gave place to comfortable farm-houses
and capacious barns and granaries. It was in power when the
plague of the boom came in from the East and built imaginary
towns of impossible values; and its last days saw the collapse
of inflation and the confusion of financial tongues — forerun-
ners of depression and money panic. It reached its culmi-
nating point when Kansas cast 180,000 ballots for James G.
Blaine in 1884. Think of 180,000 Republican voters in a State
that thirty-five years before had less than 1,000 inhabitants!
There's magic in it. No wonder Senator Salisbury from Del-
aware had little cause to ridicule Kansas. In this year the
Ingalls regime, the power of which he was the exponent, touched
the zenith. After that comes the recessional.
It is probably not in place here to enter into an analysis of
the rise of Populism, although the temptation to do so in just-
ice to the memory of John James Ingalls is almost irresistible.
Some day when the searchlight of history is turned on Kansas
annals, when narrow partisanship and personalities are laid
aside, the tide of events and the reason why individual doom
should lie in their untamable current will be better understood.
Sufficient is it to say, that with the overthrow of the old
Republicanism in Kansas, Ingalls, the last heroic figure of its
Memoir. 53
imperial days, went down to defeat. His political overthrow,
like the physical taking-off of William McKinley, was not for
anything in the man himself, but because of what he stood for.
Populism was in power. He was in its way.
Perhaps no one interested in all the nation felt the effect of
his defeat less keenly than Senator Ingalls himself. A self-
sufficiency, the result of having remained always true to him-
self, and never impaired by indiscriminate friendships and idle
association, was his stay. A power that he alone knows who
lives sometimes near to Nature's heart, who sees the beauty
of the sky and landscape, who contemplates the broad river
and the far-off horizon line, who makes fellowship with words
as the signs of ideas, and who looks within himself for his com-
fort and pleasure, a power never defeated by the ballot-box,
made life altogether restful to John James Ingalls, while his
friends wrung their hands in disgust and bitter disappointment,
and his enemies rejoiced in an altogether vain joy.
Half the mental misery of life comes from a lack of self-
adiustment. Ingalls was master of himself.
A man, to be thoroughly useful, must have enemies. They
keep his nature in better poise. He may not overcome them
in life, but in the perspective of time the man and his enemies
both fade out, and what he did stands imperishable. In the
case of the gentleman from Kansas there are certain definite-
effects upon national life apparent to the thoughtful mind.
Each effect stands out as a power in itself. All that Ingalls
ever did was positive. He was worth loving or hating, admir-
ing or fearing. He was not a man toward whom one could be
indifferent.
Ingalls taught to his generation the virtue of fearlessness.
In all the future of American politics the quality of courage
54 John James Ingalls.
will be more esteemed because of one man's unconquerable will.
We say that every martyr to religion, every martyr to patriot-
ism, every martyr to scientific discovery, uplifts the soul of
mankind, and henceforth its plane is nearer to the stars. If
this be true, then every man who dares take issue with public
opinion, who questions not whether he shall make himself
popular or unpopular, who bears a reputation for fearlessness
until such reputation comes to be a badge of honor, does by
one degree or by many degrees lift mankind above mental
cowardice and give to it for all future years more courage and
tolerance. Such a gift was the heritage of John James Ingalls
to the voung men of Kansas who come into the light of public
affairs.
Close to this qualitv of fearlessness is the virtue of origi-
nality. The man of whom this writing is a memoir carried
an influence before the public. He was admired or feared;
never insulted with indifference. The secret of the interest in
him lay in his originality. He worked out his problem fear-
lessly, and in his own way. And the college which withheld
his diploma until compelled to issue it felt proud to grant him
a doctor's degree, and to call him to fill the place of honor on
her program in her festal days. Xobody could forecast Ingalls.
Nobody could surmise just how he would compass his victories,
just how he would meet his defeats. Nobody could have
prophesied how he could, with his pen or tongue, lay bare the
deep-hidden wound of his enemy, nor that his dying words
would have been the prayer of his childhood, beginning with
the expression, "Our Fatlier, which art in heaven."
He lived in his own fashion. He thought and acted in his
own way. He was himself, not a borrowed, assumed person-
ality. By this phase of his character he has made life a little
Memoir. 55
easier for all statesmen. He left to the Senate an example it
may do well to emulate. He impressed himself upon the
Nation, and time will not efface the pattern of his making.
One more contribution, the most influential of all, was the
dignity and force he gave to the use of language. Indeed it is
possible that future generations will remember Senator Ingalls
for this thing alone. His fine sense of the beautiful put rhythm
and music into his speech. The standard of oratory in the
United States Senate to-day is, consciously or unconsciously,
the Ingalls standard. What of it? We call him great who
can put life into the block of gleaming alabaster. We honor
his skill, as that of a benefactor, who can so blend colors on can-
vas that they grow into an exquisite reproduction of Nature.
We are enraptured with his power who can steal from the twit-
ter of birds, the babbling of brooks, the mournful murmur of
the pines, and the loud resonance of the thunder-cloud the har-
mony of sounds that makes the symphony of music. We call
his genius sublime who can construct the great cathedral, with
its grooved arches and mighty domes, its symmetry and beauty,
from tessellated floor or fretted roof. But these things are
o
commonplace when compared to the plastic force, the exquisite
fineness of language. This fineness and this force was the
bequest of John James Ingalls to his people.
The quality of fearlessness, or originality, and of a sense of
the beautiful expressed in words, are the inheritance of the
Nation from Ingalls. These great mental traits help to shape
the thought and action of to day, and through them Ingalls
lives vet in the halls of Congress — the peerless Senator from
Kansas.
CHAPTER VII.
After his retirement from the Senate, a busy literary career
opened for Mr. Ingalls. Newspaper syndicates and publish-
ers of magazines offered him the highest market sums for articles
from his pen. Lecture bureaus and Chautauqua Assembly
managers eagerly sought to add his name to their list of
attractions.
"I am not going lecturing: at least not for a vacation," he writes to
Constance on June 6, 1S91. "I have consented, as the shop-girls say when
they are fired out of one situation and find another after much importu-
nity, to accept a few invitations to deliver addresses at summer Chau-
tauqua assemblies, as Plato and Socrates used to do at Athens and else-
where: one near Washington; one, July 4th, in Nebraska; one, July
1 6th, in Iowa; one July 30th, at Madison, Wisconsin; one at Staten Island,
near New York; and, possibly, one at Atlanta, Georgia, early in August,
after which I shall sit under my own vine and fig-tree for awhile and
commune with Nature."
This serves to show what demand there was for his literary
talent, and is an example of what followed for eight years,
until his health failed.
After the senatorial election of 1S91, he gave up all thought
of public office. For his party he had hoped to be returned to
the Senate, but for himself he was glad of the opportunity to
cast away forever the cares of public life. They had come to
be a grievous burden; indeed, they were ever irksome to him.
Never after his defeat was he an aspirant for any office what-
ever, and there was not one he could have been induced to
accept. His desire to enjoy the peace and pleasures of home
and the unbroken companionship of his loving and devoted
56
Memoir. 57
family, had long been an aspiration which seemed likely never
to be realized. While the Nation stood disappointed at his
defeat, he returned to his home and the joys it held for him,
rejoicing that he was nevermore to be vexed by the cares of
office and the importunities of politicians.
Once, in the prime of his vigor, he wrote to his wife :
" Life to me is so vivid, so intense, like an eager flame, that pain,
disease, weakness, annihilation seem monstrous and intolerable."
Early in June of 1900 he wrote to his daughter Marion, from
Las Vegas, New Mexico:
"I was sorry not to go home last Sunday with Sheffield; but we held
a council of war, and decided that I had better try the air and altitude
treatment here for awhile. / am desperately tired and discouraged atid
homesick. Affectionately, Your Papa."
Forty days later the weariness ended; the disouragement
gave place to peace; the homesickness slipped away and left
him at rest. With Faith and Louisa, whom he had lost in
their infancy; with Addison and Ruth, who had passed away in
the innocency of childhood; and with the beloved, womanly
daughter, Constance, whose death broke his heart, he too
had gone to begin the new home-making in the larger life
beyond life.
But the ruling passion was strong in death. Considera-
tion for those about him marked his last hours. The day
before he died he insisted that Mrs. Ingalls attend a wedding
ceremony in which some friends at the hotel plighted their
faith to the end of life. He had himself expected to attend.
His one remaining hope and ambition was to reach home,
to die there and in Kansas. His wife was his stay, his com-
fort, his sustaining power, in whom alone he found sweet
peace in this world. She had stood in the breach fighting
58 John* James Ingalls.
death and shielding her beloved day by day and night after
night. But death is inexorable, and all the ways of the
world, broad though they seem, converge and lead finally
to a narrow passage where there is room for but one to pass.
Death stands just beyond this fateful portal. He is visible
in all his hideous terrors, but the world crowds behind ; there
is no turning back. She to whom he believed himself joined
for eternity walked with him to the very gate and would
gladly have gone on to save him, but it could not be. An
affectionate farewell, and he became a watcher and waiter
for her who held his life in the journey through this world
of tribulation and sorrow. Death came to him between
midnight and day-dawn, in the late summer season of the
year, and just before he had reached old age — August 16, 1900.
In the quiet gloom of the early summer morning hours,
like a tired child at his mother's knees, he said over the sweet
and simple prayer by which the loving Elder Brother of all
mankind has taught us to come into the presence of the
Father, and with an ineffable peace written on his face, he
fell asleep.
Two days later his body was laid to rest in the cemetery
at Atchison.
" ' Life's fitful fever ' for him was ended, and the foolish wrangle of
the market and forum was closed; grass healed over the sear which his
descent into the bosom of the earth had made, and the carpet of the infant
became the blanket of the dead."
There was mourning in the State of Kansas when the wires
quivered with the message of the end of Ingalls. Then by
the glow of historv and reminiscence it began to dawn upon
the mind of the commonwealth that a great light had gone
out; that he who in the dark days of the State's adversity
Memoir. 59
had maintained her glory and power before the Nation had
himself crossed the harbor bar, and never, never may we look
upon his like again.
CHAPTER VIII.
"My library was dukedom large enough."
The student of human nature would wish for a clever pen
when he writes of this ablest son of Kansas, and the lover
of literature finds a delightful task in the consideration of the
most illustrious phases of his character. The print shop of
public opinion sets up his name only in large capitals when
the mentality of the man is put into type for history.
"He was an emperor in the realm of expression."
Beyond the senator of whom we have written, is the writer;
and above and beyond that is the man himself.
Ingalls had three text-books: nature, humanity, and the
dictionary. The first two gave him material and the third
furnished him with implement or weapon according as his
work was pacific or belligerent.
Ingalls was essentially an orator and a rhetorician. His
whole inclination was toward a literary life. Was he there-
fore a misfit in politics? There are not lacking those who
mourn that he did not devote himself to literature. It is
easy enough to declare that a man has been a success or a
failure in any field, but to assert that he would have been
successful somewhere else is an assurance born of folly. There
is not an over-production of literary ability to-day; whoever
possesses it in a marked degree is assured of gracious hear-
ing and an influence, especially in the halls of Congress.
Ingalls was formidable. His power of invective was
something tremendous. Before his fierce words an enemy
60
Memoir. 6i
could do nothing but writhe. Nobody who knew him ever
walked carelessly or insolently on his preserves without re-
gretting it. Of all degrees from mild ridicule -to utter anni-
hilation he was a cunning master. And with his keenness
and originality one could never fore-judge where or how he
would launch his weapon.
Ingalls' mind was of the critical type. His ideal of per-
fection was high. His sense of irregularity and of incon-
gruity was keen. He was a born critic. No man who has
a nice discriminating power can be otherwise than critical.
It is said of Ingalls that he had no tolerance for a fool, no
patience with mediocrity. 'We resent the authority of the
man who sets himself in judgment over us. Yet if his judg-
ment be accurate, ours may be the profit, nevertheless. It
is not impossible that the man from Kansas did more with his
criticism than the optimist could do in smoothing whitewash
over sepulchres of corruption. Another quality of this noted
mind was insight. No one can be critical without insight,
which is not so much the ability to discern men's motives as
the appreciation of their mental methods and status. He
was shrewd in knowing people. The text-book of humanity
he read on sight. Ingalls was a Cassius who thought much,
was a great observer, and looked quite through the deeds
of men. It was in the nature of things, too, that with this
critical mind he should be satirical, and that his sense of humor
should have an almost abnormal development. From ridi-
cule that seared like white-hot iron, through all grades of sar-
casm and satire, down to the most delightful mirth, his hand
played all the keys. Some hint of a sense of the ludicrous
cropped out perpetually. In his letters to his children, how
ever brief, a smile crept in between the lines.
62 John James Ingalls.
Ingalls had an innate dignity of bearing, and 'lignity of
thought. In all his mental output, whether invective, or
of humor, or pathos, whether instructive discourse or day-
dream fancies, there was nothing of the coarse nor of the
undignified commonplace.
Ingalls' style of composition was marked by picturesque-
ness, originalitv, and magnificence. It had in it a blending
of Bacon and Addison, of Carlyle and Swift, of Shakespeare
and Tennyson. Yet it was, above even-thing else, Ingalls'
own creation. He lived so much in the realm of words that
he came to the mastery over them. They served him gladly,
for he grasped their uses and their potency. His pen was
the stylus of the cameo artist, the chisel of the sculptor, the
sabre of the warrior, the arrow of the gods.
In the text book of Xature, John James Ingalls read the
storv of the universe.
He loved to take long solitary rides on horseback, or to
ramble alone in the woods. He delighted to sit hour after
hour and watch the shifting light and shadow on the great
river that stretched away below his home and lost itself in
the distant tangle of the landscape. The. rolling prairie, the
wooded ravines, the soft hazy skies of Kansas were to him
an inspiration. In them he found an uplifting sense of peace.
They gave to him, as their faithful lover, the benediction of
the universe and the hidden tale of that drama
"That is still unread
hi the manuscript of God."
Ingalls reveled iu the beautiful. So intense was his fine
appreciation that it was next to pain. The dull, unthinking
crowd never dream of the struggle in the mind of the artist
who undertakes to realize in clay or color, in music or in
Memoir. 63
language, the fine ideal of beauty that the brain has created.
When a man sees his own intense, exclusive thought stand
out in words, when listening throngs wait for their utterance,
when the resonance of their tones, the ripple of their music,
the beauty of their figures, and the force of their truths cling
like argument to the soul that takes hold of them — that man
has the power of human mastery.
And here was the realm wherein John James Ingalls found
himself — his best self. Whether or not it was the only work
meant for him, God knows, and the adjustment of results
is with Him.
Ingalls had a prolific mind. He had the gift of poetry
in moderate degree. Sometimes the measures that fell from
his lips were pearls, and sometimes toads and scorpions,
depending altogether on the purpose whereunto he sent them.
His magazine articles, his fragmentary bits of beauty in
one or another form of the country's press, his splendid ora-
tory, covering such a wide field of thought, all tend to reveal
the compass of a mind that knew and knew how it knew.
His sayings are household words. His figures are standards
for all future rhetoric. His conception of beauty is a divine
beneficent gift to the English-speaking people.
And now as to the man himself. Kansans do not pro-
fess to know him, but they never doubt that he knew himself.
In this distance from the day of his activity certain traits
are revealed.
He had the thrift of a born Xew Englander. With all of
what might seem a drain on his resources, he lived in mod-
erate luxury all his days, and left a competency to his family
by bequest.
64 John James Ingalls.
He had to a degree a fraternal spirit. He belonged to
the Grand Army of the Republic, the Loyal Legion, and the
Masonic Order. Fraternal organizations have, like other so-
cial institutions, come to be somewhat of business proposi-
tions, social ladders, and political and personal foundations
to power. They may be a convenience, a benefit, or a mere
source of pleasure to their members. What Mr. Ingalls' mo-
tive was in belonging can only be guessed at.
Ingalls was called cold, unsympathetic, unfeeling. Yet he
was to the inner circle none of these. Is it not clear that
the man who is reading Nature and humanity, and who from
day to day becomes a more habitual student, cannot pour
out his soul like water? He never failed those who needed
him. Within the sphere of his legitimate love he moved a
genial, tender, thoughtful spirit.
His intimate friends and associates were always of the
aristocracy of brain and merit. With these he felt himself
at home. No man in Kansas ev.er lived among more refined
associations.
He was a critic, and he hated fraud with an uncompro-
mising hatred. Some of his bitterest attacks were made
on shams and insincerity. He was unsympathetic here, un-
sparing, irresistible. Perhaps this is why the public thought
him cold and indifferent.
His was an intensely sensitive nature. He must have suf-
fered deeply when pain and grief came to him. As deep, too,
was his joy in the sunshine of existence. In January of 1 883
he wrote to his wife:
"I have a little funeral oration to deliver this a. m on Ben Hill, and
am in terror, as usual, although it lies written out on my desk "
Memoir. 65
But when the listening Senate heard that funeral oration,
it never dreamed of terror in the gifted speaker. When the
press of the Nation copied it far and wide, neither editor nor
reader guessed of the terror in the sensitive spirit of the author.
Only the loving wife at home knew that he had gained an-
' other victory, and the price with which it was bought. We
do rarely
"Think when the strain is sung
Till a thousand hearts are stirred,
What life-drops from the minstrel wrung
Have gushed with every word."
John James Ingalls was not a Church-man, and not a
creed-man. Must the world offer excuse for that? Must the
Church and creed sit in judgment on him and condemn him
to where the tire is not quenched and the worm does not
die? An irreligious man, whose best friends were the noted
ministers of the gospel! A doubter, who depended on truth
for the power that made him strong! Fortunately, the think-
ing mind has at last reached the resting-ground of belief, that
each man's problem he alone can solve. The magnificent,
vindictive Ingalls, who laughed at the foibles of the man-
made Church, found the unseen in his own fashion, trusted
and questioned for himself, and at last, when his life drama
ended, he could say in the faith: "Thine is the kingdom, and
the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen."
Where, after all, is the real man? Is it in him who has
the gift "the applause of listening senates to command"5 Is
it in him whose business bent can ptit him on pleasant and
profitable footing with the kings of commerce? Does it lie
in the man who figures before the crowd? who is at home
on the stump, in the prayer-meeting, at the club, on the
66 John James Ixgalls.
street corner? A man may be any or all of these and pass
for one of Nature's successes, and yet to those who know him
best, who must meet him daily and hourly at his meals, in his
dressing-room, in his study — morning, noon, and night, must
see him — he may be a rasping, wearing curse, a contemptible
snob, a selfish, heartless wretch. And that may be the real
man.
There was a Kansan once, the real man, whose line mind
was habitually studious, whose sensitive nature was tinged
with sweetness, yet with a humor all-redeeming, whose won-
derful ability to express himself "after the use of English
in straight -flung words and few" puts him into classic lit-
erature forever, who dwelt near to the great heart of Na-
ture, and loved almost to worship her delicate sweetness and
her superb magnificence ; whose heart was kind and gentle ;
who lived in the lives of his home and made them radiant
with sunshine; who was modest in prosperity, and patient
in adversity; who studied God and His universe after the
means the God of that universe had given to him; who grew
weary one day, folded his tired hands, and was not, for God
took him.
Then the real man who was king of his own household
was mourned for with a heart-breaking sorrow. Then and
now for all the future, the commonwealth of Kansas bows
reverently to his memory, and with pardonable pride her
pcoph' designate him,
JOHN JAMES IXGALLS.
WRITER, ORATOR, STATESMAN,
THE IDEAL KANSAN.
William Elsey CoxxellEy.
ALBERT DEAN RICHARDSON.
The tragic death of Mr. Richardson two years ago, famil-
iarized the Nation with the chief incidents of his remark-
able career: his humble birth in a farming town in Massa-
chusetts in October, [833; his early experiences as a journal-
ist in Pittsburgh and Cincinnati; his brief residence in Kansas
and Colorado; his eventful wanderings through the South-
west as a correspondent of the Eastern press; his connection
with the Tribune during the war; his restless journeyings
across the continent to regain health hopelessly shattered
by exposure in rebel prisons; his final ventures in the field
of literature; and that fatal passion, in obedience to whose
most inexplicable but potential sway he resolutely went to
his lamented grave.
I delivered letters of introduction to him in October, 1S5S,
at the city of Sumner, of which he was one of the founders,
and where he was then living with his estimable wife and
their attractive children. His residence was one of the con-
ventional structures of the period: a cottonwood cabin of two
rooms, with a door between two windows in the end, which
was converted into a front by the strange architectural device
of a flimsy square of weather boards intended to conceal the
gables. It was situated near the climax of the vertical "Ave-
nue" that led, in fancy, from the imaginary levee, thronged
with an ideal commerce, to the supposititious palaces of her
68 John James Ingalls.
merchant princes, reaching in pictorial splendor far toward the
western horizon.
Those who remember the audacious "Views" of their
fungous cities with which the Pilgrim Fathers of Kansas,
in that epoch of scrupulous honesty, were accustomed to
beguile the dazzled vision of the emigrating public, can readily
appreciate the mingled doubt and consternation with which
I gazed on that picture and then on this reality. That chro-
matic triumph of lithographed mendacity, supplemented by
the loquacious embellishments of a lively adventurer who
has been laying out townsites and staking off corner lots for
some years past in Tophet, exhibited a scene in which the
attractions of art, Nature, science, commerce, and religion
were artistically blended. Innumerable drays were trans-
porting from a fleet of gorgeous steamboats, vast cargoes of
foreign and domestic merchandise over Russ pavements to
colossal warehouses of brick and stone. Dense wide streets
of elegant residences rose with gentle ascent from the shores
of the tranquil stream. Numerous parks, decorated with
rare trees, shrubbery, and fountains, were surrounded with
the mansions of the great and the temples of their devotion.
The adjacent eminences were crowned with costly piles which
wealth, directed by intelligence and controlled by taste, had
erected for the education of the rising generation of Sum-
nerites. The only shadow upon the enchanting landscape
fell from the clouds of smoke that poured from the towering
shafts of her acres of manufactories, while the whole circum-
ference of the undulating prairie was white with endless
sinuous trains of wagons, slowly moving toward the mys-
terious regions of the farther West.
Albert Dean Richardson. 69
The squalid reality from which the magician had evoked
this marvelous vision, displayed a sordid river, with crum-
bling shores, upon which the boats derisively tolled funeral
bells as they steamed insolently past the deserted landing.
An eruption of wretched hovels seemed to have broken out
incoherently among the scrubby, rocky ravines and inacces-
sible defiles that would have defied the daring of a chamois-
hunter of the Alps. An indescribable air of poverty and
dejection pervaded the waning population, and produced in
a stranger a profound impression of discrepancy and incon-
gruousness which even the pensive splendor of Indian summer
could not redeem from desolation and despair.
Richardson appreciated the situation. He read the de-
scending scale of the spiritual thermometer, and listened to
the unsophisticated criticisms of the occasion, with a grave,
quiet sense of the humorous aspect of the imposture, which
immediately resulted in an intimacy, interrupted only with
his life.
It happened to be an election day, and Richardson was
a candidate for the Territorial Legislature. His success was
prevented by certain local jealousies, and he never after-
wards solicited the suffrages of his fellow-citizens. The fol-
lowing winter he was a clerk in the Lower House, partici-
pating with zest in the temporary removal of the capital from
Lecompton to Lawrence, and the diversified scenes of the
session which closed with the repeal of the "Bogus Statutes"
of 1855. He reported with great vivacity the final act of
the drama, in which one copy of the obnoxious volume was
burned at night in front of the old Eldridge House, and another
forwarded by express to the Governor of Missouri with the
70 John James Ixgalls.
compliments of the Legislature, and the message that Kansas
had no further use for the bock.
At that time Richardson was about twenty-five years of age,
and in the prime of health and strength. Rather beneath the
ordinary stature, his frame was stalwart and strongly moulded.
In movement, speech, and gesture, he exhibited something
of lethargv and sluggishness which seemed at variance with
his intellectual activity. His complexion was light; his eyes
blue and somewhat evasive in expression ; his hair and close-
cropped beard of yellow hue. In dress he was plain and neat,
but indifferent to color and texture. His bearing towards
strangers was tinctured by a certain reserve, which arose
partly from natural diffidence and partly from an acquired
distrust of his power to please. Among friends and familiar
acquaintances his manners were dictated by kindly impulses,
but lacked the polish of social attrition. To his intimates
he admitted an embarrassment in society which he was un-
able to conquer, although anxious to belong to the guild of
finished gentlemen. His tastes were frugal and abstemious.
He preferred ease to ostentation, and desired wealth for com-
fort rather than for display. His circumstances were mod-
erate. He earned a comfortable livelihood by his correspond-
ence with Eastern journals, and had been considerably active
in politics. He yielded to the contagion of town lots and
wild lands in different parts of the Territory, and pre-empted
a quarter-section about ten miles west of Atchison, upon which
he erected the customary improvements, which he was accus-
tomed to describe with extreme animation.
His literary habits were characn rizid by great industry.
He alwavs carried a blank-book into which he immediately
copied any striking line or couplet of poetry, bright expres-
Ai.hert Dean Richardson. 71
sion, witty anecdote, or happy illustration, to use in his own
labors. In a scrap-book he preserved copies of all his letters
to different newspapers, and also every personal notice of
himself and his productions. This material was first employed
in his correspondence, subsecjuently appeared in the compo-
sition of lectures, and was finally incorporated into his pub-
lished volumes.
"Garnered Sheaves," consisting of his later contributions
to the magazines of the day, has been published by his wid-
ow since his death, and met with extensive sale. His ear-
lier works, being upon popular topics popularly treated, had
extraordinarv success, the circulation of his "Field, Dungeon,
and Kscape" reaching above one hundred thousand. "Beyond
the Mississippi" was almost equally successful. There are
probablv more copies of it in Kansas than of any other book
except the Bible, and it is recognized as the most faithful
delineation of Western life and manners that has ever been
written. Without system, order, or coherence, it is as fasci
nating as a romance, and stimulates like a poem. It pos
sesses the charm of a dictionary or cyclopedia in enabling
the reader to begin, skip, and close at will. And yet it would
be unjust to deny that its merits are of the highesl order.
The future historian, dramatist, romancer, and poet of Western
life will find it an inexhaustible mine of the most valuable
material. Time will enhance its worth. Had the colonists
of Virginia and Massachusetts bay been favored with such
a graphic observer of the men, the maimer-, and the happen
ings of their infant empire, whal a boon it would have been to
their descendants and '><> the civilized world! If old Miles
Standish, Governor Winthrop, Captain John Smith, and 1
hatan had passed before the retina of Richardson, history
72 John James Ingall^.
would have been illustrated with photographs. Its dry skel-
eton of facts and dates would have been draped with the
habiliments of life. Such chronicles show us men and things
as they are in those aspects that interest us most. Had there
been a daily newspaper printed at Athens in the days of
Pericles, or at Rome during the reign of Caesar, a single copy
would give us a clearer insight into the real life of the people,
their manners and customs, their habits, their culture, their
purposes, than all the acres of scholarly history that have
ever been written from Josephus down. But this book of
Richardson's has an added charm in the free, fresh life
of which it preserves the fast-fading features. In another
generation there will be no "West," no wilderness, no frontier,
to stir the young blood of that era with its profound and
subtle intoxication ; no new States to beget ; no deserts to
traverse; no fascinating areas where men can escape from
the revolting trammels of civilization and congregate with
savage delight. The enchantment of the "Plains" has van-
ished already. The exultation of those solemn solitudes,
with the silent journeys by day and the lonely camp by night,
can never again be known by the traveler, whether he looks
from the train as it resistlessly bears him onward, or sees it
as it rolls roaring by on its track from the Great River to the
Pacific Sea. The aroma, the flavor of this lost life, Richard-
son has measurably preserved. Much of its power is doubt-
less due to the magician of memory in summoning up from
"Time's dark backward abyss" the phantoms of buried
things; but with due allowance for all that the reader con-
tributes, it remains and will probably continue to be the most
faithful transcript of one of the most important and interest-
ing epochs in modern American history.
Albert Dean Richardson. 73
The impartial and vivid observer and chronicler of im-
pressions and events must be absolutely devoid of genius.
He must be without inspiration. He should have no convic-
tions. It is not his mission either to convince or persuade.
He bears the same relation to the highest intellectual devel-
opment that Brady, the photographer, bears to Church, the
painter.
This was eminently true of Richardson. He is one of
the finest modern illustrations of the day-laborer in litera-
ture. He was a true journeyman. Letters were to him a
trade. He wrote because he could, and not because he must.
He carefully ascertained what the people were interested
to know; then learned all he could upon the subjects, and
told it in the most interesting manner at his command. He
judged the value of his books by the number of copies sold,
and pursued literature because it was a profitable vocation.
He believed that mind was a certain force that could be suc-
cessfully exerted in any direction its proprietor desired. In
an eminent degree he possessed the Xew Hngland qualities
of thrift, shrewdness, foresight, and calculation. Purchasing
land in five counties at an early day, he studied the map
so well that every acre is now within sound of the whistle
of the locomotive. He exercised the same characteristics
in literature. The War, The West, The Watch, whatever
subject he discovered to be near the head, tin- heart, or tin
pocket of man, he carefullv investigated, note book in hand,
with a view to writing something that would sell.
In morals he was governed by similar motives. He had
no unprofitable vices. His ideas were those of a man of tin-
world. His friendships, though not mercenary, were largely
controlled by interest, and his companions frequently found
74 John James Ixgalls.
their good things said in conversation subsequently reap-
pearing in type as his own. He used his friends upon all
occasions unhesitatingly. Without being strictly candid or
sincere, he was eminently truthful, and believed that in a
worldly way virtue was its own reward.
He was ambitious of success, and to a man so organized
success was absolutely certain. His earliest aspiration was
to be on the staff of the Xew York Tribune, which he accom-
plished when its attainment seemed almost impossible. Had
he lived, he would have achieved his highest desires.
He probably contributed as largely as any journalist of
the period to that unparalleled advertisement which for so
many years has made Kansas the focus of the eyes of all
readers on the globe. His pen and tongue were never weary
of eulogy. Absorbed in the vortex of Xew York, his thoughts,
hopes, and aspirations reverted hither with a constant, fen-id
devotion. But a few weeks before his death he was here,
making arrangements for an estate to which he might ulti-
mately come and spend the autumn of his years. Had he
lived, he would have openly resumed the allegiance which
he never relinquished save in name.
Kansas exercised the same fascination over him that
she does over all who have ever yielded to her spell. There
are some women whom to have once loved renders it impos-
sible ever to love again. As the ' "gray and melancholy main"
to the sailor, the desert to the Bedouin, the Alps to tin- moun-
taineer, so is Kansas to all her children.
No one ever felt any enthusiasm about Wisconsin, or
Indiana, or Michigan. The idea is preposterous. It is im-
possible. They are great, prosperous communities, but their in-
habitants can remove and never desire to return. They hunger
Albert Dean Richardson. 75
for the horizon. They make new homes without the maladu
tin pays. But no genuine Kansan can emigrate. He mav
wander. He may roam. He may travel. He may go rise-
where, but no other State can claim him as a citizen. ( >nce
naturalized, the allegiance can never be forsworn.
Of the causes, the reasons, the occasion of his death, what
ran be said? It is the old insoluble sexual problem which
does so confound and tangle our noblest relations lure that
nothing less than the final conflagration can purge the race
of the dross it brings; but out of which we seem to be ris-
ing by gradual steps into a purer atmosphere. Man slowly
ascends from gregariousness to monogamy. The fidelity of
one man to one woman, absolute, in spite of temptation or
death, is the ultimate ideal. Constancv is vet a splendid
dream, but the very power to entertain it is an irresistible
prophecy of its ultimate realization. It is the tendeiu \ of
the highest and purest teachings of every religion, and its
accomplishment would be the perfection of the race. The
nearer it is attained the happier the individual, the better
society. Its violation, whether in accordance with law or
against law, is uniformly visited with punishment; and
human judgment it seems clear that had Richardson followed
the promptings of his best instincts, he might have avoided
his sombre destiny. But he has passed to that tribunal from
whose verdict there is no appeal. If there were an error,
there has also been solemn expiation.
"Wild words wander here and there:
God's great gift of speech abused
Makes thy memory confused.
Hut let them rave!
Tin- balm cricket carols clear
In the green that folds thy
I. tt them rav<
JOHN BROWN'S PLACE IN HISTORY.
Jn the November number of the Review the Rev. David
N. Utter moves to reverse the judgment heretofore rendered
in favor of John Brown of Osawatomie, alleging that Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Theodore Parker, and other
radical Abolitionists, the makers of our history and literature,
the trusted leaders of the North in the war for the Union,
"a companv of men and women whose peers did not exist
in America," conspired to impose a false verdict upon man-
kind, which has passed into the encyclopedias and biograph-
ical dictionaries, and been accepted as true by the civilized
world.
In support of this motion, two averments are made.
First. That on May 24, 1 856, in the night-time, John Brown
slew, or caused to be slain, in cold blood and without provo-
cation, five inoffensive citizens living in the valley of Potta-
watomie Creek.
Second. That on August 30, 1856, at the battle of Osawa-
tomie, John Brown ran away to save his life.
Whereupon, David N. Utter demands that instead of be-
ing adjudged a hero, patriot, and martyr, John Brown shall
hereafter be held and declared to have been a felonious pol-
troon, an impostor, and an assassin.
The equity of history, if not its justice, requires that every
man should be tried bv the standard of his own time, in the
76
John Brown's Place in History. 77
light of all the circumstances that surrounded him, and judged
by the avowed purposes and final results of his whole career.
Tested by this canon, it is difficult to treat this performance
of David X. Utter either with patience or respect. The vague
and puerile generalizations about hero-worship and the causes
of the war; the mild ecclesiastical sneer at New England and
the higher law; the justification of slave-stealing; the utter
ignorance of the fundamental facts of Kansas history ; the ap-
proval of the acts of the Missourians in killing Frederick Brown
and burning the cabins and stealing the stock of the other
sons; the perversion of morals in declaring that the Potta-
watomie massacre could be sustained if its results had been
good, and so foreseen and foretold; the inconsistency of affirm-
ing in one sentence that John Brown was a hero in 1859, and in
another that his entire public career is to be utterly condemned
— all these produce a sensation of bewilderment, and were it
not for the faint flavor of the conventicle that pervades the
paper, would create the impression that it was intended as a
burlesque, like Archbishop Y\ 'hatch's "Historic Doubts Rela-
tive to Xapoleon Bonaparte," rather than as a serious con-
tribution to modern history. When he concludes by declar-
ing that the principles of John Brown were those of the Rus-
sian Nihilists — "First make a clean sweep of the presenl
civilization, and let the future build what it can" wil-
der becomes mingled with compassion; for there is prob
ably no other intelligent student of public affairs who does
not know that the Russian Nihilists demand nothing of the
Czar but a liberal constitutional government. However detest-
able their methods, thev do not aim at anarchy. It is sel-
dom that an author reaches tlu- felicity "t being misinformed
upon all subjects of which he treats.
78 John James Ingalls.
John Brown was born at Torrington, Conn., May 9, 1800.
He was descended in the sixth generation from Peter Brown,
an English carpenter, who signed the compact in the cabin
of the Mayflower, and died in 1633. When five years old,
John Brown was taken to Ohio. His youth was uneventful
and obscure. At the age of eighteen he went to Massachu-
setts with the design of obtaining a collegiate education and
entering the ministry; but, being attacked with a disorder
of the eves, was compelled to abandon this purpose and
return to Ohio. In early manhood he was a surveyor, and
traversed the forests of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Later,
he was for ten years engaged in business in Pennsylvania,
and subsequently in Ohio as a tanner, a cattle-dealer, and
speculator in real estate. In 1846 he removed with his fam-
ily to Springfield, Mass., and dealt in wool as a commission
merchant, without success. In 1849 he went to Xorth Elba,
New York, where he toiled upon a sterile, rocky farm among
the Adirondacks, and where his body now lies moldering in
the grave. As early as 1839 he had formed the great life-
purpose, which he never relinquished, for the destruction of
African slavery. Thenceforward there was no divergence
in his career. He was not distracted by ambition, nor
wealth, nor ease, nor fame. He never hesitated. Delay did
not baffle nor disconcert him, nor discomfiture render him
despondent. His tenacity of purpose was inexorable. Those
relations, possessions, and pursuits which to most men are
the chief objects of existence — home, friends, fortune, estate,
power in him were the most insignificant incidents. He re-
garded them as trivial, unimportant, and wholly subsidiary
to the accomplishment of the great mission for which he had
been sent upon earth. His love of justice was an irresistible
John Brown's Place in History. 79
passion, and slavery the accident that summoned all his powers
into dauntless and strenuous activity.
In the autumn of 1S54 four sons and a son-in-law of John
Brown joined the column of emigrants that marched to
Kansas. They were farmers. They were peaceable, God-
fearing men. They had no means of subsistence except the
labor of their hands. They were unarmed, but they hated
slavery, and believed that Kansas should be free. They set-
tled near Pottawatomie Creek, built humble cabins, and began
to cultivate the soil. They were harassed, insulted, raided,
and plundered by gangs of marauders, and finally notified to
leave the Territory under penalty of death. They associated
for defense, and, unable longer to continue the unequal con-
test, in the summer of 1S55 they wrote their father to procure
and to bring to Kansas arms, to enable them to protect then-
lives and property. He arrived, after a tedious journey,
through Illinois and Iowa, on the 6th of October, 1855.
David X. Utter declares that John Brown was a "disturb-
ing influence in Kansas from the first," and that he went
to the Territory "not as a settler, but to fight." He desig-
nates him as an extremist and revolutionist who belonged
to an insignificant party that was led by newspaper corre-
spondents and stipendiaries, who really had no right to be
in the Territory at all. He attempts to convey the impi
sion that, prior to the arrival of John Brown, there were no
other "disturbing influences" at work; that although there had
been some casual differences of opinion as to the- course that
shoidd be pursued with regard to the slave code adopted
by the "Bogus Legislature" of 1855, a wise and moderate ;
icy of submission prevailed. The days were halcyon. It was
like the garden of Eden, where, in pastoral tranquillity, the
80 John James Ingalls.
Adams and Eves were naming the beasts and cultivating the
fig-tree whose foliage was so soon to be unfortunately more
important than its fruit. Even the destruction of Lawrence
is dismissed with a flippant paragraph as scarcely worthy
of notice. "There was no resistance, and nobody was killed
except by accident," murmurs the placid historian. He prob-
ably considers that the drunken mob of eight hundred border
ruffians who had assembled on their own account, as he says,
to wipe out the Abolition town, went to the Territory as "set-
tlers," and not, like John Brown, "to fight."
They were not, like John Brown, "a disturbing influence."
They went to Kansas "to make homes and build a State,"
and so, unlike John Brown, their voice was not "for war." Like
the gentleman described by Tacitus, they wanted peace.
There was no trouble till John Brown came with his per-
nicious revolutionary doctrines. "The pillage and the burn-
ing were in consequence of his crimes, and for the whole
he deserves censure rather than praise," concludes David N.
Utter, who calls this process the "revaluation of our war
heroes," and "getting at the exact facts in every case, let
them be what they may," for the benefit of the younger
generation, who do not love truth more, but need heroes less,
than the men of twenty years ago, in the language of this
evangelical iconoclast. It may interest the younger gener
ation to hear a brief account of what occurred in the inter-
val between July 2, 1855, and May 21, 1S56, over which this
revalue* of heroes skips with such airy levity.
The Legislature was elected March 30th by Missourians
who entered the Territory in armed bands for that purpose.
Nearly eight hundred attended the polls at Lawrence, with
pistols, rifles, Bowie-knives, and two cannons, loaded with
John Brown's Place in History. Si
musket-balls. Both branches of the Legislature were unan-
imously Pro-slavery after July 23d. They devised a scheme
by which the people were deprived for two years of all con-
trol over the executive, legislative, and judicial departments of
the Territorial government. They filled all tin- offices with
Pro-slavery men, and adopted an act to punish offenses against
slave property which is probably the most infamous stat-
ute that ever blackened the code of any civilized people.
It affixed the penalty of death to the crime of carrying or
assisting slaves out of the Territory with the intent to pro-
cure their freedom, and punished the denial of the right to
hold slaves with imprisonment at hard labor for two vears
with ball and chain.
The}- adjourned August 30th, and the laws were published
in October. The Free State party met at Big Springs, Septem-
ber 5th, and adopted, among other resolutions, the following:
"'that we will endure and submit to these laws no longer than tin
interests of the Territory require, as the least of two evils, and will resist
them to a bloody icsue as soon as we ascertain that peaceable remedies
shall fail and forcrble resistance shall furnish any reasonable prospect of
success; and that in the meantime wc recommend to our friends through
out the Territory the organization and discipline of volunteer companies
and the procurement and preparation of arms."
This convention was followed by another at Topeka on
the 19th, to take preliminary steps for the formation of a
constitution. Delegates were chosen October <>t h. assem-
bled on the 23d, and adjourned November nth. On the
14th the "Law and Order" party was organized at Leaven-
worth, and the blood of Free State nun began to flow. As
earlv as May these friends of freedom had shaved, tarred
and feathered, ridden on a rail, and sold by a negro auctioneer
for one dollar. William Phillip; . who had ventured to pro-
82 John James Lngalls.
test against the validity of an election in Leavenworth. In
August they subjected Rev. Pardee Butler to great personal
indignity at Atchison, and set him adrift down the Missouri
on a log raft, because he refused to sign some resolutions
adopted at a Pro-slavery meeting held in that town. But
these mild remedies were now abandoned. On November
2 1 st Dow was killed. Branson was arrested for taking part
in a meeting held to denounce the murder. He was rescued,
and the sheriff summoned a posse. The Governor called
upon all good citizens to aid in Branson's recapture. The
excitement was intense. Armed bands crossed the Mis-
souri and hastened to their rendezvous at Franklin, under the
command of Atchison, a United States senator. The roads
were patrolled and wagons robbed. On the 6th of December
Barber was shot while traveling homeward. Companies of
Free State soldiers marched to the defense of the beleaguered
town of Lawrence. Among them were old John Brown and
his four sons, equipped for battle. A spectator says :
" They drove up in front of the Free State Hotel, standing in a small
lumber-wagon. To each of their persons was strapped a short, heavy
broadsword. Each was supplied with fire-arms • and revolvers, and poles
were standing endwise around the wagon-box with fixed bayonets, point-
ing upward."
A gaunt, grim, gray, formidable figure ! Evidently he was
there "not as a settler, but to fight"! But there was no
fight. Both sides regarded discretion as the better part of
valor. The forces were disbanded, and John Brown and his
sons drove their lumber-wagon, with their broadswords, guns,
pistols, and pikes to their cabins on the Pottawatomie.
The election under the Topeka constitution was held Janu-
ary 17, 1856. The next morning three Free State men, go-
John Brown's Place in History. 83
ing home from Easton, were assailed by a horde of ruffians.
Captain R. P. Brown, a member-elect of the Legislature, went
to their relief and routed the assailants. The three men, with
Captain Brown, continued on their way toward Leavenworth,
and were again attacked and overpowered. At night they
were all released but Brown, who was dragged out, hacked
and gashed with hatchets and knives, thrown into a wagon,
exhausted, bleeding, benumbed with cold, and soon expired.
Other murders followed. Governor Shannon said that "the
roads were literally strewed with dead bodies." The Mis-
souri River, the chief highway to the territory, was closed,
and steamers were searched for ammunition and supplies.
In April, Major Buford arrived with large reinforcements from
Georgia, Alabama, and South Carolina. Efforts to arrest
Free State men were continued and were resisted. United
States troops were sent to Lawrence to aid the civil authori-
ties. A complacent and obsequious grand jury was assembled
that found indictments against Governor Robinson, Reeder,
and others for high treason, because they had participated in
the Free State movement. Tin- Governor fled from the Ter-
ritory in disguise; Robinson was arrested while .;/ route to the
East, and brought back under guard for trial. The district
court conceived and promulgated tin- extraordinary doctrine
of "constructive treason." Anarcln prevailed, and on the
morning of May 21, 1856, a deputy United States marshal,
with an immense posse, entered Lawrence and arrested a large
number of citizens for constructive treason and for bearing
arms against the "Government." Later in the day, Sheriff
Jones appeared with an armed four and an older of court to
destroy as nuisances, two newspaper offices and the Free State
Hotel. A demand for the- surrender of arm> was complied
84 John James Ingalls.
with; a blood-red banner with a single star and the legend,
"South Carolina," was unfurled. The printing offices were
destroyed and the material thrown in the river. Four cannon
were trained on the hotel, and it was demolished. The day
closed with the pillage of stores and houses. The dwelling of
Governor Robinson was burned, and night was hideous with
the frenzied orgy of the drunken and triumphant marauders.
The total value of the property destroyed was about two hun-
dred thousand dollars.
The subjugation of Kansas by the slave power now appeared
to be accomplished. The Free State leaders were in prison ;
the principal towns of the Territory were in the hands of the
enemy. This was the result of the "wiser and more moderate
policy of submitting," which David X. Utter says had "all
along the support of the very best citizens, even the most
earnest Abolitionists."
It is not necessarv now to discuss the wisdom or unwisdom
of the policy of non-resistance which had prevailed to this
juncture among the friends of freedom in Kansas. Their sit-
uation was difficult and delicate. The National Administra-
tion was the ally of their insolent and brutal foes in Mis-
souri and the South. Rival ambitions distracted their coun-
cils. Many of the colonists from Indiana, Illinois, and other
States along the border, although opposed to slavery, were
equally hostile to free negroes, and insisted that they should
be excluded from the State. Some favored immediate eman-
cipation; others thought slavery should not be disturbed
where it existed. Diplomacy was required to avoid dissension.
Passion, violence, and retaliation might have invoked more
irreparable disasters, though nothing could have much retarded
the crisis which we now see had been long impending.
John Brown's Place in History. 85
John Brown regarded the policy as nerveless and emascu-
lated. It became soon apparent that he was in earnest. His
impatient criticisms upon the political leaders were caustic
and intolerable. He was not a politician, and wanted no
oflice. He had no sympathy with the demand that Kansas
should be a free white State. He believed in the fatherhood
of God and the brotherhood of man.
The effect of the destruction of Lawrence was instantane-
ous. Emboldened by their long immunity, the Pro-slavery
leaders openly avowed the policy of extermination, and called
upon their followers, in the chastely picturesque language of
the Squatter Sovereign newspaper, to "tar and feather, drown,
lynch, and hang every wrhite-livered Abolitionist who dares to
pollute our soil."
The company to which John Brown and his sons belonged
had marched to the relief of Lawrence on the 21st, but, learn-
ing of its destruction, had camped in the valley of Ottawa
Creek, several miles south. The next day Major Williams, a
neighbor and friend of the Browns, rode into camp and told
them that trouble was anticipated on the Pottawatomie.
'Squire Morse had been notified to leave the Territory within
three days. John Grant, Mr. Winer, and several others in tin
neighborhood had received similar notices from George Wilson,
the probate judge of the county. Judge Hanway, of Lane,
who lived near, and whose death occurred recently, says the
conspiracy was formed to "drive out, burn, and kill; and that
Pottawatomie Creek was to be cleared of every man, woman,
and child who was for Kansas being a free Stan."
Among the most active and resolute of these "Law and
Order" partisans were the Doyles, father and sons; the
brothers William and Ilcnrv Sherman, Allen Wilkinson, and
86 John- James Ixgalls.
George Wilson. Wilkinson, a native of Tennessee, was post-
master and had been a member of the "Bogus Legislature" lie
was a violent ruffian, and his widow remarked to Dr. Gilpat-
rick, the first person who called on the morning after his death,
that she had often urged him to be more quiet and moderate in
his language, but that he would not heed her advice. When
the news of the fall of Lawrence arrived, Henrv Sherman
raised a red flag over his cabin, and announced that the war
had begun. Henrv was an amiable person. In a previous
judicial proceeeding he declared, under oath, that he "would
rather kill that old man who wore spectacles and lived on the
hill than to kill a rattlesnake." The object of his animad-
version was the Rev. David Baldwin, long afterward resident
at Garnett, in an adjoining county.
The story of the death of these men has been circumstan-
tially told by James Townsley, who accompanied the expedi-
tion, and, barring some tawdry rhetoric, is fairly repeated by
David N. Utter; but he omits to add what Townskv savs in
his statement on the 3d of August, 1882, as to the effect of the
killing. His words are:
"I became and am satisfied that it resulted in good to the Free State
cause, and was especially beneficial to the Free State settlers on Pottawa-
tomie Creek. The Pro-slavery men were dreadfully terrified, and large
numbers of them left the Territory. It was afterward said that one Free
State man could scare a company of them."
Judge Ilanway, before quoted, says:
"I did not know of a settler of '56 but what regarded it .is amongst
the most fortunate events in the history of Kansas. It saved the lives of
the Free State men on the Creek, and those who did the act were looked
upon as deliverers."
One of the most eminent of the Free State leaders, who is
still living, writes:
John Brown's Place in History. 87
He was the only man who comprehended the situation, and saw the
absolute necessity lot some such blow, and had the nerve to strike it."
Another prominent actor writes :
"I wish to say right here about the Pottawatomie Creek massacre,
winch has been the theme of so much magazine literature, that at the
time it occurred it was approved by myself and hundreds of others, includ-
the most prominent of the leaders among the Free State men.
"It was one of the stern, merciless necessities of the times. The nighl
it was done I was but a few miles away on guard, to protect from destruc-
tion the homes of Free State men and their families, who had been notified
by these men and their allies to leave within a limited time or forfeit their
lives and property. The women and children dared not sleep in the
houses, and were hid away in the thickets. Something had to be done, and
the avenger appeared, and the doomed men perished — they who had
doomed others.'
It was the "blood-and-iron" prescription of Bismarck.
The Pro-slavery butchers of Kansas and their Missouri confed
erates learned that it was no longer safe to kill. They discov-
ered, at last, that nothing is so unprofitable as injustice. They
started from their guilty dream to find before them, silent and
tardy, but inexorable and relentless, with uplifted blade, the
awful apparition of vengeance and retribution.
When fohn Brown, Jr., learned of the massacre, we were
informed that he resigned his command and went home, where
he was soon after arrested. So great was his abhorrence of his
father's crime that he became insane, and during his ravii
denounced his father as an ;itroeious criminal and unmiti
gated coward. These statements are made upon tin- testi
monv of G. \Y. Brown, in the Herald of Freedom in 1859. T°e
witness may be competent, but lie is not disinterested. He
sustains the same relation to the anti slavery men of '=;<• that
Judas Iscariot did to the disciples, and is as well qualified
to write their history as Judas Iscariot would be to re\ pise
the New Testament. John Brown, Jr., instead <>i" being "ar-
88 John James Ingalls.
rested," was captured by Captain Pate, manacled with ox-
chains, and driven under a hot sun till he became delirious
from heat, fatigue, and hunger. He wrote many letters to
his father while in captivity. The following extracts from
one, dated September 8, 1856, will show the relations that
existed between them, and the opinion he entertained of his
father:
"Dear Father and Brother:
• <* * * * Having before heard of Frederick's death, and that
you were missing, my anxiety on your account has been most intense.
Though my dear brother I shall never see again here, yet I thank God you
and Jason still live. Poor Frederick has perished in a good cause the suc-
cess of which cause I trust will yet bring joy to millions. * * * *
"I can, I have no doubt, succeed in making my escape to you from
here. * * * * I am anxious to see you both, in order to perfect some
plan of escape, in case it should appear best. Come up if you consistently
can. The battle of Osawatomie is considered here as the great fight so
far, and considering the enemy's loss, it is certainly a great victory for us
— certainly a very dear burning of the town for them. * * * *
Everyone I hear speaking of you are loud in your praise. The Missou-
rians in this region show signs of great fear * * * *
" Hoping to see you soon, I am, as ever,
" Your affectionate Son and Brother."
The effect of the transaction upon Kansas, according to
David N. Utter, was "only evil," and upon the career of John
Brown was "pervasive, decisive, overwhelming," whatever
that may mean. He could not live in Kansas, continues
the veracious chronicler, nor anywhere else safely, so he dis-
guised himself by cutting off his beard and fled to New Eng-
land, where he won the confidence of some of her greatest and
noblest men; after which he hovered on the border of two
States, waiting for a signal from some unknown person to come
over to Kansas and massacre a constitutional convention.
There were so many in those days that one could have been
killed without being missed ; but for some reason the plot
John Brown's Place in History. 89
failed, and after awhile he ventured into Kansas again, made
a raid into Missouri, captured some slaves, and escorted them
to Canada.
This reaches the true dignity of history. As a matter of
fact, John Brown did live many months in Kansas after the
Pottawatomie slaughter. He participated in the battles at
Franklin, Battle Mound, Sugar Creek, Osawatomie, and Black
Jack. He was present at the siege of Lawrence in September,
and soon after went East for funds and arms. He lay ill
several weeks in Iowa, but reached Chicago in November.
Early in 1857 he reached Boston, and appeared in "disguise"
before the Legislature, asking an appropriation of ten thou-
sand dollars to defend Northern men in Kansas. Later in the
season he returned to the Territory, where he remained with
brief intervals of absence until January, 1859, organizing his
forces for the final crusade against slavery, in accordance with
plans long entertained and definitely embodied in his "Pro-
visional Constitution, " framed at Chatham, Canada West, in
May. 1858.
In December, 1858, a negro from Missouri came to his cabin
on the Osage, and informed him that he was about to be sold,
with his family, and begged for aid to escape. John Brown
immediately organized two companies, invaded Missouri, lib-
erated eleven slaves, and returned with the supplies necessary
for their support. The Governor of the State offered three
thousand dollars reward for the arrest of John Brown, which
the President of the United States supplemented with an 0
of two hundred and fifty more. John Brown retorted by a
printed proclamation, offering two dollars and fifty cents for
the delivery of James Buchanan to him in camp. He moved
slowlv northward with his four families of emigrants, colonized
90 John James Ingalls.
them near Windsor in Canada in March, 1859, an^ returned to
Kansas no more.
His subsequent career belongs to the history of the Nation.
Out of the portentous and menacing cloud of anti-slavery sen-
timent that had long brooded with sullen discontent, a baleful
meteor above the North, he sprang like a terrific thunderbolt,
whose lurid glare illuminated the continent with its devastating
flame, and whose reverberations among the splintered crags of
Harper's Ferry were repeated on a thousand battle-fields from
Gettysburg to the Gulf. From the instant that shot was fired
the discussion and debate of centuries was at an end. He who
was not for slavery was against it. The North became verte-
brated, and the age of cartilage and compromise was at an end.
The Nation seized the standard of universal emancipation
which dropped from his dying hand on the scaffold at Charles-
town, and bore it in triumph to Appomattox.
He died as he had lived, a Puritan of the Puritans. There
was no perturbation in his serene and steadfast soul. law-
productions in literature are more remarkable than his letters
written in prison, while he was under sentence of death. He
said :
"I can trust God with both the time and the manner of my death,
believing, as I now do, that for me at this time to seal my testimony for
God and humanity with my blood will do vastly more toward advancing
the cause I have earnestly endeavored to promote than all I have done in
my life before."
"As I believe most firmly that God reigns, I cannot believe that any-
thing I have done, suffered, or may yet suffer will be lost to the cause of
God or humanity; and before I began my work at Harper's Ferry I felt
assured that, in the worst event, it would certainly pay."
"I am quite cheerful. I do not feel myself in the least degraded by my
imprisonment, my chains, or the near prospect of the gallows. Men can-
not imprison, chain, nor hang the soul ! * * * lam endeavoring
to get ready for another field of action, where no defeat lief alls the truly
brave."
John Brown's Place in History. 91
"It is a great comfort to feel assured that I am permitted to die for a
cause, and not merely to pay the debt of Nature, which all must. I feel
myself to be most unworthy of so great distinction."
"I feel just as content to die for God's eternal truth, and for suffering
humanity, on the scaffold as in any other way."
"I think I cannot now better serve the cause I love so much than to
die for it; and in my deatli I may do more than in my life."
"I do not believe I shall deny my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, and
I should if I denied my principles against slavery."
What immortal and dauntless courage breathes in this pro-
cession of stately sentences; what fortitude; what patience;
what faith; what radiant and eternal hope! No pagan phil-
osopher, no Hebrew prophet, no Christian martyr, ever spoke
in loftier and more heroic strains than this "coward and mur-
derer," who declared from the near brink of an ignominious
grave that there was no acquisition so splendid as moral
purity; no inheritance' so desirable as personal liberty; noth
ing on this earth nor in the world to come so valuable as the
soul, whatever the hue of its habitation; no impulse so noble
as an unconquerable purpose to love truth, and an invincible
determination to obey God.
Carlyle says that when any great change in human society
is to be wrought, God raises up men to whom that change is
made to appear as the one thing needful and absolutely indis-
pensable. Scholars, orators, poets, philanthropists play their
parts, but the crisis comes at last through sonic one who is
stigmati7.ed as a fanatic by his contemporaries, and whom the
supporters of the systems In- avails crucify between thi<
gibbet as a felon. Tin- man who is ii"i afraid to die- for an idea
is its most potential and convincing advocate.
Already the great intellectual leaders of the movemenl
the abolition of slavery are dead. Tin- student of the future
92 John James Ingalls.
will exhume their orations, arguments, and state papers as a
part of the subterranean history of the epoch. The antiqua-
rian will dig up their remains from the alluvial drift of the
period, and construe their relations to the great events in
which they were actors; but the three men of this era who will
loom forever against the remotest horizon of time, as the Pyra-
mids above the voiceless deserts, or mountain peaks over the
subordinate plains, are Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, and
Old John Brown of Osawatomie.
EULOGY.
On the Death of Senator Henry B. Anthony, of
Rhode Island.
The service of Senator Anthony in this body exceeded the
entire period of the Republican ascendency, from Lincoln to
Garfield — a momentous interval, characterized bv unprece-
dented activity of the material, intellectual, and moral ener-
gies of the Nation, and resulting in structural changes in gov-
ernment and society.
It was an epoch of tremendous passions; of vague and
indefinite morality; of frenzied debate; of anomalous states-
manship. There were giants in those days, and when the
Macaulay of another age shall turn to rehearse their history,
he shall find little in our recorded annals to explain the remark-
able and long-continued prominence of Senator Anthony in
his State and the country, or the extraordinary influence he
exercised upon all his contemporaries.
Without the learning and eloquence of Sumner, the logic of
Fessenden, the restless industry of Wilson, or the intense and
relentless energy of Chandler and .Morton, he was the trusted
counselor and companion of all, and was accorded the highest
positions of confidence and honor to which a senator can
aspire.
For twenty-five years Senator Anthony uttered no v.
in debate in this chamber that is not recorded, but how faint
93
94 Johx James Ixgalls.
and unsatisfactory is the portrait that this will present to pos-
terity. Those who recall the melody of his diction and the
dignity of his delivery will always wonder with regret that he
so seldom spoke who spoke so well ; but no printed page could
record the gentle and benignant courtesy which shone in hi?
demeanor and lent a nameless but irresistible charm to his
deportment and bearing; the confident courage that despised
the paltry arts and hollow clamors of the demagogue; the
stainless honor that knew no taint of perfidy or guile.
lie was a minister of grace. He never made an enemy
and never lost a friend. The envy that might have been
aroused by his early success was averted by the sensitive
delicacy of his nature; and the jealousy that might have
been excited by his long supremacy was disarmed by his
loyalty to his friends, by his fidelity to his convictions, by
his unsullied integritv, by the temperate restraint of his
spirit, which no heat of controversy could disturb, nor any
rancor of partisanship provoke to retaliation unworthy of a
Christian and a gentleman.
The entire career of Senator Anthony was one of unique
and singular felicity, for him fate spared its irony. Nem-
esis was propitiated. fortune favored him. Time denied
him none of those possessions that are regarded as the chief
requisites of human happiness. He escaped calumny, and
detraction passed him by. There was no winter in his years.
He had length of days without infirmity. His ambition was
satisfied. Honor, health, love, friendship, affluence, which so
often with capricious disdain elude the most strenuous pur-
suit, attended him as courtiers surround a monarch. His
life was not fragmentary and unfinished, but full-orbed and
complete. Death was not an interruption, but a climax.
Senator Henry B. Anthony. 95
His sun was neither obscured nor eclipsed, but followed its
appointed path to the western horizon. So he departed, and
above his spirit and fame abides the enduring covenant of
peace:
' His memory, like a cloudless sky
His conscience, like a sea at rest.'
HAPPINESS.
Happiness is an endowment, and not an acquisition. It
depends more upon temperament and disposition than envi-
ronment. It is a state or condition of mind, and not a com-
modity to be bought or sold in the market. A beggar may be
happier in his rags than a king in his purple. Poverty is no
more incompatible with happiness than wealth, and the inquiry,
How to be happv chough poor? implies a want of understand-
ing of the conditions upon which happiness depends. Dives
was not happy because he was a millionaire nor Lazarus
wretched because he was a pauper. There is a quality in the
soul of man that is superior to circumstances and that defies
calamity and misfortune. The man who is unhappy when he
is poor would be unhappy if he were rich, and he who is happy
in a palace in Paris would be happy in a dug-out on the frontier
of Dakota. There are as many unhappy rich men as there
are unhappy poor men. Every heart knows its own bitter-
ness and its own joy. Not that wealth and what it brings
is not desirable — books, travel, leisure, comfort, the best food
and raiment, agreeable companionship — but all these do not
necessarily bring happiness and may coexist with the deepest
wretchedness, while adversity and penury, exile and privation
are not incompatible with the loftiest exaltation of the soul.
"More true joy Marcellus exiled feels,
Than Caesar with a Senate at his heels."
96
OPPORTUNITY.
Master of human destinies am If
Fame, love and fortune on my footsteps wait.
Cities and fields I walk; I penetrate
Deserts and seas remote, and passing by
Hovel and mart and palace, soon or late
I knock unbidden once at every gate!
If sleeping, wake; if feasting, rise before
I turn away. It is the hour of fate.
And they who follow me reach every state
Mortals desire, and conquer every foe
Save death; but those who doubt or hesitate,
Condemned to failure, penury and woe,
Seek me in vain and uselessly implon .
I answer not, and I return no moi
MY SPRING RESIDENCE.
(Published in The Williams (College) Quarterly, June, 1855.)
Build me a pillared Castle in the Air
Within some mountain's purple hollow, scooped
Upon its western slope, mid forests where
The clouds are anchored and the pines are .ooped
With braided gold and gloom.
Drowse it with murmured hum of droning bees
And sleepy din of fountains spouting wine
Whose spray shall drown the sense in ecstasies
And wrap the air, as incense from a shrine,
In faint and rare perfume.
Story its walls with pictures seen in dream:
The loves of gods and wreathing groups of maid
With slender throats and hair in golden stream;
The palpitating hues and woven shades
From sunset's cloudy loom.
Carve fluted columns zenith-high; a dome
Of Grecian harmony, and capitals
Remote in air above the eagle's home.
Set statues upon sculptured pedestals
Round the majestic room.
Let mild-eyed Shakspeare sit upon the throne.
With wild, impetuous Shelley at bis side;
Then he, by Gorgon critics turned to stone,
Who felt, long summer days before he died,
White daises on his tomb.
Thrill the dumb air with distant music poured
Through silver tubes, or shaken from the strings
Of melancholy harps to the accord
Of cataracts, whose water leaps and sings
Swift through a rocky flume
9S
My Spring Residence. 99
Strew me a couch knee-deep with flowers and grass,
With cool and oozy mosses for mv head.
And curtain it with vines whose buds are stars,
With trailing arbute and primroses red
Just bursting into bloom.
Gird my enchanted valley with a zone
< >t" snowy summits lading to the sea,
Lit by a sun which like an opal-stone
Glows with a mild, fantastic brilliancy
To burn but not consume.
Through the blue landscape, leagues remote and deep,
A glimmering river smiles along its way
As a bright dream Hows through the lands of sleep
And wastes in the oblivious sea of day
Which alien skies illume.
Here will I dwell in delicatest rest,
And watch the clouds that paint the evening sky.
Or slope their walls of .^ray along the west
And march afar in rainy rhythm by
With flame and sea-like boom;
Untwine the music of the leaves and brooks
And let the world neglected thunder on:
What recks the clutch of gold, the greed of books,
The scholar's laurel or the poet's crown
The victor's sword and plume?
A life of calm repose and liberal ease
Orbed by the limits of impassioned sense;
A life of summer days on singing seas,
A voyage without cause or consequence,
Be this mv Godlike doom!
Golden Hill, 1^55.
L
BLUE GRASS.
Attracted by the bland softness of an afternoon in my
primeval winter in Kansas, I rode southward through the
dense forest that then covered the bluffs of the North Fork
of Wildcat. The ground was sodden with the ooze of melt-
ing snow. The dripping trees were as motionless as granite.
The last year's leaves, tenacious lingerers, loath to leave
the scene of their brief braver)-, adhered to the gray boughs
like fragile bronze. There were no visible indications of life,
but the broad, wintry landscape was flooded with that inde-
scribable splendor that never was on sea or shore — a purple
and silken softness, that half veiled, half disclosed the alien
horizon, the vast curves of the remote river, the transient
architecture of the clouds, and filled the responsive soul with
a vague tumult of emotions, pensive and pathetic, in which
regrel and hope contended for the mastery. The dead and
silent globe, with all its hidden kingdoms, seemed swimming
like a bubble, suspended in an ethereal solution of amethyst
and silver, compounded of tin- exhaling whiteness of the
snow, the descending glory of the sky. A tropical atmos-
phere brooded upon an arctic scene, creating the strange
spectacle of summer in winter, June in January, peculiar to
Kansas, which unseen cannot be imagined, but once seen can
never be forgotten. A sudden descent into the sheltered
valley revealed an unexpected crescenl of dazzling verdure.
Blue Grass. ioi
glittering like a meadow in early spring, unreal as an incan-
tation, surprising - he sea to the soldiers of Xenophon as
they stood upon the- shore and shouted, ' ' Thalatta! '" It was
Blue Grass, unknown in Eden, the final triumph of Nature,
reserved to compensate her favorite offspring in the new
paradise of Kansas for the loss of the old upon the banks of
the Tigris and Euphrates.
Next in importance to the divine profusion of water,
light, and air, those three great physical facts which render
existence possible, may be reckoned the universal benefi-
cence of grass. Exaggerated by tropical heats and vapors
to the gigantic cane congested with its saccharine secretion.
or dwarfed b) polar rigors to the fibrous hair of northern
solitudes, embracing between these- extremes the maize with
its resolute pennons, the rice plant of Southern swamps, the
wheat, rye, barley, oats, and other cereals, no less than the
humbler verdure of hillside, pasture, and prairie in the tern
perate zone, grass is the most widely distributed of all
etable beings, and is at once the type of our life and the emblem
of our mortalitv,' Lying in the sunshine among the butter
cups and dandelions of May. scarcely higher in intelligence
than the minute tenants of that mimic wilderness, our earli-
est recollections are of grass; and when the fitful fever is
ended, and the foolish wrangle of the market and forum is
closed, grass heals over the scar which our descent into Un-
bosom of the earth has mack-, and the carpet of the infant
becomes the blanket of tin- dead. J
As he reflected upon the brevity of human life, gra^ has
o the favorite symbol of the moralist, the chosen theme
of the philosopher. "All flesh is grass said the- prophet;
"My days are as tin . 1 tin- troubled patriarch;
102 John James Ingaixs.
and the pensive Xebuehadnezzar, in his penitential mood,
exceeded even these, and, as the sacred historian informs us,
did eat grass like an ox.
Grass is the forgiveness of Nature — her constant bene-
diction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated with blood,
torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again with grass,
and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by traffic become
grass-grown like rural lanes, and are obliterated. Forests de-
cay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is immortal.
Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of winter, it withdraws into
the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality, and
emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. Sown by the
winds, by wandering birds, propagated by the subtle hor-
ticulture of the elements which are its ministers and servants,
it softens the rude outline of the world. Its tenacious fibres
hold the earth in its place, and prevent its soluble compo-
nents from washing into the wasting sea. It invades the soli-
tude of deserts, climbs the inaccessible slopes and forbidding
pinnacles of mountains, modifies climates, and determines the
history, character, and destiny of nations. Unobtrusive and
patient, it has immortal vigor and aggression. Banished from
the thoroughfare and the field, it abides its time to return, and
when vigilance is relaxed, or the dynasty has perished, it
silently resumes the throne from which it has been expelled,
but which it never abdicates. It bears no blazonry of bloom
to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but its homely
hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose. It yields no
fruit in earth or air, and yet should its harvest fail for a single
year, famine would depopulate the world. //
One grass differs from another grass in glory. One is
vulgar and another patrician. There are grades in its veg-
Blue Grass. io;
etable nobility. Some varieties are useful. Some are beau-
tiful. Others combine utility and ornament. The sour, reedy
herbage of swamps is base-born. Timothy is a valuable serv-
ant. Redtop and clover are a degree higher in the social scale.
But the king of them all, with genuine blood royal, is Blue
Grass. Why it is called blue, save that it is most vividly and
intensely green, is inexplicable; but had its unknown priest
baptized it with all the hues of the prism, he would not have
changed its hereditary title to imperial superiority over all its
humbler kin.
Taine, in his incomparable history of English literature,
has well said that the body of man in even- country is deeply
rooted in the soil of Nature. He might properly have de-
clared that men were wholly rooted in the soil, and the char-
acter of nations, like that of forests, tubers, and grains, is
entirelv determined by the climate and soil in which they
germinate. Dogmas grow like potatoes. Creeds and carrots,
catechisms and cabbages, tenets and turnips, religion and ruta-
bagas, governments and grasses, all depend upon the dew-
point and the thermal range. Give the philosopher a handful
of soil, the mean annual temperature and rainfall, and his anal-
vsis would enable him to predict with absolute certainty the
characteristics of the nation.
Calvinism transplanted to the plains of the Ganges would
perish of inanition. Webster is as much an indigenous prod-
uct of Xew England as its granite and its pines. Xapoleon
was possible onlv in France; Cromwell in England; Christ,
and the splendid invention of immortality, alone in Pales-
tine. Moral causes and qualities exert influences far beyond
their nativity, and ideas are transplanted and exported to
meet the temporary requirements of the tastes <>r necessities
io4 John James Ingalls,
I
of man ; as we sec exotic palms in the conservatories of Chats-
worth, russet apples at Surinam, and oranges in Atchison.
But there is no growth ; nothing but change of location. The
phenomena of politics exhibit the operations of the same law.
Contrast the enduring fabric of our federal liberties wdth the
abortive struggles of Mexico and the Central American repub-
lics. The tropics are inconsistent with democracy. Tyranny
is alien to the temperate zone.
The direct agency upon which all these conditions depend,
and through which these forces operate, is food. Temper-
ature, humidity, soil, sunlight, electricity, vital force, express
themselves primarily in vegetable existence that furnishes
the basis of that animal life which yields sustenance to the
human race. What a man, a community, a nation can do,
think, suffer, imagine, or achieve depends upon what it eats.
Bran-eaters and vegetarians are not the kings of men. Rice
and potatoes are the diet of slaves. The races that live on
beef have ruled the world; and the better the beef the great-
er the deeds they have done. Mediaeval Europe, the Van-
dals and Huns and Goths, ate the wild hog, whose brutal
ferocity was repeated in their truculent valor, and whose
loathsome protoplasm bore the same relation to that barbar-
ous epoch that a rosy steak from a short-horned Durham
does to the civilization of the nineteenth century. A dim
consciousness of the intimate connection between regimen and
religion seems to have dawned upon the intellectual horizon
of those savage tribes who cat the missionaries which a mis-
guided philanthropy has sent to save their souls from perdi-
tion. A wiser charity would avail itself of the suggestions of
modern science, and forward potted apostles, desiccated saints,
and canned evangelists directly to the scene of their labors
Blue Grass. 105
among these hungering pagans. Some clerical Liebig lias here
an opportunity for immediate distinction.
The primary form of food is grass. Grass feeds the ox :
the ox nourishes man: man dies and goes to grass again;
and so the tide of life, with everlasting repetition, in contin-
uous circles, moves endlessly on and upward, and in more
senses than one, all flesh is grass. But all flesh is not blue
grass. If it were, the devil's occupation would be gone.
There is a portion of Kentucky known as the "Blue Grass
Region," and it is safe to say that it has been the arena of the
most magnificent intellectual and physical development that has
been witnessed among men or animals upon the American con-
tinent, or perhaps upon the whole face of the world. In cor-
roboration of this belief, it is necessary only to mention Henrv
Clay, the orator, and the horse Lexington, both peerless, electric,
immortal. The ennobling love of the horse has extended to all
other raeis of animals. Incomparable herds of high-bred cattk
graze the tranquil pastures; their elevating protoplasm supply
ing a finer force to human passion, brain, and will. Hog art
ists devote their genius to shortening the snouts and swelling
the hams of their grunting brethren. The rellex of this so-
licitude appears in the muscular, athletic vigor of the nun, and
the voluptuous beauty of the women who inhabit this favored
land. Palaces, temples, forests, peaceful institutions, social
order, spring like exhalations from the congenial soil.
All these man-els are attributable as directly to the poten-
tial influence of blue grass as day and night t<> tin- revolution
of the earth. Eradicate it, substitute for it the scrawny
herbage of impoverished barrens, and in a si eneration
man and beast would alike degenerate into a common decay.
And herein lies the fundamental error of thosi :1 and
106 John James I. w, alls.
moral economists who attempt to ameliorate the condition
of the degraded orders by commencing with the Bible, the
didactic essay, the impassionel appeal. These are results,
not causes. Education, religion, and culture are conditions
which must be developed, not formulas to be memorized.
The Decalogue has no significance to a Comanche, and the
attempt to civilize him by preaching is as senseless as would
be the effort to change a Texas steer into a Durham by
reading Alexander's Herd-book in the cattle-pens at Wichita.
The creature to be civilized must be elevated to a condition
that renders civilization possible. To secure flavor in the
grape, color in the rose, we do not go to the apothecary for
his essences, or to the painter for his hues, but to the soul
for its subtle chemistry. And thus the wise philanthropist
will work from within outward, and employ those agencies
which render necessities less exacting, appetites less urgent,
the nerves more sensitive, the brain more receptive, and the
senses and the muscles more ready ministers of an enlight-
ened will. Man cannot become learned, refined, and tolerant
while every energy of body and soul is consumed in the task
of wresting a bare sustenance from a penurious soil; neither
can woman become elegant and accomplished when every
hour of every day in every year is spent over the wash-tub
and the frying-pan. There must be leisure, competence, and
repose, and these can only be attained where the results of
labor are abundant and secure.
A more uninviting field for the utilitarian cannot be imag-
ined than one of the benighted border counties of Missouri,
where climate, products, labor, and tradition have conspired
to develop a race of hard visaged and forbidding ruffians,
exhibiting a grotesque medley of all the vices of civilization
Blue Grass. 107
unaccompanied even by the negative virtues of barbarisi
To these fallen angels villainy is an amusement, crime a recre-
ation, murder a pastime. They pursue from purpose every
object that should be shunned by instinct. To (he ignorance
of the Indian they add the ferocity of the wolf, the venom
of the adder, the cowardice of the slave. The contemplation
of their deeds would convince the optimist that any system
of morals would be imperfect that did not include a hell of
tin largest dimensions. Their continued existence is a stand-
ing reproach to the New Testament, to the doctrines of every
apostle, to the creed of every church.
But even this degradation, unspeakable as it is, arises large-
ly from material causes, and is susceptible of relief. In the
moral pharmacy there is an antidote.
The salutary panacea is Blue Grass.
This is the healing catholicon, the strengthening plaster,
the verdant cataplasm, efficient alike in tin- Materia Medica
of Nature and of morals.
Sied the country down to blue grass and the reformation
would begin. Such a change must be gradual. One gen-
eration would not witness it, hut three would see it accom
plished. The first symptom would be an undefined uneasi
ness along the creeks, in the rotten eruption of cottonwood
hovels near the grist-mill and the blacksmith's simp at the
fork of the roads, followed by a "toting" of plunder into the
"bow dark" wagon and an exodus for "out West." A -
backed mule geared to a spavined sorrel, or a dwarfish yoke
of stunted steers, drag the creaking wain along the muddy
roads, accelerated by the long drawn "Whoo-hoop a Haw avv-
aw!" of "Dad" in butternut-colored homespun, as he walks
beside, cracking a black-snake with a detonation like a Der-
[o8 John James Ingalls.
ringer. "Mam" and half a score of rat-faced children peer
. the chaos within. A rough coop of chickens, a split-
bottom "cheer," and a rusty joint of pipe depend from the
rear, as the dismal procession moves westward, and is lost
in the confused obscurity of the extreme frontier. vSome,
too poor or too timid to emigrate, would remain behind,
contenting themselves with a sullen revolt against the census,
the alphabet, the multiplication table, and the penitentiary.
Dwelling upon the memory of past felonies, which the hang-
man prevents them from repeating, they clasp hands across
the bloody chasm. But the aspect of Nature and society
would gradually change — fields widen, forests increase; fences
are straightened, dwellings painted, schools established. It
is no longer disreputable to know how to read in words of
one svllable, and to spell one's name. The knowledge of
the use of soap imperceptibly extends. The hair, which
was wont to hang upon the shoulders, is shorn as high as
the ears. The women no longer ride the old roan "mar,"
smoking a cob-pipe, with a blue cotton sun-bonnet cocked
over the left eye, but assume the garb of the milliner, and
come to the store with their eggs and butter in a Jackson
wagon. Pistols are laid aside. Oaths and quarrels are less
frequent. Drunkenness is not so general, and the indis-
criminate use of illicit whisky partially yields to the peaceful
lager and the cheering wine, although in his festive hours
the true son of the soil cannot forbear to occasionally kill a
teacher, burn a school-house, or flay a negro, by way of face-
tious recreation. The second generation would probably dis-
card butternut and buttermilk, and adopt the diet and habit
of the lower classes in New England. The third might not be
Blue Grass. 109
distinguishable, without close inspection, from the aver
American gentleman.
Kansas has no such moral obstacles to surmount, no such
degradation to overcome. Her career commenced upon a
high grade, and her course has been constantly upward; but
it cannot be indefinitely continued on prairie grass. This
will nourish mustangs, antelope, Texas cattle, but not thor
oughbreds. It is the product of an uncultured soil, alter-
nately burned with drought, drenched with sudden show<
and frozxn with the rigors of savage winters. Already it is
deteriorating under influences that should be favorable to
its improvement. Armies of rank weeds have invaded its
domain in the neighborhood of our chief cities, and are en-
croaching upon its solitudes. If we would have prosperity
commensurate with our opportunities, we must look to Blue
Grass. It will raise the temperature, increase the rainfall,
improve the climate, develop a higher fauna and flora, and
consequently a loftier attendant civilization.
Every portion of our country possesses its own character-
istics, as specific as those of different nations. The thrift
and industry of New England, the haughty indolence of the
South, the volcanic energy of the West, the wild life of
the mining regions of the Rocky Mountains and California —
these are not only ideas that an- recognized, bul they have
their types and representatives in literature and art. Boston
and Xew York are not more unlike- than Chicago and
Louis, and Denver and San Francisco resemble Pari uch
as any of their American sister citi They are all illus
tions of the law that human character and conduct dep<
upon physical and material conditions.
no John James Ixgalls.
The typical Kansan has not yet appeared. Our population
is composed of more alien and conflicting elements than were
ever assembled under one political organization, each mature,
each stimulated to abnormal activity. It is not yet fused
and welded into a homogeneous mass, and we must therefore
consult the oracles of analogy to ascertain in what garb
our coming man will arrive. His lineaments and outline will
be controlled by the abode we fashion and the food we prepare
for him when he comes.
Though our State is embryonic and foetal at present, it
is not difficult to perceive certain distinctive features indig-
enous to our limits. The social order is anomalous. Our
politics have been exceptional, violent, personal, convulsive.
The appetite of the community demands the stimulus of
revolution. It is not content with average results in morals.
It hungers for excitement. Its favorite apostles and proph-
ets have been the howling dervishes of statesmanship and
religion. Every new theory seeks Kansas as its tentative-
point, sure of partisans and disciples. Our life is intense in
everv expression. We pass instantaneously from tremendous
energy to the most inert and sluggish ' torpor. There is no
goMen mean. We act first and think afterwards. These idio-
syncrasies are rapidly becoming typical, and unless modified
by the general introduction of Blue Grass, may be rendered
pen ument. Nature is inconstant and moulds us to her vary-
ing moods.
Kansas is all antithesis. It is the land of extremes. It
is 'he hottest, eldest, dryest, wettest, thickest, thinnest coun-
try of the world. The stranger who crossed our borders for
the first time at Wyandotte and traveled by rail to White
Cloud would with consternation contrast that uninterrupted
Blue Grass. i i i
Sierra of rugose and oak-clad crags with the placid prairies
of his imagination. Let him ride along the spine of any of
those lateral "divides" or water-sheds whose
"Level leagues forsaken lie,
A grassy waste, extending to the skv,"
and he would be oppressed by the same melancholy monotony
which broods over those who pursue the receding horizon
over the fluctuating plains of the sea. And let his discur-
sion be whither it would, if he listened to the voice of experi-
ence, he would not start upon his pilgrimage at any season
of the year without an overcoat, a fan, a lightning-rod, and
an umbrella.
The new-comer, alarmed by the traditions of the drought
of '60," when, in the language of one of the varnished rhet-
oricians of that epoch, "acorns were used for food, and the
bark of trees for clothing," views with terror the long suc-
cession of dazzling early summer days; days without clouds
and nights without dew; days when the effulgent sun Hoods
the dome with fierce and blinding radiance; days of glittering
leaves and burnished blades of serried ranks of corn; davs
when the transparent air, purged of all earthly exhalation
and alloy, seems like a pure powerful lens, revealing a remoter
horizon and a profounder sk\\
But his apprehensions are relieved by the unheralded
appearance- of a cloud no bigger than a man's hand, in the
northwest. A huge hulk of purple and ebony vapor, pre-
ceded by a surging wave of pallid smoke, blots out the skv
Birds and insects disappear, and cattle abruptly stand agaz«.d.
An appalling silence, an ominous darkness, till the atmos-
phere. A continuous roll of muffled thunder, increasing in
ii2 John James Ingaixs.
time, shakes the solid earth. The air suddenly grows chill
and smells like an unused cellar. A fume of yellow dust
conceals the base of the meteor. The jagged scimitar of the
lightning, drawn from its cloudy scabbard, is brandished for
a terrible instant in the abyss, and thrust into the affrighted
city, with a crash as if the rafters of the world had fallen.
The wind, hitherto concealed, leaps from its ambush and
lashes the earth with scourges of rain. The broken cisterns
of the clouds can hold no water, and rivers run in the atmos-
phere. Dry ravines become turbid torrents, bearing cargoes
of drift and rubbish on their swift descent. Confusion and
chaos hold undisputed sway. In a moment the turmoil ceases.
A gray veil of rain stands like a wall of granite in the eastern
skv. The trailing banners of the storm hang from the frail
bastions. The routed squadrons of mist, gray on violet, ter-
rified fugitives, precipitately fly beneath the triumphal arch
of a rainbow whose airy and insubstantial glory dies with the
dving sun.
For days the phenomenon is repeated. Water oozes from
the air. The strands of rain are woven with the inconstant
sunbeam. Reeds and sedges grow in the fields, and all nature
tends to fins, web-feet, and amphibiousness.
Oppressed by the sedate monotony of the horizon, and
tortured by the alternating hopes and fears which such a
climate excites, the prairie-dweller becomes sombre and grave
in his conversation and demeanor. Upon that illimitable
expanse, and beneath that silent and cloudless sky, mirth
and levity are impossible'. Meditation becomes habitual.
Fortitude ami persistence succumb under the careless hus-
bandry induced by the generous soil. The forests, ledges,
and elevations which serve to identify other Idealities and
Bum: Crass. i 13
make them conspicuous arc wanting here. Nature furnishes
farms ready-made, like clothing in a slop-shop. and. as we
relinquish without pain what we acquire without toil, the den-
izen has no local attachments, and daunted by slight obstacles,
or discontented by trivial discomforts, becomes migratory and
follows the coyote and the bison. The pure stimulus of the
air brings his nerves into unnatural sensitiveness and activity.
His few diseases are brief and fatal. Rapid evaporation ab-
sorbs the juices of his body, and he grows cachectic. Hospi-
tality is formal. Life assumes its most serious aspect. In
religion he is austere ; in debauchery, violent and excessive, but
irregular.
The thoughtful observer cannot fail to conclude that Kan-
sas is to be the theatre of some extraordinary development in
the future. Our history, soil, climate, and population have
all been exceptional, and they all point to an anomalous des-
tiny. Our position is focal. Energy accumulates lure. < >ur
material advancement indicates a concentration of force, such
as no State in its infancy has ever witnessed. Every citizen
is impressed with the belief that he has a special mission to
perform. Every immigrant immediately catches the contagion
and sleeps no more. He rushes to the frontier, stakes out a
town without an inhabitant, builds a hotel without a guest,
starts a newspaper without a subscriber, organizes railroad
companies for direct connections with New York, San Fran
cisro. Hudson's Bay, and the Gulf "t" Mexico. When two or
three are gathered together, they vote a million dollars of 10
percent bonds, payable in London, and before the prairie-dogs
have had time to secure a new location, the bonds are sold, k> -
motives are heard screaming in the distance, a Strang popula-
tion assembles from the four quarters of the glotx , and an imp -
ii4 John- James Ingalls.
sioned orator rises in the next State convention and demands
the nomination of the Honorable Ajax Agamemnon of Mara-
thon, to represent that ancient constituency in the halls of the
national Congress. In a year, or a month it may be, the excite-
ment subsides, corner lots can be bought for less than the price
of quarter-sections, jimson-weeds start up in the streets, second-
hand clothing men purchase the improvements for a tenth of
their cost, and the volcano breaks out in some other part of
the vState.
The names of dead Kansas newspapers outnumber the liv-
ing ; her acts of incorporation for forgotten cities, towns, rail-
roads, ferries, colleges, cemeteries, banks, fill ponderous vol-
umes ; the money that has been squandered in these chimerical
schemes would build the Capitol of polished marble and cover
its dome with beaten gold.
But, notwithstanding this random and spasmodic activity,
our solid progress has been without parallel. No community
in the world can show a corresponding advancement in the
same time and under similar circumstances. Guided by reflec-
tion, directed by prudence, controlled by calm reason, upon
what higher eminence these intense forces might have placed
us can hardly be conjectured. But such a career, however
fortunate it might have been, our physical surroundings have
rendered impossible. The sudden release of the accumulated
energy so long imprisoned in the useless soil, the prodigious
store of electricity in the atmosphere, and the resentment
which Nature always exhibits at the invasion of her soli-
tudes, all contributed to induce a social disorder as intem-
perate as their own. But an improvement in our physical
conditions is already perceptible. The introduction of the
metals in domestic and agricultural implements, jewelry, rail-
Blue Grass. 115
roads, and telegraphs has, to a great extent, restored the
equilibrium, and, by constantly conducting electricity to the
earth, prevents local congestion and a recurrence of the tem-
pests and tornadoes of the early days. The rains which
wire wont to run from the trampled pavement of the sod
suddenly into the streams, are now absorbed into the cul-
tivated soil, and gradually restored to the air by solar evap-
oration, making the alternation of the seasons less violent,
and continued droughts less probable. Under these benign
inlluences, prairie grass is disappearing. The various breeds
of cattle, hogs, and horses are improving. The culture of
orchards and vineyards yields more certain returns. A rich-
er, healthier, and more varied diet is replacing the side-
meat and corn-pone of antiquity. Blue grass is marching
into the bowels of the land without impediment. Its per-
ennial verdure already clothes the bluffs and uplands along
the streams, its spongy sward retaining the moisture of the
earth, preventing the annual scarifications by fire, promot-
ing the growth of forests, and elevating the nature of man.
Supplementing this material improvement is an evident
advance in manners and morals. The little log school-house
is replaced by magnificent structures furnished with every
educational appliance. Churches multiply. The commercial
element has disappeared from politics. The intellectual stand-
ard of the press has advanced, and with the general diffusion
of blue grass, we may reasonably anticipate a career of unex-
ampled and enduring prosperity.
The drama has opened with a stately procession of his-
toric events. Xo ancient issues confuse the theme. Xo bu-
ried nations sleep in the untainted soil, vexing the present
with their phantoms, retarding progress with tin- burden
n6 John James Ingalls.
of their outworn creeds, depressing enthusiasm by the silent
reproof of their mighty achievements. Heirs of the greatest
results of time, we are emancipated from all allegiance to
the past. Unencumbered by precedents, we stand in the
vestibule of a future which is destined to disclose upon this
arena time's noblest offspring — the perfected flower of Amer-
ican manhood.
CATFISH ARISTOCRACY.
To the physical geographer, Kansas presents an elevated,
treeless plateau, rising with imperceptible gradation west-
ward toward the base of the Rocky Mountains. Its area
is quadrangular, with regular outlines, except upon that por-
tion of its eastern boundary which conforms to the sinuosi-
ties of the Missouri.
The withdrawal of the ocean beneath which this terri-
tory was originally submerged, and the drainage of the rains
and melting snows that subsequently fell upon its surface,
practically bisected this parallelogram with a central water-
course known to cheap politicians as the "Valley of the Kaw,"
which, with its numerous affluents from either side, resem-
bles the spinal cord of the vertebrate, with its lateral nerves
branching fiom the cervix at Wyandotte to the coccyx or os
sacrum in Colorado.
Commencing at the general level of the upland, these trib-
utaries wear deeper and wider channels through the friable and
incoherent soil. Their gat lured volume, with sluggish moment-
um, crawls reluctantly eastward, forming the Kansas River,
one of the most important affluents of the Missouri. Tli
streams may be properly characterized as amphibious, or com-
posed equally of land and water. They constitute an anomaly
in Nature, being too shallow for navigation, too dense for a
constant beverage, and too iluid for culture. If the catfish
117
n8 John James Ingalls.
were permanently expelled, and proper attention given to sub-
soil plowing and irrigation in dry seasons, they would eventu-
ally become the garden -spots of the world. This is an appro-
priate field for legislative action, and Congress should be im-
mediately memorialized upon the subject.
During our Territorial history, a company was incorporated
to render the Kaw navigable, by cutting a conduit from the
Platte to the headwaters of the Republican, and thus uniting
the two rivers. The resolute opposition of the farmers of
Nebraska, who would have been deprived of stock- water by
the success of the scheme, prevented the consummation of
this great enterprise, which would only have been equalled by
the Suez Canal in its effects upon the commerce of the world.
But the present Legislature is so much occupied in discussing
the one-term principle, in discovering who received the most
money for his vote at the election of the last senator, and in
passing resolutions to adjourn, that nothing can be expected
upon the irrigation proposition before another session.
The outer limits of these valleys are the bluffs, whose sum-
mits were the original shores of the rivers, when their broad,
shallow currents had a scarcely perceptible motion toward the
Gulf of Mexico. As the attrition has worn deeper and deeper
channels, the lateral drainage has cut narrow and precipitous
defiles through the bluffs, giving them an apparent isolation,
and sculpturing them into rugged and picturesque outlines,
waiting only to be crowned with castles to become as romantic
as the banks of the Rhine. The increased moisture of soil and
atmosphere preventing the annual devastation by fire, for-
ests of oak, hickory, and other deciduous trees have gradu-
ally clothed the slopes and ravines of the hills with their grace-
ful garniture, and extended a short distance into the interior.
Catfish Aristocracy. ii<)
The length of time required for the accomplishment of these
results is matter of surmise and conjecture. Inasmuch as the
waters of the Missouri now flow in a bed at least one hundred
and fifty feet lower than the adjacent level of the prairie, and
have cut through a stratum of solid limestone not less than
fifteen feet thick in their descent, it is probable that the proc-
ess must have commenced previous to the passage of the
Nebraska Bill in 1854, and possibly prior to the affair in the
Garden of Eden.
The degradation of the hills and the detritus washed down
from the higher regions is suspended in the sordid wave, and
deposited along the margins of the streams at the base of the
bluffs, in greater or lesser crescents of muddy sand, whereso-
ever the capricious current permits a momentary delay. Born
of a snag, a wreck, an adverse gale, a sunken floater, anything
that can afford brief lodgement for accumulation, these accre-
tions may dissolve and vanish with the next "rise," or they
may mysteriously elevate themselves above the level of the
water, give root to wind-sown willows, cottonwoods, elms, and
sycamores, an anonymous growth of feculent herbage and fes-
tering, crawling weeds, but never a bright blade of wholesome
grass, a lovely bud or flower.
Malarious brakes and jungles suddenly exhale from the
black soil, in whose loathsome recesses the pools of pure
rain change by some horrible alchemy into green ooze ami
bubbly slime, breeding reptiles and vermin that creep and fly,
infecting earth and air with their venom, fatal alike to action
and repose Gigantic parasites smother and strangle the
huge trunks they embrace, turning them into massive col-
umns of verdure, changing into a crimson like that of blo.nl
when smitten by the frosts of October. Pendulous, leafless
i2o John James Ingalls.
vines dismally sway from the loftiest trees like gallows with-
out their tenants. Deadly vapors, and snaky, revolting odors,
begotten of decay, brood in the perpetual gloom.
If not too soon undermined by the insidious chute gnaw-
ing at its foundation of quaking quicksands, this foul alluvion
becomes subject to local government, and, under a mistaken
idea that it is a component part of this sure and firm-set earth,
is surveyed and taxed. Its useless forests are deadened, and
the ruined boles stand like grizzly phantoms in the waste. A
zig-zag pen of rotten rails creeps round a hovel of decayed logs
with mud-daubed interstices that seems to spring like a conge-
nial exhalation from the ground. In the uncouth but appro-
priate phraseology of its denizens, it is "cleared bottom," and
has become the abode of the catfish aristocrat. It was amid
such surroundings that I first met Shang, the Grand Duke of
this order of nobility. Thus he had always lived; thus his
ancestors, if he had any ; and thus he and his successsors, heirs,
and assigns will continue to live till education, religion, and
development shall render him and his congeners as impossi-
ble as the monsters that tore each other in the period of the
Jurassic group.
The f( >es of Darwin are accustomed to assail the deductions
of that impolite philosopher by the assertion that beings are
nowhere found in transit from type to type, either among the
higher or lower orders of existence. In their efforts to escape
the irresistible conclusion that their own immediate ancestors
were monkeys or donkeys, they affirm with suspicious plaus-
ibility that if this process of evolution were constantly pro-
ceeding, we should somewhere find a fish with feathers, a bird
with fins, a horse with horns, or a man with unpared claws and
a prehensile tail.
Catfish Aristocracy. 121
These high-prairie logicians who thus attempt to salve
their wounded vanity are possibly honest, but their horizon
is narrow. They illustrate the errors that arise from imper-
fect generalization, based upon insufficient data. Reflection
should convince them that they had seen hogs on the bench,
asses in the pulpit, and bores in every relation in life; and if
they would descend from their altitudes to the dwellers along
the creeks and upon the bottoms, we should hear no more of
this sophistical argument. In Shang they would find that
long-lost brother, "the connecting link between man and the
gorilla."
They would also discover additional proof cf another sig-
nificant fact, interesting not less in physics than in morals, but
indisputable in both, that vice, degradation, infamy, ignor-
ance— all the conditions that tend to corrupt and debase man-
kind— by some inexorable law of their being, do most luxuri-
antly thrive and flourish on low and level lands, the shores
of rivers, and the margins of gulfs and lakes and bays. Sin
gravitates downward, not spiritually alone, but materially also.
Nature abhors it. She throws the harlot and the drunkard in
the gutter. She moves her human trash, like her other gar
bage, constantly lower and lower, till it is consumed in central
fires or purged in purifying seas.
Whatever is virtuous and lofty in thought, sentiment,
and purpose, we irresistibly associate with elevated regions:
mountain summits cleaving the zenith, high table-lands, with
clear streams and glittering atmosphere.
"What pleasure dwells in height, the shepherd sang,
In htight and cold, the splendor ot the hills! '
The patriotism of mountaineers, their love of home, inl
rity, religion, fortitude, are proverbial. The history of Suit/.-
122 John James Ingaixs.
erland and the national characteristics of its inhabitants, the
hardy virtues of the farmers of New England and the peas-
antry of Northern Europe, are in vivid contrast with the name-
less degradation of the emasculated myriads that swarm upon
the alluvions of the Ganges, the Missouri, and the Nile.
The same distinction is perceptible within the narrow range
of isolated communities. Business, traffic, manufactures, what-
ever enslaves man and drags him down to the level of his
most clamorous necessities, seek low grades; while the church,
the school, the home, crown the eminences that rise above the
dust and smoke of this dim spot which men call earth.
The hell of theology is in a bottomless pit, a profound abyss;
while the evangelical heaven is depicted to the popular fancy
as a walled and castellated city, leaning over whose comfort-
able battlements the celestial burghers contemplate, with
complacent security, the elaborate contortions of their less-
favored brethren in fuliginous realms below.
The Esquimaux could not exist at ' the equator, nor the
Hindoo at the pole. No man of genius or power in letters,
arts, or arms has ever been born outside of a narrow zone of
mean annual temperature. Whether soil, climate, and diet
produce their own peculiar species of the human animal, or
whether, being created, he seeks the conditions to which he is
specially adapted, is a matter of doubt, but the fact admits of
no question. The most cursory observer cannot fail to notice
the difference, even in the same township, county, or State,
between the farmers who live in bottoms and those who culti-
vate the prairie; between communities that congregate un-
der the bluffs and those that dwell upon high and airy sites;
between the catfish aristocrat and the Yankee. Perhaps the
most marked and ineradicable outward distinction is the man-
Catfish Aristocracy. 123
ner in which thev respond to a question imperfectly under-
stood. The one, squirting a gourdful of tobacco juice into the
jimson-weeds, with a prolonged, rising inflection, drawls out,
"Whi-i-i-ichv' The other stops whittling, or lays down The
Kansas Magazine, and jerks out, "Haouw?"
Beware of the creature that says "Which?" and shun the
vicinage wherein he dwells! He builds no school-house. lie
erects no church. To his morals the Sabbath is unknown. To
his intellect the alphabet is superfluous. His premises have
neither barn, nor cellar, nor well. His crop of corn stands un-
gathered in the field. He "packs" water half a mile from t lie-
nearest branch or spring. His perennial diet is hog, smoked
and salted in the summer, and fresh at "killin' time." He
delights in cracklins and spare-ribs. Gnashing his tusks upon
the impenetrable mail of his corn-dodger, he sighs for the time
of "roas'n-eers." He has a weakness for "cowcumbers" and
"watermerns"; but when he soars above the gross needs of his
common nature and strives to prepare a feast that shall rival
the banquets of Lucullus, he spreads his festive cottonwood
with catfish and pawpaws.
From such a protoplasm, or physical basis of life, proceeds
an animal, bifid, long-haired, unaccustomed to the- use of soap,
without conscience or right reason, gregarious upon bottom
lands, where they swarm with unimaginable fecundity. In
time of peace they unanimously vote tin- Democratic ticket.
During the war they became guerrillas and bushwhackers un-
der Price, Anderson, and Ouantrell; assassins: thugs; poisoners
of wells; murderers of captive women and children; sickirs of
defenseless towns; house burners ; horse- thieves ; perpetrators
of atrocities that would make the blood of Sepoys run cold.
124 John James Ingalls.
The catfish aristocrat is pre-eminently the saloon-builder.
Past generations and perished races of men have defied obliv-
ion by the enduring structures which pride, sorrow, or religion
have reared to perpetuate the virtues of the living or the mem-
ory of the dead. Ghizeh has its pyramids; Petra its temples;
the Middle Ages their cathedrals; Central America its ruins;
but Pike and Posey have their saloons, where the patrician of
the bottom assembles with his peers. Gathered around a
rusty stove choked with soggy driftwood, he drinks sod-corn
from a tin cup, plays "old sledge" upon the head of an empty
keg, and reels home at nightfall, yelling through the timber,
to his squalid cabin.
A score of lean, hungry curs pour in a canine cataract over
the worm-fence by the horse-block as their master approaches,
having deep-mouthed welcome, filling the chambers of the for-
ests with hoarse reverberations, mingled with an explosion of
oaths and frantic imprecations. Snoring the night away in
drunken slumber under a heap of gray blankets, he crawls into
his muddy jeans at sun-up, takes a gurgling drink from a flat
black bottle stoppered with a cob, goes to the log-pile by the
front door, and with a dull ax slabs off an armful of green cotton-
wood to make a lire for breakfast, which consists of the inevit-
able "meat and bread" and a decoction of coffee burned to
charcoal and drank without milk or sugar. Another pull at
the bottle, a few grains of quinine if it is "ager" day, a "chaw"
of navy, and the repast is finished. The sweet delights of liome
have been enjoyed, and the spiritual creature goes forth, invig-
orated for the struggle of life, to repeat the exploits of every
yesterday of his existence.
1 have heretofore alluded to Shang as the typical grandee
of this ichthyological peerage. Whence he derived the appel-
Catfish Aristocracy. 125
lation by which he was uniformly known, I could never satis-
factorily ascertain. Whether it was his ancestral title, or
merely a playful pseudonym bestowed upon him by some famil-
iar friend in affection's most endearing hour, was never dis-
closed. Of his birth, his parentage, his antecedents, it were
equally vain to inquire. He was unintentionally begotten in
a concupiscence as idle and thoughtless as that of dogs or flies
or swine. It has been surmised that he was evolved from the
minor consciousness of his own squalor, but this must always
remain a matter of conjecture.
To the most minute observer, his age was a question of the
gravest doubt. He might have been thirty, he might have
been a century, with no violation of the probabilities. His
hair was a sandy sorrel, something like a Rembrandt interior,
and strayed around his freckled scalp like the top-layer of a
kayrick in a tornado. His eyes were two ulcers half filled
Tvith pale-blue starch. A thin, sharp nose projected above a
lipless mouth that seemed always upon the point of breaking
into the most grievous lamentations, and never opened save
to take whisky and tobacco >n and let oaths and saliva out.
A long, slender neck, yellow and wrinkled after the manner of
a lizard's belly, bore this dome of thought upon its summit,
itself projecting from a miscellaneous assortment of gents'
furnishing goods, which covered a frame of unearthly longi-
tude and unspeakable emaciation. Thorns and thongs sup
plied the place of buttons upon the costume of this Brummel
of the bottom, coarsely patched beyond recognition of Un-
original fabric. The coat had been constructed for a giant,
the pants for a pigmy. They were too long in the waist and
too short in the leg, and Happed loosely around his shrunk
shanks high above the point where his fearful feet were par-
i26 John James Ixgalls.
tiallv concealed by mismated shoes that permitted his great
toes to peer from their gaping integuments, like the heads
of two snakes of a novel species and uncommon fetor. This
princely phenomenon was topped with a hat that had neither
band nor brim nor crown;
"If that could shape be called which shape had none "
His voice was high, shrill, and querulous, and his manner
an odd mixture of fawning servility and apprehensive effront-
ery at the sight of a "damned Yankee Abolitionist," whom he
hated and feared next to a negro who was not a slave.
He was a private in that noble army of chivalry which
marched to Kansas to fight the Puritan idea, and the ebbing
tide left him stranded upon the Missouri bottom. He found a
community with no inheritance of transmitted force from which
to rear the institutions of her new society. The liberal cli-
mate and generous soil had nurtured a luxuriant vegetation,
pastured by untamed herds, that were pursued by men more
savage than the beasts they slew. These were her only her-
itage, except the traditions of religion, education, and freedom
that animated the hearts of her pioneers. The useless mag-
nificence of the prairie was unvexed by a furrow. Spring
knew no seedtime, autumn no harvest, save of the wild store
that Nature garners for beast and bird.
It is appalling to reflect what the condition of Kansas would
have been to-day had its destiny been left in the hands of
Shang and those of his associates who first did its voting and
attempted to frame its institutions. A few hundred mush-
eating chawbacons, her only population, would still have been
chasing their razor-backed hogs through the thickets of black-
jack, and jugging for catfish in the chutes of the Missouri and
the Kaw. How great the change has been is attested by her
Catfish Aristocracy. 127
five hundred thousand people living in Christian homes and
pursuing the arts of peace ; by her two thousand miles of rail-
road in successful operation ; by her granaries that would feed
the world; by the general prevalence of law and order amid
great temptations to violence and crime.
Much of this prosperity is due to the favorable conditions
in which we are placed, but vastly more to the moral causes
which underlie our social and moral structure. Kansas is the
child of Plymouth Rock. It was once fashionable to sneer at
this historic boulder, but it is the most impressive spot on the
face of the earth, save the summit of Calvary. The Puritan
idea rules the world. Like Aaron's rod, when it appears it
swallows up all others. Shang and his friends would have
starved to death the first season on the sterile hills of New
England ; but the Puritan manured the stingy soil with ideas,
and it has produced a crop that is better than corn, or oil,
or wine. Ideas are more profitable than hogs or beeves.
Rich Virginia grows poor, and poor Massachusetts rich, be-
because the Cavalier thought for the one, and the Roundhead
for the other. The Puritan idea is aggressive. It has an
unconquerable vitality. Wheresoever it is planted it becomes
a majority. A little of its leaven leavens the whole lump.
Assailed, it grows strong; wounded, it revives; buried, it be-
comes the angel of its own resurrection.
To the invincible potency of this idea much of the mar-
velous growth of Kansas is attributable. It is, on the whole,
doubtful whether there is or has ever been, in this country,
any idea but the Puritan. Shang never thinks. He vege-
tates ; he exists. He toils on horseback through the mud
with his sack of meal from grist-mill to grocery. The Puri-
tan builds a railroad, and meditates new projects as he trav-
128 John James Ingaixs.
els in his oalace car from ocean to ocean. Wheresoever
he pauses in his triumphal career, the telegraph, the print-
ing-press, the sewing-machine, and the innumerable achieve-
ments of his genius signalize his beneficent presence, render
the burdens of life less degrading, and ennoble the soul by
the consciousness of its powers to bless the race.
REGIS LOISEL.
1799 — 1804.
Block Seventeen. South Atchison, had merely a poten-
tial existence in those ancient days. That oblong rectangle,
fronting upon a postliminous Third Street, was unappar-
ent among the hazels and chincapin oaks which feathered
the rounded summit of the bold projecting headland, visi-
ble to the keen eyes of Regis Loisel for leagues along the
broad, deep, solitary valley; dimly descried through autumn's
melancholy haze and the azure mist of April, southward
from the porphyry bluffs, whose receding vistas converge
to the horizon above the columnar cottonwoods of Cow Island
Bottom, and northward from Blacksnake's barren tumuli of
tawny sand.
S Street was not. White Clay crawled sluggishly on
its useless errand through muddy ooze, and idly emptied
its turbid urn. Sumner, Port William, and Leavenworth had
not disturbed the wilderness with the decline and fall of their
ineffectual dreams of fortune and empire. The great railroad
center was an ovum in the unimpregnated womb of the future
when Regis Loisel first moored his bateaux and lighted his
camp-fire beneath a rugged elm at the foot of Block Seven-
teen, in 1799; the central point in the arc of the "Grand
Detour," or "Great Western Bend of the Missouri."
George the Third was King of England, Prance was a
republic. Paul the Firsi was Emperor of Russia. Selim the
129
130 John James Ingalls.
Third was Sultan of the Eastern Empire. John Adams was
the imperious President of a Federal Union, comprising six-
teen States, Kentucky and Tennessee being the outposts and
extreme western frontier. . The first Territorial Legislature of
Ohio had just met at the huddle of log huts called Cincinnati.
Kansas was a Spanish province under the dominion of Charles
the Fourth and Manuel Godoy, Duke of Alcudia and Prince
of the Peace.
The haughty hidalgo with sable drooping plume and sub-
tle rapier was the predecessor of the border ruffian, the Jay-
hawker, and the bullwhacker, upon the banks of the Mis-
souri. To his successors he bequeathed an unsubstantial
heritage, and laid deep in the soil the substructure and under-
pinning of that fragile architecture which has given to every
creek, cross-roads, and slabtown its airy chateaux en Espagne.
The Spanish sway in Kansas was brief and barren of results.
The Castilian emigrants lingered, by the shores of the Gulf
and seldom penetrated far inland. They were a race of buc-
caneers and pirates, sensual, selfish, avaricious, haunting the
coral groups and tranquil lagoons of the tropics, alternating
between frenzied raids for silver in the mines of Zacatecas,
and aimless wanderings in search of the Fountain of Youth
in the land of perpetual flowers.
France was the owner in fee simple of Block Seventeen
till 1762, though the muniments of title will be sought in
vain among the records of the Atchison County registry of
deeds. The real-estate abstracts of Rust & Co. contain no
reference to this proprietorship, nor the conveyance in 1762
to Spain, by which nation it was held till 1800, when Napo-
leon Bonaparte acquired the fee in trust for France, and sold
it in iSo^ to the United States.
Regis Loisel. 131
Napoleon was not a fortunate speculator in real estate.
He had no use for Western lands and town lots. He did not
participate in that sublime and universal faith which believes
that property will be higher in the spring. lie closed out
his entire interest in the Atchison town-site, together with
all the adjacent land lying west of the Mississippi and south
of the British Possessions, for three million dollars, which
is at the rate of more than a hundred acres for a cent. Real
estate in Atchison was cheap at the close of the eighteenth
century. The Hannibal and St. Joseph extension had not
been completed. The bridge had not been definitely located.
Forty-eight trains were not arriving and departing daily.
The new hotel slept in the clay-pits at the foot of the bluff?.
And yet it may be that Bonaparte was right. He had, per-
chance, a premonition of the twenty-one different kinds of
taxes and assessments that would be annually levied on Block
Seventeen, .aid concluded that he had better bell out before
Baker was elected treasurer — in 1872.
For there were no taxes in that halcyon time. Larceny
had not been legalized. Confiscation bv statute, in time
of peace, had not been inv nted. Ten per cent penalU and
fifty oer cent interest was the hope of the thieves in their
most daring dreams of peculation. The avarice and cupidity
of that primitive epoch did not demand the sanction of law,
but were content to evade its penalties. Strange as it may
appear, no pompous official emerged from the thickets of
elders and pawpaws to collect wharfage of Regis Loisel as
he tied up his fleet at the steep levee, and his mot ley crew
of voyageurs and coureurs d< hois scrambled up the crumbling
bank weary with rowing, cordelling, and poling against the
yellow current of the capricious and turbid stream.
132 John James Ixgalls.
Contrasted with Jamestown and Plymouth, this was not
manv years ago; but all antiquity is comparative The day
before we were born is older than Adam. To manhood
the recollections of infancy recede into a past as remote as
Noah. To those whose memories reflect the ruined images
of Ouindaro and Lecompton, earth has no profounder soli-
tudes, time no more ancient epoch, then the Kansas of Regis
Loisel in seventeen hundred and ninety-nine. And yet suc-
cessive emigrations had even then overflowed and subsided
from these tranquil plains, leaving no memorials that time
has not obliterated. The Aztec, the Mound-Builder, the sav-
age, with their mysterious industries, their unknown avoca-
tions, their rude commerce, the trepidations of their wars,
the awful sacrifices of their religions, the inexorable sanc-
tions of their laws, have vanished, like the smoke of their
altars and the blood of their victims. The temple, the devo-
tee, and the god have sunk into common oblivion. Day was
as night save for the alternations of sun and clouds. The
earth grew green and turned white again, with nothing to
mark the succession of the unchanging years.
History does not record whether such meditations occurred
to Regis Loisel. Thoughts of Helene Chauvin may have
floated in his ambitious and scheming brain as he recalled
the desolate wastes of cottonwood and sand that intervened
between the "Grand Detour" and the little French hamlet
where she dwelt, or the weary voyage of months to the north-
ward before he could return. But he was no idle dreamer
on a sentimental journey, in search of objects over which
his sensibilities could expand. The past had no charm for
him. He felt the sublime agitations of youth. Its proph-
ecies of the future stirred him like a passion.
Rkgis Loisel. 133
The sullen gray bars of the river were vocal with sonor-
ous flocks of brant, halting for a night on their prodigious
emigrations from the icebergs to the palms. Triangles of
wild geese harrowed the blue fields of the sky. Regiments
of pelicans performed their mysterious evolutions high in
air — now white, now black, as their wings or their breasts
were turned to the setting sun. The sandhill crane, trail-
ing the ridiculous longitude of his thin stilts behind him,
dropped his gurgling croak from aerial elevations, at which
his outspread pinions seemed but a black mote in the ocean
of the atmosphere. In all the circumference of the waste
wilderness beneath him, he saw no tower or roof or spire
upon the hills of Atchison, no cabin on the prairie, no hollow
square cleared in the forests of Buchanan and Platte; heard
no vibration of bells, no scream of glittering engine, no thun-
der of rolling trains, no roar of wheels, no noise of masses
of men like distant surf tumbling on a rocky shore; no human
trace along the curves of the winding river, save the thin blue
fume that curled upward through the trees at the base of the
bluff from the camp-fire of Regis Loisel.
The geographies and atlases of twenty vears ago pre-
sented this favored region to the wondering eyes of the ingen-
uous youth of that period as a dotted area of irregular out-
line, labeled, "Great American Desert," in which groups of
Holes-in-the-Day, conical lodges of pelts, epizootic buffalo,
and wild gazelles with silvery feet were scattered in reckless
and illogical profusion. So profound has been the ignorance
upon this topic that it is even now the general belief that
the pioneers of '54 and '55 entered upon an untried and track-
less solitude. To such it may be necessary to explain the
presence of this intruding explorer with his flotilla at the
134 John James Ingalls.
Atchison levee in 1799, in company with Antoine Tibean and
his brother Pierre.
The connection appears remote, but it is historically ac-
curate to sav that he was here because that eminent nav-
igator, Jacques Cartier, sailed from St. Malo in 1534, and en-
tered the river St. Lawrence, taking possession of the coun-
try in the name of Francis I., King of France. The early
settlers of Canada, in 1535, immediately learned the immense
value of the furs of the animals that swarmed in the pure,
cold lakes and streams and the lonely forests of those vast
territories. Collecting them in great quantities, they found
an increasing demand with every new arrival from the mcther
countrv, and the fabulous profits of the traffic, combined
with the wild romance of the chase, stimulated enterprise
and capital to the inauguration of gigantic schemes. Beads,
liquors, and gaudy apparel were shipped from French sea-
ports to Quebec, and thence distributed among the Indian
tribes to induce them to pursue their congenial occupation.
The Frenchmen, naturally adventurous and flexible, readily
assimilated to the Indian habits, and became hunters and
explorers. Hardy and courageous, yet mild and peaceable,
they penetrated remote regions with safety, and conciliated
savage tribes by their superior address. Accompanied by
the priests of their religion, they planted the standard of
the cross by the flag of their country upon the forts which
thev established in the trackless solitudes of the St. Law-
rence and the Lakes. Gradually extending the area of their
explorations, they crossed the continent southwesterly dur-
ing the century following their first settlement, penetrating
the region since known as Wisconsin, Michigan, and Illinois,
descending the Mississippi to the Gulf of Mexico in 1682, and
Regis LoisEL. 135
founding, in 17 18, the city of New Orleans, which became
thenceforward the southern seaport of their commerce, out-
ranking in importance both Mackinaw and Montreal in the
north.
The vast region bordering the Missouri and its great trib-
utaries was a boundless and unexplored field for the fur-
traders. It is now occupied by the States of Arkansas, Mis-
souri, Iowa, western Minnesota, Nebraska, Kansas, and the
Indian Territory The fur-bearing animals had gradually re-
ceded westward before that daring and mysterious emigration
which subsequently vanished, leaving its history written in the
nomenclature of the streams, peaks, passes, and plains, from
the Yellowstone to the Gulf, from the Missouri to the Pacific.
In 1762 the Director-General of Louisiana, Monsieur D'Ab-
adie, granted to a company of New Orleans merchants the
exclusive right to trade for furs with the Indians upon the
Missouri River, under the title of "Pierre Ligueste Laclede,
Antoine Maxan & Company."
Laclede, the projector of the enterprise, was a mercantile
adventurer of noble descent from Bordeaux, long domiciled
in New Orleans, where he had fallen a victim to the volup-
tuous charms of Madame Chouteau, the wife of a baker of
bread and pies for the hungry, and a vendor of ale and wine
for the thirsty villagers. Monsieur Chouteau, the baker,
was presumably a crusty fellow, neither well bread nor in
the flour of his youth; a dough-faced loafer and a pie-biter
of the deepest dye. Be this as it may, Madame preferred
the plume and sword of her dashing lover to the paper cap
and rolling-pin of her liege lord, and "lit out" in the summer
of 1763 with the expedition for Ste. (Aenevieve, arriving on
November 3d, where they went into winter quarters. After
136 John James Ingaixs.
a careful examination of the topography of the surround*
ing country, Laclede selected the present site of St. Lours,
and established a trading-post February 15, 1764, erecting a
large house and four stores on the levee. In due time he
died, bequeathing his name to a street and a hotel in the
city he founded. Madame Chouteau long survived him, resid-
ing in St. Louis till her death, leaving a numerous progeny
of Chouteaus, and a name that smells sweet and blossoms
in the dust. She was a woman of great strength of character
and marvelous personal beauty, and ruled St. Louis with des-
potic sovereignty.
In 1770 the village comprised forty families, protected
from savage incursions by a small garrison. On August n,
1768, Captain Rion, with a detachment of troops, took pos-
session of the town in the name of the King of Spain, under
whose dominion it nominally remained till transferred to
the United States in 1803; at which time it continued to be
merely a trading-post with a few hundred inhabitants, its
annual traffic in furs amounting to about $200,000. The
first brick house was erected in 1813. The first boat left its
wharf in 18 19, and as late as in 1822 it contained only about
5,000 inhabitants.
Here, in 1798, landed Regis Loisel, a youth of twenty,
born near Montreal, a soldier of fortune, who conceived the
idea of extending the fur trade to the head-waters of the
Missouri and its tributaries in the extreme northern fast-
nesses of the Rocky Mountains. It was a bold and auda-
cious scheme, and implied the possession of extraordinary
powers of body and mind. The distance alone was appalling.
Months were consumed in the transportation of stores and
supplies by rude boats, driven against the turbulent current
Regis Loisel. i $7
by favoring gales, or drawn by men walking along the- shore,
toiling at a rope attached to the mast-head. The naviga-
tion was inconceivably slow and dangerous. Tribes of impla-
cable savages resented the invasion of their domains, adding
to the labors of the voyage the terrors of ambush from the
imprenetrable forests that darkened the shores.
Associated with him in the daring enterprise was Pierre
Chouteau and Jacques Clamorgan, under the mercantile name
of "Clamorgan, Loisel & Company." Chouteau was a descend-
ant of the beautiful bakeress of New Orleans. Clamorgan was
a French Creole from Guadaloupe, educated at Paris, whose
dusky amours have given to St. Louis a race of laundresses
and barbers like Shakespeare's "cuckoo-buds of yellow hue."
In the promotion of the purposes of their commercial
venture, Loisel ascended the river in 1799, and established
a trading-post on an island in the Upper Missouri, where
he subsequently made a field and garden, and built a four-
bastioned fort of cedar logs. This locality is in the present
territory of Dakota, and directly in the route of the Northern
Pacific Railroad.
Returning to St. Louis in the development of his plans,
the partnership being dissolved, he anticipated the policv
of the Government by promptly applying for a land-grant
in the following terms:
"To Mr. Charles Dehau.lt Delassus, Lieutenant -C olonel of the Stationary Reg-
iment of Louisiana, and Licutcnant-Go\crnor of Upper Louisiana, &c.:
"Sir: Regis Loisel has the honor to submit that having made consid-
erable sacrifices in the Upper Missouri Company in aiding to the discoveries
of Indian nations in that quarter in order to increase commerce hereafter
as also to inculcate to these different nations favorable sentiments towards
the Government and have them devoted to the service of his Majesty, so as
to be able to put a stop to the contraband trade of foreigners who, scatter-
ing themselves among those Indians, employ all imaginable means to make
138 John James Ixgalls.
them adopt principles contrary to the attachment they owe to the Govern-
ment. The petitioner has also furnished with zeal, presents, in order to gain
the friendship of those different nations for the purpose to disabuse them of
the errors insinuated to them, and to obtain a free passage through their
lands and a durable peace. The petitioner, intending to continue on his own
account the commerce which his partners have abandoned in that quarter,
hopes that you will be pleased to grant to him, for the convenience of his
trade, permission to form an establishment in Upper Missouri, distant
about four hundred leagues from this town, and which shall be situated on
the said Missouri between the river known under the name of Riviere du
vieux Anglais, which empties itself in the said Missouri on the right side
of it, descending the stream, and lower down than Cedar Island and the
river known under the name of Riviere de la Cote de Medicine, which is on
the left side, descending the stream, and higher up than Cedar Island,
which island is at equal distance from the two rivers above named That
place being the most convenient for his operations, as well in the Upper as
in the Lower Missouri, and it being indispensable to secure to himself the
timber in an indisputable manner, he is obliged to have recourse to your
goodness, praying that you will be pleased to grant to him a concession
in full property for him, his heirs or assigns, for the extent of land situ-
ated along the banks of the said Missouri, and comprised between the
river called the Old Englishman's and the one called the Medicine Bluff,
here above mentioned, by the depth of one league in the interior on
each side the Missouri, and including the island known by the name of
Cedar Island, as also other small timbered islands. In granting his de-
mand, he shall never cease to render thanks to your goodness.
"Regis Loisel.
"St Louis of Illinois, March 20, 1800.'
To which ingenious petition the Governor was pleased to
respond by his concession, in manner following, that is say :
"St. Louis ok Illinois, March 25, 1800.
"Whereas, It is notorious that the petitioner has made great losses
when in the company he mentions, and as he continues his voyages of
discoveries conformably to the desires of the Government, which are the
cause of great expense to him, and it being for the commerce of peltries with
the Indians necessary that forts should be constructed among these remote
nations, as much to impress them with respect as to have places of deposit
for the goods and other articles which merchants carry to them, and par-
ticularly for those of the petitioner, for these reasons I do grant to him and
to his successors the land which he solicits in the same place where he asks,
provided it is not to the prejudice of anybody; and tho saic. land being
Regis Loisel,. 139
very far from this post, he is not obliged to have it surveyed at present ; but
however, he must apply to the Intendant-General in order to obtain the
title in form from said Intendant, because to him belongs, by order of his
Majesty, the granting of all classes of lands belonging to the royal domain.
' Carlos Dehault Delassus."
The tract thus secured was about fifteen miles long by
five miles in width, with special advantages for trade, and
as a military post to which the trappers could resort for
protection in winter, a depot where supplies were distributed
and furs collected for shipment by canoes and maekinaw^
to St. Louis, on the "rise" from the melting of the moun-
tain snows.
Loisel prosecuted his venture with varying fortunes till
1804, making several voyages, and opening a farm to furnish
his garrison with vegetables and grain. In the autumn of
this year he descended the Mississippi from St. Louis to New
Orleans, for the purpose of engaging the assistance of cap-
italists in a scheme to penetrate the Rocky Mountains and
establish the fur trade in the extreme northwest upon the
Pacific Ocean. Falling ill upon his journey, he went imme-
diately to the house of Monsieur Joseph Perillat, where he
became rapidly worse, and on the first of October made his
will before a notary, who gave the following copy, which
was filed in the succeeding February in the probate court
of St. Louis, before Judge Marie P. Leduc:
"This day. first October, eighteen hundred and four, and the twenty-
ninth year of the Independence of America, we Xarcisse Brontin, Notary
Public of the United States of America, resident of the town of New
Orleans, transported ourselves at the demand of Monsieur R.egis Loisel in his
domicile, (house of Monsieur Perillat.) situated at about one-half league
from the town of New Orleans, where being we have found tin- said 'Mr.
Loisel sick abed, but in his full judgment, memory, and natural under-
standing, and in presence of the witnesses hereinafter named, lie told us
that fearing death, which is natural to all creatures, its hour uncertain, he
i4<) John James Ixgalls.
wished to put his affairs in order and make his testament, which he dic-
tated to us in the form following:
"Firstly: He has declared himself C A. R., native of Assumption, in
Lower Canada, legitimate son of Registre Loisel and Manette Massin,
both defunct.
"Item: He has declared to us that he was married with Miss Helene
Chauvin, resident of St. Louis of E1inois, of which marriage he has Lv.o
daughters, named Manette, aged t1-'ee year?, and Clementine, aged sixteen
months, and that his spouse is at prrsen: pregnant.
"Item: He declared to us that he owed several persons, as will be
established by his notes, obligations, and accounts, and that there were
due him amounts according as the;, shall be establ'ihc; by bills, accounts,
and obligations which shall be found in his posses ,or>. . Te oraers hie
testamentary executors to pay his debts and to receive what ic clue to h: n.
"Item: He declared to us that his property consisted of a mulatto
and a farm at St. Louis of Illinois, in a house and lot, the title i ipers of
which are at Mr. Glamorgan's in horned cattle, &c.
"Item: He declared to us, naming for his sole and universal heirs his
above named two daughters, Manette and Clementine, and also the child
of which his spouse is pregnant, in case he live, shall inherit an equal por-
tion with the children before named.
"Item: He has declared to us, naming for tutrix and curatrix of his
children his said spouse, relieving her from all legal responsibility.
"Item: He declared to us, naming for testamentary executors of his
estate the Sieurs Auguste Chouteau and Jacques Clamorgan, merchants of
St. Louis of Illinois, to whom he gives power to make inventory sale and
subdivisison of his estate between his heirs, without the intervention of
law under any pretext. He supplicates them also to have the kindness to
have three masses said for the repose of his soul.
"Item: He declared to us that he had here in town, in his trunk, a
bundle of law-papers concerning Mr. Peignoux and Mr. Lafourcade, which
said papers, in case any accident should happen him, he desires that Mr.
Manuel Lisa should take charge of and remit them to Mr. Clamorgan.
"Item: He declared to us having merchandise on the Upper Missouri,
in the care of Mr. Pierre Tabeau. He prays his testamentary executors
to cause the whole to be brought to St. Louis of Illinois. He declared to
us also having here in town forty buffalo-robes, which he prays Mr. Eugene
Dorcier to have the kindness to sell them, and to pay with the proceeds the
debts which might be occasioned by his sickness, and to remit the balance,
if perchance any be left, to his executors testamentary.
"Item: He declared to us to have an account current with Mr. Cla-
morgan, extending many years back; that he had signed an account of
forty thousand and some hundred livres, but that since that time he had
Regis Loisel. 141
paid the said Clamorgan, at divers times, a greater amount than the said
sum.
"Item: He declared to us that the said House of Glamorgan, Loisel &
Company owed him five thousand livres at least.
"Hem: In case that the goods in possession of the testator in the
Upper Missouri are not sufficient to pay that which he owes Mr. Chouteau,
he prays him to have a kind regard for his family.
"Item: The testator declared to us that he annulled all other testa-
ments, codicils, powers or dispositions which he has made before tlus one,
declaring null and of no effect, or effect all such except this.
"Which having read to him, he signed in presence of Manuel Lisa,
Antoine Fromentin, and Joseph Perillat, witnesses domiciled in this town
"In testimony whereof, we said notary have affixed our hand and the
seal of our office the day and year before written.
[L. S.] (Signed) "Rno. Loisel.
"Antoine Fromentin.
"Manuel Lisa. Narcisse Brontin,
"Joseph Perillat. Notary Public.
"I certify that the present copy conforms to the original which rests
in my hands. Narcisse Brontin, Notary Public.
"New Orleans, this fourth of October, 1804."
Having executed this testament, Monsieur Brontin took
his ink-horn and departed. The sick man became impa-
tient at the restraints of his illness and anxious to join his
family before approaching winter had closed the river above
with ice. Borne to his boat upon a couch of buffalo-robes,
he started on the long journey to St. Louis. His strength
was not equal to the fatigue and exposure of the voyage.
Near the mouth of the Arkansas he died and was buried,
and his grave no man knoweth. Death baffled his ambi-
tious dreams at the early age of twenty-six, but the three
masses for which he supplicated could not give repose to
his soul. The child with winch his wife was pregnant was
born, became a priest, and died. Helene, his widow, mar-
ried again, bore other children, and died full of years. His
two daughters became mothers, and died, and their children
142 John James Ingalls.
followed them to the cathedral graveyard, and still he was
not at rest.
In the Treaty of Cession the Government recognized the
validity of the land-grants made by the Spanish and French
governors, and appointed boards of commissioners to report
those that were genuine to Congress for confirmation. After
the death of Loisel, the concession of Delassus at Cedar Island
was ostensibly sold to his executors for ten dollars, oayable
in shaved deer-skins at fortv cents per pound. The differ-
ent boards refused to recognize the claim, and it slept until
1858, when Congress passed an act confirming the title, and
authorizing the issue of a patent for 38,111 10-00's acres of
land to the legal representative of Regis Loisel, to be located
upon any vacant lands of the United States. In 1859 the
lands were entered in the counties of Nemaha, Marshall, Jack-
son, and Pottawatomie, Kansas, and remained vacant ten years
longer under an accumulated burden of unliquidated taxes.
Meanwhile legislatures enacted laws, courts adjudged and
decreed, and generations of lawyers wrangled in fruitless
effort to determine who was entitled to this imperial inher-
itance— whether the title descended to the lineal posterity
of the testator, or whether it passed in 1805 to the executor,
Jacques Glamorgan, by the alleged sale for twenty-five pounds
of shaved deer-skins, that did not appear to have been paid.
And thus at last, in the strange vicissitude and mutation
that accompanies human affairs, it chanced that the pro-
tracted strife finally closed in the courts of Nemaha, and
it was there determined who were the "heirs of Regis Iyoisel."
Had the bandage been removed from the eyes of the
Goddess of Justice upon that wintry day, she would have
dropped the idle scales and brandished the avenging sword.
Regis Loisel. 143
They have built her a stately temple since, whose harmoni-
ous and symmetrical mass is the poem of a landscape that
was enchanted before a cheap railway had spanned the Xem-
aha with its skeleton truss, and dumped its black grade diag-
onally across the great military road that trailed westward
through the village and over the level prairie toward Salt
Lake and the Pacific Ocean. But upon the day aforesaid,
the goddess dwelt like the apostle in her own hired house, a
chosen sanctuary of cotton wood that stood four-square to all
the winds that blew. Here were the aegis, the palladium, the
forum, the ermine, the immortal twelve, and all the parapher-
nalia inseparable from the administration of law even in its
most primitive form — essential to its sanctions, the staple of
its orators; without which, we are assured by its ministers,
the proud edifice of our liberties would incontinently topple
and fall headlong from turret to foundation-stone.
The two windows rattling in their rude casements were
curtained with frost of the thickness and consistencv of tripe.
Between them, with his head dangerously near the rough
mortar of the ceiling, sat his honor the judge, surveying the
scene from an inverted packing-box, his boots interrupt-
ing his vision, and his chair inclined against the wall. The
harangues of the advocates were enlivened by the musical
clinking of glasses, the festal notes of the rustic Cremona,
and boisterous bursts of inebriated laughter from the dog-
gery beneath. Planks of splintered pine, sustained by a beg-
garly account of empty boxes, soap and cracker, spice and
candle, from adjacent groceries, afforded repose to a group of
dilapidated loafers who crouched and shivered around the
smoking stove. As they masticated their "hat tobacker, " they
144 John James Ingalls.
meditatively expectorated in the three-ply saw-dust that car-
peted the floor, and listened to the will of Regis Loisel. ■
The subtle potency of the soul of the bold adventurer
spoke imperiously from the abyss of a forgotten past. His
voice emanated from an unknown grave, across the inter-
val of three-quarters of a century. His restless and uneasy
ghost animated the mysterious syllables at whose utterance
arose the phantom of Law, which irresistibly forbade intru-
sion upon sixty square miles of Kansas prairie, in the name
and by the will of Regis Loisel.
And so the drama ended. Three generations had passed
away. The squalid hamlet had expanded into an opulent
metropolis, of which his descendants are eminent and hon-
ored citizens. States had sprung like an exhalation from
the wilderness. An intense civilization pervaded the pro-
foundest solitudes. Nothing remained unchanged in the wild
world of his brief life save the impassive and desolate river
which wears as then, and will forever wear, the impervious
mask of its sullen mystery; which bears as then, and will
forever bear, the burden of its secret unrevealed, yielding no
response to the living who tempt its inconstant wave, nor the
dead who sleep by its complaining shore
May his soul rest in peace!
THE LAST OF THE TAYHAWKERS.
The Audubon of the twentieth century, as he compiles the
history of the birds of Kansas, will vainly search the "Ornitho-
logical Biographies" of his illustrious predecessor for anv allu-
sion to the "jayhawk." Investigation will disclose the jay
(Cyanurus cristatus), and the hawk (Accipeter fuscus): the
former a mischievous, quarrelsome egg-sucker, a blue-coated
cousin of the crow and an epicure of carrion ; the latter a cloud-
haunting pirate, the assassin of the atmosphere, whose ilattened
skull, rapacious beak, and insatiable appetite for blood impel
it to an agency of destruction, and place it among the repulsive
ranks of the living ministers of death. Were it not that Nature
forbids the adulterous confusion of her types, he might surmise
that the jayhawk was a mule among birds, the illicit offspring
of some sudden liason or aerial intrigue, endowed with the most
malign attributes of its progenitors. But as this conclusion
w«mld be unerringly rejected by the deductions of his science,
he would be compelled to look elsewhere for the origin of
this obscure tenant of the air, whose notable exploits caused
it to be accepted as the symbol of the infant State, giving
to a famous regiment its title, and to the inhabitants their
novel appellation of "Jayhawkers," by that happy nomenclature
which would induce the unsophisticated chronicler to suppose
that the population of Illinois was composed entirely of in-
fants at the breast, and that the chief vegetable productions
of Missouri were ipecac and lobeli* .
145
146 Johx James Ixgalls.
Convinced by his researches that the jayhawk no longer
existed, he would naturally inquire whether it had once lived
and became extinct, or whether it was merely a fabulous
myth, the creation of vagrant fancy, flying only in a dream-
er's brain.
Instances are not wanting of other celebrated birds whose
origin is equally uncertain, and whose existence even has
been denied. Prominent among them is the dodo, that enig-
ma in feathers, the last of whose melancholy race was re-
ported to have expired not earlier than two centuries ago,
upon the island of Mauritius. This belief was accepted by
the scientific world upon what appeared to be credible evi-
dence; and yet its erroneousness was conclusively shown
by Oliver Wendell Holmes, in a case involving the question,
tried several years since before the Suffolk Common Pleas,
in which the doctor introduced in testimony a bill of sale
showing incontrovertibly that a dodo had been recently
sold in Boston, and that consequentlv the species could not
have been extinct. The document was as follows:
Johx E. Smith to Robert C. Greer, Dr.
1856.
Oct. 13. To one canary-bird $2. 50
Nov. 10. To one do do 3.00
Rec'dpay't. S5.50
The lurid placards of modern insurance companies have
familiarized the public mind with the phoenix, an Arabian
fowl, reputed to live five hundred years, at the expiration
of which patriarchal period, it erected a funeral pyre of sweet-
scented woods and aromatic gums, perched upon its apex,
fanned it into flame by the undulations of its tail and was suicid-
ally consumed in the conflagration. It is related of a famous
The Last of the Jayhawkers. 147
wit who supposed he was dying that his physician felt of his
extremities, found they were not cold, r.nd told his patient
that no man could die while his feet were warm ; to which he
responded that he had heard of one who did, and being asked
to name him, replied, "John Rogers!'' whereupon a heavenly
smile lit up his wan features and he passed on to the higher life.
The phoenix was another instance of the same fact, and its
last hours were probably consol.d by the thought that out
of its ashes another phoenix would arise to repeat the ex-
periment, be similarly calcined and reproduced, and subse-
quently alluded to by an American nrvspaper in connection
with the great Chicago fire. As but cne phoenix existed at
one time, and he was his :wn successor, this bird has the
honor of being the only known illustration in the animal king-
dom of a sole corporation.
The reader of the "Arabian Nights Entertainments" will
not fail to recall the roc — the roc upon which so many have
split — the roc of ages gon:; by, one of whose eggs, suitably
decomposed, would have made an omelette for the entire
Liberal Republican party of Kansas.
Time would fail to tell of the auk, the emu, the harpy,
the apteryx, and the ornithorhyncus, of whom the world
was not worthy, that have wandered in deserts and moun-
tains, and in dens and caves of the earth; vague, mysterious
creatures, congeners of the jayhawk in its dubious origin
and its wild career.
The jayhawk is a creation of mythology Every nation
has its mvths, human and animal, some of which disappear
as the State matures, while others continue to stand out upon
its early horizon in conspicuous proportion?, enlarged rather
than diminished bv the distance that intervenes. The infancy
i4S John James Ixgalls.
and childhood of communities, as well as that of individuals,
abound in legends and traditions which become crystallized by
time into a mythology in which qualities become personified,
and the forces and operations of Nature are symbolized as liv-
ing beings, so that history, like the nursery, has its Mother
Goose's Melodies whose idle rhymes were sung at the cradle
of the race.
In the twilight of time the domain of fact insensibly
yields to the shadowy realm of fable; the true and the false
are confonded; the real is indistinguishable from the imag-
inary; and out of the confusion is born a brood of phan-
toms and oiimeras, centaurs, demi-gods and goddesses, heroes
and monsters, phcenixes and jayhawks, that under different
name, have p2opled the early times of every nation since
the world began. In this strange procreation, beauty becomes
Venus; strength, Hercules; appetite, Bacchus; manhood, in its
glory, Apollo; and the elements themselves are endowed with
sentient life.
The process is not, as we are apt to imagine, peculiar
to the races of antiquity, but is witnessed in the history of
every community, great or small, which attempts the ex-
periment of an independent existence. The realism of later
days sometimes strip, these phantasms of their insubstan-
tial vestments and reveals their native deformity, as the
traveler with his lens detects upon the distant summit which
seems but a deeper stuin upon the forehead of the morning
sky, its ragged garb of forest and its gray scalp of rock; but
generally they become more respectable with age. They are
accepted as facts. Poetry decorates them with its varnish.
Orators cover them with a rhetorical veneer, and they are
incorporated into the general literature of the country.
The Last of the JayhawkErs. 149
Had an irreverent Athenian ventured to doubt Silenus
or denounce Priapus, he would probably have been received
with a stormy outcry like that which greeted Bancroft when
he ventured to disclose the truth about some of the paragons
of early American history. And yet it cannot be denied
that the popular notion of the founders of the Government
is as purely mythological as the Grecian dream of Jupiter
and .Minerva. With what awe in our boyhood do we con-
template the majestic name of Washington! That benign
and tranquil although somewhat stolid visage looks down
upon us from a serene atmosphere unstained with earthly
passion. That venerable fame bears no taint of mortal
frailtv save in the juvenile episode of the hatchet, in which
the venial error is expiated by the immortal candor of its
confession. To our revering fancy, the massive form wrapped
in military cloak stands forever at midnight upon the frozen
banks of the Delaware, watching the patriot troops cross
the iev current in the darkness before the grand morning
of Trenton; or else, arrayed in black velvet small-clothes,
resigning his commission to the Continental Congress at
Annapolis. We learn in riper years, with grief not nnniin-
gled with incredulity, that this gnat man was subject to
ungovernable outbreaks of rage, that he swore like a mule-
driver, and that he was not only the Father of his Country,
but also of Governor Posey of Indiana.
With such disheartening examples before its it is not
unreasonable to believe that the student of Kansas history
a hundred vears hence, as lie reverts from the men and
manners of that degenerate time to the- firsl lid lustra
of his native State, will turn to Genesis vi. 4 for e ■ isola-
tion, and say with a sigh: "There were giants in the earth
150 John James Ingalls.
in those days." The colossal characters nurtured in the
primeval convulsions of our politics will have passed into
mythology. Tradition will have lent its pensive charm to
the eloquence of Carney, the unquenchable fire of Crawford,
Lane's impregnable virtue, Lowe's aggressive vigor, the sen-
sitive honor of Clarke — that "tall young oak of the Kaw,"
whose acorns fattened the swine in Caldwell's sty — Caldwell,
who proudly rose in his seat in the United States Senate in '72
and hurled back with indignation the charge that he bought
his senatorial toga at a political slop-shop — ah ! who could for-
bear to admit tha-t there were indeed giants in the earth in
those days?
This was the close of the epoch when the jayhawk Hew in
the troubled atmosphere. It was an early bird, and it caught
many a Missouri worm. The worms did not object to the
innocent amusement of the bird, but they insisted that public
opinion must and should be respected.
But the bird had a mission. It could not be caught with
chaff, nor would it allow salt to be put on its tail. It pursued
its ministry of retribution, protection, and vengeance through
many bloody years, till the worms were fain to concede the
superiority of their feathered antagonist and adopt the senti-
ment of the popular melody, "Oh, birdie, I am tired now!"
The Border Ruffians in '56 constructed the eccaleobion in
which the jayhawk was hatched, and it broke the shell upon the
reedy shores of the Marais des Cygnes. Its habits were not
migratory, and for many years its habitat was Southern Kan-
sas; but eventually it extended itsjield of operations north-
ward, and soon after the outbreak of the war was domiciled in
the gloomv defiles and lonely forests of the bluffs whose rugged
The Last of the Jayhawkers. 151
bastions resist the assaults of the Missouri from the mouth of
the Kaw to the Nebraska line.
The situation was favorable. The occasion was auspicious.
The new State, itself intensely loyal, had but two lines of inter-
course with its Eastern sisters — one by rail and one by river —
both under the control of enemies who considered the engulf-
ing of trains through broken bridges, and the murder of unsus-
pecting passengers upon steamers from ambush along the
shores, as honorable warfare.
To the west and south extended unpeopled and desolate
solitudes, open to sudden invasion. Hostile camp-fires burned
around the fistulous lakes in the forests of Buchanan and
Platte, and the insolent challenge of the sentinel was heard at
nightfall upon the shores of the deserted river. The memories
of brutal wrongs were fresh in the memories of implacable
sufferers.
The farms and plantations of that irregular triangle known
as the "Platte Purchase," whose hypothenuse is the Missouri
River, abounded in horses and herds, hogs and cattle — the
accumulation of years of unexampled prosperity. Its fat soil
nurtured magnificent orchards. Its broad fields, cultivated
by a race of negroes whose average intelligence was superior
to that of their lazy lords, had returned incredible yields of
wheat, hemp, and corn. Money was abundant. Granary,
bin, and larder were overflowing. Spacious mansions, with
airy verandas and porticos, comfortable appurtenances of
barns, sheds, and out-buildings, reposed in the tranquil seclu-
sion of pastured lawns, whose ancient trees cast a venearble
shade upon the blue-grass sward below.
Indifferent roads and lack of public conveyances rendered
the saddle the chief dependence for local communication, and
152 John James Ingalls.
resulted in a breed of incomparable riding-horses, whose pecu-
liar gait, known as "single-foot rack," is the poetry of locomo-
tion. A generous diet, freedom from the worst cares of life,
and much exercise on horseback during the greater portion of
the year had gradually produced a race of ruddy and stalwart
men, bold and turbulent by nature in youth, but rendered
timid by wealth and toned down to inaction in riper years by
too much fat bacon and "apple-jack and honey."
Slavery, as practiced among them, had few of its most
repulsive features; but its existence fixed their political con-
victions. So they put their sons on their best horses and sent
them South with plethoric saddle-bags to join the hordes of
Price, while they themselves remained at home upon their
plantations and avowed their unalterable devotion to the
Constitution and the Union.
Amid the convulsions of the period, and with the stimulus
of an unappeasable appetite for vengeance, such an inviting
field could not long remain unvisited. The temptation was
irresistible, and the jayhawk plumed itself for the quarry.
The courts were closed. The regular armies were engaged in
other directions. The authorities upon either side were too
much engrossed to listen to complaints. The young men were
in the brush or the camp All the ordinary avocations of
industry and the usual pursuits of life were at an end. The
negroes laid down the shovel and the hoe, picked up as sub-
stitutes for the agricultural implements, mules, horses, wag-
ons, furniture, beds, bedding, provisions, and simultaneously
started for Kansas, waking the echoes as they thronged the
ferries with the amazing chorus, "Oh, we're the Snolligosters,
and we'll all jine de Union!" In some instances they were
pursued by their former owners, assisted by their facile parti-
The Last of the Jayhawkers. 153
sans in the land of refuge, conveyed by night in skill's across
the river, and, a fur frightful preliminary torture, deliberately
burned to death.
At this time patriotism and larceny had not entirely coal
esced, and upon the debatable frontier between these contend-
ing passions appeared a race of thrifty warriors, whose souls
were rent with conflicting emotions at the thought of their
bleeding country's wrongs and the available assets of Missouri.
Their avowed object was the protection of the bonier. Their
real design was indiscriminate plunder. They adopted the
name of "Jayhawkers."
Conspicuous among the irregular heroes who thus sprang
to arms in 1S61, and ostensibly their leader, was an Ohio stage-
driver bv the name of Charles Metz, who, having graduated
with honor from the penitentiary of Missouri, assumed from
prudential reasons the more euphonious and distinguished
appellation of "Cleveland." He was a picturesque brigand.
Had he worn a slashed doublet and trunk hose of black velvet,
he would have been the ideal of an Italian bandit. Young,
erect, and tall, he was sparely built, and arrayed himself like
a gentleman in the costume' of the day. His appearance was
that of a student. His visage- was thin, his complexion olive-
tinted and colorless, as if "sicklied o'er with the pale cast of
thought." Black piercing eyes, finely cut features, dark hair
and beard correctly trimmed, completed a tout ensemble that
was strangely at variance with the- aspect of the score of disso-
lute and dirty desperadoes that formed his command. These
were- generally degraded ruffians of the- worst type, whose high-
est idea of elegance in personal appearance was to have their
mustaches died a villainous metallic black, irrespective of the-
consideration whether its native- hue- was red or brown. It is
154 John James Ingalls.
a noticeable fact that a dyed mustache stamps its wearer inevit-
ably either as a pitiful snob or an irreclaimable scoundrel.
The vicinity of the fort, with its troops, rendered Leav-
enworth undesirable as a base of operations. St. Joseph was
also heavily garrisoned, and they accordingly selected Atchi-
son as the point from which to move on the enemy's works.
Atchison at that time contained about twenty-five hundred
inhabitants. Its business was transacted upon one street,
and extended west about four blocks from the river. Its posi-
tion upon the extreme curve of the "Grand Detour" of the
Missouri affording unrivalled facilities for escape to the inte-
rior in the event of pursuit. Having been principally settled
by Southerners, it still afforded much legitimate game for our
bird of prey, and its loyal populaticn having already largely
enlisted, the city was incapable of organized resistance to the
depredations of the marauders.
They established their headquarter? at the saloon of a Ger-
man named Krnest Renner, where they held their councils of
war, and whence they started upon their forays. The winter
was favorable to their designs, as the river closed early, enabling
them to cross upon the ice. Cleveland proclaimed himself
Marshal of Kansas, and announced his determination to run
the country. He invited the cordial cooperation of all good
citizens to assist him in sustaining the Government and punish-
ing its foes. Ignorant of his resources and his purposes, the
people at first were inclined to welcome their strange guests as
a protection from the dangers to which they were exposed ; but
it soon became apparent that the doctors were worse than the
disease. They took possession of the town, defied the munici-
pal authorities, and committed such intolerable excesses that
their expulsion was a matter of public safety. Their incursions
The Last of the Jayiiawkers. 155
into Missouri were so frequent and audacious that a company
of infantry was sent from Weston and stationed at Winthrop
to effect their capture, but to no purpose. They soon ceased
to inquire about the political views of their victims. If a man
had an enemy in any part of the country whom he wished to
injure, he reported him to Cleveland as a rebel, and the next
night he was robbed of all he possessed and considered fortu-
nate if he escaped without personal violence. In some cases,
at the intercession of friends, the property was restored; but
generally there was no redress. A small detachment of cav-
alry was sent from the fort to take them, but just as they had
dismounted in front of the saloon and were hitching their
horses, Cleveland appeared at the door with a cocked navy in
each hand and told them he would shoot the first man that
moved a finger. Calling two or three of his followers, he dis-
armed the dragoons, took their horses and equipments, and
sent them back on foot to reflect upon the vicissitudes of
military affairs.
Early in 1862 the condition became desperate, and the city
authorities, in connection with the commander at Winthrop,
concerted a scheme which brought matters to a crisis. Cleve-
land and about a dozen of his gang were absent in Missouri on
a scout. The time of their return was known, and Marshal
Holbert had his forces stationed in the shadow of an old ware-
house near the bank of the river. It was a brilliant moonlight
night in midwinter. The freebooters emerged form the foi
and crossed upon the ice. They were freshly mounted, and
each one had a spare horse. Accompanying them were two
sleighs loaded with negroes, harness, and miscellaneous plun-
der. As they ascended the steep shore of the levee, uncon-
scious of danger, they were all taken prisoners, except Cleve-
156 John James Ingalls.
land, who turned suddenly, spurred his horse down the em-
bankment, and escaped. The captives were taken to Wes-
ton, where they soon afterward enlisted in the Federal Army.
The next day Cleveland rode into town, captured the City Mar-
shal on the street, and declared his intention to hold him as a
hostage for the safety of his men. He compelled the Marshal
to walk by the side of his horse a short distance, when, finding a
crowd gathering f r his capture, he struck him a blow on the
head with his pistol and fled. He continued his exploits for
some months, but was finally di j ven to bay in one of the south-
ern counties, and, attempting to let himself down the side of a
precipitous ravine, war shot by a soldier from above, the ball
entering under his arm and passing through his body. His
temporary widow took his sacred clay to St. Joseph, where its
place of interment is marked by a marble headstone bearing
the usual memoranda, and concluding with the following:
"One h:ro les: on earth,
ne angl more in heaven!"
The unreliable character of grave-stone literature has been
the theme of frequent comment, but unless this ostensible
eulogv was intended as a petrified piece of jocularity and gra-
tuitously inscribed by the sculptor, it may, perhaps, be justly
considered the most liberal application of the maxim, "Nil de
morluis nisi bonum," to be found in any American cemetery.
THE "GOOD-FELLOW GIRL."
The doctrines of female suffrage and the equality of th<
sexes are undermining the foundations of our social structure.
Their advocates call it reform. It seems more like revolution.
They are substituting the hotel and the club for the home,
comradeship for marriage, and Bohemianism for domestic life.
With wealth, leisure, and luxury they are establishing a social
code that demands fidelity only to those who are faithless and
that forgives everything in a woman except old fashioned
goodness.
The recent records of the divorce courts in New York and
all our great cities justify the apprehension that quite as many
of the fair sex are unjustly suspected of innocence as are falsely
accused of wrong-doing. It is commonly said that the world
is growing better. Probably it is — in spots. There are many
good people who pa}- tithes of anise atonement and contrition
Sunday and forget the weightier matters of the law every other
day in the week.
Universities, colleges, libraries, and museums are endowed
by contributions to the conscience fund from the death-bed
repentance of contrite pirates and extortioners who, having
burned the candle to Mammon all their lives, blow the snuff in
the face of the Lord. This is morally the most corrupt and
greedv age since Xero plavcd first violin at the burning of
Rome.
158 John James Ixgalls.
Those who have seen the frescoes and sculptures of Pompeii
can comprehend why that composite heap was buried under
the cinders and ashes of Vesuvius ; why the site of Sodom and
Gomorrah is forgotten; why ancient Corinth was despoiled
and its inhabitants extirpated. There was no other medicine
for such depravity and degradation. Most travellers who
know the gin-mills of London by sight and have walked the
Strand after nightfall, or have visited the Moulin Rouge, or
witnessed the viciousness of Berlin and Vienna and Venice,
know that every capital in Europe can give odds to Pompeii
and Corinth.
A fatal contagion infects our society and portends individ-
ual degeneration and national decay. Xo nation can long
survive a loss of moral integrity or the sanctity of the home.
No one can observe without alarm the invasion of our country
bv this foreign pestilence and the amazing changes that are
going on in the social condition. A deluge of French and Eng-
lish sewage is polluting literature, art, and the stage. Plays
glorifying infidelity, making marriage a jest, and sneering at
virtue as rustic prudery are supplemented by numberless sex
and problem novels that treat Nature's holiest mysteries with
the brutal candor of the clinic and the dissecting-table.
Eager, thronging multitudes listen to such plays as 'The
Degenerates," "Sapho," and "The Turtle."
It is unfortunate, from a moral standpoint, that the best
of mankind are not invulnerable. There is no armor proof
against temptation. It is still more discouraging that good
people are generally uninteresting and that we remember with
most pleasure the persons and events we ought to forget. It
is a prodigious task to lift a man, a community from barbarism
into enlightenment and civilization, and a still greater task to
The "Good-Fellow Girl." 159
keep him or it there. The tendency is to relapse. The grav-
itation is to the gutter. It requires the constant active coop-
eration of the conservative forces of religion, education, laws,
habits, and customs to maintain even external order and
decency.
Break down the barriers of modesty and shame in woman,
teach the young that the distinction between right and wrong
is an inversion of theology, that conscience is an impertinent
interference with the natural enjoyment of life, that vice wears
velvet and virtue goes in rags, and the evil is irreparable.
This is the fatal process that is now going on through the
decadence of art, literature, and the stage.
It is developing a type of womanhood of which Helen of
Troy, and Cleopatra, and Messalina are historic represent-
atives— the woman of the world, the up-to-date woman, the
end-of-the-century woman, the jolly "good-fellow girl," who
goes to the races with one man, and bets, drinks cocktails,
smokes cigarettes, and goes to midnight suppers with another,
and is introduced to pugilists by a third, and listens to innuen-
does, double entendres, and unprintable stories.
Such is the extreme nineteenth-century protest against
Puritanism. The home is the unit of the State, and the
social law hitherto has been that woman's proper place is
home — not as a slave or a drudge, but as a companion, col-
league, and spiritual guardian; walking a path not of roses,
but of love, faith, and duty, and supreme in that kingdom.
The properly reared and educated young woman anticipates
marriage and maternity as her natural destiny. The race-
track, midnight revelries, high kicking, skirt-dancing, and
"coon" songs are not favorable preliminaries.
160 Johx James Ingalls.
Even the most sated and cynical of men in their better
intervals turn reverently to the higher ideal cf the
"Perfect woman, nobly planned,
To warn, to comfort, and command ;
But yet a spirit still and bright
With something of an angel light."
THE ANNEXATION OF HAWAII.
(Written immediately after President McKinley sent the Hawaiian Treaty
to the Senate, June 16, 1897.I
Midway between the Golden Gate and Yokohama, but ior
outside a line drawn from the northwestern to the southwest-
ern extremities of the Republic, lies the archipelago known on
the map as the Sandwich Islands, set like a cluster of gems in
the immeasurable azure of the Pacific, where one hundred
years ago Captain Cook found half a million natives living in a
state of feudal communism, without laws or morals or indus-
try, their simple wants supplied by Nature beneath a sky that
was cloudless, and in a year that had no winter.
Civilization bequeaths to weaker races only its vices.
The Indian, the Xegro, the Chinese, the Hindoo, the Polyne-
sian, are illustrations of the blessings which Christian nations
bestow upon their victims. Since 177S, the date of discovery,
the native population, under the benign influences of alcohol
and disease has constantly declined till but a fraction remains.
In the twenty-five years following the landing of Cook fully
one-half of the original inhabitants perished from these caus
and the diminution has since steadily progressed. Their final
extinction or absorption is the decree of destiny.
The fertile lands, the harbors, the political functions,
meanwhile have been acquired by foreigners, who control the
commerce, the agriculture, and the government of the islands,
and desire to make them a colony, a territory, or a dependency
161
1 62 John James Ingalls.
of the United States. Treaties to this end have repeatedly
been considered, and the latest is now pending (June, 1897)
for ratification by the Senate.
It must be conceded that our policy hitherto has been
strictly continental from the beginning. We have rejected
all efforts to extend our boundaries outside the North Amer-
ican continent. We have permitted the other great Powers
to establish naval stations in the West Indies, which are a
menace to every seaport upon our Atlantic coast. The hun-
ger for the horizon seemed to have been satiated, but the
instinct for conquest, which is such a powerful passion in our
race, has been inactive, not because it was extinct, but because
we had enough. The Louisiana and Florida Purchase, the
annexation of Texas, the robbery of Mexico, satisfied from
time to time the appetite of the pioneer. But at last we ha^e
abolished the frontier and subjugated the desert. The public
domain is exhausted. The struggle for life is becoming more
intense. Competition is more bitter and strenuous. Society
is now in a hand-to-hand contest with the destructive forces
which civilization itself has engendered, and it is evident that
we are entering a new epoch in our history. If we do not prey
upon others, we may prey upon ourselves.
The indications also are that England, France, Spain, Ger-
many, and Russia are yielding to the time-spirit which mani-
fests itself in the sullen discontent of the poor and the fatal
satiety of the rich, and seeking new fields for adventure and
new markets for trade.
We have come in the United States to the fork of the roads.
Our industrial competitors and rivals have entered upon a
career of stupendous rapacity. In Africa, Asia, China, the
Philippines, in every abode of inferior races, they arc engaged
The Annexation of Hawaii. 163
in schemes of plunder and depredation as savage and brutal
as the ravages of the Huns or the descent of the Goths and
Vandals.
Directlv in the pathway of our commerce with Australia,
the Orientals, and the Northern Pacific, the inevitable route
of the ocean cable, the rendezvous of fleets and navies, lies this
little insular domain whose fate within the next thirty days
is to be determined by the votes of ninety men behind the
closed gates of the Senate of the United States. That the
Sandwich Islands will belong to us or to some unfriendly power
in the immediate future may be taken for granted. They can
not stand alone. They have neither the population nor the
wealth to hold their own in the family of nations.
The fundamental question before the American people,
therefore, is not so much whether it will be to our advantage
to annex them, as whether it will be to our disadvantage to
have England annex them ; whether with thirty-five hundred
miles of vulnerable frontier on the north, with the fortifications
of Halifax and Vancouver at either end on the Atlantic and
Pacific, we can afford to have this blustering ruffian of the
world build another Gibraltar in mid-ocean, where her ships
can assemble and menace our sea -front from the Columbia
River to the Nicaragua Canal.
It needs no soothsayer to predict that the next theatre
of industrial and commercial activity will be in the Eastern
Hemisphere. The unprecedented energy of Japan, the exten-
sion of the Russian railroad system through the Asiatic Con-
tinent and the subsequent development of its navy and coin
mercial marine, the gold exodus of the valley of the Yukon,
the enormous value of the forests and fisheries of the North-
md the new highways and centers of exchange that
1 64 John James Ingalls.
will result from the completion of the Isthmus Canal, and the
practical partition of China with its four hundred million
inhabitants, unerringly point to a revolution that will make
the twentieth century the most marvelous in the annals of
mankind.
In this great theatre of action Hawaii is a focal point
of transcendent importance. It is the key of the Pacific.
That the treaty of annexation is opposed to the traditions
of the Republic can be conceded. But we are opening a
new volume in the world's history. The westward path
of empire has made the circle of the globe, and it must retrace
its footsteps or go on to the goal whence it started. New
times demand new manners and new men. Tradition was
opposed to the purchase of Louisiana by Jefferson from
Napoleon ; to the acquisition of Florida ; to the Alaskan treaty
with Russia. There was no warrant in the Constitution for
either, but they were sanctioned by public opinion. Alaska is
not contiguous to our territory, and the Klondike is prac-
tically more remote than Honolulu. With cable communica-
tion, which will soon be established, the question of distance
will disappear, the ocean will be no barrier, and time will be
annihilated.
The suggestion that the people of Hawaii are not in favor
of annexation, and that the existing Government is a usurpa-
tion, is not borne out by any facts that have appeared since
Mr. Cleveland's ludicrous effort to lower the American flag and
restore the monarchy by diplomatic methods that would have
disgraced a rural pettifogger in an attempt to secure fictitious
co-respondents in a divorce case.
The constitutional difficulty of establishing some form of
government not inconsistent with our institutions is more
The Annexation of Hawaii. 165
fanciful than real. It could be made a county of the State
of California, with the consent of that commonwealth. It
could be attached for judicial and municipal purposes, under
the same conditions, to Oregon or Washington. It is fur-
ther out than the Isles of Shoals from New Hampshire, or
Nantucket from Massachusetts, but the conditions are the
same. It could be declared a military reservation, or it might
be governed by commissioners under a code like the District
of Columbia. It would not be indispensable for the pres-
ervation of liberty and self-government that Hawaii should
be admitted into the Union as a separate and independent
State.
Mr. James Bryce has written an article for The Forum
upon The Policy of Annexation for America," in which
he expresses the opinion that we should not increase our
territory nor enlarge our navy, nor incorporate populations
not homogeneous and similar. He fears we might be com-
pelled to maintain two powerful fleets, one in the Pacific and
one in the Gulf of Mexico, to defend Cuba and Hawaii from
foreign attack, if, as he is apprehensive we may, we should
annex these islands. He deprecates the "earth hunger"
which rages among European states, and hopes we will wait
until the appetites are fully satiated. This eminent Eng-
lishman is the author of an exceedingly valuable and inter-
esting work on "The American Commonwealth," and the peo-
ple of the United States will greatly appreciate his solicitude
for their welfare. The information he conveys as to our "mis-
sion" is also novel and instructive, and will have great weight
in determining our conduct in the future. His advice con-
cerning our duty and our policy in this crisis ought to be the
subieet of earlv consideration In- the President and his Cabi-
166 John James Ingalls.
net, lest we descend from our pedestal of 'wise and pacific
detachment," whatever that may be.
The Professor is wiser in his day and generation than
the children of light. His attitude of lofty and patronizing
superiority from any other source would seem like unwar-
ranted and insufferable impertinence. Coming from a cit-
izen of the nation which has habitually trampled on the
rights of the feeble and helpless in the four quarters of the
earth, the chartered bully of the seas, it has elements of
the grotesque. He admits incautiously that the "fancy for
coloring new territories British on the map" has had some-
thing to do with these recent extensions of British authority,
but feels that it would be unfortunate should the United States
be led into any similar courses. Quite so, Professor. But
the analysis which detects in the annexation of Hawaii any
any resemblance to the subjugation and plunder of India,
or the Rhodes conspiracy in South Africa, is neither philo-
sophical nor accurate. It lacks perspective. Should Profes-
sor Jones, of Harvard, or Professor Smith, of Chicago Uni-
versity, print in The Nineteenth Century such a lecture to
the people of England on their mission, their duty, and their
policy, it would be treated with contemptuous derision as an
ill-mannered exhibition of Yankee impudence.
Of course, if we take Hawaii, we must keep it. That
goes without saying. If it is attacked, we must defend it.
By fleets and fortresses we must make it impregnable. All
this is implied. If we get down from the pedestal on which
the Professor has placed us, and enter into competition for
markets for our surplus products and areas for our sur-
plus population, we must go armed. Bibles and mission-
aries and missals and treaties of arbitration will not do.
Tin: Annexation of Hawaii. 167
We talk of Christian civilization, but when the Venezuela
boundary question was up a few months ago, the passion
of the people broke out into a hoarse roar for blood. Gen-
eral Sehurz points out the danger in Harper s Weekly. His
experience as a soldier gives his opinion great value. He
never believed in taking any risks. He regards our position
now as safe, and shrinks from exposure. He is courageous
enough, however, to admit that Hawraii can be defended if
the people are willing to pay the bills. This is the opinion
also of the retail grocer and the proprietor of the ninety-
nine-cent bargain-counter.
Speaker Reed says we can wait. So we can. The trouble
is that the other nations will not wait. The Speaker has
not in other emergencies been wanting in aggression. Pa-
tience is one of the cardinal virtues, but the Speaker has
not been a companion of Job hitherto. His great fame has
derived none of its lustre from patience. He says there is
no need of hurry in aggrandizement, and that as we grow
we will spread fast enough, which is perspicacious; as we
grow older we shall increase in years. It has been said that
everything comes to him who waits, but this is not true
of nations. Of them it may be said, as of the Kingdom of
Heaven, that the violent take it by force.
From the economic standpoint, the soil of Hawaii is fer-
tile, the climate incomparable. To its spontaneous prod-
ucts have been added sugar, potatoes, indigo, coffee, and
wool. It can readily support a population of a million and
afford large customs and excise revenues to the Government
far beyond any possible cost of maintenance. Mingling
with the large patriotic and strategic considerations is the
sugar tariff, which may at last be the decisive factor in
1 68 John James Ingaixs.
the vote on the treaty. The Dingley Bill, by increasing
the duty on sugar, has stimulated the culture of the sugar
beet, especially in the semi-arid and upland regions of the
West, where agricultural depression has been most severe
and disastrous, and political aberration most excessive.
Never much enamored with high duties hitherto, these
interests have now organized a formidable opposition to
Hawaiian annexation on the ground that free cane sugar
will interfere injuriously with the infant beet sugar indus-
try. And it cannot be doubted that the same sentiment
is supporting the Spaniards in the Cuban insurrection. That
the senators from the West will be wholly insensible to these
influences is not to be expected. It would not be creditable
if they were. They represent their constituencies as well
as the Nation. The future of parties is uncertain, and in
the contests for succession they must reconcile conflicting
interests and appeal to that public opinion which is the tri-
bunal of last resort. It would be strange, but not unprec-
edented, if, after all, the fate of the Treaty of Annexation
and the Reciprocity Treaty, under which for several years
sugar has been admitted free of duty, should hinge upon
matters relatively of little more consequence than the reck-
oning of a tapster's arithmetic.
They will do well to remember that for nations, as for
men,
"Emulation has a thousand sons
That one by one pursue. If you give way
Like to an entered tide, they all rush by
And leave you hindmost."
A NATION'S GENESIS.
The genesis of other nations has been legendary and
obscure. They have had an unrecorded infancy and child-
hood of fable and mythology. Their dawn has emerged
from a dim twilight peopled with vague shadows and phan-
toms, gods and giants and heroes whose loves and wars are
written in the Iliad and odes of race. But there is no Rom-
ulus and Remus business about the United States of America ;
none of its founders were suckled by wolves on the banks
of the James or the inhospitable shores of Massachusetts Bay.
The forty thousand Englishmen who migrated to Virginia
and Xew England in the first half of the seventeenth century
are no strangers. We know their names, where they were
born, why they came, the day and hour they landed, and
what they did when they set foot on shore. We know, for
they have told us, that Massachusetts was discovered by
accident and settled by mistake.
The Pilgrims did not intend to land at Plymouth, and
they would not have remained there could they have gotten
away. Thev sailed for the Hudson, and after a tempestuous
voyage of more than two months, the Mayflower anchored
off Cape Cod.
From November 9 till December 22 they explored the
sunless sea, zr.:\ then, landing on Plymouth Roc!:, founded
the famous coiony without the knowledge of the corporation
169
170 John James Lngalls.
that claimed the territory, and without the sanction of the
Government by which it was chartered. They were neither
much better nor much worse than the average American
citizen to-day. No doubt they wanted the right to worship
God according to the dictates of their own conscience; but
six days in the week they had an incredibly keen eye for
the main chance.
Those sombre exiles brought in their cargo many things
that did not appear in the invoice. They unloaded from
their shallop the elements of a civilization the most rapa-
cious, the most arrogant, the most relentless ever known
in the history of mankind. Those who signed their names
to the compact of government in that dingy cabin released
social and political ideas of inconceivable energy, self-govern-
ment, liberty of conscience, universal education. The same
spirit that penned that charter wrote the Declaration of In-
dependence, the Constitution, the Proclamation of Emanci-
pation, guided the pen of Lincoln, unsheathed the sword of
Grant, trained the guns of Dewey at Manila, and created the
splendor and opulence and power of the civilization of the
nineteenth century.
The prescriptions of these pioneers were simple. They
were neither dreamers nor doctrinaires nor philosophers.
They were not perplexed with theories nor abstractions.
They were tired of kings. They were fatigued with hered-
itarv distinctions of rank and birth and station. They re-
solved to build a state in which all men should be polit-
ically equal. For the divine right of kings they substituted
the sovereignty of the people. In the place of prerogatives
and privilege for the few they put equal opportunities for
all. Thev determined to secure the universal diffusion of
A Nation's Genesis.
i;i
social and political rights among all citizens, accompanied
by sufficient guarantees for the protection of life, the secu-
rity of property, the preservation of liberty. They pro-
jected that the means of education should be co-extensive
with the desire to know, and that the conditions of happiness
should be commensurate with the capacity to enjoy.
Anniversaries are the exclamation points of history. The
mind takes mysterious pleasure in their return. The birth-
day of a hero recalls him from the tomb and he lives again
in the souls of millions who rehearse his triumphs and deplore
his death.
Upon the dial-plate of nations centuries are the hours,
and although the twentieth century does not begin until
January i, 1901, it is not inappropriate to recount the vast
achievement of democratic principles in the hundred years
now drawing to their close.
It is certain that in 1800 the most sanguine advocates of
democracy had no premonition of the coming grandeur and
glory of the Republic. Its area was then much less than
one million square miles, which was more than doubled in
1803 by the sudden and unauthorized acquisition of the
Louisiana Territory from Napoleon, and has since been in-
creased by purchase and conquest to three and a half millions,
exclusive of our possessions in the West Indies and the Pacific.
It is far within bounds to say that humanity has made
greater progress in the last hundred years than in all the six
thousand that preceded.
In everything that makes life rich and valuable and worth
living for, health, comfort, beauty and happiness, the hum-
blest artisan enjoys what kings could not purchase with
their treasures a centurv ago.
i7- John James Ixgalls.
When John I. Blair, who died a few weeks ago at ninety-
seven, was born, it took longer to go from Boston to Wash-
ington than it does now to travel from New York to San
Francisco, and cost half as much to make the journey.
There were no railroads nor steamboats nor telegraphs nor
telephones. The only means of public conveyance were
stage-coaches, sailing vessels, and canal-boats. Communi-
cation by mail was equally costly and uncertain. Cincin-
nati and St. Louis were frontier outposts, and the name of
Chicago was not written in the gazettes. There was not
a friction match in the world. Fire, the indispensable min-
ister of civilization, was preserved by being covered in the
ashes at night or struck from the flint and steel into tinder.
Illumination was by candles. Electricity for light, heat,
and power was unknown. The awful horrors of surgery
and the pangs of death had not been mitigated by chloroform.
Intelligent sanitation and scientific nutrition had not been
discovered. The typewriter, the sewing-machine, and agri-
cultural machinery were phantoms of hope. Every acre of
grain was sowed broadcast, reaped by the sickle, and threshed
by the "dull thunder of the alternate flail."
It is difficult to conceive the conditions and incidents
of existence when John I. Blair was born, and incredible
that the span of a single life should include these miracles
of discovery and invention by which earth has been robbed
of its secrets and the skies of their mysteries.
The mind is bewildered by the contemplation of its mar-
velous achievements in the nineteenth century.
If time and space signified now what they did in 1800
the United States could not exist under one government.
It would not be possible to maintain unity of purpose or
A Nation's Genesis. j;;>
identity of interest between communities separated by such
inseparable barriers as Oregon and Florida. But time and
distance are arbitrary terms, one depending on the trans-
mission of thought, the other on the transit of ourselves and
our commodities, our manufactures and our harvests. Tin-
continent has shrunk to a span. The oceans are obliterated.
London and Paris and Peking and New York are next-door
neighbors.
These vast accomplishments of our race have rendered
democracy possible. Steam, electricity, and machinery have
emancipated millions and left them free to pursue higher
ranges of effort. Labor has become more remunerative. The
flood of wealth has raised myriads to comfort and many to
affluence.
A. D. 2000 seems remote, but the interval will pass like
a vision in the night when one awaketh. He who shall tell
its story to the eager, listening multitudes that distant morn-
ing may possibly assure them that the encroachments of
capital have been restrained and that labor has its just re-
ward; that the rich are no longer afflicted with satiety nor
the poor with discontent; that we have wealth without oster-
tation, liberty without license, taxation without oppression,
the broadest education, and the least corruption of manners.
Perhaps not. He can hardly record any great additional vic-
tories over Nature, unless it be aerial navigation. We have
conquered the earth and the sea. Some twentieth century
Edison may conquer the atmosphere.
A DREAM OF EMPIRE.
It is no brag nor vaunt nor empty boast to affirm that
the human race since 1800 has advanced further into civ-
ilization— the sum of moral and material progress of man-
kind— than in the six thousand years which preceded. The
American citizen of three score and ten has lived longer in
everything that makes life worth living than Methuselah in
all his tranquil, stagnant centuries.
When vSenator Morrill, of Vermont, and Secretary Thomp-
son, of Indiana, were born, early in the century, of all those
appliances, devices, inventions, and discoveries that have an-
nihilated space and time, made gravitation, heat, light, and
electricity the slaves of man, abolished pain, revolutionized
industry, and indefinitely enlarged the boundaries of human
happiness, not one existed.
There was no railroad nor telegraph; no telephone, no
typewriter nor sewing-machine; no chloroform nor photogra-
ph v. Every acre of grain was sowed broadcast; reaped with
the sickle and the cradle, and threshed with the "dull thunder
of the alternate flail." Friction matches were unknown. Fire,
the indispensable agent of civilization, was started by strik-
ing sparks from flint and steel into tinder, and preserved by
covering coals in the ashes at night. Kings, with their treas-
uries, could not obtain the comforts and conveniences in their
palaces which the most parsimonious landlord now furnishes
174
A Dream of Empire i 75
without question for the unpretentious cottage of the black-
smith and the carpenter. Life seems quite inconceivable un-
der the conditions of 1800, and we reflect with incredulity that
now no triumph over Xature remains to be won except the
conquest of the sky.
One hundred years ago the Mississippi, from the mouth
of Red River to the Lake of the Woods, was geographically
the western frontier of the United States. Historically, the
pioneers of Ohio and the Northwestern Territory and the
unborn States of Indiana and Illinois were descending the
declivity of the Appalachian Mountains and disappearing in
the forests whose solitudes extended from Fort Dearborn to
Xatehez.
Beyond the Mississippi to the Pacific was an undiscov-
ered country, under the dominion of France, England, Mex-
ico, and Spain; a mysterious region of unexplored deserts, of
illimitable prairies and plains; of nameless rivers and colossal
mountain ranges; the land of dreams, of romance and adven-
ture, as unknown as the interior of Africa to-dav. St. Louis,
New Orleans, and Pensacola were foreign towns, and the name
of Chicago, now one of the chief cities of the world, was not
written on the map.
The entire population of the Union was about the same
as that of the State of Xew York in 1S99. Its area was not
much in excess of 800,000 square miles, and its organic law
had no provisions for acquiring foreign territory, for hold-
ing colonial dependencies, nor for the incorporation of alien
communities.
Then, as now, there were paleozoic statesmen, hair-split-
ting metaphysical politicians, costive legislators, brakemen on
the express train of American destiny, phrase-mongers hurl-
i"j6 John James Ingalls.
ing the derisive epithet of imperialism at the irresistible col-
umn of migration, impelled by the earth-hunger which is the
characteristic of our race, that was moving westward to the
Rocky Mountains and the Pacific.
The foundation of the "Empire of the West" was laid
by the purchase in 1803, for $15,000000, of the Province of
Louisiana, which more than doubled the national domain,
adding 1,171,931 square miles, comprising Alabama and Mis-
sissippi north of parallel 31 degrees, all of Louisiana, Arkansas,
Missouri, Iowa, Minnesota west of the Mississippi, Nebraska,
North and South Dakota, Kansas except the southwest corner
south of the Arkansas River, Colorado, Montana, Wyoming
east of the Rocky Mountains, Oklahoma and the Indian Terri-
tory. This stupendous acquisition, now the granary of the
world, the inexhaustible storehouse of the base and precious
metals, rich in every element of present prosperity and far
richer in every element of future opulence, was denounced by
Josiah Ouincy, of Massachusetts, when Louisiana was admitted
as a virtual dissolution of the Union, justifying all the States
in preparing for amicable or violent separation.
The annexation of Florida by treaty with Spain in 18 19,
of Texas by joint resolution of Congress in 1845, of Utah,
Nevada, Arizona, western Colorado, and New Mexico by con-
quest from Mexico and by the Gadsden Purchase, which added
more than a million square miles to our possessions, were
due to the determination of the South to retain control of
the Senate for the protection of slavery; but by the opera-
tion of economic laws, culminating in the War of the Rebel-
lion, all except Florida have become integral parts of the
Empire of the West.
A DrEam of Empire. 177
Great Britain in 1S46 surrendered a doubtful claim to
Oregon, Idaho, and Washington, and Russia, by treatv.
March 30, 1867, ceded Alaska, comprising 577,390 square
miles, for $7,200,000. So that the sun never sets on our
boundaries, and when at eight his evening rays glow upon
our western frontier at Behring Straits, his morning beams
gild the headlands of Maine.
This enormous body politic, extending from the Ohio to
the Pacific, and from Canada to the Gulf, known by the ge-
neric term of "the West," is among the most extraordinarv
ef the phenomena of the nineteenth century.
In less than one hundred years the untrodden wilderness
of 1S00, ten times greater in extent than France, has become
the abode of thirty million people residing in twenty-four
States and three Territories, sending forty-eight senators to
the National Congress, with agricultural productions that con-
trol the food markets of the whole civilized world.
Individual liberty, the practice of self-government, equal-
ity of rights before equal laws, and equal opportunities in
the struggle for existence have been the potential agencies
that have abolished the frontier and subjugated the desert.
The race that has wrought this transformation, conscious
of a destiny not yet accomplished, pauses for an instant
upon the shores of the Pacific, before entering upon its final
career for the moral and material conquest of the world.
HALLUCINATIONS OF DESPAIR.
The gentleman who said the love of money was the root
of all evil either had the epigram habit, and was the uncon-
scious dupe of his own exaggerations, or else he spoke with-
out reflection and from insufficient data.
It was a hasty generalization which omitted from the
catalogue of the generic causes of evil the love of power and
glory, the hunger for fame, the passion for woman and the
grape, the appetite for knowledge that is forbidden.
There was no money in Eden. Adam drew no checks.
Eve ran no bills. Evil in plenty exists among those who
are not disturbed by the volume or the ratio of their circu-
lating medium. But even were the aphorism of the moralist
true, which it is not, it would be no discredit to money. In
a successful universe evil is quite as indispensable as good.
It keeps the procession going. Without evil progress would
cease.
It is the contest between the forces which would destroy,
and those that would uphold which keeps the planets in
their orbits and hangs the constellations in the firmament.
Without temptation virtue would expire from lack of
exercise. Were evil extinct, there would no longer be any
pretext for religion, nor any throne for the sovereign of
the moral kingdom. Singing psalms, waving palm branches,
and taking constitutionals along the golden streets of the
178
Hallucinations of Despair. 179
New Jerusalem would become monotonous if hell were abol-
ished. To paraphrase Voltaire, were there no devil, it would
be necessary for man to invent one. But this is another story.
Perhaps by the love of money the polemic meant the sor-
did desire of wealth for its own sake, or for the purchase of
guilty pleasures or the accomplishment of wicked designs.
But the utmost ingenuity of the glossarian cannot change
the fact that among all sources of earthly power the most
potent, palpable, and beneficent is that which accompanies
the possession of money honestly acquired and honorably
employed.
Some care nothing for ambition or renown, but every-
one must have money — manhood may forget the joys of
youth and age sink into an apathy which is indifferent alike
to the allurements of pleasure and the intoxication of success,
but no one is so voting or so old as not to want money. The
necessity for cash begins with the germ and ends with the
period at the end of the epitaph.
The praises of poverty have been pronounced by the rich.
Seneca wrote the eulogy of poverty on a table of gold, but
nobody wants to be poor. Some philosopher has said that
the way to have what you want is to want what you have;
and another, that it is better not to wish for a thing than to
have it; but money still remains the universal object of chief
desire. The reason is obvious. For the individual, money
means education, travel, books, leisure, superiority to the ac-
cidents of life, comely apparel, in health the besl cook, in
sickness the most skillful physician, the happiness of tli
beloved, the luxurv of doing good. For society it meanslibra
ries, museums, parks, galleries of art. hospitals, universities,
180 John James Ingalls.
comfort for the unfortunate, splendor for the rich, everything
that distinguishes civilization from barbarism.
The aggregated wealth of the United States is estimated
to be about seventy-five hundred million dollars. Divided
equally per capita, each person would have in the neighbor-
hood of twelve hundred dollars, and the idea seems to be
gaining ground that every man who has more than this is to
that degree culpable, in that he is feloniously in possession of
what morally belongs to someone else.
All questions in our system, except those of theology,
are political, and come at last to the ballot-box for decision.
It is a government of numbers, and the majority have less
than twelve hundred dollars apiece. As things are going on
now, the time is not far off when the man with a hundred
millions may be required to show his title, and if there is any
flaw, to make restitution.
Some with much less apparently anticipate the crisis,
and are already making contributions to the conscience fund
of the nation, announcing that it is discreditable for any
man to die rich. The millionaires are on the defensive.
They are beginning to apologize. Some are expatriating,
which is an involuntary tribute to public opinion. Indif-
ferent to statutes, humane or divine, they dread the daily
newspaper and the verdict of the people. They belong to
that class, engendered by superfluous wealth, among whom
education has degenerated into flippant pedantry; religion
into shallow mysticism ; politics into a vague passion for aris-
tocracy; society into a languid mob of sycophants, the par-
asites of English pederasts and French grisettes, with the
spirit of Uriah Heep and the morals of Robert Macaire.
For whatever hatred and exasperation there are against
Hallucinations of Despair. [81
wealth in the United States its possessors are directly respon-
sible. They have brought it upon themselves by their sense-
less greed and folly and rapacity. Great rewards for greal
services is the law of our race. No genuine American grudges
the fortune acquired by industry, courage, enterprise, fore-
thought, and genius in fair competition and honest rivalry,
whether it be a million or a hundred million. He does not
believe that any limit can be fixed for individual acquisi-
tion, nor that the wealth of the rich is the cause of the pov
erty of the poor, nor in taking from those who have and
giving to those who have not. Least of all does he accept
those vagaries of the impotent, which would deprive ambition
of its incentive and labor of its reward, and instead of lifting
all to the level of the highest, would drag all down to the
standard of the lowest.
The Osage tribe of Indians, whose fertile reservation lies
between Kansas and the Creek country, is the richest commun-
ity in the world. Their per capita of wealth is more than ten
times greater than that of the most opulent civilized nation.
They number about 1,500. They have in the United
States Treasury nearly eight million dollars, derived mainly
from the sale of superfluous lands, drawing interest at the
rate of 7 per cent. They own in addition nearly one mil
lion five hundred thousand acres of woodland, farms, and
pastures, worth not less than ten dollars an acre.
Each Osage Indian, man, woman, and child, is worth at
least fifteen thousand dollars. Every family, upon a division,
would possess on an average sixty thousand dollars. It is
held and owned in common. All their industries are "nation-
alized." The Government takes care of their property, super-
intends their education an I n ligion, provides food and cloth-
1 82 John James Ingalls.
ing, protects the weak from the aggressions of the strong, and
abolishes as far as it may the injustice of destiny. All have
equal rights; none have special privileges. They toil not,
neither do they spin. The problems of existence are solved
for them. The rate of wages, the hours of labor, the unearned
increment, the rapacity of the monopolist, the wrongs of the
toiler, the howl of the demagogue do not disturb nor perplex
them. They have ample leisure for intellectual cultivation
and development, for communion with Nature and for the
contemplation of art, for the joys of home, but they remain —
Osage Indians.
Socialism and communism are the prescriptions of those
who have failed. They are the hallucinations of despair.
They have been tried and found wanting. Instead of being
novelties, they are the refuse and debris of history. Civili-
zation has been built on their ruins.
SOCIALISM IS IMPOSSIBLE.
The radical error of socialism is the assumption that
there is some power in society above and beyond that of
individuals of which society is composed.
Government and the State are described as independent
political beings, entirely apart from the people.
Government ownership of railroads, nationalization of
the means of production and industrial collectivism are phrases
at once shallow, dishonest, and misleading. A nation is a
voluntary association of individuals, and government is the
agency by which its affairs are conducted.
The United States is a nation, and its Government con-
sists of a president and the Congress, chosen by a majority
of t'he voters, and judiciary, nominated by the executive and
confirmed by the Senate.
Even the wayfaring man, though a fool, must know that
it is impossible for the Government of the United States
to own railroads, or the means of production, or to carry
on the industries of the country. It has no power except
that which is conferred by the people. The money in its
treasury is contributed by the people. For its acts it is
responsible to the people as a servant to his master. The
power of a State ... the aggregate strength of its inhabitants,
as its wealth is the sum total of their possessions.
All the work of the human race since creation has been
done by indiviuals, and progress has been greatest where
183
1 84 John James Ingali.s.
man has been most free. The inventions and improvements
which have dignified humanity; the intellectual triumphs
which have elevated and ennobled it; the heroism, virtue,
and self-sacrifice which have consecrated it, are all the result
of individual effort.
Destiny condemns the vast majority of men in every com-
munity to mediocrity. The few succeed ; the many fail. The
glittering rewards, emoluments, and prizes of life do not ap-
pear to be equitably distributed. .
The race is to the swift; the battle to the strong. Fame,
wealth, power, luxury, ease and, happiness are to the multi-
tude a mocking dream. Ninety-seven out of every hundred
American citizens die penniless.
These are the advocates and propagandists of socialism.
Their programme is the forcible redistribution of the assets
of society. It proposes to substitute the tyranny of the
mob for the tyranny of the monarch, and to take by force
from those who have and give to those who have not; to
obliterate all organic distinctions among men, and to con-
found the moral and intellectual limitations of the race. It
is an attempt by human enactment to abrogate and repeal
the laws of God.
The public ownership of railroads merely means that
the majority of the people, who do not own them, shall take
them from the possession of the minority, who do, by pur-
chase, or theft, or confiscation, and have them operated by
the "Government" for the benefit of the "State." The
railroads of the United States have cost, perhaps, ten thou-
sand million dollars, an amount more than five times greater
than the entire money circulation of the country. How the
"Government," being a pauper, is to pay this sum, except
Socialism Is Impossible. 185
by compelling its citizens to surrender their accumulations
also, or how the "Government" is to maintain and operate
them, except by precisely the same agencies through which
they are now carried on, does not appear. Government is
worst served than any other employer of labor on earth. It
pays higher wages for less service, and the waste and idle-
ness are incredible. The sense of personal responsibility
in the employee is entirely lost, and although the majority
receive more money than ever in their lives before, they
continually complain of the stinginess of Congress, and in-
trigue for higher compensation, longer vacations, and unearned
promotion.
It is not exaggeration to say that any one of half a dozen
great railroad managers in the country, if allowed to carry
on the Government as a private business is conducted, could
pay the pensions, the interest on the public debt, support
the Army and Navy, construct the public buildings, pay all
salaries, maintain the diplomatic service, and carry the mails
for 75 per cent of what it now costs the taxpayers, and make
a great fortune for himself besides, every year. If Govern-
ment can hardly conduct the limited functions it now per-
forms, what would be the result of an attempt to control
the complex interests of all social life under the management
of those who had failed in the successful administration of
their personal affairs?
The advocates of socialism are in the habit of pointing
to the Post Office Department as an illustration of their
theories, and of the tendency of States toward collectivism.
On the contrary, the mail service of the United States is a
typical, burdensome, and irresponsible monopoly of the most
offensive description. Beyond appointing a host of officials to
1 86 John James Ingalls.
collect, pouch, dispatch, receive, and distribute the letters,
papers, and parcels, the Government has nothing whatever to
do with their transmission. They are conveyed by railroads,
steamboats, stage-coaches, and private contractors at extortion-
ate rates, some trains getting the entire cost of maintenance
and operation from their receipts from the Post Office. The
Government pays an average of 8 cents the pound for an aver-
age haul of four and one-half miles, while the express companies
carry merchandise from New York to Chicago, a thousand miles,
for $3.00 per hundred pounds, and some transcontinental lines
will take goods from New Orleans to San Francisco for 8-10 of 1
cent the pound; while Government, by law, compels the citi-
zens to pay for carrying their letters at the rate of $610 the ton.
As a matter of fact, it is much nearer $1,000 the ton, for very
few letters weigh the ounce which may be taken for 2 cents
postage.
And not only so, but the Government renounces all liability
for the safe delivery of the property which it compels the
citizen to intrust to its charge, except to the extent of $10
when it is registered. And this is the basis upon which social-
ism would have all the business of the country conducted.
Any merchant who treated his customers as the United
States treats its citizens in the postal service would be
promptly adjudged a bankrupt and sent to the penitentiary.
It cannot be denied that some aspects of individualism are
not altogether lovely. Unrestrained competition has engen-
dered a herd of moral monsters with the rapacity of the
shark, the greed of the wolf, the cunning of the fox, the feroc-
ity of the tiger, and the ingenuity of the devil.
But these socialism could neither banish nor destroy.
No change in the social order can extirpate selfishness or
Socialism Is Impossible. 187
eliminate the evil propensities of man. These are beyond
statute or ordinance. They can be reached onlv bv con-
science, and the reformation of the individual must come
from within.
America has been the paradise and the nineteenth century
the golden age of individualism. At no other place or time
has the world offered richer prizes or freer field to capacity,
courage, and intelligence. There have been errors and evils.
Perfection is still remote, but there has been greater progress
in science, in popular education, in the means of livelihood,
in sanitation, in the means of communication, in the con-
quest over the mysteries of the universe, than in all the cent-
uries that preceded. We have become the richest and most
powerful nation because every man has been left free to be
master of himself, to improve his condition, to obtain superior
reward for superior merit.
And this vast material development has been accom-
panied by unprecedented activity of the moral and altruistic
energies of the race. Never have religion, eharitv, and self-
sacrifice done so much to alleviate human wretchedness or
wealth been consecrated to nobler use. Colleges, univer-
sities, technical schools, offer free instruction to the hum-
blest. Parks, galleries, and museums afford the means of
recreation to the poorest. Hospitals for the sick, retri
for the infirm, asylums for the unfortunate, exemplify the
Golden Rule, and justify the faith that the brotherhood of
man is not an empty formula or a derisive fiction. Society
is a fortuitous and accidental aggregation of individuals.
Societies have done nothing in this world, nor ever will. The
fundamental fact of Christian civilization is tin- immeasurable
value of the individual soul.
1S8 John James Ingalls.
Socialism is the final refuge of those who have failed
in the struggles for life. It is the prescription of those who
are born tired. It means the survival of the unfit, and the
inevitable result would be degeneration. It would deprive
ambition of its incentive, industry of its stimulus, excellence
of its supremacy, and character of its reward.
Individualism would lift all to the level of the highest.
Socialism would drag all down to the level of the lowest.
Individualism is progress and life Socialism is stagnation
and death.
MEN ARE NOT CREATED EQUAL.
The interest of the people in the social crisis is evinced
by numerous letters from thoughtful and intelligent cor-
respondents, who offer solutions of industrial problems and
remedies for the misery and poverty which are the heritage
of so large a portion of the human race.
The single tax, the abolition of rents, the reduction of
profits, the prohibition of interest, free trade, free silver,
sumptuary laws, socialism, communism, and anarchy all have
their advocates, whose sincerity entitles their theories to re-
spectful consideration.
Like a despondent patient, long ill, who has lost confi-
dence in the faculty and their prescriptions, the wretched
and unfortunate are patronizing political apothecaries with
their patent medicines and consulting fetich doctors and
voodoos with their cabalistic divinations.
Much of the prevalent discontent no doubt springs from
a perverted constitution of the nature of human liberty
and the meaning of human equality.
The glittering generalities of Thomas Jefferson, that all
men are created equal, and that the rights to life, liberty,
and the pursuit of happiness are inalienable, have been the
texts for many injurious instructions. They are rhetorical
flourishes, meaningless to the gentleman on the scaffold and
in Sing Sing who pursues the fleeting phantom of happiness
with the iimmv of the burglar and the dagger of the assassin.
189
190 John James Ingaixs.
Men are not created equal physically, morally, or intel-
lectually, nor in aptitude, opportunity, nor condition.
It is perhaps accurate to say that of the fifteen hundred
million inhabitants of the earth no two are created equal.
Nature is incapable of uniformity, and detests equality as
much as she abhors a vacuum. One is made to honor, an-
other to dishonor, as one star differeth from another star in
glory.
History is a series of repetitions. Those who have failed
in life blame everybody but themselves. The complaint
against fate is as old as Adam. It will end only with the
epitaph of humanity. The distinctions between men were
established by act of God, and they cannot be abolished by
act of Congress.
Were all these panaceas enacted into statutes, all bar-
riers thrown down, all obstacles removed, al burdens lifted,
and the whole constituency lined up for a fresh start, the
result would be the same.
Were all wealth of the country equally distributed, there
would be about $1,200 per capita. Could the assets of the
Nation be divided pro rata, share and share alike, the first
day of January, 1900, by the close of the century the soul
of the philanthropist would be shocked by the same spec-
tacle of inequality existing now. Some would be in the cab,
some on the foot-board, some in private cars, and others
walking the ties in search of a dry culvert for the night, and in
six months more the reformer of the wrongs of society would
demand in the name of justice another division.
It seems trite and superfluous to affirm that the equality
of man can mean nothing more than the equality of rights
before just laws and equality of opportunity in the race of
Men Are Not Created Equal. 191
life. Every man has the absolute right to the use of his
faculties and opportunities to the utmost to better his con-
dition and increase his fortune so long as he does not inter-
fere with the free exercise of the same rights by everybody
else.
It should be apparent also upon the most superficial re-
flection that political liberty by maintaining equality of rights
must inevitably result in greater inequality of condition
than any other system. All fetters are cast off. Every-
thing goes. Life is a grand free-for-all. There is no ped-
igree, nor caste, nor prerogative. The sway-backed mule
has the same rights on the track as Ormonde and Iroquois,
the monarchs of the turf. The petted canary and the scream-
ing jay have equal rights in the atmosphere with the condor
soaring above the inaccessible peak of Chimborazo or the
frigate bird that sleeps at midnight with pinions outspread
upon the tempest, a thousand leagues from shore.
In the exercise of his powers and the enjoyment of free-
dom can laws assign any frontier beyond which a man may
not pass? In the kingdom of knowledge can any bound be
set to learning and wisdom? Can society say to Edison or
Tesla, "You shall explore the mysteries of Nature no further,
lest you infringe the equality of man"?
Can we say what reward they shall receive for the inestim-
able benefits they have conferred upon the world?
Can legislators, or conventions, or tribunals assess the
wages that Melba shall receive for her songs, or Kipling for his
stories, or Choate for his argument, or Bryan for his eloquence,
or Irving for his impersonations?
The world is eager for excellence. It pays for what it wants.
There has been no time when the man or woman who can do
192 John James Ingalls.
anything better then anybody else was so sure of instant rec-
ognition and ample emolument as now. It is the essential cor-
ollary to liberty that courage, energy, sagacity, and dexterity
should succeed and that brains should win the victories and
secure the prizes of life. Reason rebels at the thought of the
establishment of arbitrary restrictions upon the activity of our
powers and the full enjoyment of their acquisitions.
The time will never come when the race will not be to the
swift and the battle to the strong. Indolence will never have
the same wage as thrift nor ignorance the same reward as
wisdom.
Ambition will never lose its incentive nor genius its suprem-
acy. Poverty and debt will never be abolished by edict, nor
will those who have failed in life, having had equal opportunity,
take charge of the affairs of those who have suceeded. The
dreams of Jack Cade and his kindred reformers will never be
realized.
The popular notion now seems to be that there is just so
much wealth in the world; that life is a struggle to see who
shall grab the most, and that the man who acquires a fortune
has obtained by crime what belongs to someone else.
\o mistake could be greater. The acquisition of a million
by invention ; by ministering to new wants ; by novel applica-
tions in science to the needs of daily life; by enterprise and
skill in mining, agriculture, and manufactures, is practically
the creation of wealth — the development of value that but for
the exertions of its possessors would have had no existence.
The prosperous do not complain. The strong can take care
of themselves. It is the feeble who must be lifted up and sup-
ported, and to them the State owes its obligations. It must
protect the weak from oppression, the poor from extortion _
Men Are Not Created Equal. 193
the humble from injustices. It must secure universal diffusion
of civil and political rights, with vigorous guarantees for the
security of life, liberty, and property. It must provide edu-
cation for the ignorant, refuge for the defective, asylum for the
helpless, and give every man an equal chance to "get there" if
he can. If he gets left, his name is "Dennis."
Pompey buys a brush, whitewashes a fence, and earns fifty
cents.
Millet, with the same outlay, paints "The Angelus," which
sells for one hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
So long as Pompey has the right to paint "The Angelus"
and Millet the right to whitewash the fence, neither has just
ground for complaint. They have equal opportunity and must
be content.
But if a number of gentlemen combine and buy up all the
brushes, and the lime, and the pigments, so that Pompey can-
not whitewash nor Millet paint without their consent, both
may justly claim that they have been deprived of their birth-
right and are subject to degrading bondage and servitude.
It seems inequitable that Patti should receive fifteen hun-
dred dollars for a song, while the seamstress earns fifteen
cents for a day's work making shirts in a sweat-shop. But if
every woman had the voice of the prima donna, and only one
woman in the world could make shirts, the situation would be
reversed. The condition of the shirt-maker cannot be ame-
liorated by changing political institutions, or methods of taxa-
tion, or by nationalizing manufactures. If wages are to be
increased, the number of seamstresses must be diminished or
people must wear more shirts.
The argument of Henry George for the abolition of private
ownership of land is that value is given to land by the landless.
194 John James Ingalls.
The same is true of everything else. The value of all property
comes from those who want it and do not have it. The value
of shirts is given to them by the shirtless ; the value of diamonds,
by the diamondless; the value of railroads, by those who want
to travel.
The future will be richer than the past. Vast as has been
the progress of the race, there are greater triumphs to be won
by those that have eyes to see and ears to hear.
The medicine for the ills of society must be found, therefore,
in individual cultivation and development, and the ultimate
appeal must be to conscience and intelligence to protect liberty
from the folly of its friends and the fury of its foes.
THE POOR MAN'S CHANCE.
One summer evening in pensive thought I wandered, fiftv-
odd years ago, with a schoolmate under the "buttonwoods" in
Haverhill, on the shore of the moonlit Merrimac.
We talked long, as thoughtful schoolboys will, of the mys-
teries of the universe and the enigmas of destiny. To our de-
fective forecast the future appeared dark, troubled, and uncer-
tain. Time's golden age was behind. The battle for fame and
fortune was more desperate.
We did not know, we could not know, no one knew, that we
were standing at the portal or the threshold of the most in ir-
velous age of the world's history; an age of such incredible
achievements in science, war, wealth, luxury, and national
power, growth, and glory, that by comparison the most exag-
gerated fables of fiction, the lamp of Aladdin, the purse of For-
tunatus, the philosopher's stone, seem like the trivial com-
monplaces of the nursery, and the wildest hyperbole becomes
tame and prosaic.
Looking backward across the years since that moonlight
stroll on the banks of the enchanted river, I do not see that I
have been denied any right, privilege, or opportunity enjo
by those who have drawn the great prizes in the lottery of lif
we all had the same chance. If laws were unjust, all alike were
their victims. If statutes were beneficent, none were debarred
their advantage. Those who climbed the highest began the
lowest. None were favored by legislation <>r influence
196 John James Ixgalls.
Lincoln and Grant, neither suspected of greatness, were
waiting in homely indigence the summons that, ten years later,
was to call them to immortal fame. Edison, the mightiest
magician of the forces of Nature, was a tramping telegrapher.
Carnegie was a messenger-boy in Pittsburgh. Huntington was
selling picks, nails, and horseshoes in Sacramento. Jay Gould
was a book agent in Delaware County. The Rockefellers and
the mob of plutocrats that excite the envy and arouse the indig-
nation of those who have failed, all began in the lowest and
humblest ways of life.
I had the same chance, and every boy of that time had the
same chance. The world was all before me where to choose,
and Providence my guide. I had the right to build railroads,
or to go into Wall Street and wreck them ; to invent the tele-
phone; to write "Uncle Tom's Cabin"; to mine for gold and
silver; to concoct patent medicines; to corner petroleum; to
"bull " pork and wheat, like my cotemporaries. The only thing
I lacked was brains. I didn't know how; so I went West and
helped lay the foundations and build the superstructure of the
great empire of the Northwest, and thus missed the whole show.
And then too, luck has much to do with success in life. He
who leaves out the element of luck omits one of the most im-
portant factors in the game. The dish of some is always bot-
tom up when it rains. The luckiest man of this generation is
Admiral Dewey. He threw double sixes twice in succession at
Manila.
What chance has the poor man in 1900? About the same,
I should say, he had fifty years ago. In some ways rather bet-
ter, if he can adapt himself to the changed conditions of society.
Many avenues open then are now shut. Many opportunities,
once free, no longer exist. Competition is more selfish and
The Poor Max's Chance. 197
strenuous, but the world was never so ready as now to pay for
what it wants. There has been no time when the man or
woman who can do anything better than anybody else was so
sure of instant recognition and remuneration.
Paderewski and Irving have just sailed away with fortunes
earned by a few months of professional exhibition. Mme.
Nordica received a thousand dollars for singing two songs that
occupied ten minutes, while an equally meritorious seamstress
earns twenty-five cents for ten hours' repulsive toil in a sweat-
shop. Kipling gets more for a stanza than Milton for the copy-
right of "Paradise Lost." Millet and Meissonier derived from
the brush and the palette the revenues of the treasuries of
kingdoms.
The poor man's chance depends very much on what the
poor man has to sell. If his stock in trade consists of untrained
muscle, a dull brain, and sullen discontent, he will work for
wages, dine from a tin bucket when the noon whistle blows, and
die dependent or a mendicant. If he have courage, industry,
enterprise, foresight, luck, and the willing mind, he will gain
competence or fortune. He will establish his family in com-
fort, educate his children and accustom them to the environ-
ment of refined habits, which, after all, is the best of life.
The real difference in men is not in want of opportunity,
but in want of capacity to discern opportunity and power to
take advantage of opportunity.
This, at least, is certain: that in 1950 the celebrated schol-
ars and teachers, the learned divines, the eloquent orators and
statesmen, the foremost legislators and judges, the President
who will have been inaugurated the year before, the great
authors and poets- and philosophers, the inventors and mer-
chants and lords of finance, will be men who are now young,
198 John James Ingalls.
poor, and obscure, striving against obstacles that seem insu-
perable to enter in at the strait gate that leads to fame and
fortune.
Society is reinforced from the bottom and not from the top.
Families die out, fortunes are dispersed ; the recruits come from
the farm, the forge, and the work-shop, and not from the club
and the palace. Those who will control the destinies of the
twentieth century are now boys wearing homespun and "hand-
me-downs," and not the gilded youth clad in purple and fine
linen, and faring sumptuously every day at Sherry's and Del-
monico's. This is the poor man's chance. It is open to all
comers. It is not a matter of law, or statute, or politics.
Free silver, tariff, expansion, militarism, have nothing to
do with it. What is needed is some legislation that will give
brains to the brainless, thrift to the thriftless, industry to the
irresolute, and discernment to the fool. Till this panacea is
discovered, the patient must minister to himself.
The worst enemy of the poor man, except himself, is the
trust, and of all forms of this odious tyranny the most intoler-
able is the labor trust. The money trust kills the body, the
labor trust kills the soul. It destroys the independence of the
laboring man, effaces his individuality, cancels excellence, and
substitutes brute force for intelligence.
The right of labor to combine and to refuse to work for
wages that employers are willing to pay is undeniable; but
when strikers organize to prevent others from taking their
places by violence and murder, destroying property and sub-
jecting great companies to enormous inconvenience, hardship,
and loss, they attack the fundamental rights of citizenship and
become outlaws and criminals, who ought to be exterminated.
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL.
When Voltaire said that if there were no God, it would be
necessary for man to invent one, he formulated, unconsciously
perhaps, the fundamental truth of existence.
A universe without a God is an intellectual absurdity, which
reason rejects spontaneously. God is indispensable. Fate,
force, and blind chance do not satisfy the mind. If all the let-
ters in the play of "Hamlet" were shaken in a dice-box and
thrown at midnight in a tempest on the Desert of Sahara, they
might fall exactly as they are arranged in the drama. It may
be admitted that if Destiny kept on casting long enough, they
would inevitably at some time so fall, which would render the
Bard of Avon superfluous and unnecessary. But this does not
disturb our belief in Shakespeare.
Irrespective of creeds and theology, they are wise who
would recognize God in the Constitution, because faith in a
Supreme Being, in immortality and the compensations of
eternity conduces powerfully to social order by enabling man
to endure with composure the injustice of this world in the hope
of reparation in that which is to come.
Inasmuch as both force and matter are infinite and inde-
structible, and can be neither added to nor subtracted from, it
follows that in some form we have always existed, and that we
shall continue in some form to exist forever.
Whence we came into this life no one knows nor cares.
Evolution, metempsychosis, reincarnation, are not beliefs.
199
200 John James Ingalls.
They are parts of speech, interesting only to the compiler of
lexicons.
Our appearance here is not voluntary. We are sent to this
planet on some mysterious errand without being consulted in
advance. Many of us would not have come had the opportu-
nity to decline, with thanks, been presented.
To multitudes life is an inconceivable insult and injury,
an intolerable affront; torture and wretchedness indescribable
from poverty, disease, grief, Fortune's slings and arrows ; wrongs
deliberately inflicted by some unknown malignant power, as
Job was tormented by the devil, with the consent of God, just
to try him, till at last the troubled patriarch cursed the day he
was born.
Worst of all, we are sent here under sentence of death. The
most grievous and humiliating punishment man can inflict up-
on the criminal is death.
Human tribunals give the malefactor a chance. His crime
must be proved. He can put in his defense. He can appear by
attorney and plead and take appeal. But we are all condemned
to death beforehand. The accusation and the accuser are
unknown. An inexorable verdict has been pronounced and
recorded in the secret councils of the skies. We are neither
confronted with the witness nor allowed a day in court. From
the hour of birth we are beset by invulnerable and invisible
enemies, the pestilence that walketh in darkness and the de-
struction that wasteth at noonday. Fatal germs, immortal
bacilli, heaven-sent miracles, inhabit the air we breathe, the
food we eat, the water we drink, poisoning where they fly and
infecting where they repose.
The Immortality of the Soul 201
Science continually discloses malevolent agencies, hitherto
undetected, which vainly try to extirpate, or to build frail and
feeble barriers against their depredations.
Theology complacently announces that for the majority of
the human race this tough world is the prelude to an eternity
in hell. If any trembling sinner desires comfort and consola-
tion in these awful miseries, let him read the sermon of Jon-
athan Edwards from the text, "Their feet shall slide in due
time."
Hell would be preferable to annihilation, it may be, but
this alternative does not satisfy those who repeat the everlast-
ing interrogatory of Job, "If a man die, shall he live again?"
Nature, like a witness in contempt, stands mute. Science
returns from its remotest excursions, shakes its head, and,
smiling, puts the question by. Christ contented Himself with
a few vague and unsatisfactory generalities : ' ' Whoso liveth
and belie veth in Me shall never die;" "In My Father's house
are many mansions." Saint Paul, the greatest of the teach-
ers of Christianity, could only respond by a misleading analogy.
He knew the wheat which is reaped is not that which is sown.
The harvest is a succession, not a resurrection.
The evidences of a superintending moral purpose and
design in the affairs of men are faint and few. The wicked
prosper, the good suffer. The problems of sin, pain, and evil
are insoluble. Visiting the sins of the fathers upon the chil-
dren to the third and fourth generation, making the innocent
suffer for the offenses of the guilty, is an unjust and cruel law
that ought to be repealed. Civilization has long since rejected
the principle from human jurisprudence. Even treason, the
highest crime known to its code, no longer works corruption
of blood or forfeiture of estate.
202 John James Ingaixs.
Unless man is immortal, the moral universe, so tar as he is
concerned, disappears altogether. If he does not survive the
grave, it makes no difference to him whether there be God or
devil, or heaven or hell. And it must be not only a survival,
but with a continuity of consciousness as well, if the evil are to
be punished and the good rewarded hereafter. To inflict the
penalty of violated law upon a being who does not know that
he has offended, is not punishment, but revenge. Conscious
identity may not be a necessary condition of intelligence, but
it is essential in morals. It is conceivable that a being may
know without knowing that he knows ; but he cannot sin with-
out knowing that he sins, nor be punished unless he knows
for what wrong he suffers.
Frederick W. Robertson, the eminent English divine, closes
one of his discourses by saying :
"Search through tradition, history, the world within you and the
world without— except in Christ, there is not the shadow of a shade of
proof that man survives the grave."
Many years ago I heard a distinguished American orator
deliver a lecture upon the evidences of immortality outside the
Bible. In the stress and pressure of the closing days of a short
session of Congress, he held the rapt and breathless attention
of an immense audience, comprising all that was most cultured,
brilliant, and renowned in the social and official life of the
capital.
He dwelt with remarkable effectiveness and power upon
the fact that nowhere in Nature, from the highest to the low-
est, was an instinct, an impulse, a desire implanted, but that
ultimately were found the conditions and the opportunities
for its fullest realization. He instanced the wild fowl that,
moved by some mysterious impulse, start on thair prodigious
The Immortality of the Soul. 203
migrations from the frozen fens of the Pole and reach at last
the shining South and the summer seas; the fish that from
tropic gulfs seek their spawning-grounds in the cool, bright
rivers of the North ; the bees that find in the garniture of fields
and forests the treasure with which they store their cells ; and
even the wolf, the lion, and the tiger that are provided with
their prey.
Turning to humanity, he alluded to the brevity of life ; its
incompleteness; its aimless, random, and fragmentary careers;
its tragedies, its injustice, its sorrows and separations. Then
he referred to the insatiable hunger for knowledge ; the efforts
of the unconquerable mind to penetrate the mysteries of the
future; its capacity to comprehend infinity and eternity; its
desire for the companionship of the departed; its unquench-
able aspirations for immortality; and he asked, "Why should
God keep faith with the beast, the bee, the fish, and the fowl,
and cheat man?"
THE CHARACTER OF GENERAL GRANT—
AN ENIGMA.
The character and destiny of Grant must always remain
among the enigmas of history
No man ever did so much of whom so little could have been
predicted.
At the outbreak of the Civil War he had come nearly to
middle life, having failed in every undertaking, and was sunk
in hopeless poverty and obscurity.
He was destitute of those personal traits and qualities that
attract and charm and make their possesor popular and
beloved.
Taciturn, diffident, and out of countenance with the world,
he had few acquaintances, fewer friends, and no influential
associates among the civil and military leaders of his time.
There was not a county in the State of Illinois that did
not contain, in 1861, some inhabitant who might have been
more reasonably expected to have been commander-in-chief
of the armies of the United States and twice its President,
than this humble, indigent employee in the village store at
Galena, Ulysses Simpson Grant.
lint in four years that dejected subordinate, upon whom
Fortune' seemed to have exhausted its resentment, had com-
manded greater armies than Caesar, had fought more battles
than Napoleon, and inscribed his name among the foremost
warriors of the world.
204
The Character of General Grant. 205
In personal intercourse he was sometimes so commonplace
and prosaic that it was quite impossible to conceive of him a
celebrity. He apparently placed no such estimation on him-
self. He betrayed no exultation over his victories. He wa»s
not stirred by any passion for glory. He seemed devoid of
imagination. He was incapable of apostrophizing the "Sun
of Austerlitz," like Napoleon, or personifying the forty cent-
uries that looked down from the summit of the Pyramids.
He was rather the imperturbable incarnation of plain, vigor-
ous common sense, that would plan campaigns and fight bat-
tles as if they were the ordinary occupations of daily life.
He is popularly supposed to have been vacant and dull in
conversation, but while at times irresponsive, again he was
alert, vivacious, and almost inspired.
Toward the end of his second term as President there was
a dinner at the White House. The Electoral Commission was
sitting to decide the disputed succession between Tilden and
Hayes. It was a dark and ominous time. The most threat-
ening since Appomattox. Revolution was imminent. Hen-
ry Watterson had just issued his proclamation calling for
one hundred thousand unarmed Kentuckians to assemble at
Washington, January 8, to watch the count. The subsiding
passions of the war, the frenzies of reconstruction, were inflamed
to exasperation. The air was heavy with portents.
After dinner the guests strolled into the library for coffee
and cigars. Conversation turned to the situation and its per-
ils. Its tone was depressed. The President said nothing,
exhibited no interest, but smoked with deliberate stolidity.
In a pause, Burnside turned to him and said: "Well, Gen-
eral, what do you think — is there going to be any trouble?"
After p perceptible interval, Grant appeared to emerge
206 John James Ingaixs.
from a reverie. His features were transformed, and with a
voice and manner as if he were at the head of a million men,
and in a suppressed tone of indescribable intensity, he said:
"No, there will be no trouble. But it has been one rule of my
life to be always ready."
As uttered, it was the most immense, impressive, and preg-
nant sentence to which I ever listened.
The talk instantly turned to other themes, and the Presi-
dent became chatty, voluble, and reminiscent. He referred
to the agonizing sick headache from which he suffered the
night before the surrender, and how it left him on the receipt
of Lee's note as suddenly as the "shutting of a jack-knife."
He said he never saw General Lee but once after the close of
the war. He called at the Executive Mansion as he was pass-
ing through on his way to New York on some railroad trans-
action for the State of Virginia. In the course of the conver-
sation, Lee said he could hardly understand why he was sent
on the mission, because he knew absolutely nothing about
railroads. Grant stated that he replied jocularly that they
together had considerable to do with railroads in Virginia for a
number of years, but Lee never smiled ; which, the President
thought, evinced a lack of "the saving sense of humor."
Toward midnight some one started a discussion as to the
most desirable period of life : infancy, with its helpless uncon-
sciousness; childhood, with its innocent enjoyment; youth,
with its passions; manhood, with its achievements; age, with
its repose. Some preferred one and some another. Grant had
relapsed into silence again. Logan appealed to him for his
opinion. He pondered a moment and replied: "Well, so far
as I am concerned, I should like to be born again." This
seemed a very clever way of saying that he had enjoyed life all
The Character of General Grant. 207
the way through. Logan retorted that he knew of no man who
stood in greater need of being born again, and then we all went
home.
WHY CHRISTIANITY HAS TRIUMPHED.
In estimating the population of the world at fifteen hun-
dred millions, a fraction less than' one-third, including Greek
and Roman Catholics, Protestants, Armenians Jews, and Abys-
sinians, are catalogued as followers of Christianity. Of the
thousand millions remaining, about three hundred millions,
chiefly Chinese, profess Confucianism and Taoism, one hun-
dred and forty millions are classified as devotees of Hindooism
and Buddhism, one hundred and eighty millions of Moham-
medanism, and fourteen millions, principally Japanese, of
Shintoism; the rest are Polytheists in various degrees of
barbarism.
Worship is thus instinctive, inherent, and universal in the
human race. Every religion ha« its own God, its code, and its
creed.
As nations advance in intelligence and morals, gods are
dethroned, codes modified, and creeds abandoned.
The God of the Puritans, Who was a consuming fire, Who
hated sinners and condemned them to eternal torment in a
hell of fire and brimstone, has gone with Jove and the other
mythological monsters of antiquity to the lumber-room of
history. In His place we have now the paternal reign of a con-
stitutional Monarch, a wise and benevolent Legislator, Who is
subject to the limitations of the statutes which He himself has
made.
20S
Why Christianity Has Triumphed. 209
Sermons that congregations heard a century ago with awe
and reYercnce would now excite indignation and abhorrence.
Doctrines once deemed indispensable to personal sah-ation
are rejected as an insult to the Supreme Being.
The clergyman who should announce his belief in the pre-
destination of sinners to perdition, or the eternal damnation
of unbaptized infants, would be an ecclesiastical outlaw.
Man has outgrown these horrible fictions and has im-ested
God with higher and nobler attributes.
Some philosopher has said that eYeryone's idea of God is
an indefinitely enlarged conception of himself, and that we
make our heaYen and hell.
In any event, the human element prevails largely in all the
great religions of the earth. They are imperfect and defect-
iYe. They are disappointing in their results. If of diYine
origin, they do not accomplish what might be expected. Rev-
elation discloses too much and not enough. Inspiration leaves
unsaid what we most desire to know.
Vice, crime, sin, and evil are rampant. Miserable mul-
titudes everywhere are sunken in poverty, ignorance, and
unspeakable degradation. To assume, therefore, as many do,
that those who do not accept the social and political ideas of
Christendom are pagans, and that all who reject our ethics
and theology are heathen, is, perhaps, the most impressiYe
exhibition of that intellectual arrogance which is the chief
characteristic of our race.
In considering the relatiYe rank and value of the four great
religious systems, they must be judged by then; effect upon
society and their relations to the history of mankind. The
spiritual element must be eliminated, because this concerns
the indiYdual exclusively, and is a matter where the stranger
210 John James Ixgalls.
intermeddleth not. It is a vast theme of stupendous propor-
tions, of which the wisest must speak with diffidence.
One of the promises of the Decalogue is length of days
"in the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee," and national
longevity is evidence of the smiles of approving Providence.
The believers in Confucius have no reason to distrust their
faith in his teachings.
The history of China goes back into the twilight of time.
That vast empire has resisted the vicissitudes of destiny and
the fatigues of the centuries. It has witnessed the birth and
growth and decay of historic kingdoms, and survives in ven-
erable grandeur to tempt the cupidity and injustice of nations
that were unborn when China was in the maturity of its power.
The Hindoo has perhaps reached loftier heights of abstract
metaphysical speculation; but neither Buddhism, nor Confu-
cianism, nor Mohammedanism, nor Judaism, has set up the
ideal standard for mankind to follow.
It is claimed by the followers of Christianity that no other
religion has exerted such immense influence upon government,
society, and civilization. Its sanction rests entirely on the
life, example, teachings, and death of Jesus of Nazareth, for
whom theologians claim much more than He ever claimed
Himself. He was poor, ignorant, and of dubious origin. He
had no learning. It is not known that He could read or write.
He left no manuscripts. His life to the age of thirty was
passed in manual labor as a carpenter. His associates, male
and female, were illiterate and obscure. He had no home,
nor any domestic relations. He lived on alms, and led a harm-
lessly vagrant life, sometimes in solitude, and then wandering
about in the fields among the mountains and by the sea, talk-
ing familiarly to His companions, to chance acquaintance-
Why Christiaxitv Has Triumphed 2 1 1
and delivering informal discourses to the crowds of rustics
that gathered occasionally at the reports of His miracles. He
healed the sick and raised the dead.
He seemed to have special hatred for shams, pretenders,
and hypocrites, and denounced them with violence; but to
other sinners He was gentle and lenient. His public career
was less than three years, and His recorded deeds and words
would not fill two pages of a newspaper. They were repeated
by word of mouth, and not permanently collected till nearlv a
century after His death.
His life was pure and blameless, and He was crucified
rather as the victim of political prejudice than as a martvr for
His religious opinions.
Whatever view may be held as to His divinity. He is the
central character of human destiny, the one colossal figure of
human history. Caesar and Herod and Pilate, the kings, con-
querors, and philosophers of that day. are names. Xo one cares
that they lived or died, but Christ remains the living and most
potential force in modern society.
When He announced the fatherhood of God and the broth-
erhood of man, and the immeasurable value of the hum-
blest human soul, He made kings and despots and tyrants
impossible.
He laid the foundation of democratic self-government and
the sovereignty of the people. From His teachings have come
the emancipation of childhood, the elevation of woman, and
our rich and splendid heritage of religious, civil, and constitu-
tional liberty.
Indeed, without disparaging Confucius. Buddha, or Mo-
hammed, it may be safe to assert that through Christianity
alone has civilization come into the world. On the contin-
212 John James Ingalls.
ued activity of its beneficent forces we must depend for its
preservation; for the completion of man's conquest over
Nature; for the realization of the dream of the universal
Republic.
GETTYSBURG ORATION.
1890.
Mr. President : The Battlefield of Gettysburg! What a
thronging tumult of emotions, of joy and grief, of triumph, of
sadness, of defeat and final victory, rises in the heart at the
repetition of that name, the Battlefield of Gettysburg! The
high tide of the Rebellion brake upon these placid and fertile
fields and along these reverberating and rockv steeps in a
tumultuous surf of blood and flame that ebbed away to Appo-
mattox. Three summer days changed the annals of this
peaceful hamlet to an epoch never to be forgotten in the his-
tory of the human race, and gave to this locality, hitherto
unknown, an immortality like that of Marathon, of Marston
Moor, and Waterloo. The orator who speaks, and who shall
speak upon every recurrence of this anniversary so long as time
shall endure, no matter how great his fame or his name, will be
dwarfed by the stupendous tragedy that was enacted here, and
will stand in the presence of that mighty and colossal shadow,
that greatest victim of the war, who, almost within the sound of
my voice from the spot where we now stand, dedicated this
field as. a final resting-place for those who here died that UK-
Nation might live; and in obedience to that impulse and thai
instinct, the American people have assembled to-dav, under
the holiest impulse of the human heart, to contemplate and con-
sider the profoundest and most insoluble mystery of human
destiny — the insoluble problem of death. Those who died that
213
214 John James Ixgalls.
the Nation might live — and yet why should we assemble to
scatter flowers above the dust of the dead, if they are de-
tached from us and from the interest that attaches them to
us forever? We are all under sentence of death, under the
sentence of an inexorable tribunal from whose verdict there
is neither exculpation nor appeal. We have all been con-
demned to die. There is no executive clemency. It is ap-
pointed to all men once to die, and have we assembled here
merely to honor with empty ceremonies these heroes of the
Republic because they are dead? The insoluble mystery of
death !
These have entered into the democracy of the dead. Those
who lie about us are at last at peace in the republic of the grave,
in the silent kingdom, in the domain of the voiceless ; they are
at peace and at rest; for them the injustice of life has been
expiated. For more than twenty-five years they have lain
beneath the snows of winter and the verdure of spring and the
splendor of summer, and each year we assemble to pay rever-
ence and homage to their silent dust.
' ' How sleep the brave who sink to rest
By all their country's wishes blest?
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall deck a sweeter sod
Than Fancy's feet have ever trod."
TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO.
And thus it is that we have assembled twenty-five years
after the last gun has been fired, twenty-five years after
the hostile flag has been furled, to again pay the tribute of
our reverence and our homage and our respect to the dead that
sleep in the cemetery upon the battlefield of Gettysburg. It is
twenty-five years, I said, since the last shot was fired; it is
Gettysburg Oration. 215
twenty five years since the great hosts of freedom came from
a thousand battlefields, from Gettysburg to the Gulf, and were
marshalled for the last review. They assembled within the
shadow of the great dome of the Capitol that they had pro-
tected and saved. The air vibrated with the blare of bugles
and with the stirring blast of trumpets. The transitory and
variable splendor of a vernal sun illuminated a pageant of impos-
ing splendor and magnificence, and in that changing sky, red
as its sunset and its dawn, white as its wandering clouds, and
blue as its noonday deeps, and glittering as the constellations
of its midnight abyss, above them flashed and floated and
flamed the splendor of the flag. It was the birthday of a
redeemed and regenerated Republic ; a host that no man could
number, like the sands of the sea or the stars of the sky for mul-
titude, welcomed from window and casement, from balconv
and platform and cornice with tumultuous acclaim, the victori-
ous legions of Sherman, of Grant, of Logan, and of Hancock,
while above all the hearts of men, over the breasts of women ;
and in the hands of children, and from the dome and tower
and pinnacle and roof and spire, floated and flashed and
flamed the glory- of the flag. And then, between living walls,
from morn till night, and from morn till night again, past the
Chief Magistrate and his staff, with martial tread and the roll
of vanishing drums, marched the soldiers of the Republic, from
the valleys of the Kennebec, the Connecticut, the Hudson, the
Ohio, and the Mississippi — a peaceful army to guard the homes,
enforce the laws, and defend the honor of a people detenuim 1
to be free; and above those resolute squadrons with glittering
bayonets and gleaming swords, and above the faded and elo-
quent ensigns that wire inscribed with the names of the battles
216 Johx James Ixgalls.
in which thev had been borne to victory, flashed and flamed
the redeemed and regenerated glory of the flag.
Fellow-citizens, it was their flag. Had it not been for their
sacrifices, for their devotion and that of their comrades that
sleep the last sleep in the cemeteries of the Republic to-day,
whose graves have been decorated with flowers, this flag would
have been a dishonored rag. [Applause.]
WHAT REBEL SUCCESS WOULD HAVE MEANT.
The centennial anniversary of the establishment of the
Republic would not have been celebrated. The geography of
this continent would have been changed. The United States of
America would have disappeared from the map, and in its place
would have appeared an aggregated and incoherent mass of
petty provinces, discordant and belligerent, succeeding that
great nationality whose flag now waves triumphant from the
Saskatchewan to the Rio Grande, and from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. [Applause.] Had more than two millions of the soldiers
of the Republic not offered their lives, their health, their strength
for the protection of the flag, we should to-day be celebrating
the twenty-ninth anniversary of the founding of the Southern
Confederacy, founded on secession and disunion; the Declar-
ation of Independence would have been an antiquarian relic ;
the Fourth of July would have been the jubilee of despots; the
Constitution would have been like the laws of the Medes and
Persians, and the glories and the traditions of our history
would have been dispersed and separated like the trivial assets
of an insolvent partnership ; the sacrifices and the achievements
of the pioneers of our civilization would have been in vain;
Bunker Hill and Ticonderoga and Yorktown, the heroes of all
our wars, the eloquence of all our sages, the achievements of
Gettysburg Oration. 217
the fathers, the eloquence of Wirt and Henry and Clay, and
Calhoun and Webster, all that is inspiring in our history, all
that is resplendent in our example, would be sentences to-day
in the school-books, like legends of the nations that are dead.
Had these comrades whose graves we have decorated with
flowers to-day not died for the flag, liberty upon this planet
would have been an epithet, and popular govenment would
have been a definition; freedom of thought, of conscience,
would have been empty phrases, whose meaning would have
been sought in the dictionaries, and not in the statute-books of
a free people ; our past would have been a catastrophe contem-
plated by tyrants with derision, and by their victims with
despair; our present would have been an armistice, with stand-
ing armies in every capital, and garrisons and fortresses and
custom-houses upon every frontier; our future would have been
an abysss which no foresight could predict, and against whose
dangers no safeguard could have been found.
Other wars, Mr. President, and comrades of the Grand
Army of the Republic, have been fought for conquest, they
have been fought for ambition, they have been fought for
revenge, they have been fought for dynasties and for thrones ;
but no such passions animated the souls of the soldiers of the
Republic. They went to battle for ideas; they endured the
march, the bivouac, hospitals, wounds, diseases, hardships,
and death, to save our cities from sack, our homes from spolia-
tion, our flag from dishonor, and our country from distraction,
in order that all men everywhere might be free, that the States
might be indestructible, that the Union might be indissoluble,
and that this Nation might be perpetual. [Applause. J
218 John James Ingalls.
if the south had triumphed.
Ideas, comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, are
immortal ; they never die ; they cannot be annihilated ; foes do
not destroy them. It may be made inconvenient or uncom-
fortable to express them, but they never become extinct, and I
have often thought what would have been my emotions, what
would have been your emotions, had the endeavors of those
who led the Rebellion in 1861 been finally and fully accom-
plished. Suppose the dome of the Capitol had stooped to its
base, and its ruin had been mirrored in the placid wave of the
Potomac that flows at the foot of its declivity; that Robert
Tombs and those who followed him had fulfilled his insolent
menace and called the roll of his slaves in the shadow of Bunker
Hill; that slavery had been made the fundamental law of the
Republic ; that its glorious stars had set in disgrace and defeat ;
that the Union had been held to be a rope of sand depending
upon the whim or the caprice of any member of the Confeder-
ation— what would have been our emotions? What would have
been your emotions had the lost cause prevailed? I confess
for myself that I should never have ceased to hope, to strive,
that sometime, as the result of some desperate battle in the
future, the Union, glorious and resplendent, would have been
restored. [Applause.] I should not have failed to have kept
in some secure but sacred repository the Stars and Stripes
which were the symbol of the honor and the emblem of the
glory of my country, to which I should have taught my chil-
dren to return with patriotic solicitude and affectionate vener-
ation. [Loud applause.] I said, fellow-citizens, ideas are im-
mortal, and I am willing to concede to others the same rights,
the same privileges, the same beliefs that I claim for myself,
and in view of the occurrences of the last few days in the ex-
Gettysburg Oration. 219
tinct capital of the extinct Confederacy, I am inclined to be-
lieve that the only regret that our adversaries feel over the
result of that controversy is that they failed to succeed.
[Great applause.]
Robert E. Lee was one of the greatest soldiers of the age.
He was a man of the loftiest personal character, of incorrupt-
ible private life, so far as I am advised. He had a lmeage that
dated back to the morning of patriotism in the American Re-
public. He was a soldier without fear and without reproach.
Two days before he surrendered his commission he said, in a
letter to his son :
' I can anticipate no greater calamity for the country than the disso-
lution of the Union. It would be an accumulation of all the evils we
complain of; I am willing to sacrifice everything but honor for its preser-
vation. Secession is nothing but revolution. The framers of our Consti-
tution never exhausted so much labor, wisdom, and forbearance, and
surrounded it with so many guards and securities, if it was intended to be
broken by every member of the Confederacy at will. It was intended
for perpetual union, so expressed in the preamble, and for the establish-
ment of a government, not a compact, which can only be dissolved by
revolution, or the consent of the people in convention assembled. It is
idle to talk of secession. Anarchy would have been established, and not
government, by Washington, Hamilton, Jefferson, Madison and the other
patriots of the Revolution."
Had Robert H. Lee adhered to those lofty and ennobling
sentiments, he would to-day have been the foremost citizen of
this Republic in the estimation of its people. He was offered
the command of the Union armies. He had been educated at
the expense and under the sanction of the Government. For
twenty-five years his sword had been drawn under the flag; he
had taken an oath to support and protect the Constitution of
the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
and yet, within two clays after that letter was written, he
resigned his commission, he violated his oath to support the
220 John James Ixgalls.
Constitution, the Government, and the laws of the United
States, and took the leadership of the most causeless rebellion
that has ever occurred since the devil rebelled against the stat-
utes of heaven. [Prolonged applause.] And yet, by a mon-
strous object-lesson in treason, in disloyalty, in perjury, in vio-
lation of faith, of public and private honor, upon the very day
that has been, for a quarter of a century, made sacred by the
common concurrence of the loyal and patriotic people of the
Republic for the consecration of the graves of the Union dead,
those who profess to have accepted the results of the war in
good faith, who profess that they had furled the flag of treason
and rebellion forever, who profess that they have come back
under the Constitution and laws of the United States with
honor and patriotism, choose this occasion of all other anni-
versaries in the three hundred and sixty-five days of the year,
with every augmentation of insolence, to say to the rising gen-
eration of the South, this is an example which they should
copy!
THE FLAG OF TREASON.
A Confederate flag is placed in the bronze hand of the
statue of Washington. [Cries of "Shame!"] What wonder
that the shadow and spirit of the mighty dead did not stir
the unconscious and pathetic dust at Mount Vernon to cry out
against the sacrilege and the blasphemy ! And everywhere all
over the capital of the Confederacy, from tower and dome,
and from roof and pinnacle and spire, flamed the glory of the
stars and the bars; and we are told that God alone knows
which was right.
I have no desire upon this sacred occasion, upon this Sab-
bath day of our institutions, to revert to any subject, to refer to
any occasion, to deal with any thought that is inconsistent
Gettysburg Oration. 221
with the solemnity, the sacredness, and the consecration of
the hour; but unless the ideas for which the dead who sleep
around us died were right, unless the ideas of those who op-
posed them were wrong, then the soldier who died in defense of
the Republic and the institutions of his country died in vain.
When a repentant rebel is caged as a cabinet minister and
made the chief attraction of a peripatetic menagerie; called
out at even* railroad station and compelled to speak his little
declamation like a naughty pupil by his master, telling the
multitude that he has been very wicked, but means to do bet-
ter, and hopes in time to be a good Yankee, the spectacle is
edifying and instructive. The emotions of the captive may
be imagined, and the response of the South is significantly
solid. We must be reconceived. We must love each other.
We must forget. Let us wash the crimson from our flag,
because it is the hue of the blood shed by patriots in defense
of their country; the blue from its field, because it was the
color of our soldiers' uniform; and the gold from its stars,
because they shone on the epaulets of our heroes!
THE REBEL LEADER.
I heard one of the chosen leaders of the Confederate armies,
who was on this very field, say in a speech that his estimate of
the war was like that contained in the epitaph upon the tomb-
stone in Kentucky, which was reared by a mourning father
above his sons who had been slain, one under the National and
one under the Confederate flag. The inscription read : They
both died for what they believed to be their duty, and God
only knows which was right."
Mr. President, and comrades of the Grand Army of the
Republic, to make the sublime ordinances of the Constitution
222 John James Ingalls.
of the United States the supreme organic law of a nation of
freemen, to support and defend it against foreign and domes-
tic foes, 2,300,000 citizens enlisted and marched to victory;
250,000 fell by bullets, and by diseases and marches; more
were disabled for life. Six billions of treasure were spent;
unnumbered wives were made widows, and unnumbered inno-
cent children were made orphans, and homes were made des-
olate in resisting an effort to destroy the Constitution and
substitute for the doctrine of allegiance to the Nation the
revolting heresy of the sovereignty of the States ; and yet one-
half of the rising generation of this Republic is being instructed
to-day, twenty-five years after the struggle closed, that God
only knows which was right.
SLAVERY DESCRIBED.
Four million human beings were held in slavery, mon-
strous, inconceivable in its conditions of humiliation, dishon-
or, and degradation, unending and unrequited toil, helpless
ignorance, actions nameless and unspeakable; families separ-
ated at the auction-block, and women and children tortured
with the lash. Seven States seceded, or attempted to secede,
from the Union to make this system of slavery the corner-
stone of another social and political fabric, and carnage raged
on a thousand battlefields from Gettysburg to the Gulf.
At last, thank God ! the slaves are free. All men are polit-
ically equal. The sun rises in all his course upon no master,
and sets upon no slave. All men, in name at least, are polit-
ically equal upon this continent. The shame of the Republic is
washed out in blood. The Declaration of Independence is no
longer a falsehood. There are no chains. It is no longer a
crime to teach to read the Bible. Babes are no longer begot-
Gettysburg Oration. 223
ten and sold like the young of beasts. Liberty is the law of
the land. You fought that liberty might be universal; vour
adversaries fought that slavery might be perpetual; and yet
the rising generation in one half of this Republic is taught
to-day that God only knows which was right. [Applause and
laughter.] I have my opinion which was right. [Laughter.]
If we were not right, if liberty be not better than slavery, if
nationality be not better than secession, then these solemn cer-
emonies that we now observe to-day are without significance
and without consecration. If we were not right, then the war
for the Union was the greatest crime of all the centuries. If
we were not right, then the soldiers of the Republic, instead of
being associated with the heroes of every history and the mar-
tyrs of every religion, should take rank with the successful
pugilists in a slugging match for the champion belt of the
world. [Cries of "Good ! " and laughter.] If there was no moral
quality in this contest, if the ideas and objects and principles
for which we contended were not right, then the Decalogue
should be repealed, and the distinction between truth and
falsehood should be obliterated. If we were not right, then
national morality is a fiction, loyalty is a name, observance of
oath is a foolish formality, and patriotism is the fatal malady
of the body politic. This insidious effort to reverse the ver-
dict of history must be resisted, and it is for that, among other
purposes, that we are here to-day.
A PATRIOTIC DUTY.
This is a day of instruction as well as of religion ; it is a
duty that we owe to the future, that we owe to those who are
to come after us. that we owe to posterity, that our relations
to that great conflict should not be misunderstood, and that
224 John James Ingalls.
you should assert your convictions that those of your comrades
who fell in the defense of the Union, the Constitution, and the
Nation did not die in vain. [Applause.]
It is not necessary to disparage the bravery or question
the sincerity of your adversaries and antagonists in that strug-
gle. Let them, if they will, tenderly cherish the deeds of their
dead and rear monuments to their memory. Let them pen-
sion the veteran survivors of their armies, and observe with
appropriate solemnities the anniversaries of their victories and
defeats. Let them eulogize the lost cause if they will; let
them worship their heroes; let them wear the gray and carry
the stars and bars, if they prefer it to the Star-spangled Banner
of the Nation. These are matters of taste, of sentiment, and
of proprietv, which they must decide for themselves. [Laugh-
ter.] There is no other nation on which the sun shines
that would permit such violations of patriotism and national
obligation ; but they are of the same blood and lineage as our-
selves; they are Americans; they are our brethren, so they
say. [Great laughter.] But when they assert that Lincoln
and Davis, that Grant and Lee, that Logan and Jackson are
equally entitled to the respect and the reverence of mankind,
and that God only knows which was right, it is blasphemy, it
is sacrilege, which deserves rebuke and condemnation. [Great
applause.]
Fellow-citizens, the Union has not been ungrateful to its
defenders; they have been liberally pensioned from the public
treasury. More than a thousand million dollars have been
paid to the disabled survivors and the dependent relatives of
the dead. By some patriotic but unduly parsimonious and
conservative citizens this has been characterized as wasteful
and wanton extravagance; but it was a part of the contract
Gettysburg Oration. 225
under which the soldiers enlisted. The agreement to pension
them and their survivors if they were slain was as positive
and specific as the obligation to pay the paltry wages that they
were to receive. One hundred and fourteen thousand seven
hundred and forty two of your comrades now occupy unknown
graves, anonymous and forgotten heroes, of whom twenty-four
thousand sleep at Andersonville and Saulsbury, the victims of
a barbarity which stands isolated and detached, without par-
allel or precedent in the annals of demoniac and stonv-hearted
ferocity. It is claimed by those opposed to the enlargement
of the pension system that liberality has been exerted beyond
measure, and that the Government has been extravagant in
its recognition of the value of the services of the veterans of
the late war. This class of critics is fond of declaring that the
world's history affords no such example of prodigalitv in the
pavment of pensions. It might with propriety be added that
modern history at least affords no such example of military
service. There has been no war in modern times involving
anything like the number of men engaged, the number of hos-
tile collisions, the loss in battle, the wastefid expenditure of
energy, of money, and of life in its prosecution. The Union
armies in the Rebellion lost in killed and wounded mortally
upon the held of battle 110,000; and death from sickness in
camp, hospital, and prison swells the number to more than
.400,000. The Germans in the last war with France overran
and subjugated that country with a loss of less than 150,000
killed and mortally wounded on the field; the total loss in all
the war was less than 200,000. The Union Army lost more
men in suppressing the Rebellion than the combined armies of
Europe have lost in all the wars in which they have been
engaged since the campaign that closed at Waterloo. We
220 John James Ingalls.
lost more men than Great Britain has lost on all her fields of
battle in the last five hundred years. This vast host of 400,000
men lost and disabled in battle would make an army double
the size of that of Great Britain to-day.
We have entered upon the second century of our national
existence. When this anniversary shall dawn one hundred
years hence, the grave of the last soldier of the Nation will long
since have been covered with the fragrant benediction of flow-
ers; but the ideas for whose supremacy they contended will
survive, and their memory will be the object of their country's
loftiest pride and its tenderest solicitude. Orators will re-
hearse the story of their intrepid prowess, art will portray upon
canvas and in marble and bronze the lineaments of the brave
and the scenes of their daring. The area of the Republic will
have been extended from the Arctic regions to the warm waters
of the Caribbean Sea. Great dangers and perils are to be
encountered, but they will be overcome. Our institutions have
cost too much to be surrendered or destroyed. They are
strongly entrenched in, and too zealously supported by, the
affections of the people. The race problem in the South will
be solved upon the ultimate basis of exact and complete jus-
tice. Immigration will be restricted so that the vicious, the
ignorant, the degraded feculence of foreign nations will not
be emptied into our civilization. Nihilism and anarchy will
yield to social order, education, and law. Capital will have
just compensation, and labor due reward. We shall have
liberty without license, taxation without oppression, wealth
without ostentation, opportunities for education commensur-
ate with the desire to know, and conditions of happiness as
enlarged as the capacity to enjoy.
Gettysburg Oration. 227
We arc about to separate, perhaps to meet no more. Let
us bear from this consecrated place and from this sacred hour
the injunctions of that great orator with an allusion to whom
I began. "That this Nation under God shall have a new
birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the
people, and for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Let us turn to the future with renewed and deeper apprecia-
tion of the blessings that we enjoy, and of the duties that we
must perform in order "that this Nation under God shall
have a new birth of freedom, and government of the peo-
ple, by the people, and for the people, shall not perish from
the earth." Sublime and impressive aspiration — fit to be
engraved above the portals of Liberty's chosen temple, worthy
to be inscribed in every patriot's heart — "That this Nation
under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that govern-
ment of the people, by the people, and for the people, shall
not perish from the earth." [Loud and prolonged applause.]
ADDRESS.
(Delivered at Osawatomie, Kansas, August 30, 1877, by John J. Ingalls
upon the occasion of the dedication of a monument to the
memory of John Brown and his associates.)
Mr. Preside nt: We have assembled to commemorate with
solemn rites a sacred anniversary upon consecrated ground.
Reverent hands have summoned from the quarry and
erected here this votive cenotaph, as a perpetual and enduring
token and attestation of remembrance and honor for the heroic
deeds of historic men. Labor has forgotten his task and
Pleasure her solace, that this day may be devoted to patri-
otic meditation and the recollection of august events. The
devotees of liberty have repaired hither, as pilgrims to their
shrine, to dedicate by formal ceremony this monument as a
definite assurance to all the generations of Kansas freemen
who shall come after them, that upon this day they recalled
with fervent gratitude the costly sacrifices of freedom's pio-
neers, and that upon this day they renewed and repeated their
unalterable allegiance and loyalty to those ideas of truth and
justiee on which the State was bnilded, and for which these
martyrs lived, and fought, and died.
Most nations have had pre-historic periods of fable and
mystery. Their pregnancy and birth have been obscure.
They have emerged from degraded and barbarous germina-
tion. The historian must vaguely or vainly conjecture why
Rome was builded on her seven hills, or Athens on the Attic
Address. 229
peninsula. The origin even <>f the great nations of modern
times is veiled in profoundest obscurity. Their annals recede
through the twilight of legend and tradition, and are lost in
darkness and silence. But it is not so in America. The whole
fabric of our social and political system has been reared in an
intense blaze of uninterrupted light. The sublime spectacle
of the building of a nation lias been disclosed to mankind.
In 1606 the territory in America claimed by Kngland was
divided into two parts by King James the First, called Xorth and
South Virginia, the former extending from the mouth of the
Hudson to Newfoundland, and the other from the Potomac to
Cape Fear. Two companies were immediately formed for the
colonization of the country, and in 1607 the London company
dispatched three ships laden with [05 emigrants, who, on the
13th of May, landed at Jamestown and founded the vState of
Virginia. Captain John Smith, who was the master spirit of
the expedition and has left a history of the enterprise, says that
these colonists were "unruly sparks packed off by their friends
to escape worse destinies at home; poor gentlemen, broken
tradesmen, footmen, and such as were much titter to spoil and
ruin a commonwealth than to help to raise or maintain one."
They were mostly worthless, profligate, and dissolute adven-
turers, having nodefinte objects but to discover gold mines or
find a passage to the South Sea. They lived improvidently
in idleness, squandered their substance in rioting, and fell
ready victims to the implacable savages by whom they were
surrounded. They were governed by harsh laws, in whose
enactment they had no voice, and for one hundred years were
reinforced by convicted felons who were sold as servants t<>
the planters, who also secured their wives by purchase, the
average price being one hundred pounds of tobacco, at that
230 John James Ingalls.
time worth about seventy-five dollars. In 1671, Sir William
Berkeley, in his responses to questions submitted to him by
the plantation committee of the Privy Council, gives a vivid
picture of the State of Virginia at that time. He estimates
the population at 40,000, including 2,000 black slaves and
6,000 Christian servants, of whom about 1,500 were yearly
imported, chiefly convicts from the prisons of England. There
were forty-eight parishes, and the clergy were well paid.
"But," adds the Governor, "I thank God there are no free
schools nor printing, and I hope we shall not have these hun-
dred years; for learning has brought disobedience and heresy
and sects into the world, and printing has divulged them, and
libels against the best government. God keep us from both!"
The aspirations of this devout and lofty soul have been real-
ized. God has kept them from both, and the history of that
portion of America is a living commentary upon the value of a
system which banishes the free school and repudiates the
printing-press.
In 1620 the passengers of the Mayflower landed at Ply-
mouth in North Virginia.
"A grateful posterity," says Bancroft "has marked the rock which
first received their footsteps. The consequences of that day are con-
stantly unfolding themselves as time advances. It was the origin of New
England; it was the planting of the New England institutions. Inquisitive
historians have loved to mark every vestige of the Pilgrims; poets of the
purest minds have commemorated their virtues; the noblest genius has
been called into exercise to display their merits worthily, and to trace the
consequences of their daring enterprise. As they landed, their institutions
were already perfected. Democratic liberty and independent Christian
worship at once existed in America."
For more than two centuries the colonies of North and
South Virginia had unrestricted room for their expansion and
development, and the results of their antagonistic ideas can be
Address. 231
scrutinized and contrasted. We know the moment when the
Pilgrims perilously disembarked upon the sandy hem of the
unoccupied continent. Hour by hour for two hundred and
fifty-seven years we can trace the path of themselves and
their posterity. Inch by inch we can follow their march
through the forests, across the mountains and rivers and
prairies from the Atlantic to the Pacific Sea. We know, for
they have told us, the ideas, the purposes, the convictions, the
hopes, the fears, of the founders of this Christian common-
wealth. We observe the inconceivable energy with which the
principles of those exiles have been disseminated, and the results
which have followed their recognition as the foundation of
a system of government; innumerable cities and habitations;
deserts and wildernesses reclaimed from savage solitude; har-
bors and beacons to warn and shelter a vast commerce from
the hazards of the deep; costly highways, bridges, canals, and
railroads to facilitate interior intercourse ; tranquil institutions ;
orderly methods for the administration of justice; education
universally diffused ; morality everywhere prevalent, and relig-
ion assuaging the inevitable griefs of this world with the hope
of eternal reparation in that which is to come.
Attracted by the inducements of a civilization which ele-
vates every citizen into absolute freedom; which emancipates
him from the chains of customs, creeds, and sects; which stim-
ulates industry by dignifying labor and generously rewarding
toil; which opens the prizes of ambition to all; multitudes of
the discontented and aspiring have thronged hither from other
lands only to be fused and blended by the predominant force
of the American idea into the homogeneous mass of the Amer-
ican people.
232 John James Ingalls.
Since the Christian era all great political movements have
had their impulse in religious sentiment. The national exist-
ence of the Jews has been preserved for two thousand years
by the hope of a Messiah. The destiny of Europe. Asia, and
Africa has been modified by the doctrines of Mohammed. The
dogmas of Luther and Calvin gave the Commonwealth to
England and the Puritan to America, and resulted for the first
time in history in the adoption of the Golden Rule as a maxim
of grovernment, and of the Bible as' the chief corner-stone of
the civil state.
As the Nation grew, two conflicting theories of the nature
and objects of our political system gradually developed into
increasing activitv and contended for the mastery. Prudential
considerations, the ambition of party leaders, the cowardice of
emasculated statesmen, the cupidity of pusillanimous traders,
deferred the crisis by compromises, patches, and plasters till
the inevitable issue, long deferred, was precipitated upon the
plains of Kansas, and that mortal duel began whose blood y
deluge submerged half the continent beneath its crimson
inundation.
Among those who signed the covenant in the cabin of the
Mayflower was Peter Brown, an English carpenter, who died
in 1633. Descended from him in the sixth generation was
John Brown, born at Torrington, Connecticut, on the 9th of
May, 1800. When live years of age, In- was taken to Ohio.
His youth was obscure and uneventful. He was a shepherd, a
fanner, a tanner. At the age of eighteen he went to .Massa-
chusetts with the design of obtaining a collegiate education
and entering the ministry, but was attacked with a disorder
of the eves, which compelled him to abandon this purpose and
return to Ohio. In earlv manhood he was a surveyor, and
Address. 233
traversed the forests of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Later he
was engaged in business for ten years in Pennsylvania, and
afterwards in Ohio, as a tanner, as a cattle dealer, and specu-
ulator in real estate, till 1846, when he removed with his family
to Springfield, Massachusetts, and dealt in wool as a commis-
sion merchant. In 1849 he went to North Klba, New York,
where he lived upon a sterile rocky farm among the Adiron-
dack^, and where his body now lies mouldering in the grave.
In 1854 four sons of John Brown joined the column of emi-
grants that marched to Kansas. They settled near Pottawato-
mie Creek, about eight miles from the spot where we now stand,
and became apostles of the Puritan idea and missionaries of
freedom. They were unarmed, but believed the State should
be free. They were harassed, insulted, raided, and plundered
by gangs of marauders, and at length wrote to their father to
procure arms to enable them to protect their lives and property,
and to bring them personally to Kansas.
The hour had struck. The long humble life of meditation
was about to flower into immortal deeds. In the autumn of
1855, during the siege of Lawrence, the old man, with his four
sons, appeared upon the field equipped for battle. A specta-
tor says :
"They drove up in front of the Free State Hotel, standing in a small
lumber wagon. To each of their persons was strapped a short, heavy
broadsword. Each was supplied with a goodly number of firearms and
revolvers, and poles were standing endwise around the wagon box, with
fixed bayonets pointing upwards. They looked really formidable, and
were received with great eclat."
But it soon became apparent that he was to., sincere, too
much in earnest, to be available. He refused to do anything
but fight. His criticisms upon the political leaders were caus-
tic and intolerable. He would do nothing because it was expe-
234 John James Ingalls.
dient, but everything because it was right. He had no sym-
pathy with those who wanted to make Kansas a free white
State. He asserted the manhood of the negro with a vehe-
mence that agitated the political eunuchs of the period who
were more anxious for place than for principle.
On the 4th of July, 1856, it seemed as if the subjugation of
Kansas by the slave power was accomplished. The Missouri
River, the great avenue of access to the Territory, was closed.
Governor Shannon said, "The roads were literally strewed with
dead bodies." The Free State citizens of Leavenworth were
exiles ; the principal towns of the Territory were in the hands
of the enemy; and on this natal day of the Republic, at the
command of a servile President, the Legislature was dispersed
by United States troops, without a protest from that party
which has recently stunned the public ear with denunciations
of Federal interference in Louisiana and the insurgent States of
the South.
Encamped in the timber that shadowed the banks of the
Shunganunga, ready to attack the dragoons of Colonel Sum-
ner upon that fatal day, lay old John Brown and his sons.
Prudent counsels dissuaded him from violence, and they
disappeared.
During the eventful months that succeeded the spirit of lib-
erty revived. The insolent aggressisons of the invading Mis-
sourians stimulated the Free State party to unexampled vigor.
They assumed the offensive and a series of skirmishes ensued,
in which John Brown and his sons were prominent participants.
They were present at the engagements at Franklin, at Battle
Mound, and at Sugar Creek, dispersing the marauders, killing
some, and capturing many prisoners, together with supplies
and munitions of war.
Address. 235
On the 1 7th of August the Missourians issued another proc-
lamation calling upon the citizens of Lafayette County to meet
at Lexington at 12 o'clock on the 20th of that month, with
arms and provisisons, to march into Kansas. In response to
this appeal, a force of two thousand men, from the counties of
Lafayette, Jackson, Johnson, Platte, Saline, Ray, Carroll, and
Clay, assembled at the village of Santa Fe and invaded the Ter-
ritory. This force was divided into two columns; one, under
the command of Senator Atchison, marching to Bull Creek,
and the other, under General Reid, advancing on Osawatomie.
Reid's command numbered nearly 500 men. They were well
supplied with small-arms and had several pieces of artillery.
John Brown, like Caesar, could not only plan campaigns and
fight battles, but could write their history. He describes the
battle of Osawatomie in the following graphic language :
"Early in the morning of the 30th of August the enemy's scouts
approached to within one mile and a half of the western boundary of the
town of Osawatomie. A.t this place my son Frederick K. (who was not
attached to my force) had lodged with some four other young men from
Lawrence and a young man named Garrison from Middle Creek.
"The scouts, led by a Pro-slavery preacher named White, shot my son
dead in theroad, whilstjie — as I have since ascertained — supposed them to
be friendly. At the same time they butchered Mr. Garrison, and badly man
gled one of the young men from Lawrence, who came with my son, leaving
him for dead.
"This was not far from sunrise. I had stopped during the night about
two and one-half miles from them, and nearly one mile from Osawatomie.
I had no organized force, but only some twelve or fifteen new recruits, who
were ordered to leave their preparations for breakfast and follow me into
the town as soon as this news was brought to me.
"As I had no means of learning correctly the force of the enemy. I
placed twelve of the recruits in a log house, hoping we might be able to
defend the town. I then gathered some fifteen more men together, whom
we armed with guns, and we started in the direction of the enemy. After
going a few rods, we could see them approaching the town in line of battle,
about one-half mile off, upon a hill west of the village. I then gave up all
idea of doing more than to annoy, from the timber near the town into
236 John James Ixgai.i.s.
which we were all retreated, and which was tilled with a thick growth of
underbrush; but had no time to recall the twelve men in the log house,
and so lost their assistance in the fight.
"At the point above named I met with Captain Cline, a very active
young man, who had with him some twelve or fifteen mounted men, and
persuaded him to go with us into the timber, on the southern shore of the
Osage, or Marais des Cygnes, a little to the northwest from the village.
Here the men, numbeiingno more than thirty in all, were directed to scatter
and secrete themselves as well as they could, and await the approach of
the enemy. This was done in full view of them (who must have seen the
whole movement), and had to be done in the utmost haste. I believe
Captain Cline and some of his men were not even dismounted in the fight,
but cannot assert positively When the left wing of the enemy had
approached to within common rifle-shot, we commenced firing, and very
soon threw the northern branch of the enemy's line into disorder. This
continued some fifteen or twenty minutes, which gave us an uncommon
opportunity to annoy them. Captain Cline and his men soon got out of
ammunition, and retired across the river.
"After the enemy rallied, we kept up our fire, until, by the leaving of
one and another, we had but six or seven left. We then retired across the
river.
"We had one man killed — a Mr. Powers, from Captain Cline's company
— in the night. One of my men — a Mr. Partridge — was shot in crossing the
river. Two or three of the party, who took part in the fight, are yet miss-
ing, and may be lost or taken prisoners. Two were wounded, viz.: Dr.
(Jpdegraff and a Mr. Collis.
"I cannot speak in too high terms of them, and of many others I have
not now time to mention.
"One of my best men, together witli myself, was struck with a partially
spent ball from the enemy, in the commencement of the fight, but we were
only bruised. The loss I refer to is one of my missing men. The loss of
the enemy, as we learn by the different statements of our own as well as
their people, was some thirty one or two killed, and from forty to fifty
wounded. After burning the town to ashes, and killing a Mr. Williams
they had taken, whom neither party claimed, they took a hasty leave,
carrying their dead and wounded with them. They did not attempt to cross
the river nor to search for us, and have not since returned to look over
their work.
"I give this in great haste, in the midst of constant interruptions.
My second son was with me in the light, and escaped unharmed.
This I mention for the benefit of his friends.
"Old preacher White, I hear, boasts of having killed my son. Of
course he is a lion. JOHN Brown."
Address. 237
The battle of Osawatomie was the most brilliant and im-
portant episode in the Kansas war. It was the high divide
of the contest. Its importance cannot be exaggerated. It
was our Thermopylae, and John Brown was our Leonidas with
his Spartan band. Thenceforward there was no sneer that the
Abolitionists dared not fight. It was evident that somebody
was in earnest. The numbers engaged were comparatively
insignificant. No sonorous bulletins announced the result.
Theix- was little of the pride and pomp and circumstance of
war. There were no nodding plumes, no haughty banners, no
stirring blasts from the bugle calling the warriors to arms.
But when Freedom recounts the sacrifices of her sons, she does
not ask the number or rank of those who fell. Winkelried is
as dear to her as Washington, and Osawatomie is as sacred as
Bannockburn or Bunker Hill. At her behest to-day we reclaim
from common dust the sacred ashes of the martyrs of Osawat-
omie. The sunshine of innumerable summers shall smile upon
this consecrated sward. The hearts of the generations that
follow us shall swell at the contemplation of their heroic self-
devotion and guard with jealous cue this sacred sepulchre.
''Xor shall their glory lie forgot
While Fame her record keeps.
Or Honor points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps.
Xor wreek, nor change, nor Winter's blight,
Xor Time's remorseless doom,
Can dim one ray of holy light
That gilds their glorious tomb."
After the battle of Osawatomie, John Brown spent some
tinu- in travelling through tin- Territory, and about the middle
of September was in Topeka. On his return home lie stopped
at Lawrence for the Sabbath. I Hiring the day messengers
238 John James Ingalls.
arrived from the south with the intelligence that Reid and
Atchison with twenty-seven hundred men were approaching
to destroy the city, which was unprotected by any organized
force. The regiments which had previously been quartered
there had been scattered in different localities, leaving not
more than three hundred men in Lawrence fit for military
duty. Early in the morning the flag on Blue Mound, eight
miles to the southeast, was displayed at half-mast as a pre-
concerted signal of great danger in that direction. Soon the
ascending smoke of the burning dwellings at Franklin confirmed
the apprehensions of the people. As soon as it was known
that Captain Brown was in the city, he was unanimously
chosen commander-in-chief. He immediately commenced his
preparations for defense; manned the fortifications, and fur-
nished every man who was destitute of a bayonet with a
pitchfork as a substitute. Firing began about dusk and soon
became general. A brass field-piece was brought to the front,
but before it could be discharged, panic pervaded the ranks of
pirates and they precipitately lied.
A very interesting letter from a correspondent who was
the present on that day says :
"When late in the afternoon the Pro-slavery forces came marching in
plain view, Brown made his appearance among the men, went from point
to point where they were posted and gave them advice, prefacing what he
said by very modestly remarking that he only spoke as a private person
having no command, hut as one having had some experience] which might
warrant him in giving some advice on such an occasion. The effect of his
advice was magical. It inspired all with courage and complete confidence.
The spirited show of resistance checked the approach of the enemy and
saved the town. I always tin night the result was wholly attributable to
the unassuming advice of John Brown."
Soon after the retreat of the Missourians from Lawrence,
Tohn Brown went East. lie lay ill in Iowa for several weeks,
Address. 239
but reached Chicago in November, and early in 1857 arrived
in Boston, where he endeavored to persuade the Legislature of
Massachusetts to appropriate ten thousand dollars for the pro-
tection of Northern men in Kansas. He did not return till
late in the year, having been unable to secure — as he pathet-
ically said in his farewell "to the Plymouth Rocks, Bunker
Hill Monuments, Charter Oaks, and Uncle Tom's Cabins" —
"amid all the wealth, luxury, and extravagance of this heaven-
exalted people, even the necessary supplies of the common
soldier." For several months he remained in the Territory,
organizing his forces for the final crusade against slavery, in
accordance with plans long entertained, and subsequently
embodied in the Provisional Constitution framed at Chatham,
Canada West, in May, 1858. The news of the brutal massacre
of the Marais des Cygnes recalled him again to Kansas. Expect-
ing a renewal of strife, he built fortifications on the Little
Osage and Little Sugar Creeks, and prepared for war. Having
remained so long on the defensive, he determined to invade
Missouri, and thus stop the forays upon which the supporters
of slavery had so long depended for help. In January, 1859,
he wrote a letter regarding his operations in Missouri, which
has become celebrated as "John Brown's Parallels." He says:
"Trading Post, Kans., January, 1859.
"Gentlemen: You will greatly oblige a humble friend by allowing the
use of your columns while I briefly state two parallels in my poor way.
"Not one year ago, eleven quiet citizens of this neighborhood, viz.:
William Robinson, William Colpetzer, Amos Hall, Austin Hall, John
Campbell, Asa Snyder, Thomas Stilwell, William Hairgrove, Asa Hair-
grove, Patrick Ross and B L. Reed, were gathered up from their work and
their homes by an armed force under one Hamilton, and without trial or
opportunity to speak in their own defense, were formed into line and all
but one shot — five killed and five wounded. One fell unharmed, pretend-
ing to be dead. All were left for dead. The only crime charged against
them was that of being Free State men. Now. I inquire, what action has
240 John James Ingaixs.
ever, since the occurrence in May last, been taken by either the President
of the United States, the Governor of Missouri, the Governor of Kansas,
or any of their tools, or by any Pro-slavery or Administration man, to fer-
ret out and punish the perpetrators of this crime?
"Now for the other parallel: On Sunday, December 19, a negro man
called Jim came over to the Osage settlement from Missouri, and stated
that he, together with his wife, two children, and another negro man, was
to be sold within a day or two, and begged for help to get away. On Mon-
day (the following) night two small companies were made up to go to Mis-
souri and forcibly liberate the five slaves, together with other slaves. One
of these companies I assumed to direct. We proceeded to the place, sur-
rounded the buildings, liberated the slaves, and also took certain property
supposed to belong to the estate.
" We, however, learned before leaving that a portion of the articles we
had taken belonged to a man living on the plantation as a tenant, and who
was supposed to have no interest in the estate. We promptly returned
to him all we had taken. We then went to another plantation, where we
found Wve more slaves, took some property and two white men. We
moved all slowly away into the Territory for some distance, and then sent
the white men back, telling them to follow us as soon as they chose to do so.
The other company freed one female slave, took some property, and, as I
am informed, killed one white man, the master, who fought against the
liberation.
' Xow for a comparison : Eleven persons are forcibly restored to their
natural and inalienable rights, with but one man killed, and 'all hell is
stirred from beneath.' It is currentlv reported that the Governor of Mis-
souri has made a requisition upon the Govenor of Kansas for the delivery
of al! such as were concerned in the last named 'dreadful outrage.' The
Marsha] of Kansas is said to he collecting a posse of Missouri ( not Kansas)
men a1 West Point in Missouri, a little town about ten miles distant, 'to
enforce the laws.' All Pro-slavery, Conservative, Free State, and Dough-
face men and Administration tools are filled with holy horror.
"Consider the two cases and the action of the Administration party.
" Respectfully yours, John Brown."
The result of litis raid was marvelous. Hates and Vernon
counties were denuded instantaneously <>i their slaves. Some
wire sold South, some lied into llie Territory, and others were
removed into the interior of the State. The Governor of Mis-
souri offered $3,000 reward for the arrest of John Brown, which
tin President supplemented b\ an additional inducement of
Address. 241
$250, to which Brown retorted by offering $2.50 for the deliv-
ery of James Buchanan to him in camp. He moved slowly
northward with his four families of liberated slaves along the
now abandoned line of the "Underground Railroad," reaching
Holton in Jackson County late in January, pursued at a safe
distance by a valorous squad of thirty heroes from Lecompton.
Not feeling competent to cope with John Brown and his seven
companions, they sent to Atchison for reinforcements, which
soon arrived to the number of twelve, making a force of forty-
two men opposed to eight. They made valiant preparations
to attack the little garrison, but when the old man emerged
from his log-cabin fortress and offered fight, they incontinently
broke for the prairie, some who were dismounted seizing upon
the tails of the horses to assist them in their headlong flight.
Four generals of the Atchison brigade were captured, together
with several horses. The captain detained his prisoners five
days in captivity. Those who came to scoff remained to pray.
He read the Bible to them, and compelled them to pray
night and morning, ordering them to their knees with a cocked
pistol in his hand. When he was ready to resume his march,
he released them with his benediction, retaining their horses
and overcoats for his negroes. They walked forty miles across
the snowy prairie to Atchison, and the gallant episode was
always known as the "Battle of the Spurs." I have talked
with several of the survivors, and they all speak of John Brown
in the highest terms of respect, as a brave and honest but mis-
guided man. He reached Canada in March following, colo-
nized his emigrants near Windsor, and returned to Kansas no
more.
His subsequent career belongs to the history of the Xation.
Out of the portentous and menacing cloud of anti-slavery sen-
242 John James Ingaixs.
timent that had long brooded with sullen discontent, a baleful
meteor above the North, he sprang like a terrific thunderbolt,
whose lurid glare illuminated the continent with its devas-
tating flame, and whose reverberations among the splintered
crags of Harper's Ferry were repeated on a thousand battle-
fields from Gettysburg to the Gulf.
He died as he had lived, a Puritan of the Puritans. There
was no perturbation in his serene and steadfast soul. I know
of no productions in literature more remarkable than his letters
written in prison while he was under sentence of death.
The closing words of Socrates to his friends, before he
drank the fatal hemlock, were these:
" It is now time that we depart. I to die, you to live; but which has
the better destiny is unknown to all except the gods."
The noblest pagan of antiquity had courage, but not faith.
John Brown said:
" I can trust God with both the time and manner of my death, believ-
ing, as I now do, that for me at this time to seal my testimony for God
and humanity with my blood will do vastly more toward advancing the
cause I have earnestly endeavored to promote than all I have done in my
life before."
" I cannot feel that God will suffer even the poorest service we may
any of us render Him or His cause to be lost or in vain."
"As I believe most firmly that God reigns, I cannot believe that any-
thing I have done, suffered, or may yet suffer will be lost to the cause of
God or humanity, and before I began my work at Harper's Ferry I felt
assured that in the worst event it would certainly pay."
"Tell your father that I am quite cheerful; that I do not feel myself
in the least degraded by my imprisonment, my chains, or the near pros-
pect of tin' gallows. Men cannot imprison, chain, nor hang the soul!"
'I am endeavoring to get ready for another field of action, where no
<
■1 ii.it befalls the truly bra\ <.■.
"It is a great comfort to feel assured that I am permitted to die for a
cause, and not merely to pay the debt of Nature which all must. I feel
myself to be unworthy of so great distinction."
" John Brown writes to his children to abhor with undying hatred also
that sum of all villainy slavery."
Address.
243
"I feel just as content to die for God's eternal truth and for suffering
humanity on the scaffold as in any other way."
"I think I cannot now better serve the cause I love so much than to
die for it, and in my death, I may do more than in my life."
"I do not believe I shall deny my Lord and Master Jesus Christ, and
I should if I denied my principles against slavery."
What immortal and dauntless courage breathes in this pro-
cession of stately sentences; what fortitude; what patience;
what faith ; what radiant and eternal hope ! Over his soul hov-
ered the covenant of peace. He felt the lofty consciousness of
"Deeds that are royal in a land beyond kings' sceptres."
He trod the scaffold with the step of a conqueror, and the
man whom Virginia executed as a felon Kansas to-day canon-
izes as a martyr.
Nothing is more difficult to analyze and detect than the
secret of any man's power and influence upon his associates,
his generation, and the ultimate destinies of mankind. Who
can tell win- the obscure Lincoln became the great leader of
Northern sentiment instead of Seward or Chase, who had long
been the prominent advocates of Republican ideas? Or why
Grant led the loyal millions to victory instead of his predeces-
sors, whose attainments and experience seemed equally quali-
fied to insure success? WTe cannot find the meat on which our
Caesars feed. The men who succeed greatly are not those of
whom success could be predicted. After we have weighed and
measured a man, learned all his habits, his attainments, his
capacities for speech, pleasure, business, accumulation, there
is something in him that eludes our strictest scrutiny; that
indefinable attribute which makes him what he is and dis-
tinguishes him from all his kind. It is sometimes said that
circumstances make men, but the reverse is true: men make
their circumstances. Opportunity occurs to all, but only one
244 John James Ixgau^s.
seizes it. Some say that luck or chance favored the man who
wins, but in the domain of law there are no accidents. Every-
man ultimately goes to his own place.
In attempting to estimate and comprehend the influence
which John Brown exerted upon this age, we are perplexed by
much that is anomalous and inexplicable. Many of his con-
temporaries, even those who sympathized with him in opinion,
regarded him as a fanatic and madman — crazed by the death
of his sons, and inspired by the fury of revenge. Emerson
says the dreams of yesterday are to-day the deliberate conclu-
sions of public opinion, and to-morrow the charter of nations.
The Abolitionists of twenty years ago invented many schemes
of emancipation. Some wanted to deport and colonize the
negroes in Africa or the West India Islands; others thought
the Nation should buy them of their owners and gradually ele-
vate them to citizenship; but John Brown's plan, as developed
in the Chatham Constitution, was to free them in the South
and keep them there. The impracticable visionary schemer
was wiser than the statesmen who derided him. The dream
of 1858 was the accomplished fact of 1863. The theories of
the enthusiast have been imbedded in the organic law of the
Nation. He builded better than he knew.
The defects and infirmities of his nature rendered him more
powerful in council and more formidable in action, because his
few and narrow convictions irresistibly impelled him without
interruption in the inevitable direction of their accomplish-
ment. There was no diffusion in his career. He was not dis-
tracted by ambition, the love of wealth, the desire for ease
and luxury, the attractions of books or art. He was cast in the
rigid mold of the Pilgrims, from whom he descended. His soul
was not decorated nor embellished, but was as severe as the
Address. 245
gaunt, grim, gray tenement which it inhabited. He was not
hampered by personal necessities. His wants were few; his
habits frugal and unostentatious, so that he moved without
impediments.
In any age or country, or under any system where abuses
existed that needed correction, he would have been a reformer
in politics and a Puritan in religion. He would have gone
with John Huss to the stake or with Sir Thomas More to the
scaffold.
The convictions upon which he acted were not hasty, sud-
den, and transient, but deliberate and inflexible. He never
hesitated. Delay did not baffle nor disconcert him, nor dis-
comfiture render him despondent. His tenacity of purpose
was inexorable, and seemed like an exterior power, rather than
an impulse from within. As early as 1839, twenty years before
his martyrdom, he formed the purpose which he never relin-
quished. Thenceforward every hour was devoted to meas-
ures for the destruction of slavery, either by action, by conversa-
tion, or by reflection. Those relations and possessions and
pursuits which to most men are the chief objects of existence,
home, friends, fortune, estate, power, to him were the most
insignificant incidents. He regarded them as trivial, unim-
portant, and wholly subsidiary to the accomplishment of the
great mission for which he had been sent upon this globe.
His love of justice was an irresistible passion, and slavery the
accident that summoned all his powers into dauntless and
strenuous activity.
He believed there was no acquisition so splendid as moral
purity; no possession nor inheritance so desirable as personal
liberty; nothing on this earth nor in the world to come so valu-
able as the soul, whatever be the hue of its bodilv habitation;
246 John James Ingalls.
no impulse so lofty and heroic as an unconquerable purpose to
love truth, and an invincible determination to obey God.
It is a prodigious task, Mr. President, to lift a man, a com-
munity, a race out of barbarism into civilization. Xor is the
labor less difficult to keep them on the plane to which they
have been elevated. The disposition is to relapse. The ten-
dency is downward. Stop the machinery of courts, schools,
and churches for a single generation, and society would crumble
into ruin. It requires an active coalition of all the conserv-
ative elements in every age to prevent destructive organic
changes; to preserve life, libeity, and property against the
assaults of the indolent and vicious. If this is true of the material
interests of mankind, where so many selfish inducements con-
spire to stimulate to the highest efforts, how much more ardu-
ous the endeavor to elevate a nation to a higher moral grade
at the sacrifice of many acquisitions that are deemed desirable !
And yet no one can doubt that the general progress of the
human race, morally, intellectually, and physically, has been
upward. Through the long desolate track of history, through
all the seemingly aimless struggles and random gropings, amid
the turbulent chaos of wrong, injustice, crime, agony, disease,
want, and wretchedness, the trepidation of the oppressed, the
bloody exultations and triumphs of tyrants, the tendency has
been toward the light. Out of every confiict some man, or
sect, or nation has emerged with more privileges, enlarged
opportunities, broader liberty, greater capacity for happiness.
I believe it is Garble who says that when any great change
in human society or institutions is to be wrought, God raises up
nun to whom that change is made to appear as the one thing
needful and absolutely indispensable. Scholars, orators, poets,
philanthropists, play their parts; but the crisis comes through
Addrkss. 247
some one whom the world regards as a fanatic or impostor, and
whom the supporters of the system he assails crucify between
thieves or gibbet as a felon.
It required generations to arouse the conscience of the
American people to the enormous iniquity of African slavery.
They admitted it was wrong; but they were politicians, and
wanted office; they were merchants, and wanted tranquillity;
they were manufacturers, and wanted cotton ; they were labor-
ers, and wanted bread ; they were capitalists, and wanted peace.
Had the abolition of slavery depended alone upon the efforts
of Sumner, Chase, Seward, Phillips, and their associates, we
should still be engaged in a windy war of wordv debate. It
does not require much courage to talk against a wrong, nor does
it hurt the wrong much to be talked against. Rhetoric is
cheap. .Mere abstract truth harms nobody. It is easy to be
radical in a great office upon a liberal salary, and with a com-
fortable majority upon which to recline. The classical ora-
tors, the scholarly declaimers and essayists, performed their
work. They furnished the formulas for popular use and ex-
pression; but old John Brown, with his pikes, did more in one
brief hour to render slavery impossible than all the speech-
makers and soothsayers had done in a quarter of a century,
and he will be remembered when they and their works are lost
in dusty oblivion. The man who is not afraid to die for an
idea is its most convincing advocate.
Already those who were considered as the great intellectual
leaders of opinion in this crusade are dead. I was presiding
over the Senate when Sumner left the chamber tor the last time
in life, and I saw his remains borne from the Capitol, which had
been the scene of his labors for nearly a quarter of a century.
I was with Vice-President Wilson the day before lie died, and
248 .. John James IngaUvS.
witnessed the unparalleled display that attended the funeral
cortege as it moved through New York City on its way to his
last resting-place in Massachusetts. I witnessed the adminis-
tration of the second oath of office to President Grant by Chief
Justice Chase, then a broken and disconsolate old man just
lingering on the verge of dissolution. They are almost forgot-
ten. Their names are no longer on the tongues of men. Their
speeches have died out of popular remembrance. Seward yet
lives by a fortunate phrase, "the irrepressible conflict," which
was not his own except as an adopted foundling.
The student of the future will exhume their orations and
arguments and state papers as a part of the subterranean his-
tory of the epoch. The antiquarian will dig up their remains
from the alluvial drift of the period and construe their relations
to the great events in which they were actors; but the three
men who will loom forever against the horizon of time as the
representative, conspicuous types of this era, like pyramids
above the desert, or mountain peaks over the subordinate
plains, are Abraham Lincoln, U. S. Grant, and old John Brown
of Osawatomie, and I am not sure that the last will not be first.
He has a prodigious grip upon the public imagination. His
^example is bedded deep in the general conscience. There are
more men in America to-day who can sing the John Brown
song than any other hymn, unless it may be the long-meter
"Old Hundred" Doxology. It is an immortal strain, and stirs
the soul like the solemn diapason of an organ in the fretted
vaults of a cathedral.
In the early days of the war I spent an autumn night in the
•camp of one of the most famous Kansas regiments. The tents
were pitched upon the eastern slope of a grassy declivity that
descended to the wooded margin of a slender stream, whose
Address. 249
meanderings were marked by an exhalation of blue haze that
extended from horizon to horizon. The pensive splendor of
a full moon illuminated the alien landscape with its melancholy
glory as we sat around the glimmering embers and talked of the
great problems of the tremendous conflict upon which we had
entered. The murmurs of the camp had become almost inar-
ticulate as night deepened, when suddenly a single distant
voice broke upon the stillness with the inspiring words of that
sublime martial psalm, "John Brown's body lies a-mouldering
in the grave!" A hundred voices spontaneously swelled the
repetition of the refrain, and when the chorus was reached, it
ascended in a vast volume of reverential exultation to heaven,
solemn as death, grand with its majestic suggestions of immor-
tality. It was a revelation and a prophecy, and I felt that a
people which could adopt such an anthem as this for their war-
song must march to victory.
During the past few years it has been my fortune to oft-
en travel through Maryland and Virginia, and I have never
approached Harper's Ferry by day or night when old John
Brown did not become the universal topic of conversation, and
the bridge, the engine-house, and the ruined arsenal the objects
of the most eager interest and scrutiny. Everyone feels that
it is historic ground, and that here was struck the first deadly,
earnest blow at African slavery. From the moment that shot
was fired, talk, discussion, debate, were at an end. He who
was not for slavery was against it. Gristle was replaced by
bone. The North became vertebrated. The age of compro-
mise and cartilage was over. Sentiments and emotions crys-
tallized suddenly into stern convictions. Fear and rage fell
upon the South, and from the Potomac to the Gulf
250 John James Ingalls.
"The universal host up sent
A shout that tore Hell's concave, and beyond
Frighted the reign of Chaos and old Night."
Seven years ago the mission of John Brown seemed to have
been fullly accomplished. The Declaration of Independence
was no longer a lie. Slavery was destroyed, and its further
existence inhibited by constitutional enactment. The freed-
men by their sobriety, their obedience to law, their decorous
demeanor, justified the temerity those who had dared to main-
tain that they possessed intelligence superior to beasts, and
souls that were immortal. During centuries of brutal and
degrading bondage, they had retained the typical character-
istics of their race. Their virtues were their own ; their vices
were the offspring of the cruel system of which they had been
the reluctant victims. Music and mirth enlivened the inter-
vals of their unrequited toil. Loyalty and fidelity seemed the
instincts of their nature. Patient of labor and obedient to law,
they witnessed the prodigious accumulations derived from
their unpaid industry without an effort to reclaim their own.
Their local and personal attachments were intense. During
the long moral combat that was the vestibule of the war they
resisted the solicitations of those who believed that he who
would be free himself must strike the blow, and continued
faithful to the tyrants who had enslaved them. During the
awful conflict that followed, when their emancipation became
the integer, while their owners were doing desperate battle to
rivet more firmly the fetters that bound them, they peacefully
tilled the fields and served the families of their masters, wait-
ing patiently for the hour of their deliverance to draw nigh.
If they pillaged or plundered the estates that were in their
charge, or insulted or wronged the helpless women and children
Addrhss. 251
who were at their mercy, history has failed to record the deed.
And when at last they emerged from the smoke and din and
uproar upon the high plane of American citizenship, beneath
the vindicated flag that is henceforth to be the symbol of the
honor and the emblem of the glory of their country, they
accepted the trusts and responsibilities with a tranquil and
orderly dignity that has defeated the predictions and challenged
the wonder of mankind. .
They began to acquire homes and property. They filled
savings banks with their earnings. They assumed definite
domestic relations. They gathered about the schoolmaster
and eagerly studied the alphabet, the primer, the Bible. Their
instincts were more infallible than reason. They voted with
their friends. The sudden and violent transition was accom-
panied by no social disturbance such as might reasonablv have
been anticipated.- It was a terrible test of the elasticitv of our
political system. No such strain ever fell upon a nation before.
Had the freedmen been disorderly and defiant, our institutions
could not have survived the shock inflicted by the introduction
ol this tremendous element of uneducated suffrage.
The autonomy of the States had been restored. The pesti-
lent heresy of State sovereignty had been recanted, and in its
place appeared the true gospel of American nationality. The
United States were at last a nation, and not a mere aggrega-
gation of detached and incoherent communities. The Nation
existed, not at the pleasure of a State, nor of a majority of the
States, nor of all the States, but by virtue of the will of a
majority of all the people.
Citizenship was made a national attribute. Behind every
citizen, white or black, at home or abroad, stood the Nation, a
beneficent, potential energy, pledged to protect him in the full.
252 John James Ingalls.
free, and quiet enjoyment and exercise of all the rights of citi-
zenship. No man could be so humble, so obscure, so remote
as to become an alien from its blessings. If his rights under
the Constitution were infringed or abridged, and redress was
refused by the local authorities, he could confidently apply to
the Nation for restitution.
The war was reallv a great convention to amend the Consti-
tution, and the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amend-
ments were the result. The three ideas that they embody are
universal freedom, national citizenship, and the indissoluble
union of the States.
But all great moral movements have their oscillations.
They reach a culminating point as a pendulum moves to the
end of its arc, and then with constantly increasing velocity
and momentum they sweep down the curve on the inevitable
return from their remotest excursion. For the past seven
years the path of the Nation has been downward. If either of
the Amendments were submitted to the States to-day, I do
not believe that one of them could receive the number of
votes neccessary for ratification. I doubt whether a State south
of the Ohio River would vote for an Amendment declaring
that the union of the States was perpetual and indissoluble.
I have heard the declaration upon the floor of both houses of
Congress, that the ratification of the three Amendments was
procured by fraud and violence, and that they were not oblig-
atory upon any State that chose to disregard them. It has
become unpopular to speak of disloyalty and treason. The
scars and uniform of the Union soldier are badges of dishonor
and passports to contumely in many of the States. To
rehearse their deeds and revere their valor is denounced as
unprofitable sectionalism. Our exercises to-day will be char-
Address. 253
acterized as preaching the gospel of hate, fanning the embers
of strife, and reviving the dead issues of the past. Public
opinion has grown flabby. Forgetfulness is the supreme sug-
gestion of statesmanship. Pacification is the watchword of
the hour. A burglar can be pacified by delivering to him the
contents of the bank vault and assuring him of immunity. A
murderer can be pacified by entering a nolle and discharging
him from prison. All criminals can be pacified by relinquish-
ing to them the fruits of their crime. Hell would be quiet if
the devil could secure the abrogation of the Moral Code and
the absolute repeal of the Decalogue.
A school of political pigmies, whom Providence for some
inscrutable purpose has placed in power, are endeavoring to
pacify the country by debauching its convictions; by assert-
ing that those who sought to overthrow and destroy the Gov-
ernment are more entitled to its favors than those who sacri-
ficed all to uphold it; by attempting to obliterate the distinc-
tion between right and wrong and to repeal the laws of God.
They are seeking to put the new wine of 1877 into the old bot-
tles of i860, with the probability of the ultimate loss of both
receptacles and contents.
Reinforced by these perfidious allies under the delusive
banners of peace, harmony, and reconciliation, the vanquished
enemies of the Nation have been steadily and relentlessly pur-
suing their purposes to regain what they lost. They have fal-
sified every pledge by which they secured their political resto-
ration. They promised that education should be universal,
but they refuse appropriations for the support of schools, burn
school-houses, expel the teachers, and discharge the profes-
sors in their universities who believed in the preservation of
the Union. They promised that suffrage should be protected,
254 Johx James Ingalls.
freedom of speech and opinion maintained; equal rights en-
forced, and justice impartially administered. How these sol-
emn covenants have been preserved, we know too well. Un-
der the sheltering pretext of the sovereignty of the States,
atrocious despotisms have been erected on the ruins of liberty.
Popular majorities have been suppressed by the most revolt-
ing methods known to tyrants. But one political opinion is
tolerated, and when the organization that entertains opposing
views has been disbanded by carnage and terror, it is announced
that, the causes which justified fraud and violence no longer
existing, honest elections must be restored. Murder has be-
come one of the political fine arts, and assassination a logical
argument. Governors and sheriffs who conspire with mobs
of felons and protect them from punishment are rewarded by
renominations and recognized as leaders of the people; and
while slavery is not restored by name, the freedmen are being
rapidly reduced by indirect devices to a condition of servile
dependence that has all the horrors of slavery with none of its
alleviations. "Home rule" means the right to murder with
impunity, and "local self-government" the right of a white
minority to suppress a black majority by systematic violence
and wholesale assassination. And when the beneficent inter-
vention of the Nation is invoked in behalf of those whom it is
bound by the most sacred obligations to protect, the appeal is
denounced as an invasion of the rights of the States, because
the wrongs are not affirmatively sanctioned and authorized by
the constitutions and statutes of those States where it is admit-
ted that they exist. The acts are excused upon the ground
that they are committed by young, misguided, and passionate
citizens, inflamed beyond endurance by the wrongs of which
they have been the victims. Speechless submission to these
Address.
flagrant violations of the social compact is called pacification
and harmony. Tacitus has fitly described this condition in a
single sentence: "Solitudinem faciunt et pacem appellant" — ■
"They make a desert and call it peace."
In a brief interval the forces which so nearly destroyed the
Nation will resume its absolute control. Thev now have the
House of Representatives, and in two years they will have the
Senate by decisive majorities. Already the chieftains who led
their legions with thundering menace aganist the Capitol sit
beneath the shadow of its dome, and claim to be the sole guard-
ians of constitutional liberty and the consistent advocates of
the rights of the people. With every vestige of opposition
crushed and trampled out of existence in half of the States of
the Union, their ultimate success in securing the Executive
seems hardlv to admit of doubt. Few vestiges of our great
conflict have been left, except its scars and its burdens, and if
the Amendments are to be made inoperative, our Civil War will
be justly stigmatized as the greatest crime of history.
For the lamentable condition of affairs in the South the
inexplicable blunders of reconstruction are largely responsible.
They turned society upside down. They arrayed the intelli-
gence, the wealth, the land, the political skill, the traditions of
the South against its numbers, its ignorance, and its degrada-
tion, and put the latter on tup. The struggle for supremacy
was inevitable, and could have but one issue. By means
wholly obnoxious and detestable, brains won. By fair means
or foul, they generally do. The lessons of history in this
connection are monotonous, but the statesmen of [868 had
not read history, which is said to be philosophy teaching by
example.
256 John James Ixgalls.
Their plan left but two courses open for those to whom they
bequeathed the priceless legacy of their labors. The first was
to prop up and sustain the unstable fabric which their wisdom
had erected, by the continuous application of the national
power. The other was to withdraw the Army and leave the
whole subject to the local authorities, however inert, reluctant,
or hostile they might be. In either event a contest was una-
voidable. Under the first plan, the strife would be one of arms
and force. Under the other, it would be a conflict of ideas,
with the press, the school-book, and the pen as the weapons of
the war.
The alternative has been chosen, and the selection is irre-
vocable. There can be no footsteps backward. It is idle to
quarrel with the inevitable. What has been done we cannot
undo. Statesmanship has no concern with the past except to
learn its lessons. Recrimination and hostile criticism are
worse than useless. We must act in the present and go for-
ward to meet the future. However much some may regret
what they conceive to be a surrender of principles, an aban-
donment of friends, a falsification of history, and a confession
that a great office is held by successful fraud, the path of wis-
dom is plain. We must wait the result of the experiment.
Wre must insist upon a rigid observance of the guaranties of
freedom contained in the Constitution, and if they are violated,
we must invoke that revolt of the national conscience which
sooner or later is sure to come.
if there are those who believe that the issues whose, discussion
upon peaceful or bloody fields formed the annals of our first cenr
tury are dead, I am not one of them. Our political history has
always moved in periods defined by the conflict between State
and national authority. The views entertained by the rival par-
Address. 257
ties that arose when the Constitution was framed, and that in
fact existed under the old confederation, are the same views
that have continued to exist, and which shall survive so long
as our Government shall endure. Notwithstanding its sup-
posed precision and its subjection to judicial interpretation-
our Constitution has always been found to possess sufficient
latent powers to make it progressive and adapt it to the needs
and convictions of the Nation. But there is something more
venerable than constitutions, more sacred than charters, and
that is the rights for whose protection they are ordained ; and
when the provisions of our organic law ceased to express the
purposes of the people, it was from time to time amended, and
when its capacity for amendments by peaceful methods was
exhausted, it was amended by the sword.
But no man is ever convinced by being overpowered.
Force cannot extirpate ideas. They are immortal. Their
vitality is inextinguishable. They cannot be annihilated.
Thev mav be for a time repressed, but they never die. War
does not change the opinions of the victors nor the vanquished.
It proves nothing, except which combatant has the deepest
purse and the toughest muscle. Had the result of our conflict
been reversed ; had the Army of the Confederacy dictated the
terms of [peace from the Capitol ; had the constitutional theory
of Calhoun been forced upon the Nation; had slavery been
made national, and the Georgia statesman fulfilled his threat
to call the roll of his slaves in the shadow of Bunker Hill — I
should never have believed that secession and slavery were
right, nor that the patriot dead had died in vain ; nor should I
have ever ceased to aspire that all men might be free, and that
a future day might dawn upon a redeemed and regenerated
Republic. Many orators have declared, many papers have
258 John James Ingalls.
stated, many conventions have resolved, that the ideas for
which the South contended were settled by the war ; but I have
never heard the confession that they were wrong or without
warrant in the Constitution. I should distrust the sincerity
and suspect the ingenuousness of any intelligent Confederate
who would say this.
It was not to be expected that the tremendous passions
-engendered by the Civil War, the trepidation of its fugitives,
the thwarted ambitions of its leaders, and all the direful sequels
of the most portentous tragedy of time, should instantaneously
be quieted and disappear. History teaches no such lesson.
The fluctuations of the storm-smitten sea do not subside till
long after the violence of the tempest is spent. But it was not
unreasonable to hope for a manly and vigorous effort to assauge
the melancholy passions of the terrible epoch ; to calm the exas-
peration of the thoughtless ; to educate the masses of the people
to obedience, order, and peace.
But as the revolted States have resumed their relations to
the Government, the old leaders of opinion, the chiefs of the
defeated armies, have been sent to both houses of Congress, and
the sole test of political advancement is service in the Confed-
erate Army. No Unionist, no conservative, no negro, ever has
received or ever will receive the support of that party which
has at last secured "a solid South." To revert once more to
the supposition that the contest had resulted differently and
that the North had been "reconstructed," what would have
been the irresistible conclusion had men like Garrison, Phillips,
Sumner, Sheridan, and Sherman been sent to the Senate and
House, and elected governors and officers of State? The
deduction would have been reasonable at least, that memory
survived, though hope might be dead.
Address.
^59
Therefore, Mr. President, it is not singular that we are
incredulous; that we demand something more than varnished
and veneered professions; that we distrust handshakings and
embraces, and languishing sentimentalism, and feel inclined
to say: "Methinks the lady doth protest too much!" We
are prompted to penetrate beneath the surface and inspect the
social methods, the political agencies, the tendencies which
mark the direction of the thought of the people and define the
orbit of the popular will.
No, Mr. President, let us not deceive ourselves nor be de-
ceived. There can be no truce between right and wrong. In
the conflict of ideas there can be no armistice. The gigantic
revolution through which we have passed did not arise upon a
point of etiquette, and it cannot be ended by a polite apology.
It was a great struggle between two hostile and enduring forces,
which must continue until one or the other shall become dis-
placed and expelled from our system of Government. It must
go on either till the right of one man, or class, by violence or
force, to prescribe the opinions, control the acts, and define the
political relations of others is freely conceded, or until the right
of every individual, however humble, to think, act, or vote in
accordance with the suggestions of his own judgment and con-
science under the law shall be absolutely unquestioned. So
long as this right is denied or abridged under any pretext, or in
any locality, North, South, East, <>r West, in the shadow of the
mountains, in the great valley, or by the shore of gulf or sea,
so long the conilict must last. It will never end till the unity
and supremacy of the Nation is undisputed; till life is sacred
and liberty secure; till the opportunities for knowledge are as
universally diffused as the desire to know, and the pursuit of
happiness as unlimited as the capacity to enjoy.
260 Johx James Ixgalls.
In view of these considerations, our exercises to-day have a
profound significance. Her Territorial pupilage educated Kan-
sas to freedom, and she has not forgotten that bloody tuition.
Twenty-one years have elapsed since Garrison and his associ-
ates died that the State might be free. I see before me many
who participated with them in those early contests, and who
still stand as sleepless sentinels upon the watch-towers of lib-
erty. The siren and seductive song of peace will not delude
their vigilance nor lull them into security. The passions en-
gendered in that epoch have subsided, but its lessons remain,
and this monument which we dedicate is not alone a memento
of the past, but it is an admonition for the present and the
future. It announces that against all the blandishments of
policy, the temptations of place, or profit, or expediency, we
dedicate ourselves to assert and defend those vital principles
of justice and rectitude which are the foundation not alone of
all individual welfare, but of true national grandeur.
There is one further act of commemoration to complete the
full recognition of the debt of gratitude we owe John Brown.
The old hall of the House of Representatives in the Capitol at
Washington, which is consecrated by the genius, the wisdom,
and the patriotism of the statesmen of the first century of
American histon , has been designated by Congress as a national
gallery of statuary, to which each State is invited to contribute
two bronze or marble statues of her citizens illustrious for
their historic renown or from distinguished civic and military
services. It will be long before this silent congregation is
complete. With tardy footsteps they slowly ascend their ped-
estals ; voiceless orators, whose stony eloquence will salute and
inspire the generations of freemen to come; bronze warriors,
whose unsheathed swords seem yet to direct the onset, and
Address. 261
whose command will pass from century to century, inspiring
an unbroken line of heroes to guard with ceaseless care the her-
itage their valor won.
Kansas is yet in her youth. She has no associations that
are venerable by age. All her dead have been the cotempo-
raries of those who yet live. The verdict of posterity can only
be anticipated. But, like all communities, we have had our
heroic era, and it has closed. It terminated with the war which
began within our borders, and it deserves a national commem-
oration. I believe the concurring judgment of mankind would
designate him as the conspicuous representative of this period
in our history, and while.his image yet exists in the memories
of his cotemporaries, so that accurate portraiture is possible
I hope the people of Kansas will honor themselves by procur-
ing his statue to be placed in this hall as a gift to the Nation.
If the time has ever been when it would have been inappro-
priate, when it might have wounded the sensibility or moved
the indignation of any of our brethren, it [has passed away.
We are conciliated and we have forgotten. We have"|found
"the sweet oblivious antidote" for all our sorrows. If Kansas
makes this tardy recognition of one of her noblest sons, Vir-
ginia can ill afford to remember that she hanged as a traitor
the man whose cause the Nation espoused three years after-
wards, and whose standard she seized from the gallows at
Charlestown and bore in triumph to Appomattox Court-house.
Mr. President, my task is done. I am conscious how imper
fectly and inadequately I have given expression to the sugges-
tions of this memorable hour, but I feel that the communion
of this auspicious day has not been in vain. We need to meas-
ure ourselves by heroic standards, lest we become dwarfed by
inaction. We require the tonic and stimulus of great exam] -
262 John James Ingaixs.
lest we become enervated by paltry considerations. We shall
soon separate to meet no more. Let us bear away as we depart
renewed resolves to devote ourselves to the preservation of the
spirit and essence as well as the form of civil liberty. In a
brief space we shall all be dispersed by death, and our homes,
our fields, our possessions, our dignities, our duties will descend
to our posterity. Let us bequeath to them unimpaired the
priceless heritage which we have received from those who
attested their faith with their lives. And if in the distant
future the guarantees of constitutional liberty shall be assailed,
and the patriot of another age turn for inspiration to this, he
will find no grander example of heroic zeal and lofty self-
devotion than "Old John Brown of Osawatomie."
"They never fail who die
In a great cause. The block may soak their gore;
Their heads may sodden in the sun ; their limbs
Be strung to city gates and castle walls;
But still their spirit walks abroad. Though years
Elapse and others share as dark a doom,
They but augment the deep and sweeping thoughts
Which overpower all others and conduct
The world at last to Freedom."
EULOGY.
On the Death of Senator James B. Beck, of Kentucky.
August 23, 1890.
Mr. President: Rugged, robust, and indomitable, the incar-
nation of physical force and intellectual energy, Senator Beck
seemed a part of Nature, inseparable from life and exempt from
infirmity. Accustomed for many sessions to the exhibition of
his prodigious activity, his indefatigable labors, his strenuous
conflicts, I recall the emotion with which I saw him a few
months ago stand painfully in his place and announce with
strange pathos that for the first time in twenty years he found
himself unable to participate in debate. It was as if a torrent
had paused midway in its descent, or a tempest had ceased
suddenly in its stormy progress. He lingered for awhile, as
the prostrate oak, to which he has been appropriately com-
pared by his late colleague, retains its verdure for a brief inter-
val after its fall, or as the flame flickers when the candle is
burned out; but his work was done. It was the end.
Estimated by comparison with his contemporaries, and
measured by the limitations which he overcame, his career
cannot be considered otherwise than as extraordinary and of
singular and unusual distinction. An alien, and not favored
by Fortune, he conquered the accidents of birth and the obsta-
cles of race, scaled the formidable barriers of tradition, and rose
by successive steps to the highest social and political station.
263
264 John James Ingalls.
In a great State, proud of its history, of the lineage of
its illustrious families, of the honor of its heroic names, of the
achievements of its warriors and statesmen whose renown is
the imperishable heritage of mankind, this stranger surpassed
the swiftest in the race of ambition and the strongest in the
strife for supremacy. His triumph was not temporary, the
brilliant and casual episode of an aspiring and unscrupu-
lous adventurer, but a steadfast and permanent conquest of
the judgment and affections of an exalted constituency. Nor
was the recognition of his superiority confined to Kentucky.
Though he never forgot his nativity, nor the associations of
his youth, he was by choice and preference, and not from neces-
sity, an American. In his broad and generous nature patri-
otism was a passion and allegiance a sacred and unalterable
obligation. A partisan by instinct and conviction, there was
nothing ignoble in his partisanship. He transgressed the
boundaries of party in his friendships, and no appeal to his
sympathy or compassion was ever made in vain.
He has departed. His term had not expired, but his name
has been stricken from the rolls of the Senate. His credentials
remain in its archives, but an honored successor sits unchal-
lenged in his place. He has no vote nor voice, but the consid-
eration of great measures affecting the interests of every citi-
zen of the Republic is interrupted, with the concurrence and
approval of all, that the representatives of forty-two common-
wealths mm- rehearse the virtues and commemorate the career
of an associate who is beyond the reach of praise or censure,
in the kingdom of the dead.
'Hie right to live is, in human estimation, the most sacred,
the most inviolable, the most inalienable. The joy of living
in such a splendid and luminous day as this is inconceivable.
Eulogy. 265
To exist is exultation. To live forever is our sublimest hope.
Annihilation, extinction, and eternal death are the forebodings
of despair. To know, to love, to achieve, to triumph, to confer
happiness, to alleviate misery, is rapture. The greatest crime
and the severest penalty known to human law is the sacrifice
and forfeiture of life.
And yet we are all under sentence of death. Other events
may or may not occur. Other conditions may or may not
exist. We may be rich or poor; we may be learned or ignor-
ant ; we may be happy or wretched ; but we all must die. The
verdict has been pronounced by the inexorable decree of an
omnipotent tribunal. Without trial or opportunity for defense ;
with no knowledge of the accuser or the nature and cause of
the accusation; without being confronted with the witnesses
against us— we have been summoned to the bar of life and con-
demned to death. There is no writ of error nor review. There
is neither exculpation nor appeal. All must be relinquished.
Beauty and deformity, good and evil, virtue and vice, share
the same relentless fate. The tender mother cries passionatelv
for mercy for her first-born, but there is no clemency. The
craven felon sullenly prays for a moment in which to be aneled,
but there is no reprieve. The soul helplessly beats its wings
against the bars, shudders, and disappears.
The proscription extends alike to the individual and tin-
type. Nations die, and races expire. Humanity itself is des-
tined to extinction. Sooner or later, it is tin- instruction of
science, that the energy of the earth will be expended and it
will become incapable of supporting life. A group of feeble
and pallid survivors in some sheltered valley in the tropics
will behold the sun sink below the horizon and the pitiless stars
glitter in the midnight sky. The last man will perish, and the
266 John James Ingalls.
sun will rise upon the earth without an inhabitant. Its atmos-
phere, its seas, its light and heat will vanish, and the planet
will be an idle cinder uselessly spinning in its orbit.
Every hour some world dies unnoticed in the firmament;
some sun smolders to embers and ashes on the hearthstone of
infinite space, and the mighty maze of systems sweeps ceaselessly
onward in its voyage of doom to remorseless and unsparing
destruction.
With the disappearance of man from the earth all traces of
his existence will be lost. The palaces, towers, and temples
he has reared, the institutions he has established, the cities
he has builded, the books he has written, the creeds he has
constructed, the philosophies he has formulated — all science,
art, literature, and knowledge will be obliterated and engulfed
in empty and vacant oblivion.
"The great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind."
There is an Intelligence so vast and enduring that the flam-
ing interval between the birth and death of universes is no more
than the flash of fireflies above the meadows of summer; a
colossal Power by which these stupendous orbs are launched
in the abyss, like bubbles blown by a child in the morning sun,
and Whose sense of justice and reason cannot be less potential
than those immutable statutes that are the law of being to the
creatures He has made, and which compel them to declare that
if the only object of creation is destruction, if infinity is the
theatre of an uninterrupted series of irreparable calamities, is
the final cause of life is death, then time is an inexplicable
tragedy, and eternity an illogical and indefensible catastrophe.
Eulogy. 267
This obsequy is for the quick, and not for the dead. It is
not an inconsolable lamentation. It is a strain of triumph.
It is an affirmation to those who survive, that as our departed
associate, contemplating at the close of his life the monument
of good deeds he had erected, more enduring than brass and
loftier than the pyramids of kings, might exclaim with the
Roman poet, "Non omnis mortar !" so, turning to the silent and
unknown future, he could rely with just and reasonable confi-
dence upon that most impressive and momentous assurance
ever delivered to the human race : "He that believeth in Me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth
and believeth in Me shall never die."
EULOGY.
On the Death of Senator B. H. Hill, of Georgia.
January 25, 1883.
Ben Hill has gone to the undiscovered country.
Whether his journey thither was but one step across an
imperceptible frontier, or whether an interminable ocean,
black, unfluctuating, and voiceless, stretches between these
earthlv coasts and those invisible shores — we do not know.
Whether on that August morning after death he saw a
more glorious sun rise with unimaginable splendor above a
celestial horizon, or whether his apathetic and unconscious
ashes still sleep in cold obstruction and insensible oblivion —
we do not know.
Whether his strong and subtle energies found instant exer-
cise in another forum; whether his dexterous and disciplined
faculties are now contending in a higher Senate than ours for
supremacy; or whether his powers were dissipated and dis-
persed with his parting breath — we do not know.
Whether his passions, ambitions, and affections still sway,
attract, and impel ; whether he yet remembers us as we remem-
ber him — we do not know.
These are the unsolved, the insoluble problems of mortal
life and human destiny, which prompted the troubled patriarch
to ask that momentous question for which the centuries have
given no answer: "If a man die, shall he live again?"
26S
Eulogy. 269
Every man is the center of a circle whose fatal circumfer-
ence he cannot pass. Within its narrow confines he is poten-
tial, beyond it he perishes; and if immortality be a splendid
but delusive dream, if the incompleteness of every career, even
the longest and most fortunate, be not supplemented and per-
fected after its termination here, then he who dreads to die
should fear to live, for life is a tragedy more desolate and inex-
plicable than death.
Of all the dead whose obsequies we have paused to solem-
nize in this chamber, I recall no one whose untimely fate seems
so lamentable, and yet so rich in prophecy of eternal life, as that
of Senator Hill. He had reached the meridian of his years.
He stood upon the high plateau of middle life, in that serene
atmosphere where temptation no longer assails, where the clam-
orous passions no more distract, and where the conditions are
most favorable for noble and enduring achievements. His up-
ward path had been through stormy adversity and conten-
tion, such as infrequently falls to the lot of men. Though not
without the tendency to meditation, reverie, and introspec-
tion which accompanies genius, his temperament was palestric.
He was competitive and unpeaceful. He was born a polemic
and controversialist, intellectuallv pugnacious and combative,
so that he was impelled to defend any position that might be
assailed or to attack any position that might be entrenched,
not because the defense or the assault were essential, but
because the positions were maintained and that those who held
them became by that fact alone his adversaries. This tend-
ency of his nature made his orbit erratic. He was meteoric
rather than planetary, and flashed with irregular splendor
rather than shone with steady and penetrating rays. His
advocacy of any cause was fearless to the verge of temer-
270 John James Ingalls.
ity. He appeared to be indifferent to applause or censure
for their own sake. He accepted intrepidly any conclusions
that he reached, without inquiring whether they were polite or
expedient.
To such a spirit partisanship was unavoidable; but with
Senator Hill it did not degenerate into bigotry. He was ca-
pable of broad generosity, and extended to his opponents
the same unreserved candor which he demanded for him-
self. His oratory was impetuous and devoid of artifice. He
was not a posturer nor phrase-monger. He was too intense,
too earnest, to employ the cheap and paltry decorations of
discourse. He never reconnoitered a hostile position nor ap-
proached it by stealthy parallels. He could not lay siege
to an enemy, nor beleaguer him, nor open trenches, and sap
and mine. His method was the charge and the onset. He was
the Murat of senatorial debate. Not many men of this gen-
eration have been better equipped for parliamentary warfare
than he, with his commanding presence, his sinewy diction, his
confidence and imperturbable self-control.
But in the maturity of his powers and his fame, with un-
measured opportunities for achievement apparently before him,
with great designs unaccomplished, surrounded by the proud
and affectionate solicitude of a great constituency, the pallid
messenger with the inverted torch beckoned him to depart.
There are few scenes in history more tragic than that protracted
combat with death. No man had greater inducements to live.
But in the long struggle against the inexorable advances of an
insidious and mortal malady he did not falter nor repine. He
retreated with the aspect of a victor; and though he suc-
cumbed, he seemed to conquer. His sun went down at noon,
but it sank amid the prophetic splendors of an^eternal dawn.
Eulogy. 271
With more than a hero's courage, with more than a mar-
tyr's fortitude, he waited the approach of the inevitable hour,
and went — to the undiscovered country
EULOGY.
On the Death of Congressman James N. Burnes, of
Missouri.
January 24, 1889.
Mr. President : These are the culminating hours of a closing
scene in the drama of national life. When this day returns,
one political party will relinquish and another assume the exec-
utive functions of government. On every hand are visible the
preparations to "welcome the coming and speed the parting
guest." At the eastern portico already stands the stage on
which the great actors will play their parts, in the presence of
a mighty audience, amid the mimic pomp and circumstance of
war, with the splendor of banners, music's martial strains, and
the hoarse salutations of accentuating guns.
"Enterprises of great pith and moment" wait upon the
event of the brief interval. While Pleasure wanders restlessly
through the corridors of the Capitol, Hope and Fear, Ambition,
Cupidity, and Revenge sit in the galleries or stand at the gates,
eager, like dying Elizabeth, to exchange millions of money for
the inch of time upon which success or failure, wealth or pen-
ury, honor or obloquy depend.
At this juncture and crisis, when each instant is priceless,
disregarding every inducement, resisting every incentive and
solicitation, the Senate proceeds, by unanimous consent, to
consider resolutions of the highest privilege, reported from no
272
Eulogy. 273
committee, having no place upon any calendar, but which take
precedence of unfinished business and special order, upon
which the yeas and nays are never called, and no negative vote
is ever recorded, and reverently pauses, in obedience to the
holiest impulse of human nature, to contemplate the profound-
est mystery of human destiny — the mystery of death.
In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal
There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the repub-
lic of the grave. At this fatal threshold the philosopher ceases
to be wise, and the song of the poet is silent. Dives relinquishes
his millions and Lazarus his rags. The poor man is as rich as
the richest, and the rich man is as poor as the pauper. The
creditor loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted of his obli-
gation. There the proud man surrenders his dignities, the pol-
itician his honors, the worldling bis pleasures; the invalid needs
no physician, and the laborer rests from unrequited toil.
Here at last is Nature's final decree in equity. The wrongs
of time are redressed. Injustice is expiated, the irony of fate
is refuted; the unequal distribution of wealth, honor, capacity,
pleasure, and opportunity, which make life such a cruel and in-
explicable tragedy, ceases in the realm of death. The strong-
est there has no supremacy, and the weakest needs no defense.
The mightiest captain succumbs to that invincible adversary,
who disarms alike the victor and the vanquished.
James Nelson Burnes, whose death we deplore to-day, was
a man whom Plutarch might have described or Van Dyke
delineated; massive, rugged, and robust; in motion slow; in
speech sonorous and deliberate; grave in aspect; serious in
demeanor; of antique and heroic mould; the incarnation of
force, energy, and power.
274 John James Ingalls.
Not perplexed by moral abstractions nor mental subtleties,
he possessed that assemblage of qualities which makes success
in practical affairs inevitable. Great enterprises were natural
to him. Breadth, grasp, and comprehension characterized
his projects. Early perceiving the enormous possibilities of
the valley of the Missouri, longer than the Amazon and more
fertile than the Nile, he immediately identified himself with
the forces which have developed the empire of the Northwest,
made the American Desert an oasis, and abolished the frontier.
At the bar, on the bench, in business and politics, he was
foremost for a quarter of a century.
When we first met, St. Louis was an outpost of civilization,
and Jefferson City the farthest point reached by railroad. In
all that vast region, from the sparse settlements along the Mis-
souri to the Sierra Nevada, from the Arkansas to the Yellow-
stone— now the abode of millions, soon to be represented in
this chamber — there was neither husbandry nor harvest, hab-
itation nor home, save the casual encampments of the Bed-
ouins of the plains, more savage than the beasts they slew.
We were neighbors, as that word goes in the West. Twenty
miles to the northward, across the turbid stream, the level bars
of tawny sand, and the vast expanse of primeval forest, were
visible from my door, in the morning and evening sun, the spires
and the lowers of the city where he dwelt, and with whose
history his name will be indissolnbly associated. Here, in a
stately home, with ample fortune, equipage, and retinue, sur-
rounded by a family he adored, by friends devoted to him,
and by enemies whom he had overcome, he confidently antici-
pated larger triumphs and loftier honors yet to be.
As I looked for the last time upon that countenance from
which for the first time in so many years no glance of kindly
Eulogy. 275
recognition nor word of welcome came, I reflected upon the
impenetrable and insoluble mystery of death. But if death
be the end ; if the life of Burnes terminated upon ' ' this bank
and shoal of time," if no morning is to dawn upon the night in
which he sleeps — then sorrow has no consolation, and this
impressive and solemn ceremony which we observe to-day has
no more significance than the painted pageant of the stage.
If the existence of Burnes was but a troubled dream, his death
oblivion, what avails it that the Senate should pause to recount
his virtues ; and that his associates should assemble in solemn
sorrow around his voiceless sepulchre? Neither veneration nor
reverence is due the dead if they are but dust; no cenotaph
should be reared to preserve for posterity the memory of
their achievements if those who come after them are to be
only their successors in annihilation and extinction.
Unless we survive, the ties of birth, affection, and friend-
ship are a delusive mockery ; the structure of laws and customs
upon which society is based, a detected imposture; the codes
of morality and justice, the sentiments of gratitude and faith,
are empty formulas, without force or consecration. If in this
world only we have hope and consciousness, why should their
inculcations be heeded? Duty must be a chimera. Our pas-
sions and our pleasures should be the guides of conduct, and
virtue is indeed a superstition if life ends at the grave.
This is the conclusion which the philosophy of negation
must accept at last. Such is the felicity of those degrading
precepts which make the epitaph the end. If these teachers
are right, if the life of Burnes is like an arrow that is spent,
then we are atoms in a moral chaos; obedience to law is inde-
fensible servitude; rulers and magistrates are despots toler-
ated only by popular imbecility; justice is a denial of liberty;
276 John James Ingalls.
honor and truth are trivial rhapsodies; murder and perjury
are derisive jests, and their harsh definitions are frivolous
phrases invented by tyrants to impose on the timidity of
cowards and the credulity of slaves.
If the life of Burnes is as a taper that is burned out, then
we treasure his memory and his example in vain, and the latest
prayer of his departing spirit has no more sanctity to us, who
soon or late must follow him, than the whisper of winds that
stir the leaves of the protesting forest, or the murmur of waves
that break upon the complaining shore.
FIAT JUSTITIA.
(Speech in the Senate of the United States, Thursday, January 23, 1890.)
Mr. Ingaixs: Mr. President, pursuant to notice heretofore
given, I move that the Senate do now proceed to the considera-
tion of the bill offered by the Senator from South Carolina [Mr.
Butler], and I ask that it may be read at length for information.
The Vice-President: The bill will be read at length.
The Chief Clerk read the bill (S. 1121) to provide for the
emigration of persons of color from the Southern States, as
follows :
"Be it enacted, etc., That upon the application of any person of color
to the nearest United States Commissioner, setting forth that he, she, or
they desire to emigrate from any of the Southern States, and designating
the point to which he, she, or they wish to go, with a view to citizenship
and permanent residence in said country, and also setting forth that he,
she, or they are too poor to pay the necessary traveling expenses, and that
the move is intended to be permanent and is made in good faith, and shall
verify said application under oath before said Commissioner, it shall be
the duty of said Commissioner to trasmit said application with a written
statement, giving his opinion as to the merits and bona fides of said appli-
cation, to the Quartermaster-General of the Army, and shall be allowed a
fee of 50 cents for each of said applications; but in no case will fees be
allowed for more than one application for each family, the members of
which shall be included in one application by the head of the same. And
in the case where the application is made by an adult person without a
family and on his or her own behalf, then the same allowance of 50 cents
shall be allowed for such application
"Sec. 2. That it shall be the duty of the Quartermaster-General, on
receipt of said application, to furnish transportation in kind for the person
or persons embraced therein, by the nearest practicable route from the
home of the applicant or applicants to the point of destination, and upon
277
278 John James Ingalls.
the cheapest and most economical plan, whether by railroad or water
transportation, and shall account for the same to the proper accounting
officers of the Government, as is now provided by law.
"Sec. 3. That the sum of $5,000,000 be, and the same is hereby,
appropriated, out of any money in the Treasury not otherwise appropri-
ated, to enable the Quartermaster-General to carry out the provisions of
this act.
"SEC. 4. That the Quartermaster-General be, and he is hereby,
authorized and directed to prepare forms of application, verification, etc.,
to be used under the provisions of this act, and such rules and regulations
as may be necessary to protect the Government against imposition, to be
furnished to any United States Commissioners upon proper application
or requisition, free of charge, and shall report the same to Congress for its
information."
Mr. Ingalls: Mr. President, the race to which we belong
is the most arrogant and rapacious, the most exclusive and
indomitable in history. It is the conquering and the uncon-
querable race, through which alone man has taken possession
of the physical and moral world. To our race humanity is
indebted for religion, for literature, for civilization. It has a
genius for conquest, for politics, for jurisprudence, and for
administration. The home and the family are its contribu-
tions to society. Individualism, fraternity, liberty, and equal-
ity have been its contributions to the State. All other races
have been its enemies or its victims.
This, sir, is not the time, nor is this the occasion, to con-
sider the proijundly interesting question of the unity of races.
It is sufficient to say that either by instinct or design the Cau-
casian race at every step of its progress from barbarism to
enlightenment has refused to mingle its blood or assimilate with
the two other great human families, the Mongolian and the
African, and has persistently rejected adulteration. It has
found the fullest and most complete realization of its funda-
mental ideas of government and society upon this continent,
Fiat Justitia. 279
and there can be no doubt that upon this arena its future and
most magnificent triumphs are to be accomplished.
The exiles of Plymouth and of Jamestown brought hither
political and social ideas which have developed with inconceiv-
able energv and power. They ventured upon a hitherto untried
experiment, a daring innovation, a paradox in government.
They who rule are those who are to be governed. The rulers
frame the law to which they themselves must submit. The
kings are the subjects, and those who are free voluntarily sur-
render a portion of their freedom that their own liberties may
be more secure. The ablest soothsayer could not have foretold
the wonderful development of the first century of American
nationality, the increase of population, the expanse of bound-
ary, the aggrandizement of resources. The frontier has been
abolished; the climate has been conquered; the desert sub-
dued. For these conditions, which could not have been pre-
dicted, for which there were neither maxims, nor formulas, nor
precedents, the genius of the Caucasian race has furnished an
equivalent in the Constitution under which we live, an organic
law flexible enough to permit indefinite and unlimited expan-
sion, and at the same time rigid enough hitherto to protect the
rights of the weakest and the humblest from invasion.
From its latent resources have been evoked vast and unsus-
pected powers that have become the charters of liberty to the
victims of its misconstruction; beneath its beneficent cove-
nants every faith has found a shelter, every creed a sanctuary,
and every wrong redress. It has reconciled interests that were
apparently in irrepressible conflict. It has resisted the rancor
of party spirit, the vehemence of faction, the perils of foreign
immigration, the collision of civil war, the jealous menace of
foreign and hostile nations. It has realized up to this time
280 John James Ingalls.
the splendid dream of the great English apostle of modern lib-
erty, who said in the midst of the struggle for the dismember-
ment of the American Union :
"I have another and a broader vision before my gaze. It may be a vis-
ion, but I cherish it. I see one vast confederation reaching from the frozen
North in unbroken line to the glowing South, and from the wild billows of
the Atlantic to the calmer waters of the Pacific main ; and I see one peo-
ple and one language, and one law and one faith, and all over that wide con-
tinent a home of freedom and a refuge for the oppressed of every race and
every clime."
Upon the threshold of our second century, Mr. President,
we are confronted with the most formidable and portentous
problem ever submitted to a free people for solution ; complex,
unprecedented, involving social, moral, and political considera-
tions, party supremacy, and in the estimation of many, though
not in my own, in its ultimate consequences the existence of
our system of government. Its gravity cannot be exagger-
ated and its discussion has been deferred too long. Its solu-
tion will demand all the resources of the statesmanship of the
present and the future to prevent a crisis that may become a
catastrophe. It should be approached with candor, with sol-
emnity, with patriotic purpose, with earnest scrutiny, without
subterfuge and without reserve.
Let me state it in the language of one of the most brilliant,
the most impassioned and powerful of all the orators of the
South, now unfortunately no more. When Grady died, a lumi-
nous and dazzling meteor disappeared from the Southern firm-
ament. I regret that I never met him. On his journey home-
ward from Boston he sent me a message from his car, where
he lay ill, which reached me too late to enable me to see him,
and now he has departed for the undiscovered country. But
though dead he yet speaketh, and I will ask the Secretary to
Fiat Justitia. 281
read an extract from that extraordinary oration which he deliv-
erd before the merchants of Boston in December last upon the
race problem in the South.
The Chief Clerk read as follows:
"Note its appalling conditions. Two utterly dissimilar races on the
same soil, with equal political and civil rights; almost equal in num-
bers, but terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility; each pledged
against fusion; one for a century in servitude to the other, and freed at
last by a desolating war; the experiment sought by neither, but ap-
proached by both with doubt— these are the conditions. Under these,
adverse at every point, we are required to carry these two races in peace
and honor to the end.
"Never, sir, has such a task been given to mortal stewardship. Never
before in this Republic has the white race divided on the rights of an alien
race. The red man was cut down as a weed because he hindered the way
of the American citizen. The yellow man was shut out of this Republic
because he is an alien and inferior. The red man was the owner of the
land; the yellow man "highly civilized and assimilable; but they hindered
both sections and are gone. But the black man, clothed with every priv-
ilege of government, affecting but one section, is pinned to the soil, and
my people commanded to make good at any hazard and at any cost his
full and equal heirship of American privilege and prosperity. It matters
not that every other race has been routed or excluded without rhyme or
reason. It matters not that wherever the whites and blacks have touched,
in any era or in any clime, there has been irreconcilable violence. It mat-
ters not that no two races, however similar, have ever lived anywhere at
any time on the same soil with equal rights in peace. In spite of these
things, we are commanded to make good this change of American policy,
which has not perhaps changed American prejudice; to make certain
here what has elsewhere been impossible between whites and blacks; and
to reverse under the very worst conditions the universal verdict of racial
history."
Mr. Ingaixs: Let me state, Mr. President, the arithmetic
of this problem. In i860 there were 4,440,000 negroes, slave
and free, in the United States; in 1870, 4,480,000; in 1880,
6,580,000. The increase from i860 to 1870 was 40,000, and
from 1870 to 1880 it was 2,100,000, in increase which, I may say
in passing, I believe can only be accounted for upon the theory
282 John James Ingalls.
of a deliberate, premeditated, and intentional fraud upon the
census. This would make an increase for the last decade of 35
per cent, while the entire population of the country increased
not quite 30 per cent in that interval, immigration included.
In Louisiana the increase was 1 19,000, while the whites increase
but 92,000. In Georgia the increase was 178,000 whites and
180,000 blacks. In Mississippi, about which I shall have
something to say hereafter, the increase was 97,000 whites and
200,000 blacks. In South Carolina it was 102,000 whites and
189,000 blacks.
But whether this extraordinary and unprecedented increase
was due to a desire for additional representation or not, it may
be admitted that the numerical increase of the colored race
was undoubtedly considerable, and it may be conceded, I think,
that with the improvement in their physical condition and their
observance of the laws of longevity the ratio will probably
grow larger, so that by the close of this century there will pos-
sibly be not less than fifteen millions of the black and colored
races upon this continent.
The problem is still further complicated by the fact that
they are gregarious. They instinctively separate themselves
into their own communities, with their own habits, their own
customs, their own methods of life. They worship separately
and they are taught separately. The line of cleavage between
the whites and blacks is becoming constantly more distinct and
perceptible. There is neither amalgamation nor absorption
nor assimilation. Politically they are affiliated with the vic-
tors in the late Civil War. Socially, and by locality and resi-
dence, they are indissolubly associated with the vanquished.
Will this experiment, which has failed elsewhere, succeed here ?
Can the black race exist as citizens of the United States upon
Fiat Justitia. 283
terms of political equality with the Caucasian race? If not,
whv not? What must be done with them? This is the problem.
Mr. Frederick Douglass, the most illustrious living repre-
sentative of his race — greater, I think, by his Caucasian re-
enforcement than by his African blood — once said to me that
he thought as prejudice and social and political antagonism
disappeared the races would blend, coalesce, and become homo-
genous. I do not agree with him. There is no natural affinity
between the races, and this solution of the problem is impos-
sible, and, in my opinion, would be most deplorable. Events
have shown that the relations between the sexes in the time of
slavery were compulsory and have disappeared with freedom,
The hybrids were the product of white fathers and black moth-
ers, and seldom or never of black fathers and white mothers,
and the inference from this result ethnologically is conclusive
of that question. Such a solution, in my judgment, would
perpetuate the vices of both races and the virtues of neither.
There is no blood-poison so fatal as adulteration of race.
Races that cannot intermarry do not blend and become
homogeneous. Englishmen, Irishmen, Frenchmen, Germans,
and Scandinavians emigrate and in a generation they are Amer-
icans ; their blood mingles with the great current of our national
life, and of its alien origin nothing remains but a memory, a
name, a tradition. Sometimes the invader becomes the con-
queror, like the Tartar in China, the Normans in England; but
history contains no record of two separate races peacefully
existing upon terms of absolute social and political equality
under the same system of government. Antagonism is inev-
itable. They become rivals and competitors, and in the strug-
gle for supremacy the weaker has gone down.
284 John James Ingalls.
The leaders of opinion in the South have evidently reached
the conclusion that the present state of affairs cannot continue
indefinitely, and the Senators from Alabama, South Carolina,
and Florida, together with the editors of many newspapers
and many orators, have invited and opened this debate. Thus
far it has been conducted with unimpassioned and philosophic
decorum and deliberation, which I shall endeavor to imitate.
The Senator from South Carolina deprecated vituperation.
It shall not come ; it is not necessary. The most mordant and
biting criticism that can be made about the situation in the
South is — the truth.
I shall be impartial and judicial as far as I may be able;
and in that vein I admit that historically the responsibility for
the presence of the African race upon this continent is not con-
fined to the States that rebelled in 1861, but belongs indiscrim-
inately, share and share alike, to all the white people of the
United States, North and South. Slavery retired from the
valleys of the Merimac, the Connecticut, and the Hudson to
the Potomac and southward, by the operation of social, eco-
nomic, and natural laws, and not through the superior morality
of those who defended the Union against the assaults of treason.
I am a native of Massachusetts. My ancestors held slaves
in that State in the last century. I remember when a child
with what interest I read in the school-books that poem
beginning :
" Chain' d in the market-place he stood
A man of giant frame ;
Before the gath'ring multitude,
That shrunk to hear his name."
I recall the teachings of Wendell Phillips and Lloyd Garrison
and the other apostles of human freedom. Wendell Phillips,
Fiat Justitia. 285
Lloyd Garrison, and Lovejoy were as right in 1850 as they were
in i860, but their appeals fell upon deaf ears in the land of the
Puritans. Abolitionists were mobbed, despitefully and con-
tumeliously treated, reviled and outlawed by the highest so-
cial classes. The conscience of New England never was thor-
oughly aroused to the immorality of African slavery until it
ceased to be profitable, and the North did not finally deter-
mine to destroy the system until convinced that its continuance
threatened not only their industrial independence, but their
political supremacy.
Further, Mr. President, it may be admitted that the eman-
cipation of the slaves was not contemplated by any consider-
able portion of the American people when the war for the Union
began; and it was not brought to pass until the fortunes of
war became desperate, and was then justified and defended
upon the plea of military necessity.
Enfranchisement was logical and inevitable, but it was not,
as the Senator from Florida [Mr. Pasco] said in his speech the
other day, "A device to secure the perpetuation of power in
the Republican party." That stale calumny, sir, is old enough
to be superannuated and placed on the retired list. On the
contrary, the apprehensive reluctance of the victors to confer
citizenship and suffrage upon the freedmen was overcome onlv
by incontrovertible evidence that the vanquished intended to
reduce them to a condition of servitude more degraded and
revolting than that from which they had been redeemed.
I will go one step further, Mr. President, and say that the
Africanization of this continent, or of any considerable part
of it, is not desirable. Were the colored race not here, the
probabilities are strong that they would not be invited to
come here. The proposition originally to introduce seven
286 John James Ingalls.
million Africans would be discussed with gerat deliberation
before it would be accepted ; and I may supplement this state-
ment with the additional opinion that were they not here,
rather than endure what they have suffered in two centuries
of slavery and twenty-five years of ostensible freedom, they
would unanimously prefer to continue in association with
their kindred in the Dark Continent.
But they are here, Mr. President, without their volition or
our own. They are natives ; they are citizens. Man for man,
they are our political equals. They came here involuntarily
as prisoners of war, captured in battle. They are of ancient
lineage, genuine F. F. V.s, for the earliest migration was in
August, 1 619, antedating the historic voyage of the Mayflower.
As slaves, they drained the marshes, they felled the forests,
they cultivated the fields, and assisted by their unrequited
toil in piling up the accumlated wealth of the Nation. And,
sir, while their masters were absent in camp and field, doing
battle to rivet more firmly the chains by which they were
bound and to make slavery the corner-stone of a new social
and political structure, they remained upon the plantations
and in the cities in charge of the estates and of the families
of their owners, raising the supplies without which the war
could not have been prolonged. General insurrections and ser-
vile uprisings would have dissolved the Confederate armies;
but they did not occur. Docile, faithful, and submissive, the
slaves were guilty of no violence against person or property.
They lighted no midnight flame; they shed no innocent blood.
It seems incredible that gratitude should not have defended
and sheltered them from the hideous and indescribable wrongs
and crimes of which they have been for a quarter of a century
the guiltless and unresisting victims.
Fiat Justitia. 287
The same impulses, sir, that made them loyal to their
masters during the war have made them faithful to their deliv-
erers since. Their allegiance to the party of Lincoln and of
Grant is persistent and unswerving. Their instincts were more
infallible than reason. They have voted with their friends.
They have begun to acquire homes and property. They have
filled savings-banks with their earnings. They have assumed
definite domestic relations. They have gathered about the
school-master, and eagerly studied the alphabet, the primer
and the Bible. By their sobriety, by their obedience to law,
by their decorous demeanor, they have justified the temerity
of those who dared to maintain that they possessed intelligence
superior to the brutes and souls that were immortal.
But it can no longer be denied that suffrage and citizen-
ship have hitherto not justified the anticipations of those by
whom they were conferred. They have not been effective in
the hands of the freedmen, either for attack or defense. They
have been neither shield nor sword. Citizenship to them has
been a name and suffrage a mockery. Force and violence
have confessedly been supplemented and supplanted by fraud,
which is safer and equally efficient. The suppression of the
black vote is practically complete. The evidence is conclu-
sive, it is overwhelming from every quarter, North and South,
from Democrats and Republicans, from senators, editors, and
orators, that the whites of the South have deliberately deter-
mined to eliminate the negro as the controlling factor from
their social and political system.
I have some testimony on this point, and I shall quote
none but Southern men and members of the Democratic party
upon the subject. I refer once more to the significant, extraor-
dinary oration delivered by the Georgia orator in Boston. Re-
288 John James Ingalls.
ferring to the President 's message — and he was there for the
purpose of speaking to the people of New England and the
country about the race problem in the South — referring to
the President's message, he says :
" But we are asked, 'When will the negro east a free ballot?' '
Does he say that the negro does cast a free ballot? No, sir.
He says:
"When the ignorant, anywhere, can east a ballot not dominated by the
will of the intelligent; when the laborer, anywhere — "
and this shows his want of conception and comprehension of
the relations between the laborer and the employer —
"when the laborer, anywhere, casts his vote unhindered by his boss; when
the poor everywhere are not influenced by the money and devices of the
rich ; when the might of the strong and the responsible will not everywhere
control the suffrage of the weak and the shiftless — then, and not till then,
will the ballot of the negro be free."
I quote from a Democratic newspaper on the 16th of Octo-
ber, 1889, in Tennessee, in commenting upon what was called
the election in Mississippi last fall. It seems that the Mem-
phis Avalanche had published in an editorial the following
statement :
"About the size of the situation in Mississippi is, that Chalmers could
not get the office of governor, no matter how large his vote might be."
The St. Louis Republic thought this was a rash remark for
a Democratic newspaper in Tennessee to make, and so it gen-
tly and mildly reproached and reproved the editor for his un-
guarded declaration ; whereupon the newspaper that had been
chided comes back with another editorial in answer to the St-
Louis Republic, and says :
j"We may say in passing, however, that the white — or, in other words,
the Democratic — vote of this district is much greater than the Republican
Fiat Justitia. 289
vote, and that it is notorious that Mr. Phelan received practically all of it.
It is equally well established that General Chalmers could not control the
negro vote of the Second Mississippi District, while his opponent, judge
Morgan, obtained the united and enthusiastic support of his party.
"But this is not to the point,"
says this candid editor on the [6th of October. I am not
going into the crypts of the past, Mr. President. This is not
an archaeological research. These are no torsos and relics, no
cadavers exhumed for political purposes during the campaign.
It is an utterance on the 1 6th of October, 1889, about a canvass
then pending. Says the* editor:
'The Republic will please take notice that the white people of the South
do not intend to submit to be governed by negroes in any manner whatso-
ever. They have said so in deeds at every election for twenty years, and
henceforth they mean to assert it in words. There ought to be no misun-
derstanding whatever. The Northern Republican press and the South-
hating politicians of the North may make all the capital of it they please.
God Almighty never intended, the framers of the Constitution never in-
tended, that the descendants of African slaves should rule America or any
part of it.
" We trust we have been sufficiently explicit on this occasion to satisfy
«mr esteemed contemporary, the Republic, and all other inquiring friends."
As the- result of that determination on the part of the
Democrats of .Mississippi, General Chalmers, who was the
candidate of the Republican party for governor, a native, I
believe, of that State, certainly of the South, a Confederate
without fear and without reproach, was compelled to abandon
his campaign, and he issued a final address, from which I will
read a few extracts :
"As Republicans of Mississippi, we are compelled to withdraw our
State ticket. We knew that our votes would be stolen or voters driven
from the polls, but we hoped in the large towns and cities at least the sem-
blance of free speech might still remain to us; but our candidates are not
safely allowed to discuss uur protest. Our course has always been con-
servative. When the armed revolution of 1875 wrested the State from
290 John James Ingalls.
us, Mississippi was the only Southern State unburdened with a State debr.
The Constitution of the United States guarantees to each State a repub-
lican form of government. Mississippi is governed by a minority despot-
ism, and we appeal to our country for redress. The Constitution that we
adopted is the only one in the South so satisfactory that it has not been
changed.
"Our laws stand substantially unchanged and unrepealed, but we are
Republicans, and this is cur offense. That we are not actuated by cow-
ardice in withdrawing from the contest is shown by the past. For four-
teen years, ever since the infamous Mississippi plan was adopted, our path
has been marked by the blood of our slain. Xot only the well-known
leaders who bravely died at the head of the column, but the faithful fol
lowers known only in the cabin of the lowly We refer not only to such
well-known slaughters as Kemper and Copiah, Clinton and Carrollton, ai
Wahallak and Yicksburg, Yazoo City and Leflore, but to the nameless
killing by creek and bayou, on highway and byway. They are the Demo-
cratic arguments which crush us. We can do no more. We dare no
longer carry our battered and blood-stained Republican flag. We appeal
to the Nation."
And so, Mr. President, the campaign closed, the candi-
dates withdrew; the election was practically conceded to
those who, by this tyranny and despotism, had prevented the
exercise of the right of suffrage by American citizens. This I
consider as one of the most tragic utterances that ever occurred
in political history.
There are other illustrations of the purpose and determin-
ation of the Southern whites to prevent absolutely the exercise
of political rights by colored Republicans. There was an
election, or what was called an election, in this same State of
Mississippi on the 6th day of the present month, seventeen
days ago. There had been a previous one in the same town.
with which the country is somewhat familiar. I will ask the
Chief Clerk to read an extract from the Jackson (Mississippi)
Clarion, printed on the second day of January, 1890, twenty-
one days ago.
The Chief Clerk read as follows:
Fiat Justitia. 291
"Who Cares? The Boys Aki: Coming.
"The Yazoo Democrats will be here Monday to see then' is a fair election.
II". ij the McGill men don't like it?
The Leflore Tigers will be here Monday to see there is a lair election.
Who cares if tlu .1/. Gill »i< n don't like it.'
The Copiah Reliables will be here Monday to see there is a fair election.
Who cares if the McGill men don't like it.'
The Rankin Rangers will be here Monday to see there is a fair election.
117/.' cart * ij the McGill men don't ///•< it.'
The Warren Warriors will be here Monday to see there is a fair election.
Who cares ij the McGill men don't like it.
The Madison Guards will be here Monday to see there is a fair election.
Who cares if the McGill men </ 01' t Ire: it.'
The Bolton Boys will lie here Monday to see there is a fair election.
117;. 1 cares ij tfu McGill men don't like it.'
The Raymond Rifles will be here Monday to m.-c there is a fair election.
Who cm s ;/' the McGill men don't likt it?
The Clinton Corps will be here Monday to see there is a fair election
117/.. can < if the McGill nun don't like it.'
The Terry Terribles will be here Monday to see there is a fair election.
Who cares ij the Met HI! nun don't like it1
The Byrarn Bulldozers will be here Monday to see there is a fair election.
Wh 1 Ho McGill niiii don't like it.'
The Edwards Dragoons will be lure Monday to see there is a fair election.
Who cares if the McGill men don't like it'
What are they going to do about it, whether they like it or not?
The boys are coming, ten hundred strong.
The whole State of Mississippi is interested in the election.
It shall be a Democratic victory."
Mr. Ixcalls: They were all there, Mr. President. Here
is the way it was done; here is the way an election was held
in one of the sovereign States of this Union three weeks ago.
This correspondent saj
"It was the most outrageous thing I ever saw. All the toughs, mur-
derers, etc., in the State were here with their Winchester rifles, and took
possession of the city. The polls were in the possession of an armed mob.
who would not allow a negro to come within one hundred yards of the
polls. The court house was just tilled upstairs and downstairs with them.
The Edmonds House was full of Winchester rifles, two men in each win-
dow, with their guns pointing down at the box
292 John James Ingalls.
"The other voting-place in the north ward was at the Hook and Ladder
Hall. Upstairs is the armory of the State Militia; that was filled with men,
who were ready at the word to let them go. The voting downstairs was
done with closed doors, and no one was allowed in there except the voters,
and they only one at a time. They gave it out that the first man that
attempted to vote — a negro — would be shot down."
And so on. I have another letter from a gentleman,
known, perhaps, to many members of this body, from the same
city, dated on the 9th of January, fourteen days ago — a United
States officer, the register of a land office — and he says :
"It was the worst and most open defiance of law I ever saw. 'Jim'
Liddell was here with his crowd of 'Swamp Angels' (for this badge was worn
by them all — a green silk ribbon with 'Swamp Angel' on it). They were
the same men who killed the negroes at Carrollton's. Cattle George,
Senator George's son, was Liddell' s lieutenant, and another younger son of
George's was here in the party with his Winchester Yazoo, Madison,
Rankin, and all were here, armed to the teeth. Now, I wish to make this
point clear: they wore badges witli 'White Supremacy' on them. The
same magic words headed their hand-bills and appeals for outside aid.
Yet everyone in Jackson knew that the registration closed with 240 major-
ity of white voters on the lists. Now, where was the fear of ' nigger' rule
this time? It was Republican rule they will not submit to."
And more to the same effect. Is it any wonder, Mr. Pres-
ident, that Democrats become alarmed at this condition of
affairs? I have a published interview here with a gentleman
described as Hon. Frank Burkitt. He is alleged to be a Dem-
ocrat. The interview appeared in the Memphis (Tennessee)
Commercial. It is dated Jackson, Mississippi, January 10, thir-
teen days ago, and he says:
"In this State there are two factions of the Democratic party, equally
honest."
That is a very valuable admission.
'One thinks it a dangerous experiment t<> hold a constitutional con-
vention; the other thinks that it is the only salvation for Mississippi. In
Fiat Justitia. 293
my judgment, Mississippi is to day standing between Winchester rifles on
the one hand and Federal interference on the other.
"In : 873 the Democratic party of the United States denounced Grant's
administration for maintaining bayonets at the polls, and the agitation
of this question created a revolution in politics throughout the United
States.
?lt ^ ^ -f4 ^! -T* -I- 2$C J]C IjC S}J JfC
"This gave unquestioned proof that the American people were opposed
to military interference. I regret to say — "
he continues, this candid Democrat —
"I regret to say that in Mississippi many of our elections, or so-called elec-
tions, are dominated by military interference to a greater extent than any
ever perpetrated under General Grant's administration.
"The election at Jackson on Monday last gives evidence to every con-
servative Democrat in Mississippi that something must be done to prevent
irresponsible men from exercising the controlling influence in our elections.
And of such a system is to continue, Feder.il interference could not be much
worse. If the Republican party of the North have the courage of the men
who invaded the South in 1861 and 1865, they will not much longer toler-
ate it, and Federal interference, with all its horrors, will be again upon us.
The main object to be attained by a constitutional convention is white
supremacy by legal and constitutional methods, therein* superseding the
shot-gun policy."
Mr. President, it needs no further proof of the statement
that there is evidence controlling and overwhelming, from
quarters not friendly to the party that I represent, thai there
is a deliberate purpose on the part of the whites of the South
to eliminate absolutely the colored vote as a controlling or
resisting factor in their political problem and situation. The
pretexts for this course are many, but they all rest upon the
assumption of the inferiority of the- colored race, and of the
dangers to Anglo-Saxon civilization from what they are
pleased to call negro supremacy.
But, Mr. President, I confess with humiliation that to
this nullification of the Constitution, to this abrogation of the
294 John James Ingalls.
social compact, to this breach of plighted faith, this violation
of the natural rights of man, the people of the North have
apparently consented. The Electoral College, the Senate,
the House of Representatives, the domestic and foreign policy
of this Nation, the debt, the revenue, the currency, all have
been affected, and injuriously affected, by corrupt and fabri
cated majorities, without formal protest or organized resist-
ance on the part of the North. Timon of Athens says:
"Tis not enough to help the feeble up,
But to support him after."
Until 1 87 7 the unstable fabric erected by the architects
of reconstruction was upheld by the military authority of the
United States, and when this was withdrawn, the incongruous
edifice toppled headlong and vanished away like the baseless
fabric of a vision. It disappeared in cruel and ferocious con-
vulsions, which form one of the most shameful and shocking
of all the bloody tragedies of history. The attempt to reor-
ganize society upon the basis of numbers failed. Education,
wealth, political experience, land-ownership in the South, all
conspired against the Constitution and the laws of the United
States; and they emerged from that dreadful conflict in full
possession of all the powers of the States, and no serious effort
has been made to deprive them of their guilty acquisition.
Casual and temporary efforts to pass force bills, civil rights
bills, national election laws, have been made, but without
avail. Practically— I say it with shame and remorse— prac-
tically, the negroes have been abandoned to their fate. In the
catalogue they go for men, but the word of promise that was
given them by the North has not been kept either to their ear
or to their hope.
Fiat Justitia. 295
There are undoubtedly some thoughtful men in the South
who perceive the gravity of the situation, who apprehend
coming events, and would willingly relinquish the increment
of representation in the Electoral College, in the Senate, and
in the House of Representatives, gained by emancipation and
enfranchisement, ijf the States could be permitted to impose
the race condition upon suffrage. But this is impossible. It
would shock the conscience of mankind. 'The gods them-
selves cannot recall their gifts." Educational and property
qualifications are competent and constitutional, but this would
only retard and defer the crisis that is inevitable. It may be
postponed for a generation, or it may be precipitated at the
next Presidential election; but I warn those who are perpe-
trating these wrongs upon the suffrage that the North, the
West, and the Northwest will not consent to have their indus-
tries, their institutions, their wealth, their manufactures, and
their civilization changed, modified, or destroyed by an Exec-
utive and by Congressional majorities resting upon deliberate
and habitual suppression of the colored vote, or any other vote,
by force or by fraud. The instinct of self-preservation will
forbid it.
The date when patience will cease cannot be predicted,
but though the precise time cannot be foretold, it will come;
and that it will come in peace or in blood is the inexorable
decree of destiny. The same passions that resented colonial
dependence, that substituted the Union for the confederation,
that have overthrown State sovereignty, slavery, and every
other obstacle in the path of liberty, justice, and nationality,
mav slumber, but they are not dead. They have acquired
greater strength with their exercise at every stage of our
growth and progress. The compromises of politicians seeking
29b John James Ingalls.
for place and power, the shifts of traders wanting gain, the
cowardice of the timid, who desire peace at the sacrifice of
honor, will not prevail. Sooner or later they will shrivel and
be consumed away in some sudden blaze like that which flashed
and flamed from the Atlantic to the Pacific when John Brown
at Harper's Ferry fired the gun whose reverberations died
away at Appomattox. [Applause.]
Mr. President, among the preliminary incidents that will
hasten this issue, if the present state of affairs continues, armed
collisions between the races in the South are inevitable. They
can be averted only by justice and by forbearance ; but these
qualities are not likely from present indications to be exhibited.
There is nothing to indicate that in State, municipal, or local
affairs the rights of majorities, if they happen to be black, will
be recognized; and here the Nation has no power to interfere.
Ultimatelv the colored race will everywhere be strong-
enough to resist violence, and they will be intelligent enough
to resent fraud. Educated to the consciousness of power,
they will insist upon its exercise. They will neither submit to
injustice nor consent to the denial of their political rights.
With knowledge, wealth, and the irresistible stimulus and con-
tagion of liberty will come self-control and leadership that will
render the suppression of their suffrage impossible, except by
the national will or by revolution.
The South, Mr. President, is standing upon a volcano.
The South is sitting on a safety-valve. They are breeding
innumerable John Browns and Nat. Turners. Alreadv mut-
terings of discontent by hostile organizations are heard. The
use of the torch and the dagger is advised. I deplore it, but
as God is my judge, I say that no other people on the face of
this earth have ever submitted to the wrongs, the injustice.
Fiat Justitia. 2<>~
which have been for twenty-five years heaped upon the colored
men of the South without revolution and blood. [Applause
in the galleries.]
The Vice-President: The Chair takes this occasion to
remind the occupants of the galleries that they are here by the
courtesy of the Senate, and any manifestations of approbation
or disapprobation are violations of the rules of the Senate.
Order must be preserved.
Mr. Ingaixs: And yet, Mr. President, in the face of this
issue, the Senator from South Carolina who sits farthest from
me [Mr. Hampton] deliberately advocates the policy of exter-
mination of the blacks. I ask the Chief Clerk to read the
extract which I send to the desk.
The Chief Clerk read as follows :
"Senator Hampton's position, like that of a good many other people,
is that no country was ever made or can be made for the occupation of two
races distinct from each other in color and habits and tradition. Apply-
ing this rule to the Southern States, he finds that the condition inexorably
indicates one of three results.
"One of the two races must migrate, one of the two must be extermin-
ated, or the two must amalgamate. Increase of population, wealth, and
education will hasten one of these results in proportion as we are success
ful. The richer and more highly educated the negro becomes, the higher
his ambition will be, and the more bitterly will he resent and nsist being
held in a menial or inferior position. No enmity is involved in this con-
sideration of plain facts. I lis warmest friends must come to understand
that he cannot have a fair opportunity to develop wh.tt capacity he may
have while in competition with another race, holding itself superior to him.
in possession of most of the property, in control of the resources, and with
a tremendous lead in intelligence and culture to enforce its claim. There
is abundant soil in Central and South America and Mexico, and the Tinted
States Government can command money enough to buy a continent if it
likes. The homesteads now offered other settlers on our public lands,
together with free transportation and other help, would carry negroes from
the South in swarms. They could organize their own States and come
into the Union just as other people do, having their representatives in
Congress and the Electoral College. There would be no danger that al! of
298 John James Ingalls.
them would leave the South, but enough would leave to relieve the situa-
ttion of its pressures and dangers."
Mr. Ingalls: That the process of extermination, or the
solution of extermination, has already been inaugurated and
is going on, I ask the Chief Clerk to read an extract from a
newspaper printed in Brandon, Mississippi, of the issue of last
week.
The Chief Clerk read as follows :
'Negro immigration threatens to overwhelm Mississippi, and if we
didn't have such an unbounded faith in our ability to cope with them, it
would make us feel serious. The Avalanche and other great dailies are pre-
dicting great disasters for the old Magnolia State, but we'll wager our old
clothes that Mississippi will get there every time. There were one hun-
dred and fifty-five negroes lynched in this State last year. This is signifi-
cant, and should have a restraining influence over the coons."
Mr. Ingalls: One hundred and fifty-five negroes lynched,
their lives taken without authority of law, in Mississippi last
year !
Mr. President, the black man is not a coward. The black
man came here, as I said before, as a prisoner of war, captured
in battle. Two hundred and fifty thousand of them enlisted
in the military service of the United States to preserve the
integrity of the Constitution that doomed them to degrada-
tion and to defend the Hag that was the symbol and the
emblem of their dishonor. It is said that the Athenians
erected a statue to .^sop, who was born a slave; or, as Phse-
drus phrases it:
"^Esopi ingenio statuam posuere Attici,
Servumque collocarunt aeterna in basi."
"They placed the slave upon an eternal pedestal."
Sir, for what the enfranchised slaves did for the cause 01
constitutional liberty in this country the American people
Fiat Justitia. 299
should imitate the Athenians and place the slave upon an eter-
nal pedestal. Their conduct has been beyond all praise.
They have been patient, they have been docile, they have been
loyal to their masters and to the country, and to those with
whom they are associated; but, as I said before, no other peo-
ple ever endured patiently such injustice and wrong. Des-
potism makes nihilists; tyranny makes socialists and com
munists; injustice is the great manufacturer of dynamite.
The thief robs himself; the adulterer pollutes himself; the
murderer inflicts a deeper wound upon himself than that which
slays his victim. The South in imposing chains upon the Afri-
cans placed heavier manacles upon themselves than those
which bound the hapless slave; and those who are now denying
to American citizens the prerogatives of freedom should remem-
ber that behind them, silent and tardy it may be, but inexor-
able and relentless, stalks with uplifted blade the menacing
specter of vengeance and of retribution.
Sir, the South is in greater danger than the enfranchised
slave if there is to be the policy of extermination; but if my
voice can reach that proscribed and unfortunate class, I appeal
to them to continue as they have begun, to endure to the end.
and thus to commend themselves to the favorable judgment of
mankind, and to rely for their safety upon the ultimate appeal
to the conscience of the human race.
This is one of the great dangers, Mr. President. Ordina-
rily it might be assumed that if the supremacy of the white
race in the South was threatened by armed negro majorities,
fighting for the rights of which they are deprived, the coalition
of the Anglo-Saxon race on this continent would be instanta-
neous. But unfortunately, sir, the reconciliation of the sec-
tions is not cordial nor complete. There is no affection between
300 John James Ingalls.
the conquerors and the conquered. The South has not for-
given the North for its victory, for its prosperity, for its superi-
oritv. If it can control the Government and its patronage
and hold the purse and the sword, it is patriotic. It is opposed
to pensions, to protection, to national authority, because these
are the policies of those who thwarted the effort to destroy the
Union. It re-enforces the cowardly and degraded elements
in the North that sympathized with their treason.
The South, sir, has not accepted the amendments of the
Constitution in good faith. It habitually violates the treaty
made with the North, openly proclaims a purpose to disregard
the pledge under which they escaped confiscation and out-
lawrv. They have their own heroes, their own anniversaries.
They celebrate their own victories. They rear their monu-
ments to civil and military leaders whose claim to glory is that
thev fell for slavery and anarchy. They exalt their leaders
above those of the Union cause, and continually cry that they
were right and will ultimately prevail.
Mr. President, until these conditions are permanentlv
changed, however formidable and perilous may be the exigen-
cies confronting the South from the numerical strength of the
black race, assistance and cooperation cannot be anticipated
from the North; they must tread "the wine-press alone," and
thev will eventually discover the truth of the instruction of
historv, that nothing is so unprofitable as injustice, and that
God is an unrelenting credit* ir.
Mr. President, I can appreciate and understand the rever-
ence and the honor in which the memory of Jefferson Davis is
held by the Southern people. I honor them for their con-
stancy. Ideas are immortal; their vitality is inextinguishable;
thev can never be annihilated; force cannot destroy them.
Fiat Justitia. 301
No man is ever convinced by being overpowered. Ideas may
be subordinated, their expression maybe suppressed, but they
never die. War does not change the opinions either of the
victors or of the conquered. It proves nothing except which
of the combatants had the most endurance, the deepest purse,
and the sharpest sword. Therefore, when Southern Legisla-
tures, and conventions, and a Democratic Congress declare
by resolution that the issues of slavery, secession, and State
sovereignty were settled by the war, but omit to repudiate
the doctrines as unconstitutional and untenable, they leave
the impression of disingenuousness and insincerity. Jefferson
Davis possessed none of the "thrift that follows fawning."
He never ''crooked the pregnant hinges of his knee." Obdu-
rate, implacable, and relentless to the last, he remained the
immovable type, exponent, and representative of those ideas
for which he staked all and lost all.
It is, sir, a striking illustration of the irony of fate that,
while Lincoln in the hour of victory fell by the bullet of an
assassin, the victim of the subsiding passions of the war, his
-i\at antagonist survived for a quarter of a century and died
peacefully in honor and prosperity.
Sir, the Northern press, with singular unanimity, referred
to him in terms of respect and honor, and not with malevo-
lence or hatred. He had steadfastly refused the amnesty
which would readily have been granted, and declined to become
a citizen of the United States. He had devoted his time and
strength to the explanation and justification of the purposes
of the South in its effort to destroy the Union. In response to
the announcement of his death, forwarded by the Mayor of
New Orleans, the Secretary of War explained in mild and
deferential terms the reason why it was thought best to take
302 John James Ingalls.
no public notice of his decease and to withhold the usual dem-
onstrations for one who had occupied a place in the cabinet of
a President of the United States. . . „
There is in northern Mississippi a town by the name of
Aberdeen. It is a seat of justice, I believe also of learning,
and a place of considerable consequence. On the occasion of
the death of Jefferson Davis, Aberdeen was shrouded in mourn-
ing; the United States Court-house was draped; the national
flag, that the Secretary of War had declined to lower, was at
half-mast on the Government building; the Tenebrae were
chanted in the churches, and the entire community gave indi-
cations, as they had a right to do, of the profoundest solemnity
and woe. As an additional method of expressing their grief,
they constructed an effigy, which was suspended upon a cable
across the principal street of the town, and labeled it "Red.
Proctor, the Traitor!" — "Red," I suppose, being the con-
traction for Redfield, which is, I believe, the first name of the
Secretary of War — and there it swung as an indication of the
affliction of the citizens of Aberdeen at the death of Jefferson
Davis. [Laughter.]
Into the town of Aberdeen a few days before had corai a
journevman tinner by the name of Fanz. He was a citizen of
Indiana. His politics were unknown. He was white. He
was twentv-five years of age, of diminutive stature, of inoffen-
sive demeanor, and of conciliatory address. In the process of
his labor as a tinner, to cover the roof of the unfinished build-
ing, to one of the rafters of which was attached the end of the
cable that supported the effigy of "Red. Proctor, the Trai-
tor," he was compelled to move the rope, in order to give him
spaee to continue his work.
Fiat Justitia. 303
Proving too heavy for him, it slipped from his hands and
fell into the street. He protested that he had no intention of
giving offense to the citizens of Aberdeen. As he descended
to go to his dinner he was intercepted by a gentlemanly citizen
of Aberdeen by the name of McDonald, who had in his hand
one of the largest-sized whalebone coach-whips, and, confront-
ing him, told him that for the offense he had committed he had
"to take a whipping or something worse." Fanz endeavored
to escape. He was unarmed. He was not a pugilist, although
pugilists have been in Mississippi. [Laughter.] McDonald,
being accompanied by his friends, prevented the escape of
Fanz, and proceeded to inflict upon him a castigation, which,
one observer said, extended to at least two hundred lashes.
The whip was almost entirely destroyed. Fanz's face was cut
and bleeding. His sight was nearly destroyed. He was mu-
tilated and crippled, and fleeing to his boarding-house after
the castigation had been completed, he was waited upon that
evening by a committee of the citizens of Aberdeen, who pur-
chased a ticket, placed him upon the train, and sent him away,
and he has since been heard of no more.
It is just to say that many of the citizens of Aberdeen said
it was a great outrage. He was punished — McDonald was.
He was arrested and taken before the police court and lined
$30; and thereupon the citizens, who had walked under the
effigy and who beheld the castigation without protest, started
a subscription paper and raised Sfxj to cover the line, the
expense of the effigy, and the whip with which the castigation
was inflicted.
Mr. President, if an outrage like that had been indicted
upon an American citizen in Kngland, in France, in Spain,
anywhere upon the face of this earth, and there had not been
304 John James Ingalls.
instantaneous disavowal and reparation, a million men would
have sprung to arms to avenge the wrong.
"The armaments that thunder-strike the walls of rock-built cities:
Bidding nations quake and monarchs tremble in their capitals,"
would have gone swiftly forming in the ranks of war. He was
a citizen of Indiana, the outrage was inflicted in Mississippi,
and the perpetrators go unwhipped of justice.
I said, Mr. President, that I was not in favor of the Afri-
canization of this continent or any part of it. But if the meth-
ods in the Chalmers campaign, in the Jackson campaign, and
the proceedings at Aberdeen are illustrations of the temper,
spirit, and purposes of the people of the State of Mississippi
towards the Government of the United States and its citizens,
I would a thousand-fold prefer that every rood of that State
should be occupied by an African rather than by those who at
present inhabit it.
I refer once more, Mr. President, and in conclusion, to the
utterances of the dead orator who, inquiring about the solu-
tions of this great problem, said:
"There can be but one answer. It is the very problem we are now to
consider. The key that opens that problem will unlock to the world the
fairest half of this Republic, and free the halted feet of thousands whose
eyes are already kindling with its beauty. Better than this, it will open
the hearts of brothers for thirty years estranged, and clasp in lasting com-
radeship a million hands now withheld in doubt Nothing, sir, but this
problem, and the suspicions it breeds, hinders a clear understanding and a
perfect union."
What are these "suspicions bred by the race problem"
whicli hinder a clear understanding and perfect union, referred
to by Grady in his Boston speech? I will tell you, sir, what
the} aif, as I understand it. One suspicion is that this cry
Fiat It stitia.
3°5
of race antagonism applies only to the negro when he is free.
Grady says:
"The love we feel for that race you cannot measure nor comprehend.
As I attest it here, the spirit of my old black mammy, from her home up
there, looks down on me to bless, and through the tumult of this night steals
the sweet music of her croonings, as thirty years ago she held me in her
black arms and led me smiling into sleep."
Such is the concurrent testimony of all who have spoken
upon the subject, that this cry of race antagonism and race
repugnance did not apply to the black race when thev were
slaves, and there is a suspicion that if the blacks had remained
slaves, there would have been no proposition either for separa-
tion, colonization, or extermination.
There is a suspicion further than this, Mr. President, and
that is that race antagonism and race repugnance applv onlv
to the colored man in the South when he desires to vote a
Republican ticket. If they were all Democrats, the race ques-
tion would disappear.
There is a further suspicion, Mr. President, that the ques-
tion whether these two races can subsist on terms of political
equality under our system of government has never been fairly
tried. If the South desire to be rid of the negro, they can
readily accomplish that result by refusing to emplov him; and
yet it is admitted by those who are competent to know that
they paid him in wages this last year not less than one hundred
million dollars, and that he eontributed, and indispensablv
contributed, to tin- production of crops that were worth one
thousand million dollars more, and that besides that, in the
State of Georgia alone, the black race has accumulated prop-
erty, real estate, that i> worth not less than twenty million
dollar-
306 John James Ikgalls.
Sir, the black race is capable of civilization. Notwith-
standing the obstacles and discouragements, the failures and
disappointments, justice requires the admission that in the
dark and tragic interval of its transition period it has made
marked and substantial progress, greater, far greater, than
could have been reasonably expected. If the degenerate
proclivities engendered by centuries of oppression and ignor-
ance have not been extirpated, they have at least been sur-
prisingly modified; and while there is nothing in his origin
and in his history to justify the expectation that the African
can ever successfully compete with the Anglo-Saxon in gov-
ernment, in art, in conquest, or practical affairs, neither i*-
there anything to indicate that he is not susceptible of high
civilization.
Habituated to subordination for centuries, self-reliance,
pride of race, authority, and the respect of nations can only
come, if at all, after the labors, the struggles, and the disci-
pline of centuries. It would be obviously unjust to measure
the advance of the colored race by comparison with our own.
Their conditions should be contrasted with that of their con-
temporaries of the same ancestry in the tropical jungles of
Africa, where they still subsist in indescribable degradation
and inexhaustible fecundity. Measured by this standard,
they have displayed an extraordinary aptitude for improve-
ment. Under the harsh and repressive limitations of slavery
they ceased to be barbarians. In freedom they have adopted
with alacrity the ideas of home, the family, obedience to law,
and the institutions of government. Bloody and superstitious
fetichism and idolatry have been succeeded by faith in immor-
tality and belief in God, the sublimest conceptions that can
be entertained bv the soul of man. Their conduct has been
Fiat Justitia. 307
characterized by eagerness for education, by a desire for the
accumulation of property, and by patient fortitude in adver-
sity. They are ignorant, and they hunger for knowledge.
Thev are wretched, and they thirst for happiness.
Since 1862 there has been given for the education of the
enfranchised slaves, through the American Missionary Soci-
ety, Sio.ooo.ooo; through the Methodist Society, Sj, 250,000;
through the Baptist Society, S2, 000,000; through the Presby-
terian Soeietv, Si, 600,000; and not less than Si, 000,000 from
other sources; in all about Si 7,000,000 from the North. The
Catholics also have interested themselves in the problem.
Bishop Vaughn of Salford, in Lancastershire, England, has
formed an organization especially directed toward the improve-
ment of the colored people of the South, and at the Plenary
Council of the Catholic Church, held at Baltimore three years
ago, it was decided to establish a seminary, where the bishop
has now forty clergymen educating to assist in evangelizing
and training them in all the functions and duties of good
citizenship.
From the platform adopted at the congress of the Church
held in Baltimore a few weeks since, the following paragraphs
will show that the Catholic laity are in accord with the clergy
and at work in endeavoring to solve the race problem :
" We pledge ourselves to cooperate with the clergy in discussing and in
solving those great economic and social questions which affect the inter-
ests and well being of the Church, the country, and society at large.
"That the amelioration and promotion of the physical and moral cult-
ure of the negro race is a subject of the utmost concern, and we pledge our-
selves to assist our clergy in all ways tending to effect any improvement
in their condition."
Mr. President, four solutions of the race problem are pro-
posed: first, amalgamation: second, extermination; third, sep-
3oS John James Ixgalls.
aration ; fourth, disfranchisement. But, sir, there is a fifth,
the universal solvent of all human difficulties, that never has
been proposed and never has been tried, and that is the
solution of justice — justice, for which every place should be a
temple and all seasons summer.
I appeal to the South to try the experiment of justice.
Stack your guns, open your ballot-boxes, register your voters,
black and white ; and if, after the experiment has been fairly
and honestly tried, it appears that the African race is incapable
of civilization, if it appears that the complexion burned upon
him by a tropic sun is incompatible with freedom, I pledge
myself to consult with you about some measure of solving the
race problem; but until then nothing can be done.
The citizenship of the negro must be absolutely recognized.
His right to vote must be admitted, and the ballots that he
casts must be honestly counted. These are the essential pre-
liminaries, the indispensable conditions precedent to any con-
sideration of the ulterior and fundamental questions of race
supremacy or of race equality in the United States, North or
South. Those who freed the slaves ask nothing more; they
will be content with nothing less. The experiment must be
fairly tried. This is the starting-point and this the goal. The
longer it is deferred the greater will be the exasperation and
the moiv doubtful will be the final result. [Applause in the
galleries
"THE IMAGE AND SUPERSCRIPTION OF
CESAR."
(Speech in the Senate of the United States Wednesday, January 14. 1S91.)
Mr. President: Two portentous perils threaten the safety,
if they do not endanger the existence, of the Republic.
The first of these is ignorant, debased, degraded, spurious,
and sophisticated suffrage; suffrage contaminated by the fec-
ulent sewage of decaying nations; suffrage intimidated and
suppressed in the South; suffrage impure and corrupt, apa-
thetic, and indifferent in the great cities of the North — so that it
is doubtful whether there has been for half a century a Presi-
dential election in this country that expressed the deliberate
and intelligent judgment of the whole body of the American
people.
In a newspaper interview a few months ago, in which I
commented upon these conditions and alluded to the efforts
of the bacilli doctors of politics, the bacteriologists of our sys-
tem, who endeavor to cure the ills under which we suffer by
their hypodermic injections of the lymph of independent non-
partisanship and the Brown-Sequard elixir of civil service
reform, I said that "the purification of politics" by such meth-
ods as this was an "iridescent dream.-' Remembering the
cipher dispatches of 1877 and the attempted purchase of the
electoral votes of many Southern States in that campaign,
the forgery of the Morey letter in 1881, by which Garfield lost
0
310 John James Ingali.s.
the votes of three States in the North, and the characteriza-
tion and portraiture of Blaine and Cleveland and Harrison by
their political adversaries, I added that "the Golden Rule and
the Decalogue had no place in American political campaigns."
It seems superfluous to explain, Mr. President, that in
those utterances I was not inculcating a doctrine, but describ-
ing a condition. My statement was a statement of facts as I
understand them, and not the announcement of an article of
faith. But many reverend and eminent divines, many dis-
interested editors, many ingenuous orators, perverted those
utterances into the personal advocacy of impurity in politics.
I do not complain, Mr. President. It was, as the world
goes, legitimate political warfare; but it was an illustration
of the truth that there ought to be purification in our politics,
and that the Golden Rule and the Decalogue ought to have a
place in political campaigns. "Do unto others as ye would
that others should do unto you" is the supreme injunction,
obligatory upon all. " If thine enemy smite thee upon one
cheek, turn to him 'the other," is a sublime and lofty pre-
cept. But I take this occasion to observe that until it is more
generally regarded than it has been or appears likely to be in
the immediate future, if my political enemy smites me upon
one cheek, instead of turning to him the other, I shall smite
him under the butt end of his left ear if I can. [Laughter.]
If this be political immorality, I am to be included among the
unre^enerated.
The election bill that was under consideration a few days
ago was intended to deal with one part of the great evil to
which 1 have alluded, but it was an imperfect, a partial, and
an incomplete remedy. Violence is bad; but fraud is no bet-
ter; and it is more dangerous because it is more insidious.
"The Image and Superscription of Cesar." 311
Burke said in one of those immortal orations that emptied the
House of Commons, but which will be read with admiration so
long as the English tongue shall endure, that when the laws of
Great Britain were not strong enough to protect the humblest
Hindoo upon the shores of the Ganges, the nobleman was not
safe in his castle upon the banks of the Thames. Sir, that
loftv sentence is pregnant with admonition for us. There can
be no repose, there can be no stable and permanent peace,
in this country and under this Government, until it is just as
safe for the black Republican to vote in Mississippi as it is
for the white Democrat to vote in Kansas.
The other evil, Mr. President — the second to which I ad-
verted as threatening the safety, if it does not endanger the
existence, of the Republic — is the tyranny of combined, concen-
trated, centralized, and incorporated capital. And the peo-
ple are considering this problem now. The conscience of the
Nation is shocked at the injustice of modern society. The
moral sentiment of mankind has been aroused at the unequal
distribution of wealth, at the unequal diffusion of the burdens,
the benefits, and the privileges of society.
At the beginning of our second century the American peo-
ple have become profoundly conscious that the ballot is not
the panacea for all the evils that afflict humanity; that it has
not abolished poverty nor prevented injustice. They have
discovered that political equality does not result in social
fraternity; that under a democracy the concentration of
greater political power in fewer hands, the accumulation and
aggregation of greater amounts of wealth in individuals, is
more possible than under a monarchy, and that there is a tyr-
annv which is more fatal than the tyranny of kings.
312 John James Ingalls.
George Washington, the first President of the Republic, at
the close of his life in 1799 had the largest private fortune in
the United States of America. Much of this came by inherit-
ance, but the Father of His Country, in addition to his other
virtues, shining and illustrious, was a very prudent, sagacious,
thrifty, and forehanded man. He knew a good thing when he
saw it a great way off. He had a keen eye for the main chance-
As a surveyor in his youth, he obtained knowledge that enabled
him to make exceedingly valuable locations upon the public
domain. The establishment of the national capital in the
immediate vicinity of his patrimonial possessions did not dim-
inish their value. He was a just debtor, but he was an exact
if not an exacting creditor. And so it came to pass that when
he died, he was, to use the expressive phraseology of the day.
the richest man in the country.
At this time, ninetv years afterward, it is not without inter-
est to know that the entire aggregate and sum of his earthly
possessions, his estate, real, personal, and mixed, Mount Ver-
non and his lands along the Kanawha and the Ohio, slaves,
securities, all of his belongings, reached the sum total of between
$800,000 and $900,000. This was less than a century ago,
and it is within bounds to say that at this time there are many
scores of men, of estates, and of corporations in this country
whose annual income exceeded, and there has been one man
whose monthly revenue since that period exceeded, the entire
accumulations of the wealthiest citizen of the United States
at the end of the last century.
At that period the social condition of the United States
was one of practical equality. The statistics of the census
of 1800 are incomplete and partial, hut the population of
the Union was about 5,300,000, and the estimated wealth of
"The Image and Superscription of C.ksar."- 313
the country was between S3, 000, 000, 000 and 54,000,000,000.
There was not a millionaire and there was not a tramp nor a
pauper, so far as we know, in the country, except those who had
been made so by infirmity, or disease, or inevitable calamity.
A multitude of small farmers contentedly tilled the soil.
Upon the coast a race of fishermen and sailors, owning the
craft that they sailed, wrested their subsistence from the
stormy sea. Labor was the rule and luxury the exception.
The great mass of the people lived upon the products of the
farms that they cultivated. They spun and wove and man-
ufactured their clothing from flax and from wool. Com-
merce and handicrafts afforded honorable competence. The
prayer of Agur was apparently realized. There was nei-
ther poverty nor riches. Wealth was uniformly diffused, and
none was condemned to hopeless penury and dependence.
Less than 4 per cent of the entire population lived in towns,
and there were but four cities whose population exceeded
10,000 persons. Westward to the Pacific lay the fertile sol-
itudes of an unexplored continent, its resources undeveloped
and unsuspected. The dreams of Utopia seemed about to be
fulfilled, the wide, the universal diffusion of civil, political,
and personal rights among the great body of the people, accom-
panied by efficient and vigorous guaranties for the safety of
life, the protection of property, and the preservation of liberty.
Since that time, Mr. President, the growth in wealth and
numbers in this country has had no precedent in the building
of nations. The genius of the people, stimulated to prodigious
activity by freedom, by individualism, by universal education,
has subjugated the desert and abolished the frontier. The
laboring capacity of every inhabitant of this planet has been
duplicated by machinery. In Massachusetts alone we are
3H John James Ingalls.
told that its engines are equivalent to the labor of one hundred
million men. We now perform one-third of the world's min-
ing, one-quarter of its manufacturing, one-fifth of its farming,
and we possess one-sixth part of its entire accumulated wealth.
The Anglo-Saxon, Mr. President, is not by nature or in
stinct an anarchist, a socialist, a nihilist, or a communist. He
does not desire the repudiation of debts, public or private,
and he does not favor the forcible redistribution of property.
He came to this continent, as he has gone everywhere else on
the face of the earth, with a purpose. The 40,000 English
colonists who came to this country between 1620 and 1650
formed the most significant, the most formidable migration
that has ever occurred upon this globe since time began. They
brought with them social and political ideas, novel in their
application, of inconceivable energy and power — the home,
the family, the State, individualism, the right of personal
effort, freedom of conscience, an indomitable love of liberty
and justice, a genius for self-government, an unrivaled capac-
ity for conquest, but preferring charters to the sword — and
they have been inexorable and relentless in the accomplish-
ment of their designs. They were fatigued with caste and
privilege and prerogative. They were tired of monarchs, and
so, upon the bleak and inhospitable shores of New England,
they decreed the sovereignty of the people, and there they
builded "a church without a bishop and a state without a
/■>
king;
The result of that experiment, Mr. President, has been
ostensibly successful. Under the operation of those great
forces, after two hundred and seventy years, this country
exhibits a peaceful triumph over many subdued nationalities,
through a government automatic in its functions and sus-
^
"The Image and Superscription of Cesar." 315
tained by no power but the- invisible majesty of law. With
swift and constant communication by lines of steam transpor-
tation by land and lake and sea, with telegraphs extending
their nervous reticulations from State to State, the remotest
members of this gigantic Republic are animated bv a vitality
as vigorous as that which throbs at its mighty heart, and it is
through the quickened intelligence that has been communicated
by those ideas that these conditions, which have been fatal to
other nations, have become the pillars of our strength and the
bulwarks of our safety.
Mr. President, if time and space signified now what they
did when independence was declared, the United States could
not exist under one government. It would not be possible to
secure unity of purpose or identity of interest between com-
munities separated by such barriers and obstacles as Maine and
California. But time and distance are relative terms, and,
under the operations of these forces, this continent has dwin-
dled to a span. It is not as far from Boston to San Francisco
to-day as it was from Boston to Baltimore in 1791 ; and as the
world has shrunk life has expanded. For all the purposes for
which existence is valuable in this world— for comfort, for
convenience, for opportunity, for intelligence, for power of
locomotion, and superiority to the accidents and the fatal-
ities of Nature — the fewest in years among us, Mr. President,
has lived longer and has lived more worthily than Methuselah
in all his stagnant centuries.
When the Atlantic cable was completed, it was not merely
that a wire, finer by comparison than the gossamer of morning,
had sunk to its path along the peaks and the plateaus of
the deep, but the earth instantaneously grew smaller by the
breadth of the Atlantic. A new volume in the historv of the
316 John James Ingalls.
world was opened. The to-morrow of Europe flashed upon
the yesterday of America. Time, up to the period when this
experiment commenced on this continent, yielded its treasures
grudgingly and with reluctance. The centuries crept from
improvement to improvement with tardy, sluggish steps, as if
Nature were unwilling to acknowledge the mastery of man.
The great inventions of glass, of gunpowder, of printing, and the
mariner's compass consumed a thousand years, but, as the great
experiment upon this continent has proceeded, the ancient law
of progress has been disregarded, and the mind is bewildered
by the stupendous results of its marvelous achievements.
The application of steam to locomotion on land and sea, the
cotton-gin, electric illumination and telegraphy, the cylinder
printing-press, the sewing-machine, the photographic art, tubu-
lar and suspension bridges, the telephone, the spectroscope, and
the myriad forms of new applications of science to health and
domestic comfort, to the arts of peace and war, have alone ren-
dered democracy possible. The steam engine emancipated
millions from the slavery of daily toil and left them at libertv
to pursue a higher range of effort; labor has become more
remunerative, and the flood of wealth has raised the poor to
comfort and the middle classes to affluence. With prosperity
have attended leisure, books, travel; the masses have been
provided with schools, and the range of mental inquiry has
become wider and more daring. The sewing-machine docs
the work of a hundred hands and gives rest and hope to weary
lives. Farming, as my distinguished friend from New York
[Mr. Evarts] once said, has become a "sedentary occupation."
The reaper no longer swings his sickle in midsummer fields
through the yellowing grain, followed by those who gather the
wheat and the tares, but he rides in a vehicle, protected from
"The Image and Superscription op Cesar." 317
the meridian sun, accomplishing in comfort in a single hour
the former labors of a daw
By these and the other emancipating devices of society the
laborer and the artisan acquire the means of study and recre-
ation. They provide their children with better opportunities
than they possessed. Emerging from the obscure degradation
to which they have been consigned by monarchies, they have
assumed the leadership in politics and society. The governed
have become the governors; the subjects have become the
kings. They have formed States; they have invented polit-
ical svstems; they have made laws; they have established lit-
eratures; and it is not true, Mr. President, in one sense, that
during this extraordinary period the rich have grown richer
and the poor have grown poorer. There has never been a time
since the angel stood with the flaming sword before the gates
of PMen when the dollar of invested capital paid as low a return
in interest as it does to-day; nor has there been an hour when
the dollar that is earned by the laboring man would buy so
much of everything that is essential for the- welfare of himself
and his family as it will to-day.
Mr. President, monopolies and corporations, however strong
they nun- be, cannot permanently enslave such a people.
They have given too many convincing proofs of their capacity
for self-government. They have made too many incredible
sacrifices for this great system which has been builded and
established here to allow it to be overthrown. They will
submit to no dictation.
We have become. Mr. President, tin- wealthiest nation upon
the face of this earth, and the greater part of these enormous
accumulations has been piled up during the past fifty years.
From i860 to 1880, notwithstanding the losses incurred by
318 John James Ingalls.
the most destructive war of modern times, the emancipation
of four billions of slave property, the expenses of feeding the
best fed, of clothing the best clothed, and of sheltering the best
sheltered people in the world, notwithstanding all the losses
by fire and flood during that period of twentv vears, the wealth
of the country increased at the rate of $250,000 for every
hour. Every time that the clock ticked above the portal of
this chamber the aggregated, accumulated, permanent wealth
of this country increased more than $70.
Sir, it rivals, it exceeds the fictions of the Arabian Nights.
There is nothing in the story of the lamp of Aladdin that
surpasses it. It is without parallel or precedent ; and the na-
tional ledger now shows a balance to our credit, after all that
has been wasted and squandered and expended and lost and
thrown away, of between sixty and seventy thousand million
dollars. I believe myself that, upon a fair cash market valua-
tion, the aggregate wealth of this country to-day is not less
than one hundred thousand million dollars. This is enough,
Mr. President, to make every man and every woman and
every child beneath the Hag comfortable, to keep the wolf
away from the door. It is enough to give to every family a
competence, and yet we are told that there are thousands of
people who never have enough to eat in any one day in the
year. We are told by the statisticians of the Department of
Labor of the United States that, notwithstanding this stu-
pendous aggregation, there are a million American citizens,
able-bodied and willing to work, who tramp the streets of our
cities and the country highways ami byways in search of labor
with which to buy their daily bread, in vain.
Mr. President, is it any wonder that this condition of things
can'exist without exciting profound apprehension? I heard —
"The Image and Superscription of Cesar." 319
or saw, rather, for I did not hear it — I saw in the morning
papers that, in his speech yesterday, the Senator from Ohio
[Mr. Sherman] devoted a considerable part of his remarks to
the defense of millionaires; that he declared they were the
froth upon the beer of our political system.
Mr. SHERMAN : I said, "speculators."
Mr. Ingalls: Speculators, They are very nearly the
same, for the millionaires of this country, Mr. President, are
not the producers and the laborers. They are arrayed like
Solomon in all his glory, but "they toil not, neither do they
spin" — yes, they do spin. This class, Mr. President, I am glad
to say, is not confined to this country alone. These gigantic
accumulations have not been the result of industry and econ-
omv. There would be no protest against them if they were.
There is an anecdote floating around the papers, speaking about
beer, that some gentleman said to the keeper of a saloon that
he would give him a recipe for selling more beer, and when he
inquired what it was, he said: "Sell less froth." [Laughter.]
If the millionaires and speculators of this country are the froth
upon the beer of our system, the time has come when we should
sell more beer by selling less froth. [Laughter.)
The people are beginning to inquire whether, " under a
government of the people, and by the people, and for the peo-
ple," under a system in which the bounty of Nature is supple-
mented by the labor of all, any citizen can show a moral, yes,
or a legal title to $200,000,000. .Some have the temerity toask
whether or not any man can show a clear title to Sioo.ooo.ooo.
There have been men rash enough to doubt whether, under a
system so constituted and established, by speculation or other-
wise, any citizen can show a fair title to $10,000,000. when the
distribution of wealth per capita would be less than $1,000.
320 John James Ingalls.
If I were put upon my voir dire, I should hesitate before admit-
ting that, in the sense of giving just compensation and equiva-
lent, any man in this country or any other country ever abso-
lutely earned a million dollars. I do not believe he ever did.
What is the condition to-day, Mr. President, by the sta-
tistics? I said, at the beginning of this century there was a
condition of practical social equalitv; wealth was uniformly
diffused among the great mass of the people. I repeat that
the people are not anarchists; they are not socialists; thev are
not communists ; but they have suddenly waked to the concep-
tion of the fact that the bulk of the property of the country is
passing into the hands of what the Senator from Ohio by an
euphemism calls the "speculators" of the world, not of America
alone. They infest the financial and social systems of every
country upon the face of the earth. Thev are the men of no
politics, neither Democrat nor Republican. They are the men
of all nationalities and of no nationality, with no politics but
plunder, and with no principle but the spoliation of the human
race.
A table has been compiled for the purpose of showing how
wealth in this country is distributed, and it is full of the most
startling admonition. It has appeared in the magazines; it
has been commented upon in this chamber; it has been the
theme of editorial discussion. It appears from this compila-
tion that there are in the United States two hundred persons
who have an aggregate of more than S20, 000,000 each; and
there has been one man, the Midas of the century, at whose
touch everything seemed to turn to gold, who had acquired
within less than the lifetime of a single individual, out of the
aggregate of the national wealth that was earned by the labor
of all applied to the common bounty of Nature, an aggregate
"Tim Image and Superscription of Cesar." 321
that exceeded the assessed valuation of four of the smallest
States in this Union.
.Mr. Hoar: And more than the whole country had when
the Constitution was formed.
Mr. Ingalls: Yes, and, as the Senator from Massachu-
setts well observes — and I thank him for the suggestion —
much more, many times more than the entire wealth of the
country when it was established and founded. Four hundred
persons possess $10,000,000 each, 1,000 persons $5,000,000
each, 2,000 persons $2,500,000 each, 6,000 persons $1,000,000
each, and 15,000 persons $500,000 each, making a total of
31,100 people who possess $36,250,000,000.
Mr. President, it is the most appalling statement that ever
fell upon mortal ears. It is, so far as the results of democracy
as a social and political experiment are concerned, the most
terrible commentary that ever was recorded in the book of
Time; and Nero fiddles while Rome burns. It is thrown off
with a laugh and a sneer as the "froth upon the beer" of our
political and social system. As I said, the assessed valuation
recorded in the great national ledger standing to our credit
is about $65,000,000,000.
Our population is sixty-two and one-half millions, and by
some means, by some device, by some machination, by some
incantation, honest or otherwise, by some process that cannot
be defined, less than a two-thousandth part of our population
have obtained possession, and have kept out of the peniten-
tiary in spite of the means they have adopted to acquire it, of
more than one-half of the entire accumulated wealth of the
country. That is not the worst, Mr. President. It has been
largely acquired by men who have contributed little to the
material welfare of the country and by processes that I do not
322 John James Ingalls.
care in appropriate terms to describe, by the wrecking of the
fortunes of innocent men, women, and children, by jugglery,
by bookkeeping, bv financiering, by what the Senator from
Ohio calls "speculation," and this process is going on with
frightful and constantly accelerating rapidity.
The entire industry of this country is passing under the
control of organized and confederated capital. More than
fifty of the necessaries of life to-day, without which the cabin
of the farmer and the miner cannot be lighted, or his children
fed or clothed, have passed absolutely under the control of
syndicates and trusts and corporations composed of specu-
lators, and, by means of these combinations and confedera-
tions, competition is destroyed ; small dealings are rendered
impossible; competence can no longer be acquired, for it is
superfluous and unnecessary to say that if, under a system
where the accumulations distributed per capita would be less
than a thousand dollars, thirty-one thousand obtained posses-
sion of more than half of the accumulated wealth of the
lountry, it is impossible that others should have a competence
o/ an independence.
So it happens, Mr. President, that our society is becoming
rapidly stratified, almost hopelessly stratified, into a condition
of superfluously rich and helplessly p tor. We are accustomed
to speak of this as the land of the free and the home of the
brave. It will soon be the home of the rich and the land of the
slave.
We point to Great Britain and we denounce aristocracy,
and privileged and titled classes, and landed estates. We
thought when we had abolished primogeniture and entail, that
we had forever forbidden and prevented these enormous and
dangerous accumulations; but, sir, we had forgotten that cap-
"The Image and Superscription of Cesar." 323
ital could combine; we were unaware of the yet undeveloped
capacity of corporations, and so, as I say, it happens upon the
threshold and in the vestibule of our second century, with
all this magnificent record behind us, with this tremendous
achievement in the way of wealth, population, invention, op-
portunity for happiness, we are in a condition compared with
which the accumulated fortunes of Great Britain are puerile
and insignificant.
It is no wonder, Mr. President, that the laboring, industrial,
and agricultural classes of this country, who have been made
intelligent under the impulse of universal education, have at
last awakened to this tremendous condition and are inquiring
whether or not this experiment has been successful. And, sir,
the speculators must beware. They have forgotten that the
conditions, political and social, here are not a reproduction of
the conditions under which these circumstances exist in other
lands. Here is no dynasty; here is no privilege or caste, or
prerogative ; here are no standing armies; here are no hered-
itary bondsmen, but every atom in our political system is quick
instinct, and endowed with life and power. His ballot at t'_ j
box is the equivalent of the ballot of the richest speculator.
Thomas Jefferson, the great apostle of modern Democracy,
taught the lesson to his followers, and they have profited well
by his instruction, that under a popular, democratic, repre-
sentative government, wealth, culture, intelligence were ulti-
mately no match for numbers.
The numbers in this country, Mr. President, have learned
at last the power of combination, and the speeulators should
not forget that, while the people of this country are gener-
ous and just, they are jealous also, and that when discontent
changes to resentment and resentment passes into exasp.ra-
324 John James Ixgalls.
tion, one volume of a nation's history is closed and another
will be opened.
The speculators, Mr. President ! The cotton product of this
country, I believe, is about six million bales.
Mr. Butler: Seven million bales.
Mr. Ingalls: Seven million bales, I am told. The trans-
actions of the New York Cotton Exchange are forty million
bales, representing transactions speculative, profitable, remuner-
ative, by which some of these great accumulations have been
piled up, an inconceivable burden upon the energies and in-
dustries of the country.
The production of coal oil, 1 believe, in this country has
average something like twenty million barrels a year. The
transactions of the New York Petroleum Exchange, year by
year, average two billion barrels, fictitious, simulated, the in-
struments of the gambler and the speculator, by means of which,
through an impost upon the toil, and labor, and industry of
every laborer engaged in the production of petroleum, addi-
tional difficulties are imposed.
It is reported that the coal alone that is mined in Penn-
sylvania, indispensable to the comfort of millions of men,
amounts in its annual product to about $40,000,000, of which
one-third is profit over and above the cost of production, and
a fair return for the capital invested.
That is "speculation," Mr. President, and every dollar
over and above the cost of production, with a fair return upon
the capital invested, every dollar of that fifteen or sixteen mil-
lions is filched, robbed, violently plundered out of the earnings
of the laborers and operatives and farmers who are com-
pelled to buy it ; and yet it goes by the euphemistic name of
"speculation" and is declared to be legitimate; it is eulogized
"The Image and Superscription of Cesar." 325
and defended as one of those practices that are entitled to
respect and approbation.
Nor is this all, Mr. President. The hostility between the
employers and the employed in this country is becoming vin-
dictive and permanently malevolent. Labor and capital are
in two hostile camps to-day. Lockouts and strikes and labor
difficulties have become practically the normal condition of
our system, and it is estimated that during the year that
has just closed, in consequence of these disorders, in conse-
quence of this hostility and this warfare, the actual loss in
labor, in wages, in the destruction of perishable commodities
by the interruption of railway traffic, has not been less than
$300,000,000.
Mr. President, this is a serious problem. It raav well
engage the attention of the representatives of the States and
of the American people. I have no sympathy with that school
of political economists which teaches that there is an irrecon-
cilable conflict between labor and capital, and which demands
indiscriminate, hostile, and repressive legislation against men
because they are rich and corporations because they are strong.
Labor and capital should not be antagonists, but allies rather.
They should not be opponents and enemies, but colleagues and
auxiliaries whose cooperating rivalry is essential to national
prosperity. But I cannot forbear to affirm that a political
system under which such despotic power can be wrested from
the people and vested in a few is a democracy onlv in name.
A financial system under which more than one-half of the
enormous wealth of the country, derived from the bounty of
Nature and the labor of all, is owned by a little more than
thirty thousand people, while one million American citizens,
326 John James Ixgalls.
able and willing to toil, are homeless tramps, starving for
bread, requires readjustment.
A social system which offers to tender, virtuous, and de-
pendent women the alternative between prostitution and sui-
cide as an escape from beggary, is organized crime, for which
some day unrelenting justice will demand atonement and
expiation.
Mr. President, the man who loves his country and the man
who studies her history will search in vain for any natural
cause for this appalling condition. The earth has not forgotten
to yield her increase. There has been no general failure of
harvests. We have had benignant skies and the early and
the latter rain. Neither famine nor pestilence has decimated
our population nor wasted its energies. Immigration is flow-
ing in from every land, and we are in the lusty prime of national
youth and strength, with unexampled resources and every
stimulus to their development ; but, sir, the great body of the
American people are engaged to-day in studying these prob-
lems that I have suggested in this morning hour. They are
disheartened with misfortunes. They are weary with unre-
quited toil. They are tired of the exactions of the speculators.
They desire peace and rest. They are turning their attention
to the great industrial questions which underlie their material
prosperitv. They are indifferent to party. They care noth-
ing for Republicanism nor for Democracy as such. They are
ready to say, "A plague on both your houses"; and they are
readv also, Mr. President, to hail and to welcome any organiza-
tion, any measure, any leader that promises them relief from
the profitless strife of politicians and this turbulent and dis-
tracting agitation, which has already culminated in violence
and may end in blood.
"The Image and Superscription of C.ksar." 327
Such, sir, is the verdict which I read in the elections from
which we have just emerged, a verdict that was unexpected
by the leaders of both parties, and which surprised alike the
victors and the vanquished. It was a spontaneous, unpre-
meditated protest of the people against existing conditions.
It was a revolt of the national conscience against injustice, a
movement that is full of pathos and also full of danger, because
such movements sometimes make victims of those who are
guiltless. It was not a Republican defeat. It was not a
Democratic victory. It was a great upheaval and uprising,
independent of and superior to both. It was a crisis that may
become a catastrophe, filled with terrible admonition, but not
without encouragement to those who understand and are ready
to cooperate with it. It was a peaceful revolution, an attempt
to resume rights that seemed to have been infringed.
It is many years, Mr. President, since I predicted this
inevitable result. In a speech delivered in this chamber on
the 15th of February, 1878, from the seat that is now adorned
bv my honorable friend from Texas who sits before me [Mr.
Reagan], I said :
" We cannot disguise the truth that we are on the verge of an impending
revolution. The old issues are (lead. The people are arraying themselves
upon one side or the other <>f a portentous contest. On one side is capital,
formidably intrenched in privilege, arrogant from continued triumph, con-
servative, tenacious of old theories, demanding new concessions, enriched
by domestic levy and foreign commerce, and stru^lin^ to adjust all values
to its own standard. ( >n the other is labor, asking for employment, striv-
ing to develop domestic industries, battling with the forces of Nature, and
subduing the wilderness; labor, starving and sullen in cities, resolutely
determined to overthrow a system under which the rich are growing richer
and the poor are growing poorer; a system which gives to a Vanderbilt
the possession of wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, and condemns the
poor to a poverty which has no refuge from starvation t>ut the prison 01
the grave.
328 John James Ingalls.
"Our demands for relief, for justice, have been met with indifference
or disdain. The laborers of the country asking for employment are treat-
ed like impudent mendicants begging for bread "
Mr. President, it may be cause, it may be coincidence, it
may be effect, it may be post hoc or it may be propter hoc, but
it is historically true that this great blight that has fallen upon
our industries, this paralysis that has overtaken our financial
system, coincided in point of time with the diminution of the
circulating medium of the country.
The public debt was declared to be payable in coin, and
then the money power of silver was destroyed. The va|ue of
property diminished in proportion, wages fell, and the value
of everything was depreciated except debts and gold. The
mortgage, the bond, the coupon, and the tax have retained
immortal vouth and vigor. They have not depreciated. The
debt remains, but the capacity to pay has been destroyed.
The accumulation of years disappears under the hammer of
the sheriff, and the debtor is homeless, while the creditor
obtains the security for his debt for a fraction of what it was
actually worth when the debt was contracted.
There is, Mr. President, a deep-seated conviction among
the people, which I fully share, that the demonetization of
silver in 1873 was one element of a great conspiracv to de-
liver the fiscal system of this country over to those by whom
it has, in my opinion, finally been captured. I see no proof
of the assertion that the demonetization act of 1873 was fraud-
ulently or corruptly procured, but from the statements that
have been made it is impossible to avoid the conviction that
it was part of a deliberate plan and conspiracy formed by those
who have been called "speculators" to still further increase
the value of the standard by which their accumulations wrere
"The Image and Superscription of Cesar." 329
to be measured. The attention of the people was not called
to the subject. It is one of the anomalies and phenomena of
legislation.
That bill was pending in its various stages for four years
in both houses of Congress. It passed both bodies bv decided
majorities. It was read and reread and reprinted thirteen
times, as appears by the records. It was commented upon
in newspapers; it was the subject of discussion in financial
bodies all over the country; and yet we have the concurrent
testimony of every senator and every member of the House
of Representatives who was present during the time that the
legislation was pending and proceeding that he knew nothing
whatever about the demonetization of silver and the destruc-
tion -of the coinage of the silver dollar. The Senator from
Nevada [Mr. Stewart], who knows so many things, felt called
upon to make a speech of an hour's duration to show that he
knew nothing whatever about it. I have heard other mem-
bers declaim and with one consent make excuse that they
knew nothing about it.
As I say, it is one of the phenomena and anomalies of legis-
lation, and I have no other explanation to make than this:
I believe that both houses of Congress and the President of
the United States must have been hypnotized. So great was
the power of capital, so profound was the impulse, so persist-
ent was the determination, that the promoters of this scheme
succeeded by the operation of mind-powrer and will-force in
capturing and bewildering the intelligence of men of all parties,
of members of both houses of Congress, and the members of
the Cabinet, and the President of the United States.
And yet, Mr. President, it cannot be doubted that the
statements that these gentlemen make are true. There is no
330 John James Ixgalls.
doubt of the sincerity or the candor of those who have testified
upon this matter; and it is incredible (I am glad it occurred
before I was a member of this body) that a change in our
financial system that deprived one of the money metals of its
debt-paving power, that changed the whole financial system
of the country and to a certain extent the entire fiscal meth-
ods of the world, could have been engineered through the Sen-
ate and the House of Representatives and the Cabinet of the
President and secured executive approval without a single
human being knowing anything whatever about it. In an age
of miracles, Mr. President, wonders never cease.
It is true that this marvel was accomplished when the sub-
ject was not one of public discussion. It was done at a time
when, although the public mind was intensely interested in
financial subjects and methods of relief from existing condi-
tions were assiduously sought, the suggestion had never pro-
ceeded from any quarter that this could be accomplished by
the demonetization of silver, or ceasing to coin the silver dol-
lar. It was improvidently done, but it would not be more
surprising, it would not be more of a strain upon human judg-
ment, if fifteen vears from now we were to be informed that
no one was aware that in the bill that is now pending the prop-
osition was not made for the free coinage of silver.
Mr. President, there is not a vState west of the Alleghany
Mountains and south of the Potomac and Ohio rivers that is
not in favor of the free coinage of silver. There is not a State
in which, if that proposition were to be submitted to a popular
vote, it would not be adopted by an overwhelming majority.
I do not mean by that inclusion to say that in those States east
of the Alleghanies and north of the Ohio and Potomac rivers
there is any hostility or indisposition to receive the benefits
"The Image and Superscription of C^sar." 331
that would result from the remonetization of silver. On the
contrary, in the great commonwealths that lie to the northeast
upon the Atlantic seaboard, New York, Pennsylvania, and tin-
manufacturing and commercial States, I am inclined to believe
from the tone of the press, from the declarations of many
assemblies, that if the proposition were to be submitted there,
it would also receive a majority of the votes.
If the proposition were to be submitted to the votes of the
people of this country at large, whether the silver dollar should
be recoined and silver remonetized, notwithstanding the proph-
ecies, the predictions, the animadversions of t,hose who are
opposed to it, I have not the slightest doubt that the great
majority of the people, irrespective of party, vvould be in favor
of it, and would so record themselves. They have declared
in favor of it for the past fifteen years, and they have been
juggled with, they have been thwarted, they have been pal-
tered with and dealt with in a double sense. The word of
promise that was made to their ear in the platforms of political
parties has been broken to their hope. There was a majority
in this body at the last session of Congress in favor of the free
coinage of silver. The compromise that was made was not
what the people expected nor what they had a right to demand.
They felt that they had been trilled with, and that is one cause
of the exasperation expressed in the verdict of November 4th.
I feel impelled to make one further observation. Warn-
ings and admonitions have been plenty in this debate. We
have been admonished of the danger that would follow; we
have been notified of what would occur if the free coinage of
silver were supported by a majority of this body, or if it were
to be adopted as a part of our financial system. I am not a
prophet, nor the son of a prophet; but I say to those who are
332 John James Ingalls.
now arraying themselves against the deliberately expressed
judgment of the American people, a judgment that they know-
has been declared and recorded — I say to the members of this
body, I say, so far as I may do so with propriety, to the mem-
bers of the coordinate branch of Congress, and I say, if without
impropriety I may do so, to the Executive of the Nation, that
there will come a time when the people will be trifled with no
longer on this subject.
Once, twice, thrice, by executive intervention, Democratc
and Republican, by parliamentary proceedings that I need not
characterize, by various methods of legislative jugglery, the
deliberate purpose of the American people, irrespective of
partv, has been thwarted, it has been defied, it has been con-
tumeliously trodden under foot ; and I repeat to those who
have been the instruments and the implements, no matter
what the impulse or the motive or the intention may have
been, at some time the people will elect a House of Represent-
atives, they will elect a Senate of the United States, they will
elect a President of the United States, who will carry out their
pledges and execute the popular will.
Mr. President, by the readjustment of the political forces
of the Nation under the Eleventh Census, the seat of political
power has at last been transferred from the circumference of
this countrv to its center. It has been transferred from the
seaboard to that great intramontane region between the Alle-
ghanies and the Sierras, extending from the British possessions
to the Gulf of Mexico, a region whose growth is one of the won-
ders and marvels of modern civilization. It seems as if the
column of migration had paused in its westward march to build
upon those tranquil plains and in those fertile valleys a fabric
of civilization that should be the wonder and the admiration
"The Image and Superscription of Cjesak." 333
of the world, rich in every element of present prosperity, but
richer in every prophecy of future greatness and renown.
When I went West, Mr. President, as a carpetbagger in
1858, St. Louis was an outpost of civilization, Jefferson City
was the farthest point reached by a railroad, and in all that
great wilderness, extending from the sparse settlements along
the Missouri to the summits of the Sierra Nevada and from
the Yellowstone to the canons of the Rio Grande, a vast sol-
itude from which I have myself since that time voted to ad-
mit seven States into the American Union, there was neither
harvest nor husbandry, neither habitation nor home, save the
hut of the hunter and the wigwam of the savage. Mr. Presi-
dent, we have now within those limits, extending southward
from the British possessions and embracing the States of the
Mississippi Valley, the Gulf, and the southeastern Atlantic, a
vast productive region, the granary of the world, a majority
of the members of this body, of the House of Representatives,
and of the Electoral College.
We talk with admiration of Egypt. For thirty centuries
the ruins of its cities, its art, its religions, have been the marvel
of mankind. The Pyramids have survived the memory of
their builders, and the Sphinx still questions with solemn gaze
the vague mystery of the desert.
The great fabric of Egyptian civilization, with its wealth
and power, the riches of its art, its creeds, and faiths, and
philosophies, was reared from the labors of a few million slaves
under the lash of despots, upon a narrow margin four hun-
dred and fifty miles Long and ten miles wide, comprising in all,
with the delta of the Nile, no more than ten thousand square
miles of fertile land.
334 John James Ingaixs.
Who, sir, can foretell the future of that region to which I
have adverted, with its twenty thousand miles of navigable
water-courses, with its hundreds of thousands of square miles
of soil, excelling in fecundity all that of the Nile, when the
labor of centuries of freemen under the impulse of our insti-
tutions shall have brought forth their perfect results?
Mr. President, it is to that region, with that population
and with such a future, that the political power of this country
has at last been transferred, and they are now unanimously
demanding the free coinage of silver. It is for that reason
that I shall cordially support the amendment proposed by the
Senator from Nevada. In doing so I not only follow the dic-
tates of my own judgment, but 1 carry out the wishes of a
great majority of my constituents, irrespective of party or of
political affiliation. I have been for the free coinage of silver
from the outset, and I am free to say that, after having observed
the operations of the act of 1878, I am more than ever con-
vinced of the wisdom of that legislation and the futility of the
accusations by which it was assailed.
The people of the country that I represent have lost their
reverence for gold. They have no longer any superstition
about coin. Notwithstanding all the declarations of the mono-
metallists, notwithstanding all the assaults that have been
made by those who are in favor of still further increasing the
value of the standard by which their possessions are measured,
they know thai money is neither wealth nor capital nor value,
and that it is merely the creation of the law, by which all
these' are estimated and measured.
We speak, sir, about the volume of money and about its
relation to the wealth and capital of the country. Let me ask
you, sir, for a moment, what would occur if the circulating
"The Image and Superscription of Cesar." 335
medium were to be destroyed? Suppose that the gold and sil-
ver were to be withdrawn suddenly from circulation and melted
up into bars and ingots and buried in the earth from which
they were taken. Suppose that all the paper money, silver
certificates, gold certificates, national bank notes, Treasury
notes, were stacked in one mass at the end of the Treasury
building and a torch applied to them and they were to be
destroved by fire and their ashes spread, like the ashes of
WickHffe, upon the Potomac, to be spread abroad wide as its
waters be.
What would be the effect? Would not this country be
worth exactly as much as it is to-day? Would there not be
just as many acres of land, as many houses, as many farms, as
many days of labor, as much improved and unimproved mer-
chandise, and as much property as there is to-day? The result
would be that commerce would languish, the sails of the ships
would be furled in the harbors, the great trains would cease to
to run to and fro on their errands, trade would be reduced to
barter, and, the people finding their energies languishing, civil-
ization itself would droop, and we should be reduced to the
condition of the nomadic wanderers upon the primeval plains.
Suppose, on the other hand, that, instead of being destroyed,
all the money in this country were to be put in the possession
of a single man — gold and paper and silver — and he were to
be moored in mid-Atlantic upon a raft with his great hoard,
or to be stationed in the middle of Sahara's desert, without
food to nourish, or shelter to cover, or the means of transpor-
tation to get away. Who would be the richest man, the pos-
sessor of the gigantic treasure or the humblest settler upon the
plains of the West, with a dugout to shelter him and with corn-
meal and water enough for his daily bread?
336 John James Ingalls.
Doubtless, Mr. President, you search the Scriptures daily,
and are therefore familiar with the story of those depraved
politicians of Judea who sought to entangle the Master in His
talk by asking Him if it were lawful to pay tribute to Caesar
or not. He, perceiving the purpose that they had in view,
said unto them, "Show me the tribute money." And they
brought Him a penny. He said, "Whose is this image and
superscription?" And they replied, "Caesar's." And He said,
"Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God
the things that are God's."
I hold, Mr. President, between my thumb and finger a silver
denarius, or "penny" of that ancient time, perhaps the iden-
tical coin that was brought by the hypocritical Herodian,
bearing the image and superscription of Caesar. It has been
money for more than twenty centuries. It was money when
Jesus walked the waves, and in the tragic hour at Gethsemane.
Imperial Caesar is "dead and turned to clay." He has yielded
to a mightier conqueror, and his eagles, his ensigns, and his
trophies are indistinguishable dust. His triumphs and his
victories are a school-boy's tale. Rome herself is but a mem-
ory. Her marble porticoes and temples and palaces are in
ruins. The sluggish monk and the lazzy lazzaroni haunt the
Senate House and the Coliseum, and the derisive owl wakes
the echoes of the voiceless Forum. But this little contem-
porary disk of silver is money still, because it bears the image
and superscription of Caesar. And, sir, it will continue to
be money for twenty centuries more, should it resist so long
the corroding canker and the gnawing tooth of Time. But if
one of these pages here should take this coin to the railway
track, as boys sometimes do, and allow the train to pass over it,
in one single instant its function would have disappeared, and
"The Image and Superscription ok Cesar." 337
it would be money no longer, because the image and super-
scription of Caesar would have disappeared.
Mr. President, money is the creation of law, and the Amer-
ican people have learned that lesson, and they are indifferent
to the assaults, they are indifferent to the arguments, they are
indifferent to the aspersions which are east upon them for
demanding that the law of the United States shall place the
image and superscription of Caesar upon silver enough and gold
enough and paper enough to enable them to transact without
embarrassment, without hindrance, without delay, and with-
out impoverishment their daily business affairs, and that shall
give them a measure of value that will not make their earnings
and their belongings the sport and the prey of speculators.
Mr. President, this contest can have but one issue. The
experiment that has begun will not fail. It is useless to deny
that many irregularities have been tolerated here; that many
crimes have been committed in the sacred name of liberty;
that our public affairs have been scandalous episodes to which
every patriotic heart reverts with distress; that there have been
envy and jealousy in high places; that there have been treach-
erous and lying platforms; that there have been shallow com-
promises and degrading concessions to popular errors; but
amid all these disturbances, amid all these contests, amid all
these inexplicable aberrations, the march of the Nation has
been steadily onward.
At the beginning of our second century we have entered
upon a new social and political movement whose results cannot
be predicted, but which are certain to he infinitely momentous.
That the progress will be upward, I have no doubt. Through
the long and desolate tract of history; through the seemingly
aimless struggles, the random gropings of humanity, the tur-
33$ John James Ingalls.
bulent chaos of wrong, injustice, crime, doubt, want, and
wretchedness, the dungeon and the block, the Inquisition and
the stake, the trepidations of the oppressed, the bloody exul-
tations and triumphs of tyrants,
"The uplifted ax, the agonizing wheel,
Luke's iron crown and Damien's bed of steel,"
the tendency has been towards the light. Out of every conflict
some man or sect or nation has emerged with more privileges,
enlarged opportunities, purer religion, broader liberty, and
greater capacity for happiness; and out of this conflict in
which we are now engaged I am confident finally will come
liberty, justice, equality; the continental unity of the Amer-
ican Republic, the social fraternity and the industrial inde-
pendence of the American people. [Applause in the galleries.]
THE HUMOROUS SIDE OF POLITICS.
Charles Sumner had no more sense of humor than a hip-
popotamus, but there was something excessively humorous
about his colossal self-consciousness, of which it is no paradox
to say he was apparently unconscious.
His egotism was inordinately vast, though innocent in its
simplicity. It was far from conceit, and led to no disparage-
ment of his associates. Indeed, I doubt if he ever instituted
comparisons.
Probably Grant, whom he hated and abused, came the near-
est to sizing him up when he said: "The reason Sumner
doesn't believe in the Bible is because he didn't write it
himself."
He had large intellectual powers, but not so large as he
imagined. He had no influence on legislation. He was unable
to endure opposition. If he could not have his own will, he
would do nothing. But this is not intended as an analysis of
his work or his character. I started out to say that soon after
I entered the Senate we were riding up the Avenue in a street-
car, and, by the way of conversation, he asked me about my
predecessor, Senator Pomeroy, who had met with an accident
politically. He spoke of his early fidelity to the cause of free-
dom, and the unusual degree to which he held the confidence
of his associates till the impeachment of Andrew Johnson.
339
340 John James Ingalls.
"Indeed," he continued, with great gravity, "had he died
before that time, Kansas would have owed him a monument,
and I should myself have pronounced his eulogy."
W The self-consciousness of Roscoe Conkling was quite as
egregious as that of Mr. Sumner, but his egotism was tinged
with vanity and compounded with scorn, contempt, and dis-
dain. He was a past-master in "the gentle art of making ene-
mies," and well versed in the vocabulary of derision and hatred.
Hamlet might have had him in mind when, in his soliloquy, he
mentioned, among other things that make life not worth living,
"the proud man's contumely." The hinges of his knees were
pregnant, and he had none of the thrift that follows fawning.
When I first knew him, he was in the meridian of his great
powers. He possessed an extraordinary assemblage of phys-
ical and intellectual attributes that made him by far the most
prominent, picturesque, and impressive figure in public life.
His presence was noble and commanding; his voice and
elocution were superb ; his bearing and address somewhat too
formal, but marked by dignity and grace. His vocabulary
was rich and ornamental, sometimes almost to the borders
of the grotesque, but fertilized with apposite quotations and
allusions that showed wide reading, especially in poetry, ro-
mance, and the drama. Some hostile critic described one of
his speeches as a "purple earthquake of oratory." But he
was always heard with delight on any theme.
Had he possessed a greater flexibility of temper, been less
inexorable in his animosities, and learned how to forget where
he could not forgive, there was no height he might not have
reached, even the highest in the people's gift. But he would
The Humorous Side of Politics. 341
not flatter Neptune for his trident, nor Jove for his power to
thunder.
In that state of moral typhoid which always follows great
wars, an era of profligacy, of sudden wealth at the price of
honor, of Credit Mobilier and Star Route scandals, he was not
contaminated. He walked through the furnace with no smell
of fire upon his garments.
Toward the end of his career in the Senate he fell out with
the newspapers, and sometimes when he arose to speak, every
reporter in the press gallery closing his note-book, the whole
crowd would rush noisily out into the lobby, leaving every seat
without an occupant.
He flushed at the insult, but speaking of journalism after-
ward, he was moved to remark, in his propitiatory way, that
the only people in the world authorized to use the first person
plural, "we," in speaking of themselves, were "editors and
men with tapeworms."
His allusion to Governor Cornell as "that lizard on the
hill," and to President Arthur, after his refusal to abdicate in
favor of Mr. Conkling, as "the prize ox in American politics,"
and his refusal to speak for Blaine in the campaign of 1884, on
the ground that he was "not engaged in criminal practice,"
are well-known illustrations of his methods of compelling his
political associates to be either his vassals or his enemies.
But Jove did not always sit on Olympus. Sometimes he
descended to the plain, though never quite on terms of abso-
lute equality with mankind. He was inclined to "jolly" those
whom he did not feel disposed to bully.
When Thurman once asked him, in a debate on some legal
proposition, why he kept looking at him all the time, Conkling
replied, with elaborate raillery, that he turned to him as the
342 John James Ingalls.
source and fountain of the common laws as, at the call of the
muezzin, the Mussulman turned to Mecca.
Another favorite butt for his chaff, banter, and ridicule
was Judge David Davis, a native of Maryland, who migrated
early to Illinois, where he laid the foundation of an immense
fortune by sagacious investments in farming lands. He was
an original friend of Lincoln's, and a delegate to the convention
that nominated him for the Presidency. Riding with him
once from Bloomington to Ouincy, he gave me a most inter-
esting inside history of the movement for Lincoln, one of the
extraordinary facts being that the entire expense of his nom-
ination, including headquarters, telegraphing, music, fare of
delegations, and other incidentals, was less than seven hundred
dollars.
He was a Falstaff in proportions and good nature, and
the best^guesser in American politics. Lincoln appointed him
Justice of the Supreme Court in 1862. The greater part of his
active life was passed on the bench, where he was accustomed
to have the last word and to delivering opinions rather than
defending them, which is not a good preparation for the delib-
erations of the Senate.
He was an inveterate compromiser and composer of strife,
which led Conkling to allude to him in debate as "the largest
wholesale and retail dealer in political soothing syrup the world
had ever known."
Later, in the discussion of the same measure, Davis inter-
rupted Conkling by way of correction or anticipation, which
Conkling resented by quoting ore rotundo two lines from one
of Watts' hymns:
"He knows the words that I would speak
Ere from my opening lips they break."
The Humorous Side of Politics. 343
To Davis' elephantine attempt to smooth over his break
bv some far-fetched eulogy, Conkling replied :
"Praise undeserved is censure in disguise."
The stenographer did not recognize the quotation, so that
one of Alexander Pope 's most polished lines stands as an orig-
inal, extemporaneous phrase of Mr. Conkling 's.
It seems incredible that a personage of such vast and
unusual powers, who for twenty years was a most prominent
actor in the great drama of public affairs, who filled so large
a space in the thought of the people, who was caricatured,
lampooned, praised, and reviled without stint or measure,
should have faded so absolutely from the memory of men.
Even to those of his contemporaries who survive, he has
already become a gorgeous reminiscence.
Patriotic, arrayed always for truth, right, and justice, his
name is identified with no great measure, and his life seems not
so much an actual battle with hostile powers as a splendid
scene upon the stage, of which the swords are lath, the armor
tinsel, the bastions and ramparts painted screens, the wounds
and blood fictitious ; on which victories and defeats are feigned,
with sheet-iron thunder, and tempests of peas and lycopo-
dium — and the curtain falling to slow music, while the audience
applauds and departs.
William Maxwell Evarts came to the Senate in 1885, at the
age of sixty-seven. He was a candidate in 1861, and waited
twenty-four years for the realization of his ambition. The
interval was opulent in noble achievements at the bar, in
statesmanship, in oratory, and the highest civic and social
activities.
344 ! John James Ixgalls.
He was Attorney-General of the United States under
Andrew Johnson and his counsel on his impeachment. He
represented the Government before the Geneva tribunal of
arbitration on the Alabama claims. He was the leading attor-
ney for President Hayes, in behalf of the Republican party,
before the Electoral Commission, and Secretary of State from
J877 to 1881.
He was a scholar without pedantry, and a man of the world
in the highest sense, without cynicism or frivolity.
There is always a dull suspicion in leaden, opaque, and
barren minds that wit, brilliancy, and imagination, and the
corruscations of the intellect are incompatible with great men-
tal power and solidity of judgment.
Mr. Evarts refuted this fallacy, for in addition to his tri-
umphs as a lawyer, in politics, and as a practical man of affairs,
he was altogether the most brilliant and versatile talker of his
time.
The characteristic of his conversation was a genial and hu-
morous urbanity. He never wounded or stung. He seldom told
stories or related anecdotes. His wit was like a spring that
makes the meadows green. He appreciated what was best in
society, art, literature, and life, and had the keenest interest in
the virtues and foibles of humanity. His manner was refined
and suave. He never posed, nor monopolized, nor strained for
effect ; and as he never hurt self-love by irony, nor vanity by
ridicule and satire, so he never shocked the devout by profan-
ity, nor offended the modest with impudicity.
Probably the mot of Mr. Evarts most widely flown con-
cerns the apochryphal feat told of George Washington in "jerk-
ing" a silver dollar across the Rappahannock.
The Humorous Side of Politics. 345
The story goes that a party of tourists, visiting the haunts
of Washington in Virginia, came to the spot, where the anec-
dote was related by some local antiquary, to illustrate the pro-
digious strength of the man whom Providence made childless
that he might become the Father of His Country.
Aside from the unlikelihood that the thrifty George would
throw a silver dollar over the river when a pebble would have
done as well, the distance was so great that the skeptics were
incredulous, and another legend seemed on the edge of be-
ing destroyed, when Mr. Bvarts came to its rescue with the
suggestion that "a dollar went much farther in those days
than now."
The explanation is so simple and so satisfactory that the
wonder is that it occurred to no one before.
Among the guests at a dinner to Daniel Webster in New
York was Dr. Benjamin Brandreth, the inventor of a cele-
brated pill known by his name. Mr. Evarts united these two
great men in a volunteer toast to "Daniel Webster and Ben-
jamin Brandreth, the pillars of the Constitution."
Objections had been filed with the Judiciary Committee
to the confirmation of a nomination on account of the disso-
lute habits of the appointee. When the case came up for con-
sideration, the chairman called for affidavits. The clerk pro-
duced a number from the files. Consulting his docket, Mr.
Edmunds thought there were more, and others were found. A
search disclosed another batch that had been overlooked or
mislaid.
"The papers in this case," said Mr. Evarts, "appear to be
more dissipated, if possible, than the candidate."
Mr. Evarts was a bon vivant, an inveterate diner-out, and
a giver of most elaborate and artistic dinners himself. To a
346 John James Ixgalls.
lady who expressed surprise that one of such slender frame
and fragile physique could endure so many feasts with their
varying viands and different wines, he replied that it was not
so much the different wines that gave him trouble as the
indifferent ones.
President Haves was a total abstainer — at home. Scof-
fers said he only drank the "O. P. brands." His state din-
ners, otherwise very elegant and costly, were served without
wines. The onlv concession to conviviality was the Roman
punch, flavored with Jamaica rum. Evarts was accustomed
to allude to this course as "the life-saving station."
Rising to address informally the guests at a Thanksgiving
dinner, he began: "You have been giving your attention to
a turkev stuffed with sage. You are now about to consider
a sage stuffed with turkey."
When he was Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President
Hayes, the struggle for places in the diplomatic service was
very active. As he was leaving the elevator at the close of a
very busy day, he said the conductor since noon had "taken up
a very large collection for foreign missions"; and when asked
what had been done, he replied: "Main called, but few
chosen."
As an orator, Mr. Evarts was not limpid. But he con-
founded the critics who condemned his long sentences by say-
ing that, so far as his observation went, the people who objected
to long sentences belonged to the criminal classes.
General Grant was popularly supposed to be habitually
grave, reserved, and taciturn, but on occasion was very viva-
cious in conversation, with a keen sense of dry, quiet humor.
The Humorous Side of Politics. 347
One evening, after a stag dinner at the White House, the
company assembled in the library to smoke. Talk fell upon
the happiest period of life — childhood, youth, manhood, age.
Grant listened, but said nothing till asked for his opinion.
"Well," he replied, after a pause, "I believe I would like
to be born again," which indicated that he had found existence
enjoyable all the way through.
One of Grant's Secretaries of the Navy was George M.
Robeson, of Xew Jersey, for whom Senator Carpenter, of Wis-
consin, a great jurist and advocate, conceived a violent dislike.
His mildest definition of Robeson was that he was "a great
lawver among sailors, and a great sailor among lawyers."
Some one took Thurman to task for having referred rather
contemptuously to the beneficiaries of a certain measure as
"things."
"Things!" replied Thurman, testily, "why, we are all
things — " " 'To all men,'" interrupted Mr. Edmunds, before
he could finish his sentence, and the discussion ended.
Holman, of Indiana, for many years waged vigilant and
unrelenting war on amendments to appropriation bills, which
gave him the name of "The Watchdog of the Treasury." He
was very strong in his district, and had an unusually long ser-
vice, which gave him great power and influence in the House
by his knowledge of the rules and practice.
Toward the end of his term an amendment was offered in
which a near relative was much interested. The familiar "I
object" was not heard, and the amendment went through with
his support ; whereupon a member sitting near exclaimed :
" ' 'Tis sweet to hear the honest watchdog's bark
Bay deep-mouthed welcome as we draw near home!' "
Nothing brighter and more apt has been said in either
house of Congress since the inauguration of Washington.
FAMOUS FEUDS.
I.
Conkxing, Blaine, Lamar.
On the 1 8th of June, 1879, the second debate of the extra
session on the Army Bill was in progress in the Senate.
The Democratic majority was strenuously pressing the bill
to its passage, with a clause prohibiting any expenditure of
the appropriation for the payment of troops as police to keep
the peace at the polls.
The Republican minority, foreseeing defeat, had resorted
to filibustering, dilatory proceedings, and motions to adjourn.
Mr. Lamar took no part in the debate, although voting uni-
formly with his party.
During the morning hour, before the Army Bill was taken
up for consideration, Lamar called up the bill to create a Mis-
sissippi River Commission, in which he was much interested,
reported from the committee of which he was chairman.
The consideration of this measure consumed the morn-
ing hour, and the time appointed for taking up the Army Bill
as the special order arrived. Mr. Lamar suggested that the
Commission Bill could be disposed of in a few minutes, and
asked unanimous consent for that purpose.
Mr. Withers, of Virginia, who had the Army Bill in charge,
had given notice that he would ask for a final vote before
adjournment that day, and declined to consent to Mr. Lamar's
348
Famous Feuds. 349
request, unless it was agreed that a vote on the Commission
Bill should be taken without further discussion.
Mr. Allison suggested, "In a few minutes."
Mr. Withers insisted upon his rights under the rules. Mr.
Conkling asked if, notwithstanding unanimous consent was
given to Mr. Umar's request, the Senator from Virginia would
insist upon a vote that day on the Army Bill. Mr. Withers
replied that he would. Mr. Conkling then suggested that the
Senator from Mississippi have unanimous consent to conclude
the consideration of his bill, and if, when a reasonable hour
of adjournment had been reached, there were senators who
wanted to be heard on the Army Bill, the vote should be
postponed until the following day.
Mr. Withers insisted that it was important that a vote
should be had that day. Mr. Conkling did not think this fair.
Senator Gordon, of Georgia, explained that the Commission
Bill would not take more than ten or fifteen minutes. Mr.
Conkling then stated that, for himself, he would consent and
trust to the other side of the chamber, when the ordinary hour
of adjournment was reached, that if any senator desired to be
heard, he should not be cut off or pushed into the night.
Mr. Withers here interrupted, and said: 'The Senator
must not trust to my courtesy in the matter, if he alludes to
me.
Mr. Conkling retorted, with contemptuous irony: 'I did
not indicate the Senator from Virginia as one to whose courU >\
I would trust."
After further desultory discussion, Mr. Lamar limited his
request to twenty minutes, and at last unanimous consent was
given. The bill was quickly disposed of and the Army Bill
was immediately taken up.
350 John James Ingalls.
The legislative session was prolonged until noon of June 19.
Late in the sitting — it must have been about midnight — a
wrangle occurred between Senators Blaine and Saulsbury, in
which the latter charged the former and his party with obstruct-
ing legislation.
At this juncture Senator Conkling arose and referred to
Mr. Lamar's request of that morning, and said that he had
given his consent, relying on the courtesy of Democratic sen-
ators that the final vote would not be pressed on the Army Bill
that day.
He continued: "Looking to that side, I received a nod,
not from one, not from two, not from three, but from five
Democratic senators."
Upon these assurances he had offered a motion to adjourn,
assuming that there would be no objection.
He concluded by saying: "The Senator from Virginia
rose with such a disclaimer as he had a right to make in order
that he might keep within the bounds of his instructions from
the committee ; but when I heard every Democratic senator
vote to commit such an outrage as that upon the minority of
this body and upon the Senator from Wisconsin, I do not deny
that I felt my full share of indignation ; and during this even-
ing, Mr. President, I wish to assume all my own responsibility,
and so much more as any Republican senator feels irksome to
him, for what has taken place. I have endeavored to show
this proud and domineering majority — determined, apparently,
to ride rough-shod over the rights of the minority — that they
can not and they should not do it. But I am ready to be
deemed responsible in advance for the assurance that while I
remain a member of this body, and, at all events, until we have
a previous question, no minority shall be gagged down or throt-
Famous Feuds. 351
tied or insulted by such a proceeding as this. I say, Mr. Pres-
ident, and I measure my expression, that it was an act not only
insulting, but an act of bad faith. I mean that."
It would be quite difficult to exaggerate the air of elaborate
and haughty insolence with which this arraignment and threat
was delivered. The concentrated and sonorous contempt of
his denunciation of the majority, the bitter scorn of his con-
tumelious epithets passed all bounds. It was unparliamentary
and beyond the limits of debate, but he was not called to
order.
It gave Mr. Lamar the opportunity for which he had been
waiting so long. He rose to a personal statement, and said:
"I am not aware of anything that occurred which would pro-
duce such an impression. If I had, although I would not
have been instrumental consciously in producing such an
impression, I should have felt myself bound by it, and would
have made the motion for an adjournment, in order to give
the Senator from Wisconsin an opportunity to discuss this bill.
' ' With reference to the charge of bad faith that the Senator
from New York has intimated toward those of us who have
been engaged in opposing these motions to adjourn, I have only
to say that if I am not superior to such attacks from such a
source, I have lived in vain. It is not my habit to indulge in
personalites; but I desire to say here to the Senator, that in
intimating anything inconsistent, as he has done, with perfect
good faith, I pronounce his statement a falsehood, which I
repel with all the unmitigated contempt that I feel for the
author of it."
This was a solar-plexus blow. Mr. Conkling had contrib-
uted much to the acrimony and exasperation of the time. His
attitude toward the Southern Democracv had been that of
352 John James Ingalls.
unrelenting severity. He was aggressively radical. He advo-
cated drastic measures for the protection of the negro and the
assertion of the national authority. His manner was often
offensively dictatorial and domineering. He trampled upon
the sensibilities of his adversaries like a rhinoceros crashing
through a tropical jungle. They grew restive, and there were
subterranean rumors from time to time that they "had it in"
for Conkling and intended to "do him up" at the earliest
opportunity.
In the code of honor, so called, to give the lie is equivalent
to a blow. It is the supreme verbal affront, and can be expi-
ated only by blood. It is the intolerable stigma. The man
who is branded as a liar publicly is in a cul-de-sac. He can
go no further. He must wear the epithet or fight. To bite
the thumb, or thrust out the tongue and say, "Tu quoque," does
not shift the burden of dishonor in the estimation of gentlemen.
For the first time in the six years that I had known him,
Conkling was, figuratively speaking, "knocked out." Accus-
tomed to obsequious adulation which had swollen his egre-
gious vanity to the point of tumefaction, his habitual attitude
j
was that of supercilious disdain.
He was by far the most picturesque and commanding figure
of an historic epoch.
His self-consciousness was inordinate, but justified by a
magnificent presence, by the possession of extraordinary intel-
lectual gifts, by national reputation, and the devotion of a
great constituency.
In the vSenate he had no rivals. No one challenged him.
If any differed with him, it was with deference, almost with
timidity. He seemed indifferent alike to approbation or cen-
sure. Like Wolsey, he was
Famous Feuds. 353
"Lofty and sour to them that loved him no1 ;
To those men that sought him, sweet as summer."
That this Alcibiades of Republicanism should be called a
liar and denounced as an object of unmitigated contempt in
the forum of his most imposing triumphs, before crowded
galleries, by a "Confederate brigadier,'' was an indignity that
seemed incredible. Had a dynamite bomb exploded in the
gangway of the brilliantly lighted chamber, the consternation
could hardly have been more bewildering.
Instantaneous silence fell. The gasping spectators held
their breath. Mr. Colliding acted like one stunned. He be-
came pallid and then flushed again. His disconcertion was
extreme. He hesitated and floundered pitiably. He pre-
tended at first not to have heard the insult, and asked Lamar
in effect to repeat it.
He said: "Mr. President, I was diverted during the com-
mencement of a remark the culmination of which I heard from
the member from Mississippi. If I understood him aright, he
intended to impute, and did, in plain and unparliamentary
language, impute to me an intentional misstatement. The
Senator does not disclaim that?"
Mr. Lamar: "I will state what I intended, so that there
may be no mistake — "
The Presiding Officer: "Does the Senator from New York
yield?'1
Mr. Lamar: "All that I—"
The I 'residing Officer: "Does the Senator from New York
yield to the Senator from Mississippi?"
Mr. Lamar: "He appealed to me to know, and I will
give-"
354 John James Ingalls.
The Presiding Officer: "The Senator from New York has
the floor. Does he yield to the Senator from Mississippi3"
As he had asked Lamar a question which that senator was
endeavoring to answer, the interrogations of the Chair seemed
superfluous, but they afforded time for reflection, and at last
Mr. Conkling said : " I am willing to respond to the Chair. I
shall respond to the Chair in due time. Whether I am willing
to respond to the member from Mississippi depends entirely
upon what that member intends to say, and what he did say.
For the time being I do not choose to hold any communication
with him. The Chair understands me now; I will proceed.
"I understood the .Senator from Mississippi to state in plain
and unparliamentary language that the statement of mine to
which he referred was a falsehood, if I caught his word aright.
Mr. President, this is not the place to measure with any man
the capacity to violate decencv, to violate the rules of the Sen-
ate, or to commit any of the improprieties of life.' I have
only to say that if the Senator — the member from Mississippi —
•did impute, or intended to impute, to me a falsehood, noth-
ing except the fact that this is the Senate would prevent my
denouncing him as a blackguard and a coward." (Applause
in the galleries.)
The Presiding Officer: "There should be no cheering in
the galleries. If there shall be any more, the Chair will order
the galleries to be cleared. The Senator from Xew York will
proceed."
Mr. Conkling: "Let me be more specific, Mr. President.
Should the member from Mississippi, except in the presence of
the Senate, charge me by intimation or otherwise with false-
hood, I would denounce him as a blackguard, as a coward,
and a liar; and understanding what he said as I have, the rules
Famous Feuds. 355
and the proprieties of the Senate are the only restraint upon
me. I do not think I need say anything else, Mr. President."
Mr. Lamar concluded : " I have only to say, that the Senator
from New York understood me correctly. I did mean to say
just precisely the words, and all that they imported. I beg
pardon of the Senate for the unparliamentary language. It
was very harsh ; it was very severe ; it was such as no good
man would deserve and no brave man would wear."
Mr. Conkling never seemed quite the same afterward. His
prestige was gone. His enemies — and they were many —
exulted in his discomfiture. Two years later he resigned his
seat in the Senate, and his life afterward was a prolonged mon-
ologue of despair. To-day he is a splendid reminiscence. To
the next generation his fame will be a tradition.
But of all the feuds of the century, the most far-reaching
in its tragic consequences was the political duel between Conk-
ling and Blaine, which began with their appearance in Congress
and ended only with their lives. They were rivals and foes
from the start. Of about the same ago, they both aspired to
leadership, but in temperament and intellectual habits they
had nothing in common. They were altogether the most
striking personalities of their generation. They were enemies
by instinct. Their hostility was automatic. •
Their first altercation occurred April 30, 1866, in a debate
on the charges against Provost-Marshal General Fry, in which
it was alleged that Mr. Conkling, while a member of Congress,
had taken a fee of $3,000 as a judge-advocate.
During the discussion, which was extremely sensational,
Mr. Blaine said: "I do not happen to possess the volubility
356 John James Ixgalls.
of the gentleman from the Utica District. It took him thirty
minutes the other day to explain that an alteration in the
reporter's notes for the Globe was no alteration at all; and 1
do not think that he convinced the House after all. And it
has taken him an hour to-day to explain that while he and
General Fry have been at swords' points for a year, there has
been no difficultv at all between them. The gentleman from
New York has attempted to pass off his appearance in this
case as simply the appearance of counsel. I want to read
again for the information of the House the appointment under
which the gentleman from New York appeared as the pros-
ecutor on the part of the Government."
Mr. Conkling replied that no commission had been issued
to him by the Judge-Advocate General.
Mr. Blaine interrupted, and the Speaker inquired: "Does
the gentleman from New York yield to the gentleman from
Maine?"
To this Mr. Conkling savagely answered: "No, sir; I do
not wish to have anything to do with the gentleman from
Maine, not even so much as to yield him the floor."
"All right," said Mr. Blaine; and Mr. Conkling resumed
and presently said: "One thing further: If the member
from Maine had the least idea how profoundly indifferent I am
to his opinion upon the subject which he has been discussing,
or upon any other subject personal to me, I think he would
hardly take the trouble to rise here and express his opinion."
As soon as he obtained the floor, Mr. Blaine responded:
"As to the gentleman's cruel sarcasm, I hope he will not be
too severe. The contempt of that large-minded gentleman
s so wilting; his haughty disdain, his grandiloquent swell,
his majestic, supereminent, overpowering, turkey-gobbler strut
Famous Feuds. 357
has been so crushing to myself and all the members of this
House, that I know it was an act of the greatest temerity for
me to venture upon a controversy with him. Rut, sir, I know
who is responsible for all this. I know that within the last
live weeks, as members of the House will recollect, an extra
strut has characterized the gentleman's bearing. It is not
his fault. It is the fault of another. That gifted and sat-
irical writer, Theodore Tilton, of the New York Independent,
spent some weeks recently in this city. His letters published
in that paper embraced, with many serious statements, a little
jocose satire, a part of which was the statement that the man-
tle of the late Winter Davis had fallen upon the member from
New York. The gentleman took it seriously, and it has given
his strut additional pomposity. It is striking. 'Hyperion to
a sat vr,' Thersites to Hercules, mud to marble, dunghill to
diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, a whining puppy to a
roaring lion. Shade of the mighty Davis, forgive the almost
profanation of that jocose satire!"
Conkling was a good hater, who neither forgave nor forgot.
He never spoke to Blaine afterward, nor recognized his exist-
ence. The "turkey-gobbler strut" and the "Hyperion curl"
stuck to him and became the staples of the cartoonists. Mutual
friends endeavored to bring about a meeting and reconcilia-
tion in the campaign of iS8"r, but in reply to the request that
he should make one speeeli for Blaine, who was tin Republican
candidate. Conkling replied, with diabolical sarcasm, that he
had given up criminal practice.
I'roude, in his "Life of Caesar," says that the quarrels of
political leaders hfl^e always eiver direction to thf ciirren*
of historv.
358 John James Ingalls. fy
Conkling's implacable hatred defeated the nomination of
Blaine in 1876, and his election in 1887. Indirectly it caused
the death of Garfield, and prevented the renomination of
Arthur, whom he described as "the prize ox in American
politics."
The chief actors in this stupendous drama have all crossed
the frontier of the dark kingdom. After life's fitful fever,
thev sleep well or ill ; but whether well or ill, they sleep. They
played mighty parts. They appealed to the passions of a ma-
jestic audience. The curtain has fallen; the lights are out;
the orchestra has gone ; and upon another stage we have the
continuous performance, vaudeville and marionettes.
II.
Lamar and Hoar.
Political passion in the United States culminated in the
Presidential campaign of 1876-77. The fatal blunders of
Reconstruction left the South like a pyramid poised on its
apex instead of its base. The unstable fabric, supported by
sword and bayonet, stood for a while, and, when these were
withdrawn, fell in a crash of blood and flame that came near
engulfing our whole system in the vortex of its own destruction.
The whites of the South, organizing into White Leagues
and Ku-Klux Klans, overthrew the State governments set up by
negro majorities and their Northern allies, and sent the civil
and military leaders of the Confederacy to the Senate and
House of Representatives.
The exasperation of the Republicans of the North was
intensified by the consciousness that they had "nursed the
Famous Feuds. 359
pinion that impelled the steel," and it seemed for a time as if
a renewal of civil strife were inevitable.
Collision between the partisans of Hayes and Tilden was
averted by the invention of the Electoral Commission, a con-
trivance supported by each party in the hope of cheating the
other, and which ended in defrauding both; but the rancor
and asperity of debate did not subside until the inauguration
of Garfield in the year 1881.
Prominent among the Southern Democrats in the Senate
was L. Q. C. Lamar, of Mississippi. He had been a member
of Congress before the war, and was an implacable Secessionist.
Though not a soldier, his relations with the Confederacy
were confidential and important. He apparently accepted
the consequences of the surrender, and attempted the perplex-
ing role of propitiating the North and retaining the confidence
of the South.
He pronounced a eulogy upon Charles Sumner, which
caused his fidelity to the lost cause to be suspected at home,
and therefore omitted no appropriate opportunity to reinstate
himself by asserting his constancy to his original conviction,
which he did faithfully.
He had the singular fortune to be appointed bv President
Cleveland a Justice of the .Supreme Court, without ever having
tried a reported cause in any tribunal, and without having
been admitted as an attorney to practice in the court of which
he became a member. His career was unique in American
politics.
Mr. Lamar was not what Mrs. Partington called a "fluid
speaker." His aspect was sombre and dejected. He usually
seemed sunken in reverie and abstraction. He was absent-
minded. He had no facility in off-hand, extemporaneous
360 John James Ingaixs.
debate. He was a dealer in oratorical shelf-goods. His venom
was not secreted, but distilled. He prepared his retorts in
advance, and waited for the occasion to use them. He employed
fixed ammunition. His speeches, which were infrequent, were
written out and committed to memory; but, having rich rhet-
oric and dramatic energy in delivery, he was an exceedingly
effective orator.
The Legislature of Mississippi censured and requested him
to resign on account of his position on financial questions. At
the next State convention, at Jackson, he made his defense,
and one of his colleagues told me that Lamar came to his room
in a hotel the preceding midnight for the benefit of his judg-
ment, and, standing before this single auditor, for two hours
rehearsed in a loud voice his entire address, tones, gestures, and
all, without once referring to his manuscript, exactly as he deliv-
ered it before the convention the following da}".
'On the first of .March, 1879, the bill granting sen-ice pen-
sions to the surviving veterans of the Mexican War was being
■ considered in the Senate.
It was opposed by many Republicans on the ground that
it would place on the roll ex -Confederate soldiers who had
fought in the war with Mexico.
Mr. Hoar, of Massachusetts, offered an amendment to the
bill in the following words: "Provided further, that no pen-
sion shall ever be paid under this act to Jefferson Davis, the
late President of the so-called Confederacy."
This precipitated a crisis. Every Southern senator arose
in his place, one after the other, and said in substance that
Jefferson Davis stood in the same position they stood in, and
Famous Feuds. 361
that every man in the South who believed in secession stood
in, and that if Jefferson Davis was a traitor, they were traitors.
Senator Garland, of Arkansas, in the course of his eulogium,
alluded to the courage which Jefferson Davis had exhibited on
Mexican battlefields, to which Mr. Hoar meekly responded:
'Two of the bravest officers in our Revolutionary War were
Aaron Burr and Benedict Arnold."
This was the red rag. Mr. Lamar, tremulous with indig-
nation, sprang to his feet, and said: "It is with supreme
reluctance that I rise to say a word on this subject. I must
confess my surprise and regret that the Senator from Massa-
chusetts should have wantonly, without provocation, flung this
insult."
Bang went the gavel. Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was
in the chair. He presided like a school -master. He said,
with severe emphasis: 'The Senator from Mississippi is out
of order. He cannot impute to any senator either wantonness
or insult."
Mr. Lamar stopped, looked inquiringly at the Chair, and
sneeringly said: "I stand corrected. I suppose it is in per-
fect order to insult certain other senators, but they cannot be
characterized by those who received the blow."
This made the breach worse, and the Chair, rising, (.ailed
Lamar to order, and directed him to take his seat until the
question of order was decided.
Mr. Lamar shortly arose again, and said: "The observa-
tions of the Senator from Mississippi, in his own opinion, are
not only in order, but perfectly and absolutely true," and
thereupon appeakd from the decision of the Chair.
The Chair submitted the- question to the Senate. Ili^ de-
cision was overruled; whereupon Mr. Edmunds said: "The
t,6j John James Ingalls.
judgment of the Chair is reversed. The Senate decides that
the words uttered by the Senator from Mississippi are in order,,
and the Senator from Mississippi will now proceed."
Mr. Lamar resumed, very slowly and deliberately, with no
apparent agitation, and said: "Now, Mr. President, having
been decided by my associates to have been in order in the
language I used, I desire to say that if it is at all offensive or
unacceptable to any member of this Senate, the language is
withdrawn ; for it is not my purpose to offend or stab the sen-
sibilities of anv of my associates on this floor. But what I
meant by that remark was this: Jefferson Davis stands in pre-
cisely the position that I stand in. that every Southern man
who believed in the right of a State to secede stands in."
Senator Hoar interrupted to explain that in making his
motion for the amendment oifered he had not thought that
anyone stood in the same position as Mr. Davis. "I should
not have moved," said he, "to except the gentleman from
Mississippi from the pension-roll."
Mr. Lamar replied by insisting that there was no difference.
He defended Jefferson Davis from the charge of treason which
had been urged in the debate, and said: "I say this as a
Union man this day. He [Mr. Hoar] intended to affix (I will
not say that he intended, but the inevitable effect of it was to
affix) upon this aged man, this man broken in fortune, suf-
fering from bereavement, an epithet of odium, an imputation
of moral turpitude. Sir, it required no courage to do that; it
required no magnanimity to do it; it required no courtesy.
It only required hate, bitter, malignant, sectional feeling, and
a sense of personal impunity. The gentleman, I believe, takes
rank among Christian statesmen. He might have learned a
better lesson from the pages of heathen mythology."
Famous Feuds. 363
Here he paused a moment and appeared to hesitate. He
leaned toward Senator Thurman, three seats away, and said,
sotto voce, but loud enough to be heard over half the chamber :
"What was the name of the man who was chained to the rock?',
"Prometheus," was the reply, in a stage whisper.
Of course the name was familiar, but this made it seem
like a sudden inspiration of genius.
He concluded : ' ' When Prometheus was bound to the rock,
it was not an eagle, it was a vulture, that buried his beak in
the tortured vitals of the victim."
During his eulogy and exculpation of Jefferson Davis the
Northern senators sat in silence; the boldness of the perform-
ance was paralvzing; such an emergency had not been an-
ticipated. No one was ready. The passionate and excited
spectators in the galleries wondered why no champion of the
North took up the glove.
Toward the close of the debate a note fluttered over the
balustrade of the northeast gallery, and, wavering in the hot
air, was caught in its descent by a page, who carried it to Sen-
ator Chandler, of .Michigan, to whom it was addressed. It was
writu-n on a leaf torn from a memorandum-book, without sig-
nature, and begging him in God's name to say something for
the Union soldiers and for the North.
Chandler was a giant in stature, a politician of the prac-
tical tvpe, with a jaw of granite and the fibre of a walrus. Ik-
was destitute of sentiment, and spent no time in reverie. He
wns chairman of the- Republican National Committee, and the
author of that celebrated dispatch, "Hayes has 185 votes, and
is elected." He was not an orator like Conkling or Lamar.
His weapon was the butcher's cleaver, and not the rapier.
364 John James Ingalls.
He was a rough-and-tumble fighter, who asked no odds and
feared no foe.
He read the anonymous note brought from the gallery.
The black fury of his eyes blazed from the pallor of his face.
At the first opportunity he obtained the floor, and delivered
a tremendous Philippic against Jefferson Davis. It was evi-
dently wholly unpremeditated, and therefore the more effective.
He said : ' ' Mr. President, twenty-two years ago to-morrow,
in the old hall of the Senate now occupied by the Supreme
Court of the United States, I, in company with Mr. Jefferson
Davis, stood up and swore before Almighty God that I would
support the Constitution of the United States. Mr. Jefferson
Davis came from the Cabinet of Franklin Pierce into the Sen-
ate of the United States, and took the oath with me to be
faithful to this Government. During four years I sat in this
body with Mr. Jefferson Davis and saw the preparations going
on from dav to day for the overthrow of this Government.
With treason in his heart and perjury upon his lips he took the
oath to sustain the Government that he meant to overthrow.
' ' Sir. there was method in that madness. He. in cooperation
with other men from his section and in the Cabinet of Mr.
Buchanan, made careful preparation for the event that was to
follow. Your armies were scattered all over this broad land,
where they could not be used in an emergency; your fleets
were scattered wherever the winds blew and water was found
to float them, where they could not be used to put down rebel-
lion; your treasury was depleted until your bonds bearing 6
per cent, principal and interest payable in coin, were offered
for 88 cents on the dollar for current expenses, and no buyers.
Preparations were carefully made. Your arms were sold un-
der an apparently innocent clause in an army bill providing
Famous Feuds. 365
that the Secretary of War might, at his discretion, sell such
arms as he deemed it for the interest of the Government to sell.
"Sir, eighteen years ago last month I sat in these halls and
listened to Jefferson Davis delivering his farewell address, in-
forming us what our constitutional duties to this Government
were, and then he left and entered into the rebellion to over-
throw the Government that he had sworn to support ! I re-
mained here, sir, during the whole of that terrible rebellion.
I saw our brave soldiers by thousands and hundreds of thou-
sands, aye, I might say millions, pass through to the theatre of
war, and I saw their shattered ranks return. I saw steamboat
after steamboat and railroad train after railroad train arrive with
the maimed and the wounded ; I was with my friend from Rhode
Island [General Burnside] when he commanded the Army of
the Potomac, and saw piles of legs and arms that made human-
ity shudder; I saw the widow and orphan in their homes, and
heard the weeping and wailing of those who had lost their dear-
est and their best. Mr. President, I little thought at that time
I should live to hear in the Senate of the United States eulogies
upon Jefferson Davis living — a living rebel eulogized on the floor
of the Senate of the tmited States ! Sir, I am amazed to hear
it, and I can tell the gentlemen on the other side that they lit-
tle know the spirit of the North when they come here at this
dav and with bravado on their lips utter eulogies upon a man
whom every man, woman, and child in the North believes to
be a double-dved traitor to his Government.''
THE STORMY DAYS OF THE ELECTORAL
COMMISSION.
The men who made the Constitution and built up our polit-
ical system, rhetorically known as the fathers, the framers, and
the founders of the Republic, had little confidence in what Lin-
coln called the plain, common people, and less faith in their
capacity for self-government.
They were aristocrats. They believed in the rule of the
best, and not the rule of the most.
They thought public affairs should be controlled by intelli-
gence, and not by numbers.
They wanted liberty regulated by laws enacted by the wise,
interpreted by the learned, and administered by the strong.
How far their distrust of universal suffrage as the foundation
of the State was justified is shown by the fact that while reluc-
tantly conceding to the popular vote the lower house of Con-
gress, which has been seldom tainted with impurity, they cre-
ated a Senate, to be chosen by Legislatures— a scheme so pro-
lific in venality, intrigue, bribery, and corruption that it has
become the scandal, the reproach, and the menace of repub-
lican institutions.
For the choice of a President and Vice-President they in-
vented a plan by which the people were to have nothing to do
with the selection of their Executive.
It was so ingeniously clumsy and cumbersome, so defective
in safeguards against the most obvious emergencies, so vague
366
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 367
in its definitions, so pregnant with dangers, that, even as im-
mediately modified by the twelfth article of amendment to the
Constitution, the marvel is that a catastrophe has been so
long postponed.
They provided for the appointment in each State, in such
manner as the Legislatures might direct, of electors, to assemble
on a stated day at their respective capitals, to ballot in secret
session, without consultation with their associates or the con-
stituency, for the persons best qualified in their judgment to
serve as Chief Magistrate of the Nation and as President of the
Senate for the next four years.
The result of their deliberations being signed in triplicate,
one certificate is sent by mail and one by messenger to the
President of the Senate, the third being retained against the
contingency of loss or destruction.
The second Tuesday in February these certificates are to
be opened by the President of the Senate in the presence of
the two houses of Congress, and "the votes shall then be
counted," but by whom they shall be counted the Constitu-
tion saith not. Whether the Vice-President and President of
the Senate is a clerk, a custodian, or an umpire is unknown.
Whether the joint convention of the two houses, in whose pres-
ence the President of the Senate opens the certificates — and
"the votes shall then be counted" —is an impotent pageant, or
the political tribunal of the Nation, has never been determined.
Whether the houses separately and the individual senators
and representatives are curious spectators, or jurors, or judges,
is an enigma, as it has been for a hundred years.
First bv the Congressional Caucus, and then by the National
Nominating Convention, the people soon assumed the power
of selecting the candidates for whom the Electoral Colleges
368 john James Ingaixs.
should vote, but ,the antiquated, bungling, obsolete machinery
remains. Theoretically, the electors can vote for any persons
thev please for President and Vice-President. In 1897 every
Bryan elector had the Constitutional right to vote for McKin-
lev; every McKinley elector had the same right to vote for
Brvan; all had the right to vote for Mr. Clark, of Montana,
or Mr. Addicks, of Delaware — in either of which events the cer-
tificates would be opened by the President of the Senate, and
"the votes shall then be counted." There is no restraint but
lovaltv and the decrees of public opinion.
Chancellor Kent, in his commentaries, says the President of
the Senate counts the votes and determines the result. It is
certain that the first electoral votes were opened and counted,
and George Washington was declared elected by John Lang-
don, a senator from the State of New Hampshire, who was
chosen by the Senate as its President, for that sole purpose,
before the Government was organized.
It is equally certain that had the President of the Senate'
in February, 1877, opened the certificates, counted the votes,
and declared Hayes and Wheeler elected President and Vice-
President, by including the returns from Florida, Louisiana,
South Carolina, and Oregon among the others which were
not disputed, the House of Representatives, being Democratic,
would have at once proceeded to elect Tilden and Hendricks,
voting by States. The result would have been two Presidents,
each supported by his own party, each claiming title under
the Constitution, a double inauguration, the Senate and House
arrayed against each other, with the probability of armed col-
lision, anarchv, and civil war. The election of 1876 was the
subsiding ground-swell of the war.
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 369
After the surrender, the South submitted for a while to
emancipation, negro suffrage, civil rights enactments, and the
other crude enormities of Reconstruction; but, organizing at
length in White Leagues and Ku-Klux Klans, overturned the
unstable governments which the ignorance of the former slaves
and the cupidity of political adventurers had reared upon the
ruins of war. Wealth, intelligence, and education were dis-
franchised. The social fabric, like a pyramid resting on its
apex instead of its base, stood so long as it was supported by
bayonets, and, when these were withdrawn, fell with a crash
in blood and crime that startled the world with the horrors of
its destruction. The North, shocked and appalled by wrongs
and outrages which laws 'were unable either to prevent or
to punish, and exasperated by the bewildering failure of the
policy of Reconstruction either to protect the negro in his
rights or to perpetuate his political power, saw with resent-
ment State after State falling into Democratic control under
the supremacy of the civil and militarv leaders of the Confed-
eracy. Of the eleven seceding States, all save three — Florida,
South Carolina, and Louisiana — were lost to the Republicans.
These the Democrats hoped to carry for Tilden ; or, failing in
this, so to corrupt the returns that their electoral votes could
nut be received and counted.
The passions of the combatants were thus aroused to the
pitch of frenzy. For the first time in sixteen years the Demo-
crats felt the possibility of resuming national power. The
Republicans inflamed the Northern States by presenting the
dangers of the "Solid South,'' insisting that the purpose was to
obtain payment for losses in the war. for the assumption of
the Confederate debt, with compensation for the emancipated
sla\a-
3JO John James Ixgalls.
These charges made such an impression and were urged
with such persistent vehemence that Mr. Hewitt, of New
York, in an open letter called them to the attention of Mr.
Tilden, who said, in his published reply, that should he be
elected President, he should deem it his duty to veto every bill
for the assumption or payment of any such debts, losses, dam-
ages, 01 claims, which gave Republican orators precisely the
opportunity they desired, and was like an effort to put out a
fire by pouring on kerosene.
Neither of the Presidential candidates inspired any personal
enthusiasm among his followers.
Hayes was hopelessly prosaic and commonplace. He had
been a reputable soldier, and was by profession a lawyer. He
was the. "dark horse" of the Cincinnati convention, rendered
available because in a desperate emergency he had been chos-
en Governor of Ohio. He had no vices, and the customary
sort of rather tiresome and uninteresting virtues. His enemies
accused him of sanctimony and hypocrisy, and of sometimes
forgetting his promises; but all good men have been slandered
bv their contemporaries.
Tilden was a cadaverous, tallow-faced attorney, in feeble
health, who, having raked together an immense fortune, natu-
rally became a reformer in politics, and was elected Governor
of New York. His methods were those of the mole, except
that he left no external indications of the silent and tortuous
windings of his subterranean pathway. He took persona?
management of his campaign with a few confidential clerks,
and was accused of attempting to purchase the vote necessary
to secure a majority of one in the Electoral College. The
election took place November 7, and by midnight the general
impression was that Tilden had been successful. He had
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 37 l
carried Connecticut, New York, Indiana, and all the Southern
States except Florida, South Carolina, and Louisiana, and in
those the result was uncertain, though early reports favored
the Democrats. The next day the Republicans, many of them,
practically gave up the fight and conceded the election of Til-
den. The Republicans had the State officers and the return-
ing boards in the disputed States, hut they were mysteriously
silent. The fortunes of Hayes seemed gloomy, dark, and des-
perate indeed.
Toward nightfall "Old &ack " Chandler, the chairman of
the National Republican Committee, sent out through the
Associated Press, with no preface, nor arithmetic, nor index,
his celebrated dispatch: "Haves and Wheeler have 185 votes,
and are elected."
The Democrats went into hysterics", and the Republicans
recovered their equanimity.
What actually occurred in Florida, Louisiana, and South
Carolina the day of tin- election, and afterward, and who re illy
received a majority of the votes cast, will never be known ; but
the Haws electors were certified by the returning boards in
due time, and the certificates forwarded to the President of
the Senate. Duplicate certificates from each State wen- also
sent in, showing the choice of Democratic electors and their
votes for Tilden and Hendricks.
The interval till tin- meeting of Congress in December was
full of apprehension. The Democrats were violent in their de-
nunciations, and threatened to have an army of occupation
in Washington to superintend the counting of the electoral
votes in February.
Grant was President. When asked if he thoughl there
would be any trouble, he replied: "No, I think not; but it
372 John James Ixgalls.
has been one rule of my life to be always ready." Troops
began to gather in the forts along the Potomac. Batteries of
artillery came in from the West by rail and rumbled through
the streets at night on their way to the Arsenal and the Navy
Yard. Groups of soldiers in bright new uniforms, but without
arms, strolled to and fro on the Avenue— whether on duty or
on furlough no one appeared to know. Possibly Grant was
getting readv to have his successor, Hayes or Tilden, peaceably
inaugurated and installed.
Recognizing the extreme gravity of the crisis, the brevity
of the time, the infirmity of the Constitution, and the tremen-
dous dangers that threatened the peace, and possibly the ex-
istence, of the Xation, soon after Congress assembled, a joint
committee, consisting of seven members from each house.
was appointed to prepare a bill to provide for and regulate
the counting of the votes for President and Vice- President,
and the decision of questions arising thereunder, for the term
beginning March 4, 1 S 7 7 .
The Senate was Republican, and appointed Edmunds, Fre-
linghuvsen, Morton, Conkling, Tlnirman, Bayard, and Ransom.
The House was Democratic, and appointed Payne, of Ohio;
Hunton, of Virginia; Hewitt, of New York; Springer, of Illi-
nois; MeCrarv, of Iowa; Hoar, of Massachusetts; and Willard.
of Michigan: in the aggregate, seven Republicans and seven
Democrats.
They brought to their delicate and difficult task exalted
patriotism, matured experience, and the highest intellectual
powers. Edmunds, in his opening speech, said the dispute
with which they were to deal was probably as great as ever
existed in the world under the law. This statement was
not sensational. Wars have been waged, kings beheaded, and
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 573
dynasties overthrown in controversies far less momentous
and complicated than that which now confronted the Ameri-
can people. The legal questions involved were novel. There
wire no precedents. A contingency had risen for the first
time in the history of the Nation, and is liable to rise again,
for which the Constitution and the laws were, and still arc,
inadequate.
But, untried and intricate as was the legal problem, this
was trilling compared with the political predicament.
The committee was not only to devise an unconstitutional
measure that should be strictlv within constitutional limita-
tions (which would not be hard, for that instrument is elas-
tic and hospitable), but to invent a tribunal composed of
partisans that should be non-partisan in operation; propitiate
the implacables; preserve the prerogatives of the Senate, ami
maintain tin- conflicting pretensions of the House; secure the
cooperation of those who contended that there was power to
"go behind the returns," and those who asserted that the only
question to be decided was which certificate was actually given
by the authorities of the State; and, most important of all,
obtain the cordial support of both parties by holding out to
each the hope of cheating the other.
The committee deliberated a month, and on January [8th
Senator Edmunds reported what is popularly known as the
Electoral Commission Bill, Senator Morton being the only dis-
senter. As a specimen of political funambulism, it will take
rank among the highest achievements of the human mind.
It provided, in substance, for the meeting of tin- two houses
and the course of procedure; for the disposition of questions
arising in respect t<> States from which but one- sel of certifi-
cates had been received; for the' reference of questions arising
374 John Jambs Ingalls.
in respect to States from which more than one certificate had
been received, to a Commission consisting of five senators,
five representatives, and five justices of the Supreme Court,
the decision of majority to be final, unless rejected by con-
current votes of both Houses, in which event their order should
prevail; and for the reservation of all legal and constitutional
rights, if any, to test the questions of title in the courts.
Four of the Supreme Court justices were designated in the
bill— those assigned to the First, Third, Eighth, and Ninth
Circuits ; thev to select the fifth in such manner as they might
decide.
Edmunds, in commenting on this clause, declared with
some grandiloquence that the choice of the four justices was
geographical — one from New England, one from New York,
one from the Northwest, and one from the Pacific.
Morton sneeringly replied that they were selected on ac-
count of their known previous political predilections, and that
the reason why the Democrats favored the bill was because
they expected it would elect Tilden.
Curiously enough, it did turn out that two of the justices,
Clifford and Field, were Democrats, and two, Miller and Strong,
Republicans; but probably Edmunds was not aware of this.
At least, he did not mention it in his speech. So far, then, the
Commission was equally divided in politics — seven Republi-
cans, seven Democrats, with the fifteenth member in abeyance;
the unknown arbiter, the domesman of the Electoral College.
The justices, being two and two, could not well ballot, and
were too digniiird to pull straws. It became to be under-
stood that seniority of service would control, and their choice
would fall on Justice David Davis, who was known to favor
Tilden, so this non-partisan Commission would consist of eight
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 375
Democrats and seven Republicans. They joy of the Democ-
racy was uncontined. They considered the bill the supreme
effort of human wisdom, for whose praise every place was a
temple and all seasons summer.
The Republicans said little. They were taciturn and re-
served. What they thought was never disclosed. But what
happened was this : The term of General John A. Logan as
senator from Illinois was about to expire. He was an active
candidate for re-election. The Legislature was so nearly a tie
between the Republicans and Democrats that five "independ-
ents " held the balance of power. They supported Judge Davis,
and, after several days of futile and barren balloting, the Dem-
ocrats united with them and elected him as Logan's successor.
Whereupon the Judge resigned from the Supreme bench to
take his seat in the Senate March 4, 1877.
The next ranking justice was Joseph P. Bradley, a Repub-
lican, and favorable to the election of Hayes. ^Thus, by an
incredible caprice of Fortune, a gamester's chance, Fate, shuf-
fling the cards, dealt the last trump to the Republicans, and
the Commission stood eight to seven for Hayes.
Like the gentleman in Bret Harte's poem who was struck
in the abdomen by a red-sandstone specimen and doubled up
on the floor, the subsequent proceedings interested the Demo-
crats no more. They denounced the bill as the climax of vil-
lainy, and its authors as the supreme malefactors of history.
Perhaps their emotions were best described by Judge Jeremiah
Black, one of the counsel in the South Carolina case, who said
in a speech to the Commission, apropos of nothing: "This
Nation has got her great big foot in a trap. It is vain to strug-
gle for her extrication. * * * *
376 John James Ingalls.
"Usually it is said, 'In vain the net is spread in the sight of
any bird,' but this fowler set the net in the sight of the birds
that went into it. It is largely our own fault that we were
caught. * * * * At present you have us down and
under your feet. Never had you a better right to rejoice.
Well may you sav: 'We have made a covenant with death,
and with hell are we at agreement.' "
The bill passed the Senate 47 to 17 and the House 191 to 86r
exactly as it came from the committee. It was approved by
President Grant, January 29th, with a special message, in which
he characterized the measure as one that afforded "wise and
constitutional means of escape from imminent peril to the
institutions of the country."
January 30th the Senate chose Edmunds, Morton, Freling-
huysen, Thurman, and Bayard, and the House, Payne, Hunton,
Abbott, Hoar, and Garfield, as the Congressional members of
the Commission. The same day the four associate justices of
the Supreme Court selected Justice Bradley as the fifth mem-
ber, and the tribunal was complete.
They assembled January 31st, at 11 a. m., in the Supreme
Court room at the Capitol, organized, appointed their staff,
adopted rules, and, shortly before noon, February 1st, notified
the Senate and House that they were ready to proceed to the
performance of their duties.
The President pro tempore appointed Mr. Allison, of Iowa,
and Mr. Ingalls, of Kansas, tellers on the part of the Senate;
and vSpeaker Randall appointed Mr. Cook, of Georgia, and Mr.
Stone, of Missouri, tellers on the part of the House.
On motion of Mr. Edmunds, at one o'clock the Senate
huddled in careless, disorderly array out of its chamber, and
marched by twos in straggling procession through the Rotunda,
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission.
->/
between ranks of curious and silent spectators, halting for an
instant at the door of the Hall of Representatives.
At the head of the column was the President pro ton.,
escorted by the Sergeant-at-Arms, and followed by the vener-
able assistant doorkeeper, Isaac Bassett, carrying the electoral
certificates in two square black-walnut boxes with brass han-
dles on the covers, like a commercial traveler with his sample-
cases going into the office of the leading hotel. One box con-
tained the certificates sent by messenger, the other, those sent
by mail; about half a bushel of each.
The House arose to receive the Senate, which took seats in
the bodv of the hall upon the right of the presiding officer.
The Speaker vacated the chair, which was taken by President
Ferry. Randall, imperturbable and impassive, sat at his left.
The Secretary of the Senate, the Clerk of the House, and the
tellers sat at the Clerk's desk, the stenographers and other
officials having tables in front and on either side of the plat-
form. The galleries were packed. The silence was profound
— an expectant hush, as when the curtain rises for the pro-
logue at the first presentation of a great drama.
The President of the Senate called the joint meeting to
order, announced its object, and, with a new, sharp, long knife,
the Sergeant-at-Arms had provided, proceeded to slit the en-
velope containing the certificate of the State of Alabama re-
ceived by messenger, which he handed to Senator Allison.
who read it in full, giving ten votes to Tilden and Hendricks.
Then he opened the envelope received by mail from the same
State and handed it down to be read, when Senator Conkling
somewhat impatiently suggested that it could hardly be nee
essary to read the duplicate in full, and that hereafter as one
was read the other should be compared.
378 John James Ingalls.
The certificates were opened in alphabetical order, Ala-
bama being followed by Arkansas, California, Colorado, and
Delaware, to none of which were objections made, and the
reading droned monotonously along till half-past two, when
Florida was reached, the first of the disputed States from
which triplicate returns had been received: one, from the
Republican Governor and Secretary of State, certifying the
choice of the Hayes electors; the second, from the Attorney-
General, certifying that the returns showed the election of the
Tilden electors; the third, by the Democratic Governor and
Secretary of State chosen at the general election, certifying to
proceedings under an act of the Legislature and the judgment
of a State court in favor of the Tilden electors. An objection
was also filed that one of the Hayes electors at the time of his
appointment held an office of trust and profit under the United
States, and was therefore ineligible.
All the papers, exhibits, and certificates, with the objections
signed by senators and representatives, were immediately
transmitted to the Commission, which was in session, and the
Senate withdrew' to its chamber to wait for the decision, which
was not reached till late in the evening of February 9th.
The sessions of the Commission were held in the vaulted
hall which the Senate left for its new chamber January 4, 1859;
the historic room where Webster hurled the thunderbolts of
his logic and eloquence at Hayne, and which resounded to the
oratorical duels between Calhoun and Clay.
In one of the upper corridors hangs a painting by Mrs.
Fassett, perhaps of greater historic interest than artistic value,
representing Mr. Evarts addressing the tribunal before an audi-
ence that fills the room. The portraits include many of the
most eminent personages, at the bar and in public life, of an
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 379
epoch made illustrious by their achievements in oratory and
statesmanship.
The wisdom of having a strictly political capital, abso-
lutely under the control of the Government, away from busi-
ness, commercial, and industrial centers, was never more
clearlv demonstrated than during the pendency of these trans-
actions. The revolutions, emeutes, and coups d'etat of Prance
are due, more than to any other cause, to the location of the
executive and legislative departments in Paris, surrounded by
idle and frenzied mobs that invade and threaten and disturb,
destroying independence and rendering tranquil deliberation
and dispassionate judgment impossible.
Had Congress and the Commission sat in Baltimore or
New York, that month of national jeopardy, among raging
multitude? of infuriated partisans with their parades and mass-
meetings, and the demonstrations of demagogues, no prophet
could have foretold what the end would be.
Even in Washington, so somnolent and obsequious, where
public opinion is subdued to what it works in, like the dyer's
hand, it looked squally enough at times* especially toward
the close. Probably Watterson's call for a hundred thousand
"one-armed Kentuckians," as the wags travestied it, to super-
intend the electoral count, was the rhapsody of an automatic
rhetorician, but the town swarmed with disreputable and un-
bidden guests, who haunted the Capitol, lounged in the lob-
bies, sauntered through the grounds, and crowded the galleries
of the House at every joint session. The police were rein
forced. Detectives in plain clothes and heavily armed were
stationed among the spectators. A vague terror brooded in
the air — the apprehension of an impending tragedy.
380 John James Ixgalls.
As an illustration, rather amusing now, of the trepidations
of the time, word came to Ferry one morning, either by anony-
mous letter or through the report of a detective, that as the
Senate passed through the Rotunda at noon on its way to the
House, a gang of ruffians were to assault the head of the con-
secrated column and in the confusion take the boxes contain-
ing the certificates from Captain Bassett, carry them off. and
destroy the returns not counted. It seemed feasible enough,
and, if successful, would have prematurely closed the functions
of the Commission and given the House the opportunity, cov-
eted by the implacables, of electing Tilden President, voting
by States as the Constitution provides when there is no choice
by the electors.
The hour of meeting was near at hand. The time for delib-
eration was short. Ferrv, who was naturally somewhat of an
alarmist, held a hurried consultation with his staff, and it was
finally decided to empty the boxes secretly and take the returns
over as personal assets. To Bassett this seemed little short
of sacrilege, like rifling the Ark of the covenant. It was con-
trary to the prece'dents of half a century. But Ferry decided
that it was an emergency, and, as what is past help should be
past grief, the boxes were unlocked and the returns stowed
away in the breast pockets and side pockets and coat-tail pock
ets of the tellers and other officials, and Bassett marched witli
his empty packing-cases at the head of the procession.
Of course nothing happened. There was no assault. 1 im-
agine none was contemplated. Some joker, no doubt, played
on Ferry's credulitv. The boxes were placed under the Clerk's
desk in the House, the returns collected from their extempo-
raneous receptacles and returned to proper custody, and the
incident was closed.
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 381
The array of counsel lias not in any forum been surpassed
in learning and eloquence. Prominent among them were Jere-
miah S. Black, Secretary of State and Attorney-General under
Buchanan; Montgomery Blair. Lincoln's Postmaster-General;
Matthew Carpenter, previously and afterwards senator from
Wisconsin; William M. Evarts, Attorney-General in the Cab-
inet of Andrew Johnson, and afterward Secretary of State
under Haves; George Hoadley, at one time Governor of Ohio;
Stanlev Matthews, senator from Ohio and justice of the Su-
preme Court; Charles O 'Conor, perhaps the leader of the New
York bar; Samuel Shellabarger. member of Congress from
Ohio during the war; Lyman Trumbull, eighteen years sen-
ator from Illinois; and William C. Whitney, afterwards Cleve-
land's Secretary of the Navy. Others scarcely less eminent
pleaded briefs, and several senators and members of Con-
gress participated in the arguments.
Stripped of all superfluities, subtleties, and technicalities,
the Republican contention was that the returns of the electoral
votes, duly certified by the State authorities, were final and
conclusive, and that neither Congress nor the Commission
could receive evidence from any outside source, either that
the electors were not chosen, or that others were, or that there
had been fraud, forgery, violence, or other irregularities, either
in the election, the canvassing board, or any proceedings sub-
sequent thereto.
The Democrats insisted upon the rightitoJgoM)ehind the
returns and prove that the Tilden.gand not the Hayes, electors
were chosen by the people, and that the certificates were forged
and fraudulent.
Whether Tilden or Haws had the majority in Florida,
Louisiana, or South Carolina is not capable of proof. It is
382 John James Ingalls.
doubtful if there has been an absolutely square and honest
Presidential election since the time of George Washington.
It is not likelv there ever will be. There will always be buy-
ing and selling and juggling and cheating, not sufficient in
all cases, it may be, to change the result. Clay's supporters
alwavs believed he was defeated by frauds in Louisiana in
1844. So, although the Electoral Commission was packed for
Hayes, by destiny, and the result was as well known when
they took the oath of office as when they adjourned sine die.
yet the doctrine was sound.
After the first test vote, I remember Morton came hobbling
into the chamber on his canes and took his seat, which was
just behind mine. I asked him how the Commission stood.
"Oh!" he replied, with a grimace of savage satisfaction,
"eight to seven, of course. That settles it."
Though the Commission voted "eight to seven" in favor
of the Hayes electors from Florida at its evening session,
Friday, February 9, it was not till the joint meeting of Mon-
day, the 1 2th, that the vote of the State was counted, after
which the returns from Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kan-
sas, and Kentucky were opened without objection. The cer-
tificate from Louisiana was challenged, and the duplicates,
with the objections from both sides, were read and presented
at five o'clock P. m. to the Commission by Mr. Gorham, the
Secretary of the Senate. They were counted eight days later,
February 20th, with Maine, Marx land, and Massachusetts. Ob-
jection was filed to one of the electors of Michigan the same
day, but not sustained by either house, and that State was
counted with Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, and Nebraska.
An objection to the eligibility of one of the electors from
Nevada was overruled by both houses, and the next day,
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 383
February 21st, the full vote of Nevada was polled, followed by
New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, and
Ohio. When the certificate from Oregon was opened, objec-
tions were presented to the eligibility of one of the electors,
and the papers were sent to the Commission, which heard argu-
ments till February 24th. when, the decision being in favor of the
Haves electors, the full vote of the State was counted for Haves.
Thereupon objections were immediately made to a Pennsyl-
vania elector, and both houses adjourned over till Monday,
February 26th. At this time Senator Thurman resigned from
the Commission on account of ill health, and Senator Kernan,
of New York, was chosen to fill the vacancy.
Monday afternoon Pennsylvania was counted, and an ob-
jection then filed to a Rhode Island elector, which was so
transparent ly frivolous that it was rejected in both houses —
whereupon the Democrats filibustered from 3:30 till 6, when
Rhode Island was put in the Hayes list. This brought the
poll to South Carolina, which was a storm-centre, and the
duplicate returns and other papers at 6:30 P. m. went to the
Commission, which then adjourned till the next day at ten.
There were now but five days till the end of Grant's term.
South Carolina was counted the evening of February 28th,
followed by Tennessee and Texas, and, on objection to the
eligibilitv of an elector from Vermont, both houses took a
recess till 10 \. m., Thursday, March 1st.
As the end drew nearer the mutineers in the House of
Representatives became rabid with rage. They defied the
efforts of the presiding officer to preserve order. They inter-
posed dilatory motions, and became violent in their efforts to
delav the final count beyond the fourth of March.
384 John James Ixgalls.
Thursday, .March 1st, was spent from ten in the morning
till nearly midnight by the House in a parliamentary wrangle
over an objection to the eligibility of the elector from Ver-
mont, which the Senate had overruled the night before.
The joint meeting resumed its sessions at eleven o'clock
at night, and the vote of Vermont was counted, followed by
Virginia and West Virginia, which were not disputed. This
left only Wisconsin, and it was supposed the dreary, wretched
conflict was ended; but as soon as the certificate was opened,
an objection was presented. The Senate returned to its cham-
ber, and waited three hours for the House to decide that it
should not.
At four o'clock, Friday morning, March 2nd, the Senate
shambled over to the House. The vote of Wisconsin was an-
nounced; the count of the thirty-eight States was concluded.
Teller Allison read the tally sheet, and handed it up to Sen-
tor Ferry, who said: "In announcing the final result of the
electoral vote, the Chair trusts that all present, whether on the
floor or in the galleries, will refrain from all demonstrations
whatever; that nothing shall transpire 011 this occasion to
mar the dignity and moderation which have characterized
these proceedings, in the main so reputable to the American
people and worthy of the respect of the world." He then
read the state of the vote, and declared Hayes and Wheeler
elected Presidenl and Vice President for lour years from March
4, 1877.
The finale of the drama was neither dignified, impressive,
nor inspiring. The light from the paneled ceiling fell though
an atmosphere dim and murky with dust and smoke. The
actors and the spectators were drowsy, frowsy, and dishev-
Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission. 385
eled. The hall was in squalid confusion and disorder, foul
with the debris of a protracted session.
That no incongruity might be wanting, souk- enthusiast
had sent Ferry, for signing the final tranuscript, the tail-feather
of an eagle from Lake Superior. This he had made into a
quill pen, whose plume reached his shoulder as he was affix-
ing his signature to the scroll.
At ten minutes past four the gavel fell, the lights were
turned out, and the curtain went down. There was but one
daY till the end of Grant's term!
The graY light of a bleak and bitter dawn was just visible
on the great dome as I rode homeward through the silent and
deserted streets of the sleeping city.
THE MOUNTAINS.
What an immortal fascination there is about mountains !
Their solemnity, their silence, the grandeur of their outlines,
the unspeakable glory of their lofty crags and "snowy sum-
mits old in story," and their splendid inutility!
When vou look upon the vague and troubled immensity
of the ocean, you think of commerce and codfish and whales.
When you contemplate the grassy waste of prairies, expanding
to the skies, you think of wheat and corn and pigs and steers.
But Pike's Peak and Sierra Blanca and Trenchery and Culebra
and the Tetons are good for nothing except adoration and
worship. Man does not profane their solitudes where the un-
heard voices of the winds in the forests, of waters falling in the
abyss, and the eagle's cry have no audience nor anniversary.
3S5
THE SEA.
The ancients had a saying that those who cross the sea
change their sky, but not their mind, — "Qui trans mare cur-
rent caelum ncn animam mutant." Xo man can escape from
himself. The companionship is inseparable.
But there is something more than change of locality in the
isolation of a long ocean voyage. When the last dim headland
disappears, and the continent vanishes in the deep, the separa-
tion from the human race is complete. All the accustomed
incidents and habits of daily life are suspended, and those who
are assembled in that casual society might be the solitary sur-
vivors of mankind.
Wars and catastrophes and bereavements may shock the
world, but here they are unheard and unknown. Suns rise
and set and rise again, but the great ship makes no apparent
progress. She remains the centre of an unchanging circumfer-
ence. The vast and sombre monotony is unbroken. Above
is the infinite abyss of the sky with its clouds and stars.% Be-
neath is the infinite abyss of the sea with its winds and waves.
Sometimes the faint phantom of a sail appears above the vague
fluctuating horizon and silently fades away, or a stain of smoke
against the distant mist discloses the pathway of some remote
and unknown tenant of the solitude.
The moods of the sea are endless, but it has no compassion.
It glitters in the sun, but its smile is cruel and relentless. It is
3«:
388 John James Ingaixs.
eager to devour. Its forces are destructive. Each instant
is fraught with peril. Its agitation is incessant, and it lies in
wait to engulf and destroy. Resisting every effort to subdue
its obstacles, when its baffled billows are cleft, they gather in
the ghastlv wake, and rage at their discomfiture.
In the presence of this implacable enemy, whose smiles be-
tray, whose voice is an imprecation, whose embrace is death,
meditation becomes habitual and the mind changes like the
sky.
IDYL.
(Written upon a visit to the old home upon the river bluff in Atchison.)
Was it on this planet we lived alone, and loved in youth's
enchanted kingdom amid the forests and by the great lonely
river, looking with mingled gaze at the eastern bluffs purpled
by the autumnal sunset, or at the face of the moon climbing
with sad steps the midnight sky; or was it on some remote star
in some other life, recalled with rapture and longing unutterable
and unavailing?
"Oh, death in life; the days that are no more! "
The crumbling excavation scarce discernible among the
vines and weeds and brambles, deserted and inaccessible,
ancient as Palmyra or Persepolis in seeming — was this the
theatre whereon was enacted the intoxicating drama, the
sweet tragedy of human passion, grief, joy, and endless sepa-
ration? Since then, what devious wanderings of the soul,
what darkened vistas, what trepidation, what struggle and
solace, what achievements and defeat — what splendor and
what gloom ! The river flows, and the landscape is unchanged.
Nature mocks with her permanence the mutability of man;
and the steadfast presence recalling life's vanished glory and
bloom and dew of morning — how worthless and empty appear
all that time gives, compared with what it takes away! How
gladlv would we exchange the prizes of ambition and fame
and wealth for the splendid consecration of youth and—
"Wild with all regret — the days that are no more."
3S9
EPIGRAMS.
The burdens that afflict society are voluntary.
Ideas are more profitable than hogs or beeves.
The poor man's chance depends upon what the poor man
has to sell.
Trusts and labor unions are inseparable evils. They are
twin relics of barbarism.
The conscience of nations has been disturbed by the injus-
tice of modern society.
As nations advance in intelligence and morals, gods are
dethroned, codes modified, and creeds abandoned.
A trust is a thing that knows no politics but plunder and
no principles except spoliation of the human race.
Socialism is the final refuge of those who have failed in
the struggle for life. It is the prescription of those who were
born tired.
The real difference in men is not want of opportunity, but
in want of capacity to discern opportunity and power to take
advantage of opportunity.
390
Epigrams. 39 1
The man who is unhappy when he is poor would be un-
happy if he were rich. A beggar may be happier in his rags
than a king in his purple. Happiness is an endowment, and
not an acquisition.
Inasmuch as both force and matter are infinite and inde-
structible, and can be neither added to nor subtracted from,
it follows that in some form we have always existed, and that
we shall continue in some form to exist forever.
Whether in the battle to-morrow I shall survive or not,
let it be said of me, that to the oppressed of every clime ; to
the Irishman suffering from the brutal acts of Great Britain,
or to the slave in the bayou of the South, I have at all times
and places been their advocate ; and to the soldier, his widow
and orphans, I have been their protector and friend.
The catfish aristocracy is pre-eminently the saloon-builder.
Past generations and perished races of men have defied ob-
livion by the enduring structures which pride, sorrow, and
religion have reared to perpetuate the virtues of the living
or the memories of the dead. Ghizeh has its pyramids; Petra
its temples ; the Middle Ages their cathedrals ; Central America
its ruins; but Pike and Posey have their saloons, where the
patrician of the bottoms assembles with his peers. Gathered
round a dusty stove choked with soggy driftwood, he drinks
sod corn from a tin cup, plays "old sledge " upon the head of an
empty keg, and reels home at nightfall, yelling through the
timber, to hissqualid cabin.
There was a profound truth in the declaration of Voltaire
that if there were no god, it would be necessary to invent
392 John James Ingalls.
-one. This was flippant and irreverent, perhaps, but true. God
is indispensable. Man perceives this, and the higher his de-
velopment the more distinct is his perception. The popular*
itv of Ingersoll and his school is not an indication of infidel-
ity, but is rather the strongest evidence of the religious spirit
of the times, its receptivity, its eagerness for instruction, its
hunger and its thirst for knowledge about what can never be
known. No age has ever been so profoundly moved by the
consideration of the problems of the hereafter as this, and I
have no doubt that in response to the search for eternal truth
another Christ will come and another revelation be made.
In the democracy of the dead all men at last are equal. x
There is neither rank nor station nor prerogative in the repub-
lic of the grave. At this vital threshold the philosopher ceases
to be wise, and the song of the poet is silent. Dives casts off
iis purple, and Lazarus his rags ; the poor man is rich as the
richest, and the rich man as poor as the pauper. The creditor
: loses his usury, and the debtor is acquitted of his obligation.
There the proud man surrenders his dignities, the politician
his honors, the worldling his pleasures; the invalid needs no
physician, and the laborer rests from his unrequited toil.
Here at last is Nature's final decree in equity. The wrongs
■ of time are redressed, injustice is expiated, the irony of fate is
refuted, the unequal distribution of wealth, honor, capacity,
■pleasure, and opportunity, which makes life so cruel and inex-
plicable a tragedy, ceases in the realm of death. The strongest
there has no supremacy, and the weakest needs no defense.
The mighty captain succumbs to the invincible adversary
who disarms alike the victor and the vanquished.
Epigrams. $93
The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. Gov-
ernment is force. Politics is a battle for supremacy. Par-
ties are the armies. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have
no place in a political campaign. The object is success. To
defeat the antagonist and expel the party in power is the
purpose. The Republicans and Democrats are as irreconcil-
ably opposed to each other as were Grant and Lee in the
Wilderness. They use ballots instead of guns, but the strug-
gle is as unrelenting and desperate and the result sought for
the same. In war it is lawful to deceive the adversary, to
hire Hessians, to purchase mercenaries, to mutilate, to destroy.
The commander who lost the battle through the activity of
his moral nature would be the derision and jest of history.
This modern cant about the corruption of politics is fatiguing
in the extreme. It proceeds from tea-custard and syllabub
dilettanteism and frivolous sentimentalism.
Lying in the sunshine among the buttercups and the dan-
elions of May, scarcely higher in intelligence than the mi-
nute tenants of that mimic wilderness, our earliest recollec-
tions are of grass; and when the fitful fever is ended, and
the foolish wrangle of the market and forum is closed, grass
heals over the scar which our descent into the bosom of the
earth has made, and the carpet of the infant becomes the
blanket of the dead. Grass is the forgiveness of 'Nature — her
constant benediction. Fields trampled with battle, saturated
with blood, torn with the ruts of cannon, grow green again
with grass, and carnage is forgotten. Streets abandoned by
traffic become grass-grown like rural lanes and are obliterated.
Forests decay, harvests perish, flowers vanish, but grass is im-
mortal. Beleaguered by the sullen hosts of winter, it with-
394 John James Ingalls.
draws into the impregnable fortress of its subterranean vitality,
and emerges upon the first solicitation of spring. Sown by
the winds, by the wandering birds, propagated by the subtle
agriculture of the elements which are its ministers and servants,
it softens the rude outline of the world. It bears no blazonry
of bloom to charm the senses with fragrance or splendor, but
its homelv hue is more enchanting than the lily or the rose.
It yields no fruit in earth or air, and yet, should its harvest fail
for a single year, famine would depopulate the world.
GARFIELD: THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE.
The Springs of His Success.
In his remarkable treatise upon the influence of "Ameri-
can Institutions," M. de Tocqueville observes that the natural
propensity of democracies is to reject the most eminent citi-
zens as rulers ; not from hatred of superiority, nor fear of dis-
tinguished talents, but because the passion for equality de-
mands the award of approbation to those alone who have risen
by popular support.
This was written nearly three-quarters of a century ago,
and the tendency, so perceptible to the philosopher then, has
increased with accelerating force, till what seemed a vague but
ingenious generalization is now recognized as one of the laws
of our political system.
George Washington, the first President of the Republic, was
by birth and habit an aristocrat. He lived like a nobleman,
upon a great inherited estate, in haughty and dignified seclu-
sion, master of slaves, and possessor of the largest private for-
tune in the United States. His journeys were like those of a
royal personage.
The descent from Washington to Jackson was rapid, and
has been swifter since. It is quite inconceivable that any
partv to-day would nominate as its candidate for the Presi-
dency the richest man in the country, traveling i n prince, and
395
396 Johx James Ixgalls.
separated by insuperable barriers of rank and station from the
the common people.
Poverty may be a misfortune, uncomfortable and hard to
endure ; but as an element of strength in public life it cannot
be disregarded.
The great leaders from i860 to 1870, the most momentous
epoch in our history, were all of humble origin — Lincoln, Grant,
Wilson, Morton, Sheridan, Andrew, Garrison, and the other chief
figures of that period, without exception, had no heritage but
an honest name. Wendell Phillips is the only conspicuous
character of that time who was born to wealth and culture —
"with a silver spoon in his mouth."
Garfield emerged from an obscurity as profound as that of
his fellows in fame, and reached an elevation as lofty, and it
is perhaps not too much to say that he succeeded less in spite
of his disadvantages than because of them.
They were the wings wherewith he flew. The defects of
his boyish training and scholarship, the narrow poverty of his
youth, the humble avocations of his early manhood, the mod-
est simplicity of his later life were favorable to his fortunes.
They kept him at the level of the masses from whom he sprung,
not alienated from them by extraordinary endowments, wealth,
or special refinement, but exhibiting only a higher degree or
more vigorous activity of the qualities and powers usual among
men; industry, patience, integrity; so that the great body of
citizens in supporting him appeared to be indirectly paying
tribute of respect to themselves, and not yielding either vol-
untary or reluctant obedience to a superior.
My personal acquaintance with Garfield began in Septem-
ber, 1S54, when we were students at Williams College. We
were of kindred blood, being both descended, he on his moth-
Garfield. 397
er's side, from Edmund Ingalls, the founder of Lynn, in 1628.
He came to Williams, with three companions, from an
Ohio academy — Hiram, I think — and entered the Junior class.
He was some years the older, but, his preparatory studies
having been delayed by necessity, he was graduated a year
later than I, in the class of 1S56. Our relations were cor-
dial and friendly, but not intimate. We were associates on
the board of editors of the Williams Quarterly, a college maga-
zine of some pretensions in those days, and in the lecture-
room and chapel; on the campus and in the literary societies
we met daily, in the unrestrained and sometimes hilarious
familiarity of college intercourse.
He immediately took high rank, but not the highest, in
scholarship. He identified himself actively with the religious
life of the college, but there was nothing of gloomy bigotry or
monastic asceticism about his religion, lie never held him-
self aloof from the society of intelligent and vivacious sinners,
while enjoying the fellowship and communion of the saints.
Like most bright men, he wrote poetry, or what by courtesy
was called such, and in one of our last interviews, while re-
calling some of the incidents of our college days, he alluded
to his early indiscretions in blank verse, and jestingly said he
never had anv serious apprehensions about the result of the
Presidential campaign till some injudicious friend resuscitated
from the Quarterly one of his metrical compositions and had
it reprinted as an argument for his election.
He was particularly active in debate and declamation, and
gave promise of strong, but not brilliant, oratory. In casting
his horoscope, the students predicted that he would be a
teacher or a clergyman. No one dreamed that he would have
a great political career.
398 John James Ingalls.
I recall with photographic distinctness his personal appear-
ance on the occasion of his delivery of an oration in the old
chapel at the close of his Junior year, in the summer of 1855,
when he was twenty-four years of age. The garb of a country
tailor lent no grace to his angular, bony, and muscular frame.
His complexion was white and florid, with mirthful blue eyes.
Yellow hair fell back from a brow of unusual height and prom-
inence, and a sparse blond beard scarcely concealed the heavy
jaw and the weak, sensuous mouth, whose peculiar protrusion
was the most noticeable feature of his striking countenance,
whether in speech or repose.
I did not see him after my graduation until I entered the
Senate in 1873.
He had changed almost beyond recognition. He had be-
come stout, heavy, and dusky, with a perceptible droop of
the head and shoulders, as if bent with burdens. But the
old cordial, effusive, affectionate manner remained; a familiar,
exuberant freedom that had none of the restraint and efface-
ment which commonly characterizes the moods of the man
who has mingled much with men.
Indeed, to the very last it was apparent that Garfield was
country-born. There was an indefinable something in his
voice, his dress, his walk, his ways, redolent of woods and
fields rather than of drawing-rooms, diplomacy, statecraft,
and crowded streets. There was a splendid rusticity in his
simple nature which breathed unmistakably of the genera-
tions of yeomen from whom he sprung.
As an occasional visitor to the House of Representatives,
I often heard him upon the floor. He was not a ready, off-
hand, skillful debater. He was disconcerted by sharp and
sudden attack. He was without capacity for retort and rep-
Garfield. v><;
artee. He had no emergency-bag, but in the ability to deal
with large subjects, after deliberation, with broad and com-
prehensive strenth and candor, he was not excelled by any
contemporary. He had a strong, penetrating voice, pitched
in the middle key, with a slightly nasal and metallic quality,
and an air of conviction which compelled respect.
He told no stories and shot off no fireworks on the stump.
His earlier speeches were highly rhetorical and pedantic; but
he abandoned the pyrotechnic style, cultivated simplicity,
and became a master of the difficult art of clear, condensed
statement of points and conclusions.
There was no capacity in which Garfield was not surpassed
bv some of his associates. He wore the stars of a major-
general, but his achievements as a soldier are forgotten. As
an orator he was eclipsed by Conkling, and as a debater he
was far outrun by Blaine. As a lawyer he will not be remem-
bered. As a statesman his name is not impcrishably associ-
ated with anv great measure of national policy or internal
reform. He had few of the qualities of successful political
leadership, but in public estimation he is enshrined as t la-
foremost man of his generation.
Much of this sentiment, no doubt, is due to his tragic death,
but the real secret of his hold upon the affections of mankind
has not yet been detected.
Garfield was splendidly equipped and magnificently dis-
qualified for executive functions. Had he lived. 1 suppose his
administration would have been a disastrous failure. Fate,
in one sense, was kind to him. He died at a good time for his
fame.
The combination of intellectual and executive power is
rare among; men. I do not recall in ancient or modern history
400 John James Ingalls.
one man illustrious as a legislator or renowned as an orator
who has been equally distinguished for executive capacity.
Possiblv the reason may be that opportunity for both is sel-
dom presented to the same person, but the main explanation
undoubtedly is that the habits of mind required for oratory
and for action in emergencies, in cabinets or on battle-fields,
are essentially different, and in most natures incompatible.
It is quite as difficult to conceive of Daniel Webster in com-
mand at Appomattox as of Grant delivering the reply to Hayne.
So it seemed to me that Garfield in giving up the Senate, to
which he had just been chosen, and accepting the Presidency,
invited his evil destiny. In that congenial forum to which
he had so long aspired he might have long remained, with
increasing fame and honor, the foremost champion of those
potential ideas which are revolutionizing the world.
Sherman believes Garfield betrayed him at the Chicago
convention, but I am sure that his nomination was entirely
unexpected. He was in a way a fatalist, and believed he was
destined to be President, but not then.
A few weeks before the convention I was talking with a
friend in the Senate restaurant about the situation. We had
mentioned Garfield as a possible dark horse if Blaine's enemies
made a deadlock, and just then he entered, and we called him
to our table. We told him the subject of our conversation,
and jocularly tendered him the nomination. The talk that
ensued took on a graver tone, but it left no doubt in my mind
that, while he regarded the Presidency among the possibilities
of his future, he did not consider it probable for many years
to come.
As I recall that interview, it seems incredible to remem-
Garfield. 401
ber that within less than eighteen months from that hour he
was nominated, elected, inaugurated, and slain!
Indelibly inscribed in my recollection is the appearance of
Garfield beneath the blaze of an electric light in the balcony
of the Riggs House on the occasion of a serenade and reception
tendered him after his return from the convention.
He seemed to have reached the apex of human ambition.
He was a representative in Congress. He was a senator-elect
from his native State. He was a delegate to the convention
that nominated him as the candidate of his party for the Pres-
idency. Such an accumulation of honors had never before
fallen upon an American citizen. Avast multitude thronged
the intersecting streets, listening to his brief speech attentively
and respectfully, but without enthusiasm. They were parti-
sans of Blaine, of Grant, of Conkling, of Morton, of Sherman,
and the passions of the gigantic contest had not yet subsided.
The silence was ominous. Nemesis already stood, a menacing
apparition, in the black shadows.
I spoke to a friend, who stood near me in the hem of the
audience, of the strange mutations of fortune the spectacle
suggested to me, little thinking then of the yel more memo-
rable vicissitudes so soon to follow; the abrupt termination of
those magnificent hopes and ambitions through the dark vista
of the near future; the sudden catastrophe of an exasperated
destiny; premature death on the threshold of incomparable
prophecy of greatness and renown. Could coming events cast
their shadows before, he might have discerned those words of
doom, the last that were ever traced by his feeble and trembling
hand — " Strangulatus pro repnbltca!"
The administration of President Garfield began under the
happiest auspices. It was a second lira of Good Feeling.
402 John James Ixgalls.
Those were halcyon days. The lion and the lamb had lain
down together. "Sir. Garfield had not been identified with
the internecine feuds and quarrels intestine which had rent
his party asunder. He had made a treaty of amity, peace,
and concord with Conkling and Grant. Xo Executive ever
came into the possession of power with greater opportunities.
The people were weary of schism, duels, and invective. Gar-
field was exempt from these, and enjoyed the respect and cor-
dial good-will of the people.
American Presidents • have not always been the highest
types of manhood. Selected usually because they were avail-
able, rather than because they were fit, they have inspired lit-
tle enthusiasm except among those appointed to office.
But here at last was an ideal occupant of the White House,
for whom the dreamers had so long sighed in vain — a man who
was a soldier, a statesman, an orator, a scholar, a gentleman,
and a Christian !
His public career, while not free from error, had been, in
the main, broad and satisfactory. From obscurity he had
emerged bv the force of native genius and attained the loftiest
elevation without losing his head and becoming either "bossy"
or giddy. The people justly regarded him with contented
pride as a signal illustration of the scope afforded by popular
institutions for talents, industry, and ambition.
His personal qualities were attractive, his presence impres-
sive, and his address equally removed from familiarity and
from reserve.
His temperament was ardent and impulsive. He desired
intensely to be written as one who loved his fellow -men. He
was incapable of intrigue or hatred. He had no personal
enemies. His long active parliamentary life had been with-
Garfield. 403
out rancor or bitterness. He had a large, oroad brain, well
furnished by study, and a genuine love for literature which
survived his youth and was the best solace of laborious years.
His impulses were high and generous. He intended to have
pure public service, and to administer the government as a
trust confided to him by Providence, and for whose exercise
he was directly responsible to God.
One of Garfield's first public acts after his inauguration
was the reception, in the gathering gloom of the twilight of
that dismal March day, in the East Room of the White House,
of the venerable Mark Hopkins, former president of the col-
lege, and a delegation of Williams alumni, to whose address
of congratulation he made a most pathetic and feeling re-
sponse, which seemed burdened with prophetic sadness, as if
he already felt the solemn shadow of the disaster that was so
soon to terminate his career.
"For a quarter of a century," said he, "Doctor Hopkins
has seemed to me a man apart from other men ; like one
standing on a mountain summit, embodying in himself much
of the majesty of earth, and reflecting in his life something of
the sunlight and glory of heaven."
The Senate assembled in extraordinary session immediately
after the inauguration, and thereafter I met him constantly
in connection with public affairs till the adjournment in May.
Conkling, exasperated by the selection of Blaine as Secretary
of State, precipitated that tremendous battle which resulted
in his own overthrow, the loss of New York, the defeat of
Blaine four years later, and the election of Grover Cleveland
A very perceptible but indefinable change came over Gar-
field. He lost his equanimity and became infirm of purpose.
He was tortured by the importunate mob of place hunters
404 John James Ingalls.
that surged through his reception chamber, as he said, "like
the volume of the Mississippi River." The weight of re-
sponsibility oppressed him. The duties of the Chief Magis-
trate were irksome. Durin his public life hitherto he had
little to do with patronage, and now he could attend to little
else. He disliked to say "no." Wanting to please everybody,
he let "I dare not wait upon I would." His love of justice im-
pelled him to hear both sides, and his mind was so recep-
tive that he felt the force of all arguments, and the last was
the strongest. He hesitated to decide], between hungry and
angry contestants, so that, without being irresolute or vacil-
lating, he seemed sometimes to halt and doubt, to the verge
of timidity.
His nature was so generous that he instinctively supported
the vanquished, whether enemy or friend. He sympathized
with the under dog. This trait in his character was strikingly
exemplified while he lay on his death-bed, at the termination
of the Senatorial conflict at Albany. He heard of the election
of Miller and Lapham, and, though Garfield himself was the
principal victim of the struggle, he said with great earnestness :
"I am sorry for Conkling. I will give him anything he wants,
or any appointment he may desire."
Morally, he was invertebrate. He had no bony structure.
He surrendered, unconsciously perhaps, to the powerful, ag-
gressive, artful domination of Blaine, and became like clay
in the hands of the potter. After the battle had raged for a
time, a "Committee of Safety" was appointed by Republi-
can senators, and a hollow truce was patched up. If certain
things were done, Conkling amiably said he would go into the
cloak-room and hold his nose while other nominations were
confirmed, in order to break the deadlock. After consenting
Garfield. 405
to the compromise, Blaine or some other past master of diplo-
macy convinced Garfield that it was an ignominious and dis-
graceful back-down on his part. So, yielding first to the
blandishments of the "half-breeds," and then to the threats
of the "stalwarts," at last, in a moment of weak desperation,
consulting no one, he withdrew the New York nominations
in gross, made further compromise impossible, and the whole
political fabric tumbled from turret to foundation-stone in
irretrievable ruin.
II.
His Life Drama.
I left my home at Atchison, the evening of June 30, 1881,
to deliver the annual commencement address at Williams
College.
President Garfield, the most distinguished graduate, was
to be present, to celebrate with his classmates the twenty-fifth
anniversary of their graduation.
Alighting from the train at Rochester. N"aw York, Saturday
morning, I heard with incredulity the rumor of his assassin-
ation just as he was starting on his journey for the hills of
Berkshire.
The last time I saw him alive, just at the close of the special
session of the Senate, he alluded to the pleasure with which
he anticipated this visit, and to the grateful sympathy and
help he had received from his college friends. Indeed, he always
felt and manifested a peculiar interest in his alma mater and
in President Hopkins, whom he regarded as the greatest and
wisest instructor of the century. "A pine log," he said, "with
406 John James Ingalls.
the student at one end and Doctor Hopkins at the other,
would be a liberal education."
Garfield touched life at more points than most men. There
was no company in which he could be wholly a stranger, nor
any man, however low or however lofty, in whom he could not
find something in common, so that he was never isolated nor
detached from his associates at any stage of his pathway,
from the rude hut of his nativity, in the clearing of the Ohio
forest, to the fatal eminence from which he was borne to his
grave.
His imagination was very active. He was fond of poetry,
music, sculpture, painting, the drama, and the classics. He
believed in signs, omens, portents, and prodigies. He dwelt on
coincidences and anniversaries, and during the pendency of
the troubles that disturbed the early months of his adminis-
rtation I heard him allude, half in jest and half in earnest, to
the fact that his inauguration occurred on Friday, in explana-
tion of the complexities of Fate.
Being aware of this superstitious tendency, I was inter-
ested to know if he felt any premonition of the calamity that
was lying in wait for him the morning of his assassination.
Meeting Mr. Blaine, at the funeral at Cleveland, with whom
he rode to the Pennsylvania Station to take the train, I asked
him if there was anything in the mood or conversation of the
President, as they rode down the Avenue in his carriage, that
indicated any shadowy apprehension of the tragedy that was
so soon to culminate.
On the contrary, Mr. Blaine said that during the twenty
vears of their acquaintance he had never seen the President
exhibit such unrestrained exuberance of almost boyish happi-
ness, such high animal spirits, as in that hour. His mother
Garfield. 4°7
and his wife had just convalesced. The storms that had
darkened his political horizon had cleared. His enemies were
baffled. He was to visit Williams and recall the splendid
associations of youth. This was to be followed by a tour
through New England, for which great preparations had been
made. Then he intended to journey to Ohio and pass his sum-
mer vacation at Mentor in the broad, free, natural life in the
count rv home which he had so long labored to secure. His
own health, which had been shaken by strain and stress, was
established. His mind was full of great plans for future work.
He intended to visit Yorktown and make an historical speech
that should fitly commemorate the centennial of the Ameri-
can Revolution. On the anniversary of Chickamauga he had
planned to attend the reunion of his old army comrades. He
had been invited to be present at the Cotton Exposition at
Atlanta, where it was his purpose to deliver an oration that
would be notable as a disclosure of his views on the race ques-
tion and his intentions toward the South. He had spoken of
all these things to Mr. Blaine, and was repeating some para-
graphs he had already written for the speech at Atlanta, when
the carriage stopped at the door above whpse lintel was in-
scribed for him, invisibly, the legend written over the gate of
the Inferno: "Lasciaie ogni speranza vox ch' nitrate."
A silver star let into the floor of the waiting-room long
marked the spot when- lie fell. A tablet of marble in the
opposite wall bore his name in letters of gold.
Thither through all his wanderings his footsteps had tend-
ed. This was his goal. "Every man," says Hugo, ''is the
centre of a circle whose fatal circumference he cannot pass.
Within, he lives; beyond, he perishes."
408 John James Ixgalls.
But as no public man, whatever his powers, can greatly
'succeed unless identified with some idea, purpose, or convic-
tion existing in the minds of the people, so in this respect
Garfield was most fortunate. His life was a strenuous protest
against injustice. He was an apostle for liberty of conscience,
liberty of action, and liberty of thought. He had mastered
the statistics and enlarged the boundaries of freedom. The
public honor, faith, and credit were as valuable to him as his
own, and he labored without ceasing that the creed of human
rights should not be an empty formula, nor the brotherhood
of man a mocking dream.
Life abounds in tragic mysteries, and we are not authorized
to ask a vindication of the decrees of Fate, but the termination
of Garfield's career seems an insoluble problem. Adequate
motive and intelligible object both are absent, and as if it had
been determined that no element of horror should be wanting,
there was the agony of prolonged dissolution, the incapacity
and wrangles of blundering surgeons, the lying bulletins, the
appalling revelations of the autopsy, the frightful distortion
which compelled the premature seclusion of the remains, and,
as the crowning climax of atrocities, the revolting and blas-
phemous ravings of the assassin, which made his trial for an
unprovoked and brutal murder a most humiliating burlesque
upon the administration of justice.
Passing the city building in Washington one morning
while the trial of Guiteau was on, I made my way into the
crowded court-room by the courtesy of the Marshal. The
execrable criminal interrupted the counsel and the witnesses
at every sentence with foulest vituperation unrebuked, the
greedy audience greeting with brutal laughter the volleys of
Garfield. 409
obscene and profane invective with which he assailed the
prosecution and the defense.
Such a revelation of mental and moral deformity has sel-
dom been made. Not one good deed nor any generous impulse
marred the harmonious and symmetrical infamy of the life
of the wretched malefactor. He was insane as the tiger and
the cobra are insane. He stands detached from mankind in
eternal isolation as the one human being without a virtue,
and without an apologist, a defender, or a friend. Even
among the basest, he had no comrade. There was no society
in which he would not be a stranger. He was the one felon
whom no lawyer could protect, no jury acquit, for he was con-
demned in that forum from whose verdict there is neither
exculpation nor appeal. He must be an alien in hell.
The world has no more conspicuous illustration of the
truth that nothing is so unprofitable as wickedness. The
thief robs himself. The adulterer pollutes himself. The mur-
dere inflicts a deeper wound upon himself than that which
kills his victim. Behind every criminal in the universe,
silent but relentless stands, with uplifted blade, the shadow
of vengeance and retribution.
Happening to be in Washington on public business when
the tragedy closed by the death of the President at Elberon,
I was designated by the Vice-President as one of the Senate
committee to receive the remains at the Capitol and attend
the funeral at Cleveland.
The procession reached the east door of the Rotunda just
at the close of a bright, still September day. A military
escort, with arms reversed and trailing banners, deploved
upon the plaza. From the brazen tubes that were wont
to blow martial sounds, reverberating along the marble col-
410 John James Ingau.s.
onnades, floated the strains of "The Sweet By-and-By" and
"Nearer, My God, to Thee," lost in the dim and glowing sky.
The dead Commander-in-Chief was borne by soldiers up
the stairway, past the very place where, six brief months be-
fore, he had taken the] oath of office, delivered his inaugural,
and turned to kiss his wife and mother, amid the hoarse sal-
utations of thundering batteries and the tumultuous acclaim
of an uncounted multitude.
The bearers were followed into the Rotunda by Vice-
President Arthur, the Cabinet, and the Committees, all other
spectators being excluded. As the casket was placed upon
the same catafalque that had borne the coffin of Lincoln the
last rays of the setting sun streamed through the golden haze
along the low horizon above the hills of Arlington and filled
the upper portion of the dome, above the still unfinished fres-
coes of Brumidi, with vanishing radiance, while the sombre
shadows of twilight had already settled upon the silent group
below.
The lid was laid back, and the official procession, led by
Arthur, every inch a king, arm in arm with Blaine, pallid and
haggard, who looked as if, with Mark Antony, he might have
said,
"Bear with me!
Mv heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me,"
marched slowly eastward, and departed,
The desolating agony and torture of the hand-to-hand bat-
ik' with Death were depicted upon the wasted and distorted
features of the martyr.
< >ne spectator, after looking an instant at the awful mask,
sank groaning upon his knees, with his face in his hands, asjf
to shut out from his brain the image of ghastly horror.
Garfield. 411
The unending file of visitors was then admitted, and, from
Wednesday till Friday noon, hundreds of thousands passed
silently between the guards, with mingled grief for the victim
and execration for the murderer.
The Rotunda was then cleared and closed, the vast iloor
covered with seats for the final exercises, and at midday the
widow and orphans passed alone into the great vaulted cham-
ber, and. without attendants or witnesses, took their last fare-
well of him who to them had been not ruler, or magistrate,
or hero, but husband, father, companion, and friend.
History, it seems to me, contains no more dramatic inci-
dent than that closing interview. The place, the occasion,
the actors, the accessories, were in the last degree imposing
and pathetic, and will be a theme for the artist so long as the
heart has passions and life has woes. And it was specially
creditable to humanity that when it was announced that Mrs.
Garfield and the family were in the Capitol, and desired to be
alone for a brief space with the dead, the crowds that were
struggling for admission and impatient at delay simultane-
ously withdrew and disappeared, respecting; her sorrow as if it
had been their own
The scene later in the afternoon, in the Rotunda, at the
closing ceremonies, was impressive beyond precedent.
For the first time in the annals of national bereavement,
formal solemnities were observed in the presence of a seated
audience beneath the dome.
For the moment dissensions seemed to have been allaved
1
and the chiefs of contending factions were reconciled in the
presence of an unexampled calamity. All realized that Car-
field's death was the direct result of the infuriated jusxjuus
4i2 John James Ixgalls.
of ambitious leaders fighting selfishly for the possession of
power and the gratification of revenge.
By the catafalque sat the new President, chief benefici-
ary of Guiteau's bullet; recipient of the main prize in what
Edmunds called the "lottery of assassination." He repre-
sented the complete restoration and ascendency of that fac-
tion in his party that seemed to have been hopelessly de-
feated at Chicago. Time's whirligig for him had revolved
swiftly. Near by were the Cabinet ministers, their dreams of
power, their plans of aggrandizement, about to be entombed
with their dead chieftain.
Across the space was Grant, his impassive, resolute,
sphinx-like face bent forward, intently pensive, as though
inwardly meditating upon the strange mutation by which the
man who snatched from his grasp the coveted prize of a third
nomination, so nearly won, now lay in cold obstruction and
everlasting silence, where ambition could no longer inspire
nor glory thrill.
Elbow to elbow with him was his successor, Hayes, weak-
est of Presidents, whose indistinguishable term already seemed
like a hiatus in history. Farther on were Sherman the soldier
and Sherman the Senator, whose candidacy for the Presidency
Garfield had been chosen as the delegate to present and espouse,
and Sheridan, the victor of Winchester, and a great host of
heroes and statesmen such as had seldom assembled around
the unconscious dust of an American citizen.
As evening fell the remains were taken to the waiting car
with military and civic escort, the strains of triumphal music,
the accent of minute-guns, for their last journey. Draped in
black, the train moved westward through the night. At ev-
ery station and along the line were reverent throngs of mourn-
Garfield. 413
ers. Upon one platform I recall a long file of men, the mem-
bers of a Grand Army post, upon their knees with uncovered
heads, as the train passed by.
During the night the blaze of bonfires at road crossings
disclosed groups of watchers in cabin doors and windows and
on the adjacent hills.
In the gray twilight of morning the bells of Pittsburgh tolled
continuously with sullen clangor as we slowly moved through
the sombre city.
Arriving at Cleveland about noon, the casket was trans-
ferred to a stately pavilion in an open space in the midst of the
town, where it remained till Monday, illuminated at night by
the blaze of electric lights, and guarded by his companions-in-
arms, who stood like sleepless sentinels at the outposts of death.
The pageant on the clay of the burial was indescribable.
The cessation of business, the dense blackness of the festoons
of drapery, the stillness and awe of the spectators, the multi-
tudes so immense that they became impersonal and conveyed
onlv the idea of numbers, mass, and volume, like the leaves of
a forest or the sands of the sea ; the lofty hearse with its twelve
led horses completely caparisoned in black, with silver fringes
sweeping the ground ; the dirges of bands and bells, all contrib-
uted to a spectacle that can neither be described nor forgotten.
But as if the malignant fate that had pursued him with
such unrelenting and inexorable cruelty from the day oi Ins
elevation had not yet exhausted its fury, so that even in death
he was to be denied the peaceful honors that are given to the
humblest who die, long before the last tvsting-place by the
lake was reached, a violent tempest of rain and wind burst
suddenly from the sky, before whose ungovernable rage the
procession dispersed and the multitudes vanished, so that the
414 John James Ingalls.
closing rites were hastily solemnized in the presence ot a few
witnesses, in darkness, gloom, and desolation.
And so closed the tragedy whose incidents for eighty days
three hundred millions of the human race had watched with
sleepless solicitude, and for whose stay an uninterrupted appeal
of unavailing prayers had besieged the throne of God; a tragedy
which taught, as it was never taught before, the vanity of fame,
the emptiness of honor, the mutability of pride and ambition.
The day before his death, after looking for a while in silence
upon the sea, he said to his friend and classmate, Colonel
Rockwell: "Do you think my name will have a place in
history?"
"Yes," was the reply, "a grand one; but a grander place
in the hearts of the people. But you must not dwell on such
thoughts. You have a great work yet to perform."
After a brief pause, the sufferer whispered in accents almost
inaudible: "No; my work is done."
A few hours later the mournful prediction was fulfilled.
He exclaimed suddenly: "Oh, Swaim! that pain! that pain!"
In another instant his eyes closed, and Garfield took his seat
in the parliament of the skies.
BLAINE'S LIFE TRAGEDY.
In each individual of the fifteen hundred millions of the
human race there is an indefinable something that eludes the
photographer, that the painter cannot capture, nor the sculptor
reproduce, and that no biographer can record.
This subtle, evasive element, animula, vagula, blandula, is
the Ego, the personality, that essence and quality which dif-
ferentiates every man from his fellows and makes him what
he is.
Of this being there is no portrait nor any history. It exists
onlv in the minds of others, as the beauty of the landscape is
in the eve of the beholder; the eloquence of the oration, the
spell of the song, the prosperity of the jest, in the ear of the
hearer, and the charm of the woman beloved in the soul of her
■worshiper.
The mirror cannot tell us the image we leave in the con-
sciousness of others, nor can we communicate to them the
impression they make upon our own.
I remember the first time I saw General Grant — the evening
before his second inauguration. I had seen innumerable pict-
ures of him, and read countless sketches of his dimensions,
bearing, features, and apparel, so that I had his clear delinea-
tion in my mind. But the instant I held his hand, looked
into his eves and heard his voice, this disappeared like a dis-
415
4i 6 John James Ingalls.
solving view from the screen of a cosmorama, and was suc-
ceeded by another which is imperishable, but which art can-
not copy nor language portray.
The secret of personal popularity, the power of exciting
irrational and vehement devotion to its object, has never been
detected. If it is not possessed, it cannot be acquired. It is
an art for which there is no text-book nor any teacher. A man
may well enough say he will be learned, upright, successful,
respected, a politician, or a diplomat, but not that he will be
the idol of the people. This is beyond his acumen. The gift
is rare. Its beneficiary seldom appears oftener than once in
a generation. It is quite independent of endowment and ca-
pacity. Calhoun was a greater man than Clay, and Webster
was intellectually far the superior of either; but Clay aroused
in the masses of his party a passionate fervor of adoration that
was like religious fanaticism in its intensity.
When he was defeated, men wept with emotions of irrep-
arable personal sorrow and inconsolable bereavement. His
speeches that have come down to us and the achievements of
his career offer no solution of the mystery. It is as inexplic-
able as the sway of Mary Filton, the dark, dwarfish maid-of-
honor, whose faithlessness wrung from Shakespeare's tortured
spirit the One Hundred and Twenty-ninth Sonnet, or the sur-
render of Antony to Cleopatra, for whom the infatuated con-
queror thought the world, with its thrones and triumphs,
well lost.
As in the case of Clay, posterity will be equally at a loss to
comprehend the tremendous sovereignty and dominion of
Blaine over the masses of the Republican party, and his con-
temporaries in every party, with whom he came in personal
touch and communication, for the last twenty years of his life.
Blaine's Like Tragedy. 417
There were giants in those days, warriors and statesmen,
between whom and Blaine in service, capacity, and equipmenti
there was no comparison. Other reputations may far surpass
his in the annals of the Macaulay of our times, but in the power
to move and stir and thrill, to inspire uncontrollable enthusi-
asm, the name of Blaine, like thai of Abou Ben Adhem, will
lead all the rest. Other leaders were admired, loved, honored,
revered, respected; but the- sentiment for Blaine was delirium.
The mention of his name in the convention was the signal
for a cyclone. Applause was a paroxysm. His appearance
in a campaign aroused frenzy that was like the madness of
intoxication.
In 1876 Blaine was in his perihelion. Barring the three
great military chieftains, lu- was the foremost figure in the
Republic. I lis orbit had hitherto been planetary rather than
meteoric. His progress upward was gradual and orderly.
His apprenticeship in the Maine Legislature- gave him advan-
ce in Congress, where he took his scat December 7, 1S63.
He spoke seldom, and did not at first impress himself very
powerfully upon the House. He- was studious, ready, and
attentive, and in his second term came into prominence,
largely by his altercation with Conkling in tin- case of Provost-
Marshal General Fry, a quarrel whose consequences cost him
the Presidency, and ended only with his life.
lb- was chosen Speaker the day of Grant's firsl inaugura-
tion, and served three terms with great distinction. He was
an ideal presiding officer. He had the parliamentary instinct.
His acquaintance with rules, practice, ami precedents of pro-
cedure was accurate. His memory of names, faces, and local-
ities seemed automatic. His mental processes were exceed-
ingly rapid and precise. His decisions of points of order in
418 John James Ixgalls.
debate were usually off-hand and very seldom reversed. His
facility in counting a rising vote was phenomenal. Holding
the head of the gavel, he swept the circuit of the House with
the handle, announcing the result so promptly that it seemed
like a feat of legerdemain. He explained that he segregated
the members into blocks of ten.
His relations with the House seemed intimate and per-
sonal, rather than official, and ha regarded himself as its min-
ister, and not its master.
The Forty-fourth Congress was Democratic, and March 3,
1875, Blaine resumed his seat as Representative of the Third
District of Maine.
In January, 1876, the bill for general amnesty to all South
erners was brought forward, and Blaine opposed the exten-
sion to Jefferson Davis upon the ground that as Commander
in-Chief of the Confederate armies he was directly responsible
for the horrors and atrocities of Andersonville.
The debate caused intense interest and excitement North
and South, and through the efforts of Blaine and Garfield
amnesty was defeated.
Blaine said: "I except Jefferson Davis on the ground that
he was the author, knowingly, deliberately, guiltily, and will-
fully of the gigantic murders and crimes at Andersonville. 1
have taken occasion to read some of the historic cruelties of
the world. I have read over the details of those atrocious
murders of the Duke of Alva in the Low Countries, which are
always mentioned with a thrill of horror throughout Christen-
dom. I have read the details of the massacre of Saint Bar
tholomew, that stands out in history as one of the atrocities
beyond imagination. I have read anew the horrors untold
and unimaginable of the Spanish Inquisition. And I here,
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 419
before God, measuring my words, knowing their full extent
and import, declare that neither the deeds of the Duke of Alva
in the Low Countries, nor the massacre of Saint Bartholomew,
nor the thumbscrews and engines of torture of the Spanish
Inquisition, begin to compare in atrocity with the hideous
crimes of Andersonville."
The Southern Democracv never forgave this utterance.
As the end of Grant's second term drew near the contest
for the succession became animated.
Colliding was the Administration candidate, and strangely
enough, as it seems in the light of events, he was the favorite
of the gamblers and book-makers, and had "the hurrah" at
Washington. Those best informed regarded Morton as the
strongest candidate. He was aggressively radical, and relied
largely upon the support of the South, which sent delegates,
but cast no votes.
After the Andersonville debate, Blaine developed phenom-
enal strength both in Xew England and the West. Manx-
States hitherto supposed to be safe for other candidates trod
on each other's heels in their eagerness to choose Blaine dele-
gations. Early in April the managers of "the machine" saw
with rage and consternation that Blaine would start with more
votes than Morton and Conkling combined, and unless the
movement in his favor was checked, he would stampede the
convention.
Back-tiring is a favorite method of arresting the spread of
a conflagration. It is not unknown in politics.
Vague, intangible rumors affecting Blaine's personal and of-
ficial integrity were set afloat at Indianapolis and other places
in the West, and repeated in Xew York. It was alleged in
obscure journals catalogued as Republican thai as Speaker of
420 John James Ingalls.
the House he had used his power in favor of certain Western
railroads, from which he had received vast sums in money,
stock, and bonds as compensation.
It was not difficult, after the Jeff Davis episode, to induce
a Democratic House to appoint a committee to investigate
these accusations; but Blaine for the time baffled the conspir-
ators by a personal statement on the floor April 24, 1876.
On May 2d a resolution was introduced to investigate an
alleged purchase by the Union Pacific Railway, at a price
much greater than their actual value, of certain bonds of the
Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad Company, of which il
was whispered Blaine was the owner.
He insisted upon prompt and immediate examination of
the charges, but his enemies were in no hurry. They wanted
the black cloud of distrust and suspicion to darken the splendor
of his fame and cast its ominous shadow over the convention.
It was an epoch of sensations. The country was startled
one morning by the story thai Mulligan, a confidential clerk
of Blaine's Boston broker, had arrived in Washington with a
bundle of Blaine's letters, purloined from the files, showing
his relations with the railroad companies and conclusively
establishing his guilt.
Suddenly the announcement was made that Blaine, after
offering to Mulligan a place in the foreign service, and threat-
ening to commit suicide, had obtained possession of the let-
ters bv an act of bad faith, and that they would not appear in
evidence.
The whole transaction was mysterious, and it may as well
be said here as elsewhere that its effect on Blaine was distinctly
injurious. He never recovered from it. It left a stain, vague
and faint, but indelible.
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 421
The correspondence, under the most charitable interpreta-
tion, betrayed indiscretion, if no more, that came near the
frontier of culpability. It furnished his enemies with ammu-
nition to which his supporters interposed no armor save silence.
But Blaine was fertile in resources and a horn tragedian.
Conscious that it would be fatal to rest under the imputation
that he had secured the letters in order to stifle damaging dis-
closures, he decided on a coup de theatre, rose Monday morning,
June sth to a question of privilege, and hurled defiance at his
foes.
He stood on a narrow neck of laud.
The convention at Cincinnati was to assemble one week
from the following Wednesday. His friends were perturbed
and restless. His rivals sneered. I lis enemies were noisilv
exultant. The Democratic majority was eager to convict.
The stake was enormous. The situation was dramatic. He
had the Nation lor his audience. When he began, there was
a silence deep as death, and the boldest held his breath for a
while.
Reciting the resolution, he briefly reviewed its objects and
purposes and the methods of his accusers. He- denied the power
of the House to compel the production of his private corre-
spondence, and partieularlv the letters purloined by Mulligan.
He affirmed his readiness for any extremity of contesl in
defense of his sacred right, and then added, with immense
emphasis: "And while I am so, I am not afraid to show the
letters. Thank God Almighty, I am not ashamed to show
them! There they are" —holding a packet at arms length
above his head. 'There is the very original package. And
with some sense' of humiliation, with a mortification I do not
attempt to conceal, with a sense- of tin- outrage- which I think
422 John James Ingaixs.
any man in my position would feel, I invite the confidence of
forty-four millions of my countrymen while I read those letters
from this desk."
They were not pleasant reading, but Blaine had a thunder-
bolt in reserve. At the close, turning to the chairman of the
committee having the investigation in charge, after a prelim-
inary colloquy, Blaine said :
"I tell the gentleman from Kentucky now, and I am pre-
pared to state to this House, that at eight o 'clock last Thurs-
day morning, or thereabouts, the gentleman from Kentucky
received and receipted for a message addressed to him from
Josiah Caldwell, in London, completely and absolutely exon-
erating me from these accusations, and that he has sup-
pressed it!"
This put Proctor Knott in a hole. He could not deny that
he had received a message, because he had incautiously shown
it to a Democratic friend, who in some way conveyed the
information to Blaine, and thus gave him the opportunity of
turning the tables upon his adversaries by showing that their
object was not justice, but political persecution.
Knott claimed that this pretended cable was bogus, a fake
made up this side of the Atlantic, and palmed off on the
committee for this specific use.
There was room for suspicion, but Blaine won. It was an
unprecedented forensic triumph, although far enough from
a moral vindication. The people like nerve, sand, and intre-
pidity, and attach small importance to political indictments.
Their sympathies go out to the man who lights against desper-
ate odds and succeeds.
There have been many turbulent and disorderly episodes
in the House of Representatives, but no one who witnessed
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 423
this gladiatorial combat will ever forget the uproar, the un-
controllable frenzy and tumultuous thunder of that historic
day. Every one seemed to have eaten of the insane root that
takes the reason prisoner. A yelling mob of trespassers broke
past the guards and turned the lloor into a bedlam. The
crowded galleries howled with derision at the puny efforts of
the Chair to enforce the rules and preserve order. It would
have been as easy for Nero to keep silence in the Coliseum
when the Christians were fed to the lions.
The Sunday morning in Washington preceding the Cincin-
nati convention was suffocatingly still, hot, and breathless.
I was sitting by the window in my apartments at 1411 H
Street when Blaine, with his wife and Miss Dodge (''Gail Ham-
ilton"), walked slowly eastward on their way to the Congre-
gational Church at the corner of Tenth and G Streets. He
was a little in advance of the ladies, and was sunken, ap-
parently, in the profoundest reverie. He appeared heavily
dressed for the oppressive day, and one hand was thrust in the
breast of his closely buttoned frock coat.
His head hung heavily forward, and his gaze seemed bent
vacantly on the ground at his feet. His countenance had a
deadly pallor, and I was hardly surprised to hear a few moments
afterward that he had fallen unconscious in the vestibule
while entering the church, and had been taken home apparently
dying.
Later in the day I went around to his house. He was lying
on a bed, partly undressed, and still unconscious. His eyes
were fixed, and he breathed stertorously at laborious intervals.
I never expected to see him alive again.
The following Friday evening, going down Fourteenth
Street after an early dinner with a friend on Highland Ter-
424 John James Ingaias.
race, I saw an immense throng reading the bulletins before
the telegraph office on the Avenue. The announcement of
Wheeler's nomination as Vice-President had just been chalked
on the board, and was received with silence that could be felt.
After a contest between such giants as Blaine, Morton,
Conkling, and Bristow, the outcome of Hayes and Wheeler
seemed disrespectful, and like an affront, as when the star per-
formers in an opera are replaced by understudies, and the
audience clamor around the box-office and wTant their money
back. It was a most lame and impotent conclusion. The
political mountain had been in labor and brought forth two
mice.
Suddenly the crowd turned simultaneously eastward with
eager gestures. The air was dense with hats. Convulsive,
volcanic cries and shoutings broke out, exulting and sympa-
thetic, but with a tone of vengeance and rage penetrating the
uproar, like the savage acclamation which welcomes the victim
of injustice escaping from cruel oppressors.
Looking for the cynosure of these neighboring eyes, I saw-
on the back seat of an open barouche, with Secretary Fish by
his side, slowly driving up the Avenue, Blaine, bareheaded,
bowing his acknowledgments to the salutations of the multitude
that dispersed as the carriage turned up Fifteenth Street ami
disappeared. It was like one risen from the dead.
This sunstroke, or physical collapse, whatever it was, un-
questionably had a depressing effect upon Blaine's prospects
at Cincinnati. I lis rivals industriously spread the report that
he was stricken with apoplexy, and even if the termination
were not fatal, his bodily and mental faculties would be per-
manently impaired.
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 425
Robust health, capacity to endure si rain, tough fibre- and,
a placid temperament are indispensable requisites for a Pres-
idential candidate. The White House is no place fur a vale-
tudinarian, a dyspeptic, or a nervous invalid. The importu
nate selfishness of place-hunters, the inconsiderate thought-
lessness of village idols who wish to pay their respects, of vis-
itors who desire to shake hands, added to the legitimate de-
mands of senators, representatives, and officials, together with
the requirements of public duties, would drive a weakling to
Saint Elizabeth's or the grave. Like a lawyer, however bad
his conscience may be, the President must have a good
stomach.
His friends spared no effort to counteract this unforeseen
calanhtv. And their solicitude was partially allayed by this
telegram, which he sent from his sick-chamber:
" I am entirely convalescent. Suffering only from physical weakness.
Impress upon my friends the great depth of gratitude I feel lor the unpar-
alleled steadfastness with which they have adhered to me in my hour
of trial."
The convention met Wednesday, June [4th. Tin- next day
the roll of States was called alphabetically for nominations.
Connecticut presented Marshall Jewell, a majolica states-
man in pumps and ruffles, with a porcelain smile, whom Grant
had summarily dismissed from his Cabinet for disloyalty to
his chief.
Richard \Y. Thompson — born the same year as Lincoln,
and a Whig member of Congress during the Presidencv of
John Tyler, the apostate — named Morton, of Indiana, the-
Danton of Republicanism; a sombre giant, paralyzed below
his hips, whose physical disability prevented the opponents
of Blaine from uniting on him as their candidate-.
426 John James Ingalls.
Kentucky nominated Bristow, who had secretly conspired
with the enemies of Grant, while Secretary of the Treasury
under him, and became, therefore, the logical representative
of the Superior Persons who advocate "sweetness and light" in
politics.
Robert G. Ingersoll, then of Illinois, presented Blaine as
the "Plumed Knight," a ridiculous sobriquet, suggestive of the
circus and the theatre, in a speech otherwise of remarkable
power, which first gave the great agnostic national renown.
Woodford, of New York, nominated Conkling, whose desire
for revenge knew no satiety.
Ohio named Hayes, on whom the opponents of Blaine
united on the seventh ballot; and Pennsylvania nominated
Hartranft as a "favorite son," to enable Cameron to throw
the delegation to Bristow or Hayes, though Blaine received
30 of the 58 at the end.
Friday the convention proceeded to vote. Six ballots
were taken, 378 being necessary for choice. Blaine led in
each, his tally being 285, 296, 293, 292, 286, 308. In the sixth
ballot Morton and Conkling were out. It was evident the sev-
enth ballot would be decisive by a combination either on Bris-
tow or Hayes.
Blaine was sitting in the library of his house on Fifteenth
Street in Washington at this hour. A telegraph instrument
was on the table, with his secretary at the key. He was just
recovering from the stroke that prostrated him Sunday morn-
ing. As the details of the seventh ballot came in, State after
State, the tension was extreme. Blaine alone seemed self-
possessed and unmoved.
Arkansas transferred her vote from Morton to Blaine.
The Morton votes from Florida were also given to him. The
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 427
chances all seemed in Blaine's favor till Indiana was reached,
when the chairman of the delegation withdrew the name of
Morton and cast 2,5 votes for Hayes and 5 for Bristow.
When Kentucky was called, Harlan withdrew the name of
Bristow and cast 27 votes for Hayes, who was nominated, re-
ceiving 384, to 351 for Blaine.
Blaine made one suppressive exclamation of surprise, and
immediately wrote this dispatch to Governor Hayes:
" I offer you my sincerest congratulations on your nomination. It will
be my highest pleasure as well as my first political duty to do the utmost
in my power to promote your election The earliest moments of my
returning and confirmed health will be devoted to securing you as large
a vote in Maine as she would have given for myself."
He spoke in twelve States. His reception was that of a
victor, but he showed great fatigue, and his health was unequal
to the strain.
In fact, Blaine was a hypochondriac. His life was a hand-
to-hand contest with imaginary diseases, which is itself a dis-
ease, due, perhaps, to some hereditary or pre-natal lesion, and
hence obscure and fatal. In his speaking tours he soon grew
hoarse and husky, and became depressed.
His colleague, Hannibal Hamlin, the former Vice- President,
told me there had never been a time since he had been
acquainted with Blaine when, if three friends were to meet
him one after the other in the morning, on his way down
town, and greet him successively with the exclamation, "Why!
what is the matter? How ill you look!" that, though feeling
perfectlv well when he started, he would not immediately
return home, go to bed, and send for the doctor. This was
no doubt humorous exaggeration, but it illustrated his mental
attitude toward himself, which was one of brooding and fore-
boding introspection.
428 John James Ingalls.
As early as 1867 he visited Europe, mainly to consult an
eminent French physician at Paris about some symptoms that
gave him alarm; but, after examination, the doctor laughed
at him and gave him a prescription, at which every one else
laughed when Blaine told the story.
Soon after the convention (July 19, 1876), Blaine was ap-
pointed United States senator vice Morrill, who became Sec-
retary of the Treasury under Grant. When the Legislature
met, he was elected for the unexpired term, and for the full
term ending March 4, 1883.
He was forty-six, and his powers were at their meridian.
He was above the middle height, of large frame and heavy
proportions, but extremely agile and alert in his carriage,
with an erect and martial bearing. The deadly pallor of his
complexion was framed in iron-gray hair and beard, always
carefully trimmed. His large mouth was set diagonally from
left to right. His nose was heavy, bulbous, and pendulous;
his eyes mirthful and inquisitive, with heavy lids drooping
exteriorly, and bulging sacs beneath.
His attire was always costly and in the mode, but not
expressed in fancy. His voice, though neither rich nor well-
modulated, had resonance and penetration. His manners were
affable, familiar, and cordial, with dignified gravity enough on
occasion. In conversation he was vivacious and good-humored
rather than witty, with great fondness for clean jokes, apt anec
dotes, odd incidents and reminiscences, and pertinent illustra-
tions. He was inclined to be noisy and boisterous if time
served, with much laughter. He liked to "jolly" his intimates,
but was domestic rather than convivial in his habits.
His chief mistakes came from desire for money, which he
wanted not for himself, hut for the power it brings. He was
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 429
liberal in his way of life, but not ostentatious, and his table
was always spread for hospitality.
He studied the arts of the politieian assiduously : the recog-
nition of unimportant men seldom seen, small personal atten-
tions to rustics; and was a most inveterate advertiser.
He had no fear of traditions, and took an active part in
the business of the Senate from the first. He had a great
nose for majorities, was a good guesser, and instinctively took
the popular side of open questions.
The Senate has always been controlled by lawyers, who
are the aristocratic class in the United States, and Blaine was
at a disadvantage because he did not belong to the profession.
The law lords were disposed to disparage and flout him, but
he was disrespectful to the verge of irreverence.
"Does the Senator from Maine think I am an idjit [idiot]?''
roared Thurman, in reply to an interrogatorv Blaine put to
him one day in the Pacific Railroad debate.
"Well," bellowed Blaine, "that depends entirely on the
answer you make to my question." Which gave "tin- merry
ha-ha" to the old Roman.
He spoke at length on silver, Chinese- exclusion, the Elec-
toral Commission, protection and the American marine, and
troops at the polls.
This paragraph is a good illustration of his methods in
debate. Replying to the charge that soldiers were used to
intimidate Southern Democrat ie voters, he said:
'The entire South had 1,155 soldiers to overrun, oppress,
and destroy the liberties of 15,000,000 people. In the Southern
States there are 1,205 counties, [f you distribute the soldiers,
there is not quite one for each county. If you distribute them
territorially, there is one for every 700 square miles of territory.
430 John James Ingalls.
So that if you make a territorial distribution, I would remind
the honorable Senator from Delaware, if I saw him in his seat,
that the quota for his State would be three: 'One ragged ser-
geant and two abreast,' as the old song has it, is the force ready
to destroy the liberties of Delaware."
His speeches were like reading editorials rather than ora-
tions. He spoke with extreme rapidity and violent gestures,
but never slopped over. He was brilliant and interesting,
but never sank into eloquence, as that word goes.
Even his eulogy on Garfield, perhaps his most ambitious
effort, reads like an essay rather than a panegyric.
Without ascribing to Blaine the absence of convictions, it
is not unjust to catalogue him as an opportunist. He was not
so much a student as a specialist.
He wrote little and read less, but devoured newspapers
omnivorously. His intellectual efforts were what the doctors
call pro re nata.
But in running debate, which is like a duel with swords,
Blaine was the Cyrano de Bergerac of his generation. Imper-
turbable, versatile, confident, never disconcerted, at the last
line he hit.
11.
Blaine and I were next-door neighbors in the Senate, my
desk being at his left, then Hamlin, and then Conkling in the
last seat of the middle row east of the gangway.
Blaine's conduct in the preliminary movements of the
campaign of 1 880 was mysterious and inexplicable. He re-
mained the popular favorite, but his enemies were, if possi-
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 431
ble, more malignant and relentless than at any previous time
in his career.
Morton, his great competitor in the West in 1876, was dead;
but|Conkling, Sherman, Logan, Cameron, Edmunds, and others,
while thev had no love for one another, were still united by
the common bond of hatred for Blaine. He was unmistakably
the enthusiastic choice of nine out of ten Republicans, black
and white, North and South; but the knowledge of his popu-
larity only whetted the rage of his foes, and gave edge to their
determination to spare nothing, foul or fair, foi his destruction.
These astute political veterans saw clearly that a crisis had
come in which the ordinary regulation tactics would fail.
Blaine, having no rival in the affections of his party, it be-
came necessary, therefore, to discover or invent a competitor.
It was not easy.
Various "favorite sons" were brought forward, only to be
received with indifference, disdain, or derision. General Sher-
man was approached, but he refused peremptorily, almost con-
temptuously, to permit his name to be used.
There was one gigantic figure which had grown still more
colossal in the interim since the decree of the Electoral Com-
mission. General Grant's last term had been prolific in scan-
dal that had nearly wrecked his party, but the people saw
that rogues and knaves had imposed on the simplicity and
inexperience of a generous nature, and the memory of his
errors was obliterated by gratitude for the vast services lie had
rendered the Republic.
He was at this time in the Orient on his tour around the
world, and as the nations through which he traveled rose up
and stood uncovered while he passed by, the American people
obtained a new conception of the grandeur of his achievements
432 John James Ixgau.s.
and the immortality of his fame. It seemed not so much the
judgment of contemporaries as the verdict of posterity.
But there was no popular desire to give him a third term.
No emergency existed which rendered even his great qualities
indispensable. The traditions and precedents of our history
were against it. It was an innovation that verged on revolu-
tion ; and vet, if Grant wanted it, many were willing that he
should have it in further acknowledgment of the obligation
that could never be fully acquitted.
Whether General Grant was himself ambitious for another
term, and aware of the movement in his favor, I never knew.
My belief is that the opponents of Blaine, looking over the
field, concluded that Grant was the only name with which
they could conjure, and put him forward without his knowl-
edge, trusting to the agitation and excitement of his return to
the United States to make it appear that he was the popular
choice and overwhelm all opposition.
The Xew York papers, one day while the contest was
raging, contained the account of Grant's reception in Siam.
Conkling read to me with much dramatic effect the General's
reply to the King, and commented upon Grant's remarkable
intellectual development in later years.
As the occasion seemed opportune, I asked him whether
Grant knew anything about the movement going on to put
him in nomination for a third term. Conkling replied with
much emphasis that he had never had a word of conversation
or a line of correspondence with him on the subject, and that
the movement, so far as he knew, was a spontaneous demand
of the people. Logan said substantially the same thing.
But notwithstanding this popular demand, Cameron, who
was in absolute control of the Republican "machine" in Perm-
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 433
sylvania, had a convention called many weeks earlier than
customary, and secured the election of a Grant delegation,
though the Republicans of that State were practically solid for
Blaine.
Logan did the same in Illinois, another Blaine State, in
May. In the meantime, Sherman, who was Secretary of the
Treasury, secured Ohio, and by his agents picked up many
negro delegates from the Southern States; while Edmunds,
in Xew England, got Vermont and Massachusetts.
I asked Blaine how he expected to win while his enemies
were packing conventions and setting up hostile delegations
in his territory. He did not appear to be disturbed, and
thought the people would take care of the convention at last.
The day of the nomination (Tuesday, June Sth) the Sen-
ate met at eleven, and considered the Calendar and the Sun-
dry Civil Appropriation Bill, but the proceedings were languid
and perfunctory.
Blaine took part in the debate occasionally, but betrayed
no agitation. The bulletins were brought into the chamber
every few minutes, in duplicate, one for the Vice-President
and the other for Blaine. To the groups that gathered around
he exhibited no concern. He strolled in the intervals about
the chamber and in and out of the corridors, chatting freely
about the incidents of the convention brought over the wire.
Conkling's "Appomattox and its famous apple tree-." and
his quotation from Raleigh, "The shallows murmur, but the
deeps are dumb," were much approved.
When the details of the thirty fifth ballot were brought to
his desk, between two and three p. m., he studied them atten-
tively a moment, and then said: "Garfield will be nominated
on the next ballot."
434 John James Ingalls.
About four o'clock the announcement of Garfield's nomi-
nation came. Blaine showed no emotion, and after a brief
silence, said to me: "I did not expect the nomination. The
combination was too strong for my friends to overcome. But
there is one thing I have done."
"What is that?" I inquired.
He answered: "I have put an end forever to the third-
term idea in this country."
Then he took part in the discussion of an item in the Appro-
priation Bill concerning the census in Rhode Island. Sen-
ator Beck, of Kentucky, good-naturedly twitted him with his
defeat, which he thought had thrown him into ill humor; but
Blaine tookmo notice of the gibe, and made no sign.
Although he accepted Garfield's offer of the place in a
characteristically gushing and indiscreet letter of December
?.o, 18S0, Blaine was in doubt, or to his intimates professed to
be, about the policy of entering the Cabinet as Secretary of
State. The Senate was congenial to him, and he felt that his
incumbency was for life if he so desired.
Great as were the prerogatives of the premiership, it was
a subordinate position, whose term must be brief and might
be uncertain. He seemed to halt and hesitate to the end.
Just before leaving the Senate Chamber for the last time, he
looked around on the familial scene and the familiar faces
with an aspect of pathetic regret. "Well," he said, "good-bye;
I am going; but I have arranged so that I can come back here
whenever I want to."
Blaine's evil genius seemed for the moment to be placated.
Though he had twice failed in his efforts to reach the Presi-
dency, he had riches, honor, and power.
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 435
He was still young, as years count in great careers. Af-
ter two terms in Garfield's Cabinet, which he anticipated, he
might reasonably reckon on the succession, and he would
then be but fifty-eight. So, facing eastward on Dupont Circle,
he built a noble place, which was to be the scene of his
statelv triumphs, his diplomatic functions, and his political
hospitalities.
But Fate's truce was brief and hollow. Destiny, the mighty
magician, sinister and sardonic, touched the trigger of the
assassin's pistol, and throne, crown, and sceptre vanished as
in the vision of Macbeth on the blasted heath.
The nomination of Arthur was a sop to the forces led by
Conkling to salve their humiliation at the defeat of Grant.
It was a placebo to New York and the stalwarts. Even in "the
stuff that dreams are made of," there was no thought that he
would be President. But, by the legerdemain of doom, Guit-
eau reinstated the vanquished. Blaine ceased to be an actor
in the drama, and became a spectator again.
The accession of Arthur gave that urbane and imperturb-
able politician an opportunity to which he was not equal.
He was meshed in complications he could not unravel.
He trod the paths of his feet with marvelous eiremnspec-
tion, but the labyrinth was too intricate, and he losl the clue.
His personal bearing was princely and incomparable. His
presence was majestic, and his manners were so engaging that
no one left him after even the briefest interview without a
sentiment of personal regard.
Transferred suddenly from the arena of municipal poli-
tics, where he was a most successful manager, he was brought
face to face with an immense exigency to which parochial
436 John James Ixgalls.
maxims were not applicable. He was not familiar with the
strange stories of the death of kings.
His motives were high, but he did not discern that the
factions he sought to unite were irreconcilable. As the direct
beneficiary of the heinous crime of an assassin, he was to some
an object of suspicion, to others, of aversion.
Garfield's Cabinet was an incongruous mosaic, hastily
thrown together, incapable of cohesion, and certain to dis-
integrate. Arthur could not peremptorily remove Garfield's
ministers without arousing resentment ; but their relations soon
became so strained that after a few weeks, to relieve the Pres-
ident from further embarrassment, they resigned.
In filling their places Arthur exhibited singular infirmity.
Blaine was succeeded by the mild and inoffensive Freling-
huysen. Lincoln, in loco parentis, was not disturbed. Alli-
son, of Iowa, had declined two portfolios in Garfield's Cabinet,
preferring to remain in the Senate, but, to save the honors for
his constituency, persuaded his colleague, Governor Kirkwood,
to take the position of Secretary of the Interior. He and Naval
Secretary Hunt remained a little longer than their associates,
but were followed in April by Teller, of Colorado, and Chan-
dler, of New Hampshire.
James, Postmaster-General, a representative of the "bet-
ter element" in New York, was succeeded by the amiable but
obsolete Howe, of Wisconsin, who died two years later, and
was followed by Gresham and Frank Hatton before the term
ended. To the office of Attorney-General came Benjamin H.
Brewster, of Philadelphia, the frightful distortion and disfig-
urement of whose features were forgotten in the grace of his
manners and the charm of his conversation.
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 437
In the choice of these successors, had Arthur, while exas-
perating Garfield's friends, propitiated Conkling, his course
would have been explicable; but he alienated both. The
defeat of Judge Folger, of New York (who succeeded Windom
in the Treasury), as the Republican candidate for Governor
of that State three years afterward, by Grover Cleveland, by
200,000 majority, was the Cossack's answer.
There was a Washington's birthday luncheon February 22,
18S4, at General McKee Dunn's, Lanier Place, Washington,
just east of Capitol Park, at which the most amusing incident
was the very obvious chagrin of a rural statesman who ap-
peared in evening dress among a throng arrayed in morning
costume.
Blaine was one of the guests. I had not met him before
during the winter. I was busy in the Senate, and he was
occupied with his Twenty Years in Congress," and with
social afternoon recreations.
I asked him how his Presidential canvass was going on.
He said he had received above seven thousand letters from
correspondents in every State, asking his wishes and plans
and proffering help, to no one of which had he replied.
He seemed to regard the outlook for Republican success as
exceedingly dubious on account of the factions in New York
and Ohio and the record of the party in Congress. He said
he neither desired nor expected the nomination, adding, how-
ever, with great emphasis and intensity: "But I don't intend
that man in the White House shall have it!"
June 6, 1884, on the fourth ballot and the fourth day of
the convention at Chicago, Blaine was nominated by 541, to
207 for Arthur, and 41 for Edmunds.
438 John James Ingalls.
The campaign that followed was the most feculent and
loathsome in our records. It was a carnival of revolting
filth and indecent defamation : the cloaca maxima of American
politics.
To his extraordinary power of attracting friends, Blaine
added an inexhaustible capacity for making enemies. He
had an indiscreet pugnacity, and could not resist the temp-
tation to bump and thump and jolt an adversary, whether in
his own partv or on the other side. The Democracy hated
him for his attack on Davis and the South eight years before.
Grant bore him no good-will. Conkling's vengeance was eter-
nal. Arthur would have been more than human had he felt
no resentment for Blaine's avowed hostility and contempt.
The dav of their revenge had come. His foes— and they
were many among Republicans as well as among Democrats —
adopted the apothegm of Beaumarchais :
"Calumniate! Calumniate! Something will always stick."
Caricature reinforced lampoon and pasquinade. The ter-
rible "Tattooed Man," perhaps the most cruel and brutal, as
it certainly was the most effective cartoon of our time, kept
constantly before the people the vague assault upon his integ-
ritv, which was one of the most formidable weapons of his
opponents.
He was abstemious in his habits, correct in his life, and a
church member, but he never had the unreserved confidence
of the moral element of the country.
Conscious of the desperate malignity of the coalition
against him, Blaine conducted his campaign with immense
energy. Many Republican papers deserted him and openly
supported Cleveland. Others were lukewarm, and carped
Blaine's Life Tragedy. 439
and sniveled, but he "Hew an cask's flight, bold and forth
on." His health was precarious and the strain enormous.
With a physician and a private car, he traveled Xorth
and West, arousing prodigious enthusiasm, like a conqueror
returning from battle. Hope elevated and joy brightened
his crest.
Had he remained on his tour as originally planned, it
seems now he might have won: but New York was doubtful,
and its electoral vote would decide the result. A vast pro-
cession of merchants and representative business men, march-
ing with Cleveland banners many hours to the refrain,
"Dear Mr. Fisher: Burn, burn, burn this letter!'
terrified the Republican managers, who thought some counter-
demonstration indispensable, and Blaine consented to attend
a banquet October 29th. At ten o'clock the morning of that
day a delegation of clergymen called on him at the Fiftq
Avenue Hotel with assurances of their sympathy and support.
The spokesman was the Rev. Dr. Burchard, who said in the
course of his improvised remarks: "We are Republicans)
and don't propose to leave our party and identify ourselves
with the party whose antecedents have been Rum, Roman-
ism, and Rebellion!"
How many votes this apt alliteration alienated will never
be known ; but after several days of suspicious delay subse-
quent to the election, the Democratic officials announce^ that
Cleveland had carried the State by 1,047 votes. That they
falsified the returns, gave Butler's vote to Cleveland, and stole
the State from Blaine is beyond reasonable doubt.
After his defeat, Blaine finished his "Twenty Years in Con-
gress," and in 1SS7 went to Europe. lie wrote from Paris, in
440 John James Ingalls.
November, to the chairman of the National Committee, that
under no circumstances would he be a candidate again.
His withdrawal turned the contest of 1888 into a free-for-
all scrub race. Hawley, Gresham, Harrison, Allison, Alger,
Depew, Sherman, Fitler, Rusk, Ingalls, Phelps, Lincoln, and
McKinley received votes on the first ballot, June 28th, Sher-
man being in the lead with 229. Blaine cabled from Edin-
burgh, June 24th, requesting his friends to refrain from voting
for him.
Harrison was nominated and elected, and Blaine entered
his Cabinet as Secretary of State, to complete the work inter-
rupted by the death of Garfield. But his strength was not
equal to the task. While in Italy the previous year, he had
been stricken with paralysis, and his physical and mental
powers never regained their vigor.
He became irregular in his attendance at the department,
and performed its routine duties at his house, one of the
famous mansions of Washington, shadowed by the memory
of many tragedies. Its first occupant was Secretary Spencer,
whose son was hanged at sea for mutiny. At its door Philip
Barton Key was shot by General Sickles. In one of its upper
■chambers Secretary Seward was assaulted by Payne the night
,of Lincoln's assassination, and nearly stabbed to death. Sec-
retary Belknap was its next tenant, and death was his guest.
When Blaine entered this abode in 1889, his three sons and
three daughters were living. January 15, 1890, the eldest son,
Walker, a young man of great promise, the prop and staff of
his father, died.
A little more than two weeks later, February 2d, the eldest
■daughter, wife of Colonel Coppinger, died under circumstances
peculiarly tragic and distressing. June 18, 1892, his second
Blaine's Like Tragedy. 441
son, Emmons, died in Chicago from exposure and over-exertion
to secure his father's nomination at Minneapolis. His sorrows
came not as single spies, but in battalions.
There was no cordiality between Harrison and Blaine.
The Secretary had been a confirmed invalid since 1887, and
was unable to bear the burdens of his great office. Much of
the work of the Department of State for which Blaine refused
credit was performed by the President, who had refused, it
was rumored, to appoint Walker Blaine First Assistant Sec-
retary and to nominate Colonel Coppinger as brigadier-
general over many seniors in the service.
Blaine's friends characterized Harrison as a scorpion, and
the situation became tense as the time for nominating his
successor drew nigh. Harrison was a candidate for a second
term, and Blaine stated publicly that he was not in the field.
His declaration was superfluous, for it was an open secret that
he was mortally ill and incapable of the fatigue and stress of
a campaign.
Suddenly yielding to what sinister suggestion, what evil
importunity, can never be known, at the last moment, the
afternoon of Saturday, June 4th, he resigned from the Cabinet.
The convention at Minneapolis was to meet the following
Tuesday, and Blaine's action "could only mean one thing":
an open alliance with the enemies of the President. He imme-
diately left Washington for Maine, tarrying at Young's Hotel
in Boston to receive bulletins from the convention.
On the fourth day, June 10th, he was put in nomination by
Senator Wolcott, of Colorado.
The scene was indescribably pathetic.
All knew he was at the threshold of eternity, but at the
mention of his name the innumerable hosts broke into con-
442 John James Ingalls.
fused and volleyed thunders that for twenty-seven minutes
seemed to shake the foundations of earth and sky.
Like the chorus of an anthem, with measured solemnity,
the galleries chanted, "Blaine! Blaine! James G. Blaine!"
myriads of stamping feet keeping barbaric rhythm, while
plumes and banners waved, and women with flags and scarfs
filled the atmosphere with motion and color and light.
It was the passing of Blaine. That gigantic demonstra-
tion was at once a salutation and a requiem. The Republican
party there took leave of their dying leader, and bade him an
eternal farewell.
KANSAS: 15 + 1— 1891
The other continents are convex, with an interior dome or
range, from whose declivities the waters descend to the cir-
cumference; but North America is concave, having mountain
systems parallel with its eastern and western coasts, whose
principal streams fall into the Atlantic and the Pacific.
Between the Appalachian and the Cordilleran regions a vast
central valley, more than two thousand miles wide from rim to
rim, extends with uniform contour from the tropics to the pole.
The crest of this colossal cavity nearly coincides with the bound-
ary between the Dominion and the United States, its northern
part drained by the Mackenzie and Red rivers into the Arctic
Ocean, and its southern, by the Mississippi and its six hundred
tributaries, into the Gulf of Mexico.
In a remote geological age this continental trough was the
bed of an inland sea, whose billows broke upon the Allegha-
nies and the Rocky Mountains — archipelagoes with precipitous
islands rising abruptly from the desolate main.
The subsiding ocean left enormous saline deposits, which,
at varying depths, underlie much of its surface, and which later
were succeeded by tropical forests and jungles, nurtured by
heat and moisture, their carbon stratified in the coal measures
of the interior, and beneath whose impervious shadows, after
many centuries, wandered herds of gigantic monsters, their
fossil remains yet found in the loess of the Solomon and the
443
444 John James Ingalls.
Smokv Hill. In a subsequent epoch, as the land became cooler
by radiation and firmer by drainage, the saurians were suc-
ceeded by ruminants, like the buffalo and the antelope, which
pastured in myriads upon the succulent herbage, and followed
the seasons in their endless migrations.
Mysterious colonizations of strange races of men — the
Aztecs, the Mound-builders, the Cave-dwellers — whose genesis
is unknown, appeared upon the fertile plains and perished,
leaving no traces of their wars and their religions, save the rude
weapons that the plough exhumes from their ruined fortifica-
tions, and the broken idols that irreverent science discovers
in their sacrificial mounds.
Upon the western acclivity of the basin, where its synclinal
axis is intersected by its greater diameter, lies the State of
Kansas — "Smoky Waters " ; so called from the blue and pensive
haze which in autumn dims the recesses of the forests, the hol-
lows of the hills, and broods above the placid streams like a
covenant of peace. It is quadrangular — save for the excision
of its northeastern corner by the meanderings of the Missouri —
200 miles wide by 400 miles long, and contains the geograph-
ical centre of the territory of the United States. Its area of
52,000,000 acres gradually ascends from an elevation of 900
feet above tide-water to the altitude of 4,000 feet at its
western boundary. It has a mean annual temperature of 530,
with a rainfall of 37 plus inches; an average of 30 thunder-
storms, 198 days exempt from frost, and 136,839 miles of wind
every year. This inclined plane is reticulated by innumerable
arroyos, or dry runs, which collect the storm-waters, whose
accumulations scour deepening channels in the friable soil as
they creep sinuously eastward, forming by their union the
Kaw (or Kansas) and Arkansas rivers.
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 445
The confines of the valleys are the "bluffs," no higher than
the general level of the land, worn into ravines and gulches by
frost and wind and rain, carving the limestone ledges into fan-
tastic architecture, and depositing at their base an alluvion
of inexhaustible fertility. Dense forests of elm, cottonwood,
walnut, and sycamore, mantled with parasitic growths, clothe
the cliffs and crags with verdure, and gradually encroach upon
the "rolling prairies." The eye wanders with tranquil satis-
faction and unalloyed delight over these fluctuating fields,
treeless except along the margins of the indolent streams; gor-
geous in summer with the fugitive splendor of grass and flowers,
in autumn billows of bronze, and in winter desolate with the
melancholy glory of undulating snows.
By imperceptible transition, the rolling prairies merge into
the "Great Plains," plateaus elevated above the humid cur-
rents of the atmosphere; rainless except for casual showers;
presenting a sterile expanse, with vegetation repulsive and
inedible; a level monotony broken at irregular intervals by
detached knobs and isolated buttes. Above their vague and
receding horizon forever broods a pathetic and mysterious
solemnity, born of distance, silence, and solitude.
The dawn of modern history broke upon Kansas three and
a half centuries ago, when Marcos de Xaza, a Franciscan friar,
returning from a missionary tour among the Pueblos, brought
rumors of populous cities and mines richer than Golconda and
Potosi in the undiscovered country beyond the Sierra Madre.
In 1 541, twenty years after the conquest of Mexico by Cortez,
Francisco Yasquez de Coronado, under the orders of Mendoza,
Vicerov of India, with a little army of 300 Spaniards and 800
Mexicans, marched northward from Culiacan, then the limit of
Spanish dominion, on an errand of discovery and spoliation.
446 John James Ingaixs.
Crossing the mountains at the head of the Gila River, he reached
the sources of the Del Norte, and continued northeasterly into
the Mississippi Valley, descending from the plains to the prai-
ries, crossing the present area of Kansas diagonally nearlv to
the fortieth degree of north latitude.
At the farthest point reached in his explorations he erected
a high cross of wood, with the inscription, "Franciso Vasquez
de Coronado, commander of an expedition, reached this place."
He left some priests to establish missions among the Indians,
but they were soon slain. In his report to Mendoza, at Mexico,
Coronado wrote :
"The earth is the best possible for all kinds of productions of Spain.
I found prunes, some of which were black, also excellent grapes and mul-
berries. I crossed mighty plains and sandy heaths, smooth and weari-
some, and bare of wood, and as full of crooked-back oxen as the mountain
Serena in Spain is of sheep."
Coronado was followed sixty years later by Don Juan de
Onate, the conqueror of New Mexico, and in 1662 by Penalosa,
then its Governor, who marched from Santa Fe, and was pro-
foundly impressed by the agricultural resources of the country
which he traversed.
The desultory efforts of the Spaniards to subdue the sav-
ages and acquire control of the territory continued for a cen-
tury, when the French became their competitors, under the
leadership of Marquette, Joliet, Hennepin, Iberville, and La
Salle, by whom formal possession of the Mississippi Valley was
taken in (682 for Louis NIV. By this monarch the whole
province of Louisiana, including what is now called Kansas,
with a monopoly of traffic with the Indian tribes, was granted
in 17 12 to Crozat, a wealthy merchant of Paris, who soon sur-
rendered his patent, and its privileges were transferred to the
Mississippi Company. Under their auspices the city of New
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 447
Orleans was founded in 17 18 by Bienville, who, in the following
year, dispatched an expedition nnder the command of Colonel
du Tissonet. who visited the Osages at their former location in
Kansas, and crossed the prairies 120 miles to the villages of the
Pawnees at the mouth of the Republican River, where Fort
Riley now stands. He continued his march westward 200
miles to the land of the Padoucahs, where he also set up a cross,
with the arms of the French king, vSeptember 27, 1719.
In 1724 De Bourgmont explored northern Kansas, starting
from the "Grand Detour," where the city of Atchison now
stands. In 1762 Kansas, with the rest of the Louisiana Terri-
tory, was ceded by France to Spain. In 1801 it was retroceded
by Spain to France. On the 30th of April, 1803, it was sold
by Napoleon, then First Consul, to the United States, Thomas
Jefferson, President. This wras the largest real-estate trans-
action which occurred that year, being 756,961,280 acres for
$27,267,621, being at the rate of about 3-i cents per acre. The
Anglo-Saxon was at last in the ascendant.
Attached in 1804 by act of Congress to the "Indian Ter-
ritory," the following year to the "Territory of Louisiana," and
in 181 2 to the "Territory of Missouri," Kansas remained, after
the admission of that State in 1820, detached, without local
government or a name, until its permanent organization thirty-
four years afterwards.
This mysterious region, so far, so fascinating, the object of
so much interest and desire, inaccessible except by long voy-
ages on mighty rivers whose sources were unknown, or by
weary journeys in slow caravans disappearing beyond the
frontier, had for some unknown reason long been marked on
the maps of explorers and described in the text of geographers
as the "Great American Desert."
448 John James Ingalls.
Though for many centuries populous and martial Indian
tribes, the aristocracy of the continent, making war their occu-
pation and the chase their pastime, had, without husbandry,
sustained their wild cavalry upon its harvests; though the
Spanish adventurers had reported that "its earth was strong
and black, well watered by brooks, streams, and rivers" ; though
the French trappers and voyageurs had enriched the merchants
of St. Louis, New Orleans, and Paris with its furs and peltries;
though Lewis and Clarke had penetrated its solitudes and
blazed a pathway to the Pacific; though Pike had discovered
the frowning peak indissolubly associated with his name ; and
Pursley and the traders of Santa Fe had traversed the prai-
ries of the Arkansas and the mesas of the Pecos — yet, in pop-
ular belief half a century ago the trans-Missouri plains were
classed with the steppes of Tartary and the arid wastes of Gobi.
The flight of the Mormons to Salt Lake in 1844, and the
California exodus in 1849, following the trail which was suc-
ceeded by the pony express, the overland stage-line, and the
Union Pacific Railroad, familiarized thousands of travelers
from all parts of the country with its enchanting landscape, its
superb climate, and its unrivalled though unsuspected capaci-
ties for agriculture and civilization. To them it was not a des-
ert; it was an oasis, compared with which, in resources, fertil-
ity, and possibilities of opulence, all the rest of the earth was
Sahara.
The surf of the advancing tide of population chafed rest-
lessly against the barrier, realizing the truth of the majestic and
impressive sentence of Tocqueville, written a quarter of a cen-
tury before:
" This gradual and continuous progress of the European race towards
the Rocky Mountains has the solemnity of a providential event; it is like
a deluge of men rising unabatedly, and daily driven onward by the hand
of God."
Kansas: 1541 — 1S91. 449
The origin or genesis of States is usually obscure and legend-
ary, with prehistoric periods from which they gradually emerge
like coral islands from the deep. Shadowy and crepuscular
intervals precede the day, in whose uncertain light men and
events, distorted or exaggerated by tradition, become fabulous,
like the gods and goddesses, the wars and heroes of antiquity.
But Kansas has no mythology; its history has no twilight.
The foundation-stones of the State were laid in the full blaze of
the morning sun, with the world as interested spectators. Its
architects were announced, their plans disclosed, and the work-
men have reared its walls arid crowned its dome without con-
cealment of their objects, and with no attempt to disguise their
satisfaction with the results. Nothing has been done furtively
nor in a corner.
The first bill for the organization of Kansas was presented
bv Senator Douglas in 1843, under the name of the Territory
of Nebraska. The next, two years later, named it the Territory
of Platte, and afterwards it was again twice called Nebraska.
January 23, 1854, Senator Douglas reported as a substitute
for his former measure the bill for the organization of the Ter-
ritories of Kansas and Nebraska, which, after fierce and acri-
monious debate, passed both 1 louses of Congress, and was
approved by President Pierce on the 30th of May. The east-
ern, northern, and southern boundaries of Kansas were the
same as now. Its western limit extended 673 miles, to the sum-
mit of the Rocky Mountains, including more than half of the
present area of Colorado, with its richest mines and its largest
cities.
Intense political excitement preceded and followed the re-
peal of the Missouri Compromise, which gave the measure its
chief political significance, and the conquesl of Kansas was not
450 John James Ixgalls.
the cause, but the occasion, of the conflict which ensued. The
question of freedom or slavery in the Territory, and in the State
to be, was important, it is true, but it was merely an incident
in the tragedy, unsurpassed in the annals of our race, opening
with the exchange of fourteen slaves for provisions by the
Dutch man-of-war in the harbor of Jamestown in 1619, and
whose prologue was pronounced by the guns that thundered
their acclamations when the Confederate flag was lowered for
the last time upon the field of Appomattox.
The incipient commonwealth lay in the westward path of
empire — the zone within which the great commanders, orators,
philosophers, and prophets of the world have been born ; in
which its Savior was crucified; in which its decisive battles
were fought, its victories over man and nature won ; the
triumphs of humanity and civilization achieved.
Had the formation of its domestic institutions alone been
the stake, it would still have been compensative for the valor
of heroes and the blood of martyrs. The diplomacy of great
powers has often exhausted its devices upon more trivial pre-
texts, and nations have been desolated with wars waged under
Caesars and Napoleons for the subjugation of provinces of nar-
rower bounds and inferior fertility.
But there was a profound conviction, a premonition, among
thoughtful men, that vastly more was involved; that further
postponement of the duel between the antagonistic forces in
our political system was impossible; that the existence of the
Union, the perpetuity of free institutions, and the success of the
experiment of self-government depended upon the issue.
The statesmen of the South, long accustomed to supremacy,
had beheld with angry apprehension the menacing increase of
the North in wealth and population; the irresistible tendency
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 451
of emigration to the intermontane regions of the West and the
Northwest, already dedicated to freedom. With prophetic vis-
ion they foresaw the admission of free States that would make
the South a minority in the Senate, as it was already in the
House, and hasten the destruction of the system of servile
labor, upon which they wrongly believed their prosperity to
depend.
The conscience of the Xorth apparently became dormant
upon the subject of the immorality of slavery, when, ceasing
to be profitable, it disappeared, by the operation of natural
laws, from the valleys of the Merrimac, the Connecticut, and
the Hudson. It seemed to have been lulled into an eternal
sleep by the anodyne of the Missouri Compromise ; but it was
roused into renewed activity when the repeal of that ordinance,
supplemented by the Dred Scott decision, disclosed the inten-
tions of the Southern leaders to maintain their ascendencv by
the extension of slavery over all the Territories of the Republic.
a policy whose success threatened their political supremacy and
their industrial independence.
Events have shown that the magnitude and significance of
the Kansas episode were not exaggerated. It was the prelude
to a martial symphony, the preface to a volume whose finis
was not written until the downfall of slavery was recorded.
It would be a congenial task, but the present scope and
purpose neither require nor permit a detailed narrative of the
tumultuous interval from the organization of the Territory
to the admission of the State. Its history has been written
by its partisans. Its actors have been portrayed by their
foes or their worshippers. The contests waged by Atchison
and Stringfellow against the Abolitionists, and by Brown and
Montgomery against "the border ruffians"; the battles and
452 John James Ingalls.
murders and sudden deaths ; the burning of houses and sack-
ing of towns; the proclamations, bulletins, and platforms; the
fraudulent elections and the dispersion of Legislatures — form a
unique chapter in our annals that waits the impartial chron-
icler. Neither side was blameless. Each was guilty of wrongs ,
begotten of the passions of the crisis, that culminated during
the Rebellion in border forays, encounters, reprisals, and retali-
ations, shocking to humanity, whose memory time cannot
obliterate nor charity condone.
In the preliminary movement for the occupation of the new
Territory, the slavery propagandists had the advantage of
proximity. They swarmed across the Missouri border, estab-
lishing camps, taking possession of the polling-places, securing
eligible sites for towns, and, by obstructing the navigation of
the river, compelled the emigrants from the North to make a
long, circuitous land journey through Iowa and Nebraska.
They received reinforcements and contributions of money,
stores, and arms from many Southern States, and elected
the first Territorial delegate, J. W. Whitfield, who sat from
September 20, 1854, till the adjournment of the Thirty-third
Congress.
By the census taken in February, 1855, the number of legal
voters in the Territory was 2,905; but at the election of mem-
bers of the first Legislature, four weeks later, 5,427 votes were
cast for the Southern candidates and 791 for their opponents,
the increment being largely due to the importation of electors
from Missouri, who came into the Territory on the day of the
election, and, having voted, returned home at night.
By this guilty initiative they obtained on the threshold an
immense advantage. They secured absolute control of the
political agencies of the Territory. The Legislature, which as-
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 453
sembled at Pawnee in July, adopted the slave code of Mis-
souri en bloc, supplementing these statutes with original laws
making many new offenses against the slave system punishable
with death, and compelling every official, candidate, and voter
to take an oath to support the fugitive-slave law.
The idea of permanently colonizing Kansas with free labor
from the Xorth by systematic migration, and thus determining
the question of the institutions of the new empire of the West,
originated with Eli Thayer, of Massachusetts, who organized
the Emigrant Aid Society in that State in 1854. The example
was immediately followed in other parts of the North, and the
pioneer colony reached the mouth of the Kansas River July
28th. Among the most prominent leaders of the colonists
from Xew England were Samuel C. Pomeroy, afterwards for
twelve years a senator of the United States; and Charles Rob-
inson, an earlv settler in California, where he had fallen in
an armed struggle for what he believed to be the cause of
popular rights against corporate injustice and tyranny. By
one of those singular and pleasing coincidences which the judg-
ment would reject as an unreal and extravagant climax in a
romance or drama, he camped for the night on his overland
journev in 1S49 in the enchanting valley of the YVakarusa, to
which, five vears later, he returned to found the city of Law-
rence, the intellectual capital of the State, of which he became
the first Governor, and where, in the afternoon (1891) of an
honorable, useful, and adventurous career, he still survives,
his eye not dim nor his natural force abated, the object of
affectionate regard and veneration.
The emigrants from the Xorth were almost without excep-
tion from civil life, laborers, farmers, mechanics, and artisans,
young men of the middle class, reared in toil and inured to pov-
454 John James Ixgalls.
ertv, unused to arms and unschooled in war. They were intel-
ligent, devout, and patriotic. They came to plough and plant,
to open farms, erect mills, to saw lumber and grind corn, to
trade, teach school, build towns, and construct a free State.
But one of them — James Henry Lane — had any military experi-
ence. He had been a colonel in the Mexican War of an Indi-
ana regiment, and was afterwards a Democratic lieutenant-
governor and member of Congress from that State. He had an
extraordinary assemblage of mental, moral, and physical traits,
and, with even a rudimentary perception of the value of per-
sonal character as an element of success in public affairs, would
have been a great leader, with an enduring fame. But in arms
he was a Captain Bobadil, and in politics a Rittmeister Dugald
Dalgettv. He proposed to "settle the vexed question and save
Kansas from further outrage " by a battle between one hundred
slave-holders, including Senator Atchison, and one hundred
Free State men, including himself, to be fought in the presence
of twelve United States senators and twelve members of the
House of Representatives as umpires!
He was the object of inexplicable idolatry and unspeakable
execration. With his partisans, the superlatives of adulation
were feeble and meagre; with his foes, the lexicon of infamy
contained no epithets sufficiently lurid to express their abhor-
rence and detestation. They alleged that he never paid a debt
nor told the truth, save by accident or on compulsion, and that
to reach the goal of his ambition he had no convictions he
would not sell, made no promise he would not break, and had
no friend he would not betray.
A lean, haggard, and sinewy figure, with a Mephistophelian
leer upon his shaven visage, his movements were alert and rest-
less, like one at bay and apprehensive of detection. Professing
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 455
religion, he was never even accused of hypocrisy, for his follow-
ers knew that he partook of the sacrament as a political device
to secure the support of the Church ; and that with the same
nonchalant alacrity, had he been running for office in Hindustan,
he would have- thrown his offspring to the crocodiles of the
Ganges, or bowed among the Parsees at the shrine of the sun.
His energy was tireless and his activity indefatigable. Xo night
was too dark, no storm too wild, no heat or cold too excessive,
no distance too great, to delay his meteoric pilgrimages, with
dilapidated garb and equipage, across the trackless prairies
from convention to convention.
His oratorv was voluble and incessant, without logic, learn-
ing, rhetoric, or grace ; but the multitudes to whom he perpetu-
ally appealed hung upon his hoarse and harsh harangues with
the rapture of devotees upon the oracular rhapsodies of a
prophet, and responded to his apostrophes with frenzied
enthusiasm.
He gained the prize which he sought with such fevered am-
bition; but, after many stormy and tempestuous years, Xeme-
sis, inevitable in such careers, demanded retribution. He pre-
sumed too far upon the toleration of a constituency which had
honored him so long and had forgiven him so much. He tran-
scended the limitations which the greatest cannot pass. He
apostatized once too often; and in his second term in the Sen-
ate, to avoid impending exposure, after a tragic interval of
despair, he died by his own hand, surviving ten days after the
bullet had passed through his brain.
The Northern press, alive to the importance of the strug-
gle, united in an appeal to public opinion, such as had never
before been formulated, and despatched to the Territory a corps
of correspondents of unsurpassed ability and passionate devo-
456 John James Lvgalls.
tion to liberty. Foremost among these apostles were William
A. Phillips, who, after long and distinguished service in the
Army and in Congress, lives in literary retirement upon a mag-
nificent estate near the prosperous city of Salina, which he
founded; Albert Dean Richardson, whose assassination in New
York in 1869 prematurely closed a brilliant career ; and James
Hedpath, subsequently editor of the North American Review.
Their contributions reached eager readers in every State, and
were reprinted beyond the seas, chronicling every incident,
delineating every prominent man, arousing indignation by the
recitation of the wrongs they denounced, and exciting the imag-
ination with descriptions of the loveliness of the land, rivalling
Milton's portraiture of the Garden of Eden. No time was ever
so minutely and so indelibly photographed upon the public ret-
ina. The name of no State was ever on so many friendlv and so
many hostile tongues. It was pronounced in every political
speech, and inserted in every party platform. No region was
--ever so advertised, and the impression then produced has never
passed away.
The journalists were reinforced by the poets, artists, novel-
ists, and orators of an age distinguished for genius, learning,
and inspiration. Lincoln, Douglas, Seward, and Sumner deliv-
< ered their most memorable speeches upon the theme. Phillips
. and Beecher, then at the meridian of their powers, appealed to
the passions and the conscience of the Nation by unrivalled
eloquence and invective. Prizes were offered for lyrics, that
were obtained, so profound was the impulse, by obscure and
unknown competitors. Lowell, Bryant, Holmes, Longfellow,
and Emerson lent the magic of their verse. YVhittier was the
laureate of the era. His "Burial of Barbour" and "Marais du
Cygne" seemed like a "prophet's cry for vengeance to the immi-
Kansas: 1541—1891. 457
grants, who marched to the inspiring strains of "Suona la
Tromba," or chanted, to the measure of "Auld J. am; Syne,"
"We cross the prairies as of old
Our fathers crossed the sea."
The contagion spread to foreign lands, and alien torches
were lighted at the flame. Walter Savage Landor wrote an
ode to free Kansas. Lady Byron collected money, which she
sent to the author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," for the relief of the
sufferers in Kansas. Volunteers from Italy, France, and
Germany, revolutionists and exiles, served in the desultory
war, many of whom afterwards fought with distinction in the
armies of the Union. It was the romance of history. The
indescribable agitation which always attends the introduction
of a great moral question into polities pervaded the souls of
men, transforming the commonplace into the ideal, and inaug-
urating a heroic epoch. The raptures that swelled the hearts
of the pioneers yet thrill and vibrate in the blood of their pos-
teritv, like the chords of a smitten harp when the player lias
departed.
The Free State settlers, being powerless to overcome or
reverse the political action of their adversaries, adopted the
policv of ignoring it altogether. They resolved to endeavor
to change the Territory into a State without the formality of an
enabling act of Congress. Their competence to do this was
denied, on the ground that it was in opposition to the regularly
organized political authorities ; but they chose delegates to a
convention, which me1 at Topeka, and framed a Constitution
that was adopted in December, 1S55, by 1,731 for to 46 against,
its friends only participating in the election.
A governor and other State officers and a delegate in Con-
gress were chosen in January. The national House of Repre-
458 John James Ixgalls.
sentatives. July 3, 1856, passed a bill for the admission of the
State under this Constitution, but it was rejected in the Senate.
Acting, however, upon the theory that the State existed,
the Legislature chosen under the Topeka Constitution assem-
bled July 4, iS56; but was dispersed by United States troops
commanded by Colonel Sumner on the order of President
Pierce, who denounced the movement as an insurrection
requiring the forcible interposition of national authority.
Further attempts to organize were thwarted by the arrest of
the leaders for usurpation of office and misprision of treason.
Immigration from the North increased, and under the assur-
ance of Governor Walker that the election should be honest
and peaceable, the two parties had the first actual test of their
relative strength October, 1857, when the Free State electors
chose thirty-three out of fifty-two members of the Legislature.
For delegate in Congress 3,799 votes were cast for Epaphro-
ditus Ransom, who had been Governor of Michigan, 1848-49,
and 7,8S8 for Marcus J. Parrott, an ambitious and popular
member of the Leavenworth bar.
Born in South Carolina, of Huguenot ancestry, Parrott was.
at an earlv age domiciled in Ohio, whither his family had
removed to escape the contaminating influences of slavery.
He was graduated at Vale, and trained to the law. He came
to the Territory two years before, at the age of twenty-six,
politically in sympathy with the party in power, and expecting
to be the recipient of its favors. Imbued with a passion for
liberty, he revolted at the methods pursued by its foes, and
espoused the cause of freedom with the ardor of a generous and
impulsive nature. Reared in affluence, and of easy fortune,
he was familiar with the ways of the world, and united to the
bearing of a courtier a captivating suavity of address, which
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 459
propitiated all sorts and conditions of men. He was like a
thread of gold shot through the rough woof of the frontier.
Though not of heroic stature, his dark, vivacious countenance,
the rich melody of his voice, and his impressive elocution, gave
him great power as an orator. He possessed the fatal gift
of fluency, but, wanting depth and sincerity, seemed like an
actor seeking applause, rather than a leader striving to direct ,
or a statesman endeavoring to convince the understanding of
his followers. His service in Congress demanded the indulgent
judgment of his constituents, and failing of an election to the
Senate when the State was admitted, he yielded to the allure-
ments of appetite, squandered two fortunes in travel and pleas-
ure, and the splendid light of his prophetic morning sank lower
and lower until it was quenched in the outer darkness of gloom
and desolation.
The leaders of the Pro-slavery forces from this time prac-
tically abandoned their aggressive efforts, admitting that they
had been overcome by the superior resources of the North ; but
the so-called "bogus Legislature," before its expiration, called
another convention, which sat at Lecompton, and adopted
the Constitution known in history by that name. It ivo>-
nized the existence of slavery in the Territory, forbade the
enactment of emancipation laws, and prohibited amendments
before 1864. Knowing its fate if submitted to the people, it
provided that only the clause relating to slavery should be
voted upon, but that the instrument itself should be estab-
lished by act of Congress admitting the State. The slavery
clause was adopted by 6,256 to 567, the Free State men refrain-
ing from voting; but as soon as the new Legislature met. an
act was passed submitting the entire Constitution to the pop-
460 John James Ingalls.
ular vote, January 4, 185S, when it was rejected by 10,256 to
162, the Pro-slavery men not appearing at the polls.
The debate was then transferred to Congress, and the effort
to admit the State under the Lecompton Constitution failed,
although the President urged it, and its friends were in a major-
ity in both houses. The tempting bribe of the English Bill,
which was offered as a compromise, was rejected by the peo-
pie in August by 11,088 to 1,788, and thus the curtain fell on
Lecompton.
The abortive series of constitutions was enlarged by the
formation of the fifth at Leavenworth, which was also ratified
by the people, but rejected by Congress on the ground that
the population was insufficient. The Territorial existence of
Kansas closed with the adoption, October 4, 1859, by a vote of
10,421 to 5,530, of the Wyandotte Constitution, under which,
the Southern senators having departed, Kansas was admitted
into the Union, January 29, 1861.
The long procession of Governors and acting Governors
sent to rule over the Territory vanished away like the show of
eight kings, the last having a glass in his hand, Banquo's ghost
following, in the witches' cavern in "Macbeth" -Reeder, Shan-
non, Geary, Stanton, Walker, Denver, Medary, and Beebee—
"cnme like shadows, so depart!"
It is a strange illustration of Anglo-Saxon pride of race, and
of its haughtv assumption of superiority, that in a State which
apotheosized John Brown of Osawatomie, and gave a new def-
inition to the rights of man, suffrage was confined to "white
male citizens." But the people of Kansas were too brave and
strong to be long unjust. The first colored man regularly
enlisted as a soldier was sworn and mustered at Fort Leaven-
worth. The first colored regiment was raised in Kansas, and
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 461
the first engagement in which negroes fought was under the
command of a Kansas officer, October 26, 1862. The citizen
longest in office in the State — for nearly thirty years — was
colored, and born a slave.
The admission of the State and the outbreak of the Rebel-
lion were coincident, and, as might have been predicted from
their martial gestation, the people devoted themselves with
unabated zeal to the maintenance of the Union. Being out-
side the field of regular military operations, inaccessible by
railroads, exposed to guerrilla incursions from Missouri and
to Indian raids from the south and west, the campaign of de-
fense was continuous, and for four years the entire population
was under arms. Immigration ceased. By the census of June,
i860, the number of inhabitants was 143,463; at the close of
the war it had declined to 140,179. Fields lay fallow, and
the fire of the forges expired. Towns were deserted, and
homesteads abandoned. The State sent more soldiers to bat-
tle than it had voters when the war began. Under all calls,
its quota was 12,931; it furnished 20,151, without bounty or
conscription. Nineteen regiments, five companies, and three
batteries participated in 127 engagements, of which seven
were on her own soil. From Wilson Creek to the Gulf every
great field in the Southwest was illustrated by theirvalor and
consecrated by their blood. Her proportion of mortality in the
field was the largest among the States, exceeding 61 in each
1,000 enlistments, Vermont following with 58, and Massachu-
setts with nearly 48. Provost Marshal General Fry, in his final
roster of the Union armies, in which all are alike entitled to
honor, because all alike did their duty, wrote this certificate of
precedence in glory:
462 John James Ingalls.
"Kansas shows the highest battle mortality of the table. The same
singularly martial disposition which induced about one-half of the able-
bodied men of the State to enter the Army without bounty may be sup-
posed to have increased their exposure to the casualties of battle after they
were in the service."
With the close of the war the first decennium ended, and
the disbanded veterans returned under the flag they had
redeemed to the State they had made free. Attracted by
homesteads upon the public domain, by just and liberal exemp-
tion laws, and by the companionship of the brave, those heroes
were reinforced by a vast host of their comrades, representing
every arm of the military and naval service from all the States
of the Union. Not less than 30 per cent of its electors have
fought in the Union armies, and the present commander of the
Grand Army of the Republic, Timothy McCarthy, witnessed
the defense of Sumter and the surrender at Appomattox.
Population increased from S,6oi in 1855 to 140,179 in 1865,
528,349 in 1875; 1,268,562 in 1885, and 1,427,096 in 1890. In
a community so rapidly assembled the homogeneity of its ele-
ments is extraordinary. Kansas is distinctly the American
State. Less than 10 per cent of its inhabitants are of foreign
birth, principally English, Germans, and Scandinavians; and
less than 4 per cent of African descent. The State is often
called the child of the Puritans, but, contrary to the popular
impression, the immigration from New England was compar-
atively trivial in numbers, much the larger contributions hav-
ing been derived from Iowa, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Penn-
sylvania, New York, and Kentucky. It is the ideas of the Pil-
grims, and not their descendants, that have had dominion in
the young commonwealth, which resembles primitive Massa-
chusetts before its middle classes had disappeared and its
Kansas: 1541 — 189 1. 463
society become stratified into the superfluously rich and the
hopelessly poor.
Within these pastoral boundaries there are no millionaires
nor any paupers, except such as have been deprived by age,
disease, and calamity of the ability to labor. Xo great for-
tunes have been brought to the State, and none have been ac-
cumulated by commerce, manufactures, or speculation. Xo
sumptuous mansions nor glittering equipages nor ostentatious
display exasperate or allure. Legislation protects wages and
cabins no less than bonds and palaces, and the free school, the
jury, and impartial suffrage have resulted in the establishment
of justice, liberty, fraternity, and equality as the foundations
of the State.
Politically, as might have been predicted, the Republican
party, whose birth is indissolubly associated with the efforts
to dedicate Kansas to freedom, continued supreme for thirty
years. During that period the State had but one Governor
and one member of Congress of another faith, and there have
been few Legislatures in which the membership of the opposi-
tion has risen as high as 20 per cent. This supremacy has not
been favorable to national leadership, both parties having
reserved their allegiance and their favors for more doubtful
constituencies.
An equlibrium which compels the presentation of strong
and unexceptionable candidates and the practice of honesty
and economy in administration is better than a disproportion-
ate majority which makes the contest end with a nomination.
When one party has nothing to hope and the other nothing to
fear, degradation and decay are inevitable. Intrigue supplants
merit; the sense of responsibility disappears; manipulation of
primaries, caucuses, and conventions displaces the conflict and
464 John James Ingaixs.
collision of opinion and debate. Paltry ambitions become re-
spectable. Little men aspire to great places, and distinguished
careers are impossible.
In addition to those elsewhere mentioned, others who have
been prominent in State and national affairs are Martin F.
Conway, the first representative in Congress, a native of
Maryland, a diminutive, fair-haired, blue-eyed enthusiast,
with the bulging brow and retiring chin of Swinburne, an
erratic political dreamer, whose reveries ended at Saint Eliza-
beth's; Generals James G. Blunt, Robert B. Mitchell, George W.
Deitzler, Charles W. Blair, Albert L. Lee, and Powell Clayton,
military leaders, and eminent also in civil life ; Edmund G.
Ross, the successor of Lane in the Senate, who forfeited the
confidence of his constituents by voting against the impeach-
ment of President Johnson, and was subsequently appointed
by President Cleveland Governor of New Mexico; Thomas A.
Osborn, who, aftei serving as Governor (1873-77), had a remark-
ably successful diplomatic career as United States minister
to Chile and Brazil; John P. St. John, twice Governor, prom-
inently identified with the cause of prohibition, and the candi-
date of its advocates for the Presidency in 18S4; John A. Mar-
tin, a distinguished soldier, editor of a leading journal, Gov-
ernor 1S84-88, in whose administration the municipal organi-
zation of the State was completed; Preston B. Plumb, senator
from 1877 until his untimely death, December 20, 1891; and
Bishop \Y. Perkins, his successor by appointment, after sev-
eral terms upon the bench, and eight years of distinguished
service in the House of Representatives; Thomas Ryan, ten
years member of Congress, and now representing the United
States as envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiarv to
Mexico.
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 465
Philosophers and historians recognize the influence of early
settlers upon the character and destinies of a community.
Original impulses are long continued, like the characteristics
and propensities which the mother bestows upon her unborn
child. The constant vicissitudes of climate, of fortune, of his-
tory, together with the fluctuations of politics and business,
"have engendered in Kansas hitherto perpetual agitation, not
always favorable to happiness, but which has stimulated activ-
ity, kept the popular pulse feverish, and begotten a mental
condition exalted above the level monotonies of life. Every
-one is on the qui vive, alert, vigilant, like a sentinel at an out-
post. Existence has the excitement of a game of chance, of a
revolution, of a battle whose event is doubtful. The unprece-
dented environment has produced a temperament volatile and
mercurial, marked by uncalculating ardor, enterprise, intrepid-
ity and insatiable hunger for innovation, out of which has grown
a society that has been alternately the reproach and the marvel
of mankind.
For a generation Kansas has been the testing-ground for
•every experiment in morals, politics, and social life. Doubt
of all existing institutions has been respectable. Nothing has
Tjeen venerable or revered merely because it exists or has
endured. Prohibition, female suffrage, fiat money, free silver,
every incoherent and fantastic dream of social improvement
and reform, every economic delusion that has bewildered the
foggy brains of fanatics, every political fallacy nurtured by
misfortune, poverty, and failure, rejected elsewhere, has here
found tolerance and advocacy. The enthusiasm of youth, the
•conservatism of age, have alike yielded to the contagion, mak-
ing the history of the State a melodramatic series of cataclysms,
in which tragedv and comedy have contended for the mastery,
466 John James Ingalls
and the convulsions of Nature have been emulated by the catas-
trophes of society. There has been neither peace, tranquillity,,
nor repose. The farmer can never foretell his harvest, nor the
merchant his gains, nor the politician his supremacy. Some-
thing startling has always^ happened, or has been constant-
ly anticipated. The idol of to-day is execrated to-morrow.
Seasons of phenomenal drought, when the sky was brass and
the earth iron, have been followed by periods of indescribable
fecundity, in which the husbandman has been embarrassed by
abundance, whose value has been diminished by its excess.
Cvclones, blizzards, and grasshoppers have been so identified
with the State in public estimation as to be described by its.
name, while some of the bouleversements of its politics have
aroused the inextinguishable laughter, and others have excited
the commiseration and condemnation, of mankind.
But as, in spite of its anomalies and the obstacles of Na-
ture, the growth of the State in wealth and numbers has been
unprecedented, and its condition is one of stable and per-
manent prosperity; so, notwithstanding the vagaries and ec-
centricities into which by the appeals of reformers and the
pressure of misfortune they have sometimes been betrayed,
the great body of the people are patriotic, conservative, and
intelligent to a degree not surpassed elsewhere, and seldom
equalled among the children of men.
The social emancipation of woman is complete. The only
limitation upon her political equality with man is in the right of
suffrage, which is confined to municipal and school-district
elections. Women are exempt from jury duty, from military
service, and from work upon the highways ; but, whether mar
ried or single, they can practice the professions, engage in mer-
cantile business, follow any industry or occupation, and pursue
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 467
any calling, upon the same conditions as men. The distinction
of sex is recognized only in its natural sense and use. The prop-
erty, real and personal, of a single woman remains her own
after marriage, unless voluntarily alienated. She can sue and
be sued in her own name, and her estate is not liable for her
husband's debts, nor can the homestead be sold or encum-
bered without her conset. When the marriage is ended by
death, the survivor is entitled to a moiety of the joint and sev-
eral estate, with the remainder to the children. Agitation for
full suffrage is active, and will undoubtedly ultimately prevail.
The first bonds voted in the State were for school-houses,
and the first tax levied in every community, the largest tax,
and the tax most cheerfully paid, is the school tax. For the
education of her children, Kansas has already spent the enor-
mous total of $40,000,000, nearly one-half the entire cost of
State and municipal government. Equal facilities are afforded
to whites and blacks. More than $21,000,000 are invested in
school-houses, State buildings, lands, and other property for
educational purposes. The average school year is twenty-
seven weeks, supported by State, district, and county taxa-
tion, amounting in 1890 to $5,696,659.69.
This magnificent educational system wears the triple crown
of the State University at Lawrence, with a faculty of thirty-
six members and 474 students; the State Normal School at
Emporia, with a faculty of eighteen members and 1.200 stu-
dents; and the Agricultural College at Manhattan, with an en-
dowment from public lands of $501,426.33, Si 5,000 annually
from the Government as an experiment station, an annual
income of $65,000, a faculty of eighteen members, and 575
students.
468 John James Ingalls.
Public education is supplemented by private and denomi-
national schools, with an average yearly attendance of 65,000,
and buildings and endowments valued at two and a quarter
million dollars. vSuch efforts and sacrifices have already pro-
duced perceptible and gratifying results. The illiterate frac-
tion in Kansas is the smallest save one in the Nation. The
general standard of intelligence is unusually high. The State
publications and reports are models for imitation, notably the
Biennial of the State Board of Agriculture, speaking whereof
the London Times, in 1880, said: 'The resources the book
describes fill the English mind with astonishment and envy."
The curse and bane of frontier life is drunkenness. The
literature of the mining-camp, the cross-roads, and the cattle-
ranch reeks with whisky. In every new settlement the saloon
precedes the school-house and the church ; is the rendezvous
of ruffians, the harbor of criminals, the recruiting-station of the
murderer, the gambler, the harlot, and the thief; a perpetual
menace to social order, intelligence, and morality, above whose
portal should be inscribed the legend engraved on the lintel of
the infernal gates: "Lasciate ogni speranza voi cJi' cntrate."
Agitation against the evils of intemperance was contem-
porary with the political organization of the Territory. The
founders of Topeka and Lawrence forbade the sale of intox-
icating beverages within their corporate limits, and the debate
continued until 1881, when a constitutional amendment was
adopted forever prohibiting the manufacture and sale of intox-
icating liquors, except for medicinal, mechanical, and scientific
purposes. This was enforced by appropriate legislation, and
the validity of the amendment and of the statutes was sus-
tained by the Supreme Courts of the State and of the Nation.
After futile and costly resistance, the dramshop traffic has
Kansas: 154 i — 1891. 469
disappeared from the State. Surreptitious sales continue;
club drinking and "joints" are not unknown; but the saloon
has vanished, and the law has been better enforced than similar
legislation elswhere. In the larger towns prohibition is not so
strictly observed as in the rural districts, where public opinion
is more rigid; but in all localities the beneficent results are
apparent in the diminution of crime, poverty, and disorder.
Banned by law, the occupation is stigmatized, and becomes
disreputable. If the offender avoids punishment, he does
not escape contempt. Drinking being in secret, temptation is
diminished, the weak are protected from their infirmities, and
the young from their appetites and passions.
Much of the prominence of Kansas is due to the novel and
startling methods employed by its journalists to invite public
attention to the opportunities found here for success and hap-
piness. They have been the persistent and conspicuous advo-
cates of immigration, railroads, schools, churches, manufacto-
ries, and improvements.
The first printing-press was brought by Jotham Meeker in
1833 to Shawnee Mission, a station of the Methodist Church,
established in what is now Johnson County, in 1829. Upon its
primitive platen were printed religious books, pamphlets, tracts,
and a newspaper in the Indian tongue, in a region then more
remote and inaccessible than Alaska now. This venerable relic,
after nearly sixty years of service, is still on duty in one of
the southern counties of the State. The first newspaper in
the Territory was the Leavenworth Herald, printed in the open
air under an elm-tree on the levee of the city of that name. It
has been succeeded by a swarming multitude of original, inge-
nious, and brilliant ventures in journalism, magazines, reviews,
periodicals, papers, daily and weekly, varying in excellence,
470 John James Ingalls.
but united in vociferous and persistent affirmation that Kansas
is the best State in the most glorious country on the finest planet
in the solar system; that its soil is the richest, its climate the
most salubrious, its men the most enterprising, its women the
most beautiful, its children the most docile, its horses the fast-
est, its cattle the largest, its sheep the woolliest, its hogs the
fattest, its grasshoppers the most beneficent, its blizzards the
warmest, its cyclones the mildest, its droughts the wettest, its
hot winds the coldest, its past the most glorious, its present the
most prophetic, its destiny the most sublime.
They remind the bewildered reader of the feat of the Hindoo
necromancer who throws a ball of cord into the air, catches the
depending end, and, climbing hand over hand, disappears in
the blue abyss of the sky. Their versatile and extravagant
spirit appears in the extraordinary nomenclature which serves
to attract the attention of the searcher after truth. Among
them may be found The Thomas {County) Cat, The Wano Rus-
tler, The Paralyzer, The Cherokee Cyclone, The Cimarron Sod
House, The Lake City Prairie Dog, The Bazoo, The Lucifer, The
Prairie Owl, The Kincaid Knuckle, The Bundle of Sticks, The
Cap-Sheaf, The Dodge City Cowboy.
The newspapers have been the advance agents of civiliza-
tion, often the voice of one crying in the wilderness. They
have reversed the ancient order, and instead of waiting for
subscribers and advertisers, they have been the sappers and
miners of the assault upon the solitudes of Nature. The moral
tone of the press is exceptionally pure, its intellectual plane
unusually elevated; it is generous in the treatment of public
men, just in the criticism of opponents, broad and liberal in
views of State and national policy and administration.
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 471
The hunger and thirst for knowledge, which has created and
in turn is stimulated by the press, has a wider scope, and the
people are omnivorous readers of metropolitan journals and
leading periodicals. With the church and the school have been
established great numbers of public and private libraries, so
that religion, learning, and literature have become the moving
forces of every community. The State Library and the col-
lection of the State Historical Society at the capital, and the
public libraries in other localities, are richer and larger than
those of many of the older States.
The venerable jest, that there is no Sunday west of the Mis-
sissippi, is not entirely jocular. It has a suggestion of truth.
The same influence which makes men indifferent to the past
renders them careless also of the future. Ambition and cupid-
ity are the ruling passions in new communities, and the chief end
of man is not to glorify God and enjoy Him forever, but to
make money and run for office. The concern for this world is
much greater than for that which is to come. Religion is con-
servative. It stands upon authority, and demands obedience.
The pioneer is radical, impatient of dogmas, and a "kicker" by
instinct. He detests bigots, hypocrites, and fossils. His mind
being inquisitive, its tendency is toward materialism and ration-
alism rather than faith. He is not disturbed by anathemas,
and with composure hears himself described as an agnostic;
but he is reverent, tolerant, and devout. He recognizes relig-
ion as one of the great beneficent forces of the universe, an indis-
pensable premise in the syllogism of human destiny, without
which society would be a sophism, and the soul of man a fallacy,
Kansas attests her convictions by 4,000 church organizations,
representing every denomination, ^with an aggregate member-
47 2 John James Ingai.ls.
ship of nearly 317,000, having 2,339 houses of worship, and
property valued at about $9,000,000.
The first railroad track in Kansas was laid March 20, i860,
on the Elwood and Marysville line, opposite the city t of St.
Joseph. On the 73d of April the "Albany," a pioneer locomo-
tive, a veteran which had been used from Boston to the Mis-
souri as railroads advanced across the continent, was ferried
over the river, and drew the first train on the first section of
the Pacific Railroad. Construction ceased with the breaking-
out of the war, but was resumed with great vigor at its close.
Stimulated by liberal donations from cities, towns, and coun-
ties, railroad-building became a mania, with disastrous results.
In addition to the great trunk lines through populous and pro-
ductive regions, subsidiary branches, unuecessarv auxiliaries,
and superfluous feeders were built, without earning capacity,
burdening communities with irretrievable self-imposed debts,
absorbing the revenues of those which were remunerative, giv-
ing poor service, and rapidly deteriorating from neglect and
poverty.
In August, 1863, the grading of the Kansas Pacific Railroad
was begun at the State line between Kansas and Missouri, in
the dense forest of cottonwoods that then shaded the site of
what has since become a populous suburb of one of the great
cities of the West. The contractor erected at the initial point
a pillar, inscribing on the face towards the east "Slavery,"
and on the face towards the west "Freedom." This line was
completed to Lawrence in November, 1 864, but the first fortv
miles were not accepted by the Government until October, 1 865.
There are now 109 railroad companies in the State, many
of them consolidated, with more than 10,000 miles of track,
assessed at $50,865,825.34. Of the 106 counties, all but five
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 473
are traversed by railroads, and the traveler entering a Santa
Fe train at Atchison can, within a week, in a Pullman ear,
reach the city of Mexico over almost the identical route fol-
lowed by Coronado in his expedition three hundred and fifty
years ago.
This great corporation, chartered in 1857 and permanently
organized in 1864, was not operated until 1869, and then only
as a local line from Topeka to the Osage coal-fields, thirty miles
southwest. Its land grant was considered of doubtful value,
and capitalists looked askant upon the project of constructing
a railroad along the unpeopled sands of the Arkansas Valley,
which were still the grazing-ground of the buffalo and the hunt-
ing-ground of the savage. The site of Wichita, alliteratively
described by M. M. Murdoch, its prophet and herald, as "the
peerless princess of the plains," with its palaces, temples,
marts, electric lights, and railways, water-works, elevators,
flouring-mills, and packing-houses, had not been traced among
the whispering reeds and scattered cottonwoods of the mead-
ows bordering on the American Nile. The sub-irrigation
which makes the corn and wheat crops independent of the
rainfall, had not been discovered. The fertility of the loose
and shifting soil was not suspected, and the vast region seemed
doomed to perpetual solitude and sterility.
Some bolder spirits, gifted with the prescience essential to
great designs, foresaw the future, and sent the surveyors and
graders, the advance guard of civilization, into the desert.
Contemporaneously with construction, they advertised t In-
lands and the State, sending agents to all parts of the Union
and to every country in Europe, penetrating Russia to the
Crimea; inviting immigration; selling farms at low rates on
long time; extending payments and giving aid in time of (lis
474 John James Ingalls.
tress ; exhibiting the productions of orchards and farms ; bring-
ing harvest-home excursions from other States; distributing
maps, pamphlets, and statistical tables as numerous and as
chromatic colored as autumnal leaves. Similar methods, al-
though not as extensive nor as liberal, were employed by the
managers of the Missouri Pacific, Fort Scott and Gulf, the
Union Pacific, and other trunk lines, under the stimulus of
which lands rapidly advanced in value, and much that was
sold at from three to five dollars is now worth as high as one
hundred dollars per acre.
The farms of Kansas were not made to order. They waited
for the plough. There were no forests to fell, no stumps to
extract, no rocks to remove, no malaria to combat. These
undulating fields are the floors of ancient seas. These lime-
stone ledges underlying the prairies and cropping from the
foreheads of the hills are the cemeteries of the marine insect
life of the primeval world. The inexhaustible humus is the
mould of the decaying herbage of unnumbered centuries. It
is only upon calcareous plains in temperate latitudes that
agriculture is supreme, and the strong structure and the rich
nourishment imparted essential to bulk, endurance, and speed
in animals, to grace, beauty, and passion in women, and in
man to stature, courage, health, and longevity.
Here are valleys in which a furrow can be ploughed a hun-
dred miles long; where all the labor of breaking, planting,
cultivating, mowing, reaping, and harvesting is performed by
horses, engines, and machinery, so that farming has become a
sedentary occupation. The lister has supplanted the hoe;
the cradle, the scythe, and the sickle are as unknown to West-
ern agriculture as the catapult and culverin to modern warfare.
The well-sweep and windlass have been supplanted by the
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 475
windmills, whose vivacious disks disturb the monotony of
the sky. But for these labor-saving inventions the pioneers
would still linger in the valleys of the Ohio and Sangamon,
and the subjugation of the desert would have been indefinitely
postponed.
The ozone of the air, its dryness, and the elevation of the
land produce nervous exaltation, which creates enthusiasm,
movement, energy, push, vigor, and "go" ; by whose operation
men are transformed into "rustlers" and "boomers," inventors
of new methods to overcome the hostility of Nature, and coiners
of novel phrases to express their defiance of destiny. Plati-
tudes are unknown, and all epithets are superlative. Imagin-
ation predominates ; established formulas and maxims are dis-
regarded. Upon the rainless and sterile uplands the strata of
the earth are pierced for water; and marble, paint, cement,
fire-clay, gypsum, coal, and salt are discovered in the descent.
If chinch-bugs and noxious insects attack his crops, parasites
and epidemics are imported for their destruction. Foiled and
thwarted by the baffling clouds, the undaunted husbandman
bombards the invisible moisture of the firmament with explos-
ive balloons, and effusively welcomes the meteorological juggler
who summons with his incantations aqueous spirits from the
vasty deep. The faith which removes mountains into the sea
animates every citizen, and rejects the impossible with calm
disdain.
The present wealth of Kansas, real and personal, reaches
the astounding aggregate of nearly seventeen hundred million
dollars* — many times more than the valuation of all the States
in the Union when the Government was established, after one
*Extra Census Bulletin No. 14, October, 1891.
476 John James Ingalls.
hundred and fifty years of colonial existence. This enormous
accumulation nominally represents a period of forty years, but
has actually been created in much less, for life in Kansas from
1854 to 1865 was a bivouac, and the real development of the
State did not begin until peace was restored. Twenty years
ago half its area was pastured by buffalo, and a considerable
part was covered by the reservations of hostile Indians, whose
depredations continued until 1880, resulting in more than two
hundred deaths, or captivities less merciful than the grave,
and the expenditure of millions for the defense of the frontier.
Even as late as 1875, agriculture beyond the Blue was re-
garded by many as an uncertain and by some as a desperate
experiment. Nature appeared to resent the invasion of her
solitudes. The horrors of internecine war were followed by a
succession of droughts and hot winds, that, in turn, were re-
inforced bv swarms of locusts, which descended from the torrid
mesas of New Mexico and the sterile Piedmont of Colorado and
Wyoming, obscuring the pitiless sun by their desolating flights.
leaving the earth they devastated defiled by their loathsome
exuviae, and poisoning the atmosphere with the fcetor of their
decay. It was like the incarnation of Nature's secret and evil
forces, as if the bacilli and microbes of "the pestilence that
walketh in darkness and the destruction that wasteth at
noondav" had become visible, endowed with wings, malignant
intelligence, and insatiable voracity.
That the State survived the infliction of this series of dis-
asters seems incredible. A people less sanguine, buoyant, and
resolute, more unschooled in the lessons of adversity, would
have succumbed. They would have surrendered uncondition-
ally, and abandoned their parched fields and farms to the coy-
ote and the prairie-dog. But the malevolent energies of the
Kansas: 1541 — 1S91. 477
desert, having been marshalled for this final onset . were repulsed
by an indomitable persistence superior to their own, and snl
lenly withdrew. While envious rivals were jeering, and jeal-
ous competitors were flouting, pointing with scorn's slow.
unmoving finger at the droughts, grasshoppers, hot winds,
crop failures, and other calamities of Kansas, the world was
suddenly startled and dazzled by her collective display of horl i
cultural and agricultural products at the Centennial at Phila-
delphia, which received the highest awards. Since that time
there has been no arena in Europe or \merica in which Kansas
has declined competition, and at the New Orleans Exposition,
in 1885, she took sixty-five first and second premiums on wheat ,
corn, flour, sugar, fruit, and cattle, leading all the States in the
Union.
This year (1891) the yield of wheat has been 58,550,653
bushels, nearly one tenth of the entire crop of the country; of
oats, 40,000,000 bushels ; unfavorable conditions have reduced
bv one-third the average corn crop of 200, 000, 000 bushels.
These, supplemented with roots, sorghum, broom-corn, mil-
let, hay, rye, barley, garden vegetables, honey, and wine,
have enriched the farmers of Kansas with wealth far ex-
ceeding the year's yield of the gold and silver mines of the
United States. The total aggregate value of all farm prod-
ucts for the years 1889 and iS<m> was $283,740,491, and that of
the present biennial, judging by the previous rate- of increase,
will exceed 5300,000,000.
The courage, sand, and gril of the people, their nervy faith
in fortune, the confidence of capitalists in the staple value of
Kansas lands and in the industry and integrity of their owners,
have marvellous illustration in the fact that during the ten
vears between 1880 and 1890 a recorded real-estate mortgage
478 John James Ingalls.
indebtedness was incurred of nearly five hundred milliou dol-
lars, exclusive of loans upon chattels, State and railroad land
contracts, personal liabilities, city, township, and county sub-
sidies for railways and other public objects, aggregating prob-
ably two hundred millions more. This feverish period culmi-
nated in a deliriumof public and private credit known in local
history as "the boom of 1887," whose frenzy and disaster have
not been exceeded since the bursting of the "Mississippi bub-
ble,' or the collapse of the "tulipomania" of the seventeenth
century.
The building of superfluous towns, the construction of
unnecessary railroads, the organization of counties and the
location of county seats ; the entry of public lands for the sole
purpose of mortgaging the inchoate title at excessive valua-
tions, became established industries. The agents of Eastern
companies eagerly competed for the privilege of placing loans
upon quarter-sections without a fence or furrow, often far
beyond their market value. Professional "boomers," with a
retinue of surveyors and cappers and strikers, invaded the
State, bought and platted additions, which they sold at exor-
bitant prices to resident and foreign speculators, victims to the
epidemic passion for sudden wealth, whose inexplicable con-
tagion infected the reason of men with its undetected bacteria.
The reaction came like the "next morning" after a night of
revelry and debauch. The plunderers disappeared with the
ready money of the people, leaving, instead of anticipated
wealth, an intolerable burden of maturing indebtedness upon
deluded purchasers. Empty railroad trains ran across deserted
prairies to vacant towns. Successive droughts and siroccos
destroyed the crops in the western half of the State. The
laborers, mechanics, and speculators, having erected costly
Kansas: 1541 — 1891. 479
business blocks that found no tenants, and residences that re-
mained uninhabited, being without further occupation, sought
employment elsewhere. The population declined. Pay-day
came. The coupon matured. Taxes fell due. Creditors be-
came clamorous. Merchants refused credit, and public and
private treasuries were depleted.
These accumulated misfortunes were supplemented in 1800
by an irruption of false teachers, with the instruction that such
disasters were the result of vicious legislation, and could be
cured by statute ; that banks should be destroyed, debts repu-
diated, property forcibly redistributed, and poverty abolished
by act of Congress. It was an exhibition of what Burke
described as the "insanity of nations." Conservative, thought-
ful, and patriotic men yielded to an uncontrollable impulse of
resentment against society. This outburst shocked the public
credit, temporarily destroyed the ability of the debtor to bor-
row or to pay, diminished the value of property, and inflicted an
irremediable wound upon the State's good name. But it van-
ished like one of the ominous and sudden catastrophes of the
sky. With the return of prosperity came the restoration of
reason. More than half the enormous indebtedness has already
been liquidated, and the whole will be honestly and resolutely
paid. A Kansas loan is as secure as a Government bond.
The Arabs say that he who drinks of the Nile must always
thirst; no other waters can quench or satisfy. So those who
have done homage and taken the oath of fealty to Kansas can
never be alienated or forsworn. The love of the people for
their State is not so much a vague sentiment as an insatiable
passion. The anniversary of its admission is observed by the
schools as a festival and holiday, with commemorative exer-
cises. Days are set apart in spring, by executive proclamation,
480 John James Ixgalls.
to decorate the hills and roadsides with trees, as a lover adorns
his bride with jewels. The defects of climate and the disasters
of husbandry are indulgently explained and excused as the
foibles of a friend from whom better things may be anticipated
hereafter. The wanderers whom caprice or misfortune may
temporarily banish are recalled by an irresistible solicitation
as they remember the bright aspect of its sky, which is like a
smile, and the soft touch of its atmosphere, which is like a
caress.
The cross which Coronado reared at the verge of his wan-
derings long since mouldered, and the ashes of the adventurer
have slept for ages in their ancestral sepulchre in Spain. He
found neither Quivera's phantom towers nor Cibola's gems and
gold ; but a fairer capital than that he sought to despoil has risen
like an exhalation from the solitude he trod, and richer treasure
than he craved has rewarded the toilers of an alien race. Upon
their effulgent shield shines a star emerging from stormy clouds
to the constellation of the Union, and beneath they have writ-
ten, "Ad astra per aspera," an emblem of the past, by whose
contemplation they are exalted, the prophecy of that nobler
future to which they confidently aspire.
"AD ASTRA PER ASPERA."
Ex-Senator Ingalls, enclosing a clipping from a Kansas
newspaper, writes from Tucson, Arizona, to the Mail and Breeze,
as follows:
"John Speer, of Lawrence, in speaking of the report that John J.
Ingalls had plagiarized the Kansas motto, 'Ad astra per aspsra,' says:
'I never knew until this scramble came up that there was any dispute that
Josiah Miller, of Lawrence, chairman of the Committee on State Seal in the
first Kansas Legislature, was the author of the phrase. It has always
been attributed to him, and years ago, when he died, this motto was cut
on the stone on his grave. Ingalls was clerk of that committee, but I never
heard before that he claimed the authorship of the motto. I remember
that Miller once told me how delighted he was when lie hit on the motto.'
"I was Secretary of the Senate, not clerk of Miller's committee. The
motto is as old as Josephus; it may be found in any Latin phrase-book and
the appendix to all dictionaries. It is one of the commonest mottoes in
heraldry, and is borne, I suppose, by a hundred families in England with
their coat-of-arms. The first time I ever saw it was on an old brass seal
in Haverhill, Mass., in 1857. The same thought is expressed in many dif-
ferent ways; but 'Ad astra per aspera' seemed the most melodious, and so
I selected it for my sketch. With a motto as with a proverb, the question
is not whether it is original, but whether it is appropriate. I remember
Judge Miller well, and am glad to know from Mr. Speer that he is the
author of the phrase. He must have been an older man than 1 supposed.
"Jonx J. Ingams.
"Tucson, May 18, 1900."
It is also of interest to note in this connection that Mr.
Ingalls suggested the original design for the great seal of Kan-
sas upon the admission of the State into tin- Union, together
with the motto, "Ad astra per aspera" ("To the stars through
difficulties"). Unfortunately, however, the beauty and sim-
4M
482 John James Ixgalls.
plicity of his original design were marred by the committee
to whom it was submitted for adoption. The history of this
emblematic device can best be given in ex-Senator Ingalls'
•own characteristic words:
"I was Secretary of the Kansas State Senate at its first session after
our admission in 186 1. A joint committeee was appointed to present a
design for the great seal of the State, and I suggested a sketch embracing
a single star rising from the clouds at the base of a field, with the con-
stellation (representing the number of States then in the Union) above,
accompanied by the motto, 'Ad astra per aspera.'
"If you will examine the seal as it now exists, you will see that my
idea was adopted; but, in addition thereto, the committee incorporated a
mountain scene, a river view, a herd of buffalo chased by Indians on horse-
back, a log-cabin, with a settler plowing in the foreground, together with
a number of other incongruous, allegorical, and metaphorical augmenta-
tions, which destroyed the beauty and simplicity of my design.
"The clouds at the base were intended to represent the perils and
troubles of our Territorial history ; the star emerging therefrom, the new
State ; the constellation, like that on the flag, the Union, to which, after a
stormy struggle, it had been admitted."
KANSAS.
Kansas is the navel of the Nation.
Diagonals drawn from .Duluth to Galveston, from Wash-
ington to San Francisco, from Tallahassee to Olympia, from
Sacramento to Augusta, intersect at its centre.
Kansas is the nucleus of our political system, around which
forces assemble, to which its energies converge, and from
which its energies radiate to the remotest circumference.
Kansas is the focus of freedom, where the rays of heat and
light concentrated into a flame that melted the manacles of
the slave and cauterized the heresies of State sovereignty and
disunion.
Kansas is the core and kernel of the country, containing
the germs of its growth and the quickening' ideas essential to
its perpetuity.
The history of Kansas is written in capitals. It is punctu-
ated with exclamation points. Its verbs are imperative. Its
adjectives are superlative. The commonplace and prosaic are
not defined in its lexicon. Its statistics can be stated only in
the language of hyperbole.
The aspiration of Kansas is to reach the unattainable; its
dream is the realization of the impossible. Alexander wept
because there were no more worlds to conquer. Kansas, hav-
ing vanquished all competitors, smiles complacently as she
surpasses from year to year her own triumphs in growth and
483
484 John James Ingalls.
glory. Other States could be spared with irreparable bereave-
ment, but Kansas is indispensable to the joy, the inspiration,
and the improvement of the world.
It seems incredible that there was a time when Kansas
did not exist; when its name was not written on the map
of the United States ; when the Kansas cyclone, the Kansas
grass-hopper, the Kansas boom, and the Kansas Utopia were
unknown.
I was a student in the Junior class at Williams College when
President Pierce, forgotten but for that signature, approved
the act establishing the Territory of Kansas, May 30, 1854. I
remember the inconceivable agitation that preceded, accom-
panied, and followed this event. It was an epoch. Destiny
closed one volume of our annals, and, opening another, traced
with shadowy finger upon its pages a million epitaphs, ending
with "Appomattox."
Kansas was the prologue to a tragedy whose epilogue has
not yet been pronounced; the prelude to a fugue of battles
whose reverberations have not yet died away.
Floating one summer night upon a moonlit sea, I heard far
over the still waters a high, clear voice singing:
' To the West ! To the West ! To the land of the free,
Where the mighty Missouri rolls down to the sea;
Where a man is a man if he 's willing to toil,
And the humblest may gather the fruits of the soil."
A few days later, my studies being completed, I joined the
uninterrupted and resistless column of volunteers that marched
to the land of the free. St. Louis was a squalid border town,
the outpost of civilization. The railroad ended at Jefferson
City. Transcontinental trains, with sleepers and dining-cars,
Kansas. 485
annihilating space and time, were the vague dream of the
future century.
Overtaking at Hermann a fragile steamer that had left her
levee the day before, we embarked upon a monotonous voyage
of four davs along the treacherous and tortuous channel that
crawled, between forest and cottonwood and barren bars of
tawny sand, to the frontier of the American Desert.
It was the mission of the pioneer with his plough to abolish
the frontier and to subjugate the desert. One has become a
boundarv and the other an oasis. But with so much acquisi-
tion, something has been lost for which there is no compensa-
tion or equivalent. He is unfortunate who has never felt the
fascination of the frontier; the temptation of unknown and
mvsterious solitudes; the exultation of helping to build a
State; of forming its institutions, and giving direction to its
career.
Kansas, in its rudimentary stage, extended west six hun-
dred and fifty-eight miles to the crest of the Rocky Mountains,
the eastern boundary of Utah. By subsequent amputation
and curtailment it was shorn to its present narrow limits of
fifty-two million acres; three thousand square miles in excess
of the entire area of New England. Denver, Manitou, Pueblo,
Pike's Peak, and Cripple Creek are among the treasures which
the State-makers of 1859, like the base Indian richer than all
his tribe, threw unconsciously away.
Thirty years ago, along the eastern margin of the grassy
quadrangle which geographers called Kansas, the rude fore-
fathers of Atchison, Leavenworth, Wyandotte, Lawrence, and
Topeka slept in the intervals of their strife with the pet-
ty tyrants of their fields, and beyond their western horizon
the rest was silence, solitude, and the wilderness, to the Rio
4S6 John James Ingalls.
Grande, to the Yellowstone, to the Sierra Nevada ; like the lone-
ly steppes of Turkestan and Tartary; inhabited by wandering
tribes whose occupation was war, whose pastime was the chase ;
pastured for untold centuries by the roaming herds that fol-
lowed the seasons in their recurring migrations from the Arctic
Circle to the Gulf.
It has been sometimes obscurely intimated that the typical
Kansan lacks in reserve, and occasionally exhibits a tendency
to exaggeration in dwelling upon the development of the State
and the benefits and burdens of its citizenship. Censorious
scoffers, actuated by envy, jealousy, malignity, and other evil
passions, have hinted that he unduly vaunteth himself; that he
brags and becomes vainglorious ; that he is given to bounce,
tall talk, and magniloquence.
There have not been wanting those who affirm that he
magnifies his calamities as well as his blessings, and desires
nothing so much as to have the name of Kansas in any capac-
ity always in the ears and mouths of men.
Such accusations are well calculated to make the judicious
grieve. The}' result from a misconception of the man and his
environment.
The normal condition of the genuine Kansan is that of shy
and sensitive diffidence. He suffers from excess of modesty.
He blushes too easily. There is nothing he dislikes so much
as to hear himself talk. He hides his light under a bushel.
He keeps as near the tail-end of the procession as possible.
He never advertises. He bloweth not his own horn, and is
indifferent to the band-wagon.
He is oppressed by the vast responsibility of being an
inhabitant of a commonwealth so immeasurably superior in
Kansas. 487
all the elements of present glory, in all the prophecies of future
renown, to his inferior companions.
To be a denizen of a State that surpasses all other commu-
nities as Niagara excels all other cataracts, as well as the sun
transcends all other luminaries, imposes obligations that ren-
der levity impossible.
The every-day events of Kansas would be marvels else-
where; our platitudes would be panegyrics; the trite and
commonplace are unknown. It is impossible to overestimate
the value of citizenship in a State that sent more soldiers into
the Union armies than it had voters when Sumter fell; that
exceeded all quotas without draft or bounty; that had the
highest rate of mortality upon the field of battle. That a State
so begotten and nurtured should be as indomitable in peace as
it was invincible in war, was inevitable. Its gestation was
heroic. It represented ideas and principles; conscience, pat-
riotism, duty; the "unconquerable mind and freedom's holy
flame."
No other State encountered such formidable obstacles of
Nature and Fortune. Our disasters and catastrophes have
been monumental. Swarms of locusts eclipsing the sun in
their flight, whose incredible voracity left the forests, and
the orchards, and the fields of June as naked as December;
drouths changing the sky to brass and the earth to iron ; siroc-
cos that in a day devastated provinces and reduced thousands
from comfort to penury — these and the other destructive
agencies of the atmosphere have been met by a courage that
no danger could daunt, and by a constancy unshaken by
adversity.
The statistics of the census tables are more eloquent than
the tropes and phrases of the rhetorician. The story of Kansas
488 John James Ingaixs.
needs no reinforcement from the imagination. Its arithmetic
is more dazzling than poetry, and the historian is compelled
to be economical of truth and parsimonious in his recital
of facts, in order not to impose too great a strain upon the
capacity of human credulity.
Notwithstanding the mishaps of husbandry and the fatali-
ties of Nature, it is a moderate and conservative statement
that no community ever increased so rapidly in population,
•wealth, and civilization, nor gained so great an aggregate in so
brief a time as the State of Kansas. There is no other State
where the rewards of industry have been so ample, and the
■conditions of prosperity so abundant, so stable, and so secure
.as here.
It is a distinctly American State, with a trivial fraction of
illiteracy, the largest school population, and but one detected
•criminal to two thousand of its inhabitants.
In popular estimation, Kansas is classified as an exclusively
agricultural and pastoral region. It has harvested the largest
wheat crop ever gathered in any State, and will strive this vear
to break its own record. In corn, fruit, and small grains com-
putation and measurement have been abandoned as superflu-
ous and impracticable. But these are only fragments of its
.material resources.
Its fields of natural gas rival those of Indiana, Ohio, and
Pennsylvania.
Its mines supply one-fourth of the zinc and much of the
lead of the world.
Its deposits of bituminous coal are inexhaustible.
Vast areas are underlaid with petroleum.
Its salt mines are richer than those of Michigan or New
York.
Kansas. 489
Its treeless and nnwatered plains sent the biggest walnut
log to the World's Fair, and have a subterranean flow that is
capable of irrigating an area more fertile and extensive than
the valley of the Xile. The indescribable beauty of the pal-
aces of the Exposition, with their white domes and pinnacles,
and statues and colonnades, and terraces and towers, came
from the cement quaries of the Saline and Smoky Hill.
And this is but the dawn. We stand in the vestibule of
the temple. Much less than one-half the surface of the State
has been broken by the plough. Its resources have been
imperfectlv explored. It has developed at random. Science
will hereafter reinforce the energies of Nature, and the achieve-
ments of the past will pale into insignificance before the com-
pleted glory of the century to come.
Atchison, May 10, 1896.
A PHOTOGRAPHIC INTERVIEW.
[The following photographic interview with Senator John
Tames Ingalls, of Kansas, which was secured exclusively for
and appears exclusively in The Sunday World, is notable in
many respects.
It is the first interview of the kind that has ever appeared
in American journalism. The instantaneous camera reinforces
the stenographer's pencil in a degree unknown before in the
newspapers or magazines of this country. The reproductions
of the photographs give an accurate representation of the
characteristic attitudes of the Senator during the interview.
The subject matter of the interview is in itself of exceptional
interest. There is not a dull paragraph in these pages. Sen-
ator Ingalls' notable utterances as to the continental future
of the Republic and the coming empire of the West ; his treat-
ment of the present political problems ; his raps at the Democ-
racy; estimates of Cleveland and Harrison; theories of polit-
ical methods; observations on labor and capital, socialism,
religion, and the future of the human race — are all of intense
interest. It is needless to state that the interview is packed
with bright epigrams and spiced with wit, satire, and sarcasm,,
for everybody, of course, will read it from beginning to end.
It is only just to Senator Ingalls to state that this interview
was especially solicited by The Sunday World, and that his
.v.-
A Photographic Interview. 491
consent to the experiment was obtained only after considerable
persuasion. — Editor.]
"Ingaees Is Going to Speak."
Senator John James Ingalls, of Kansas, is one of the most
prominent and, in some respects, the most interesting man in
public life. He may have trodden the pathway of error ever
so much; his public acts may have been liable to adverse crit-
icism ; his sayings may have been at times misleading, incon-
sistent and wrong, but they have always been vigorous and
epigrammatic.
He is incapable of expressing a thought in a commonplace
way or of saying a dull thing. And that is why The World
asked him to submit to a photographic-interviewing process,
which is a novelty without precedent in American journalism.
Xo senator in the present generation has attracted by his
speeches such full attendance on the floor of the Senate Cham-
ber and such overflowing crowds in the galleries. To have
every Senator present in his seat, and to have the public gal-
leries and even the corridors crowded with eager listeners, it is
only necessary to have it known beforehand that "Ingalls is
going to speak."
The Standing of Sexator Ingaees in His Party.
As President pro tempore of the Senate during the period
of the Democratic administration in the executive departments
of the Government, Senator Ingalls occupied the highest posi-
tion within the gift of the Republican party, and as permanent
President pro tempore now, witli the Vice-President of the
United States alive, he not only occupies the highest position
to which the Senate can elect one of its members, but also
49 2 John James Ingalls.
wears an honor which was never before conferred upon any
Senator.
The Senator is not a rich man. That is the reason why,
they say, he has given up the house he used to tenant on
Capitol Hill, and has gone with his family to a respectable
but modest boarding-house in the West End. He may be a
poor man, but he is as proud as Lucifer. He pays no homage
to any millionaire because he is a millionaire. He is one of
the most radical of Republican partisans, but no man breaks
through the restraints of party discipline more fearlessly or
more freely when he feels he is right. His temperament is
critical, his nature is combative, and he glories in a fight.
A VlVISECTIONIST WITH INTENSE HATES AND LOVES.
In debate with an opponent he is merciless. As a critic of
contemporary statesmen, he is a vivisectionist. His hates are
as pronounced and numerous as his loves. But he is not an
ill-natured man, as some people seem to think. He is not
given much to levity or joking, but he likes to laugh occasion-
all v and seems to find pleasure in making other people laugh.
On the whole, notwithstanding what has been frequently
called "that knout of a tongue" of his, he seems to take more
pleasure in seeing a friend laugh than an enemy weep. There
is more innocent amusement in him than the casual observer
would observe. He is a thorough Bohemian of the intellectual
kind, and those who know him best say that he has something
of the poet and the naturalist in his temperament.
Fond of Poetry and Flowers.
Mrs. Ingalls says he has written very pretty poetry. In
the summer-time he is certainly fond of sauntering through
A Photographic Interview. 493
Capitol Park in the afternoon after the Senate has adjourned,
examining the flowers and bushes. In the United States Sen-
ate he has not more than three or four seniors in length of sen-
atorial service, and in the power "the applause of listening sen-
ates to command" not a single superior; but he is still proud
of his early work as a newspaper man.
The new house where the Senator is at present boarding is
on H Street, within half a block of the Shoreham, the Vice-
President's new hotel, and within a couple of blocks of The
World bureau. It is a house with a history. A few years ago
the Court of Alabama Claims sat there, and since then it was
the abode of the Jefferson Club, which is now defunct. It has
gone through so many changes that its best friends wouldn't
know it either within or without.
Calling on Senator Ingalls at His Boarding-Holm:.
The Senator is only one of many boarders, but he has a
modest suite of apartments on the ground floor, and when the
Sunday World interviewer, with the instantaneous photogra-
pher, called upon him. he looked comfortable, although very
busy. Whether at his lodgings or at the Capitol, he always
has from one to half a dozen stenographers and typewriters
engaged. Mrs. Ingalls attends to most of the entertainment
of those who make merely friendly or sentimental calls. But
the Sunday World interviewer and his artistic companion were
entertained by the Senator himself, as the sequel will show.
The Arrangements for the Photographic Interview.
With unfeigned reluctance on the part of the Senator, but
with commensurate persistency on the part of the newspaper
man, the interview had been arranged for in advance. The
494 John James Ixgalls.
agreement was that the Senator should ignore altogether the
presence of the photographer, who was to be permitted to
make as many instantaneous pictures as he chose and just
whenever he felt inclined.
THE INTERVIEW.
(Copyright, 1890, by the Press Publishing Company, the New York World.)
"How are you?" said the Senator, heartily, offering his
hand to the visitors, who had just been ushered into his parlor,
and there was a quizzical smile on his face and a merry twinkle
in his eye, as if to say: "Well, you pair of rascals, you have
come to plav tricks on me."
But he had promised to participate in the experiment, and
he didn't flinch.
"We are here, Senator, to receive from you all the wisdom
that you are willing to impart to the world on public affairs in
general; and in order that you may have no reason to complain
of the inaccuracy of the reporter, we are prepared to give you
the benefit of all that stenography and photography combined
can do to represent you fairly."
Interviewers vs. Political Commentators.
"I cannot say, gentlemen, that I have ever had much occa-
sion to complain of the inaccuracy of the newspaper inter-
viewers," said Mr. Ingalls. "The newspaper interviewer gen-
erally makes a pretty accurate report. Like other men in pub-
lic life, I have at times been misrepresented in the papers;
but these misrepresentations do not, as a rule, originate in the
interviewer's department. It is the editorial writer and the
A Photographic Interview. 495
political commentator that public men have most reason to
complain of. But, everything considered, we haven't much
reason to complain at all."
"In the pictorial branch of the interview, at all events,
Senator, we could not misrepresent you if we would : the appa-
ratus, you know, cannot lie."
"Well. I am very glad to have your word for that. For the
rest of it. I can only place myself in your hands. I am at your
mercy. If you do not treat me fairly, you will only forfeit my
good opinion. And now, gentlemen, may I ask on what sub-
ject you desire me to express my views?"
"Is not the Government, Senator, interfering now more
than it formerly did with what are usually regarded as the
private affairs of individuals?"
The Goverxmext's Disregard of the Ixdividual.
"Yes," said the Senator, "it begins to appear as if individ-
uals had no rights or no private business which the Govern-
ment was bound to respect. The injustice of society and the
inequality of conditions have given an enormous impulse to
the idea of nationalism, the control of all economic agencies by
the direct interposition of the Government. This is the logical
reaction from individualism, on which our system was founded.
The hope that political equality would result in the destruction
of poverty and in the social fraternity has not been realized.
There are larger private fortunes, there is greater political
power in fewer hands; in other words, there is more tyranny
in the Republic than in a monarchy. The strongest succeeds
more rapidlv and more readily here because, liberty being com-
mon to all, there are no restraints and limitations to overcome.
The demand now is, therefore, not that all shall be free, but
496 John James Ingalls.
that all shall be restrained from the full exercise of their fac-
ulties and from the enjoyment of their acquisitions."
"Will the supply be equal to the demand, Senator?"
The Senator's Gentle Sarcasm.
'There have been more marked concessions in this direction
during the last decade, and the success of the experiments has
been so notable that future movement in the same direction
is not improbable. When the Government takes control of
the agencies of society, we shall be virtuous, contented, and
happy — just as we now all have gilt-edged butter under the
oleomargarine law, reduced freight and passenger rates under
the interstate commerce law, and pure and non-partisan pol-
itics under the Civil Service law."
'Talking about purity in politics, Senator, I suppose you
hold that whatever political purity may exist belongs exclu-
sively to the Republican party?"
The Wtill of the People Hampered.
"With the possible exception of the two terms of Wash-
ington," the Senator replied, "there has not been an absolutely
fair, free, and impartial expression of the deliberate will of the
people in the Presidential election since the foundation of the
Government. I doubt if there ever will be. Patronage will
allure the ambitious, force will coerce the timid, demagogism
will gull the credulous, fraud will rob the weak, money will
buy the mercenary."
"Is it to be ever thus, Senator?"
Do Political Ends Justify the Means?
'The purification of politics is an iridescent dream. Gov-
ernment is force. Politics is a battle for supremacy. Parties
A Photographic Interview. 497
are the armies. The Decalogue and the Golden Rule have no
place in a political campaign. The object is success. To
defeat the antagonist and dispel the party in power is the
purpose. The Republicans and Democrats are as irrecon-
cilably opposed to each other as were Grant and Lee in the
Wilderness. They use ballots instead of guns, but the strug-
gle is as unrelenting and desperate and the result sought for
the same. In war it is lawful to deceive the adversary, to
hire Hessians, to purchase mercenaries, to mutilate, to kill, to
destroy. The commander who lost a battle through the activ-
ity of his moral nature would be the derision and jest of history.
This modern cant about the corruption of politics is fatiguing
in the extreme. It proceeds from the tea-custard and sylla-
bub dilettantism, the frivolous and desultory sentimentalism
of epicenes like — "
"Like whom, Senator?"
"Oh! you can fill in the names yourself— or else from the
cheap and brazen hypocrites like Thingimmy, the greatest
confidence-man and bunco-steerer of modern Democracy."
"And who is Thingimmy, Senator?"
"Oh! I fancy the readers of The World can guess."
"On the whole, you haven't a very good opinion of modern
Democracy, Senator ? ' '
A Caustic Opinion- of the Democracy.
"The Democratic party, having neither conscience, con-
victions, nor' defined principles, inevitably allies itself with dis-
content, and is arrayed against social order. It is strongest
where public and private morality is weakest. Its citadels
are in the South, where society is distinctly feudal, and in the
great cities, where the ignorant and criminal elements are most
498 John James Ingalls.
energetic. It has no beliefs, maxims, or formulas. Its creed
is the instruction of Jefferson — that in a popular government
wealth, intelligence, and morality are ultimately no match
for numbers. For twenty-five years its only policy has been
to complain, to oppose, to deny, to protest, and ultimatelv
to acquiesce in what the Republicans have done. So when
Cleveland came in, being without plans, purpose, or policv,
his administration floundered pitiably both in domestic and
foreign affairs, was contemptible in many things and feeble
in all, and left absolutely no impression whatever upon history
■except in the matter of vetoing bills for pensions and public
buildings. It followed Republican methods and carried on
Republican ideas, so that when Harrison was inaugurated, it
was as if a stitch had been dropped merely, and we have kept
right along with our work."
"Do you imagine, Senator, that Mr. Cleveland will be
nominated again by the Democrats for the Presidency 2 "
The Senator Says Cleveland Will Be Renominated.
"Oh, yes, Cleveland will be the nominee in 1892, even if
New York should be divided or against him. This is inevit-
able. It is written. He will be first, and the rest nowhere.
Democracy never had such an ideal exponent and represent-
ative. His dull, heavy, ponderous, wooden platitudes, labori-
ously written out and committed to memory; his stolid and
shallow conceit; his affectation of wisdom, purity, and patri-
otism, and what he calls his 'solemn sense of duty,' impress
the average Democrat with a feeling of reverence like that
which the Chinese laundry man feels for his Joss."
"Senator, you have said that the Democratic administra-
tion left no impression on history. What impression have the
recent Republican administrations left?"
A Photographic Interview. 499
We Have Made No History for Twelve Years.
"I admit," the Senator replied, "that we are a nation
which for the past dozen years has had no history. The
whole career of our country as a nation has been one of drift-
ing. There have been no vigorous or distinctive exhibitions
of original statecraft. We have been going through an age
of material development. The national energv, instead of
being shown in the direction of public affairs, has confined
itself to the colonization of desert spaces and the building up
of new States in the wilderness. The public service and pub-
lic men, as a rule, have not kept pace with the material devel-
opment of the country. I do not mean to say that we have
no great men, but the public service does not command the
greatest, because the highest rewards of intellectual activity
and more satisfactory equivalents are found in other voca-
tions. Public life has degenerated into a species of servi-
tude, and the inevitable tendency is toward mediocrity and
pusillanimity."
"What is your idea, Senator, of a definite American policy?"
A Continent for the Republic.
"The American policy should have for its object the unifi-
cation of the continent. The Polar Sea should be the north-
ern boundary of the Republic, and the southern boundary
should be the Interoceanic Canal. Look at the existing
conditions. We have practically reached the limit of our
agricultural domain. We have but 10,000,000 acres of [arable
lands left. We are approaching that period spoken of by
Macaulay as dangerous to republican institutions, when the
vast migrations to these undeveloped regions will have ceased,
500 John James Ingalls.
and when the artisans and toiling masses concentrated in the
large cities will have no outlet for their surplus numbers and
no demand for their labor. I might say the American idea is
hemispherical rather than continental. We have now a con-
tinuous line of railway to Mexico. The next step will be an
iron highway in the valley of the Amazon. I expect to see
the valleys of the Mississippi and the Amazon linked together
by the great agencv of modern civilization. The overflow of
population will thus find peaceful fields of profitable effort."
"So you think, Senator, that after a while the whole bound-
less hemisphere will be ours?"
Then We'll Have a Hemisphere.
" I do ; continent first, then hemisphere. The idea is growing
rapidly in this country, especially in the West, where the polit-
ical power of the Republic is lodged. Under the readjustment
of political forces which has occurred in accordance with the
last census, the seat of political power has been transferred
west of the Alleghany Mountains. That great region extend-
ing from Manitoba to the Gulf of Mexico, and sweeping across
the basin of the Mississippi from the Alleghanies to the Rocky
Mountains, homogeneous in population, geographically unified
and with common interests politically, socially, and econom-
ically, represent to-dav the political power of this continent.
It has a majority of the aggregate representation in the lower
house of Congress, and, with the admission of the newT States,
a majority of the votes in the Senate and in the Electoral
College."
The West and South Invincible.
"The interests of the West and South are identical, and
they should be unified. Their alliance upon all matters affect-
A Photographic Interview. 501
ing their national welfare is inevitable. If they coalesce, they
will be invincible. We shall hold the purse and wield the
sword of the Nation, and we shall use them, not for oppression,
but for justice. The valleys of the Mississippi and the Mis-
souri, with their tributaries from the Yellowstone to the Gulf,
form a magnificent empire that must have a homogeneous
population and a common destiny."
"There are people who would be surprised to learn that
Senator Ingalls regarded the South as fit to associate with the
West or to share the same destiny," observed the Sunday World
representative.
"It is not mv fault that I am sometimes misunderstood,"
said the Senator. Then he added, reflectively:
Sections Estranged by Political Factions.
'These great communities that were only separated by
the system of slavery have since its destruction been alien-
ated by factions that have estranged them only to prey upon
them and to maintain political supremacy for their alienation.
Unfriendly legislation has imposed intolerable burdens upon
their energies, invidious discrimination has been made against
their products, unjust tariffs have repressed their industries.
While vast appropriations have been made to protect the At-
lantic and the Lakes, and to improve the navigation of the in-
considerable streams, the Mississippi's waters are left choked
with its drifting sands. Eads with his daring energies under-
took at his own risk the gigantic labor of compelling the great
stream to dredge its own channel to the sea."
*»v
The East Will Then Be an Appendage.
"The ultimate coalition of all political forces of this section
is inevitable. The West will then secure its emancipation
502 John James Ingalls.
from the control of the Atlantic and Pacific appendages with
justice— in fact, I might say with more justice than they have
hitherto shown to us."
"Then the West, you think, Senator, is to be more potent
than the East in working out the destiny of the Republic?"
The Star of Empire Already Gone Westward.
"Intellectual energy of this country has already trans-
ferred itself to the West. The West is now the theatre of the
combined energetic and potential forces of New England and
the Middle States. At this moment there are more people of
Connecticut ancestry living on the Western Reserve in Ohio
than you will find in the State of Connecticut. The future
triumphs of the Anglo-Saxon race will be accomplished in the
Valley of the Mississippi, a vast empire in itself, and not in the
valley of the Thames or the Hudson, or of the Delaware. The
people at large very little know what a tremendous undercur-
rent of thought, involving grand ideas, is moving with irre-
sistible force throughout the whole length and breadth of the
West. One of the elements of public thought in this great
region is the unification of the continent."
"As a Western man, Senator, you have taken a lively inter-
est in the question of transportation. From an ironical remark
you made, I should suppose that you do not find things much
improved by the interstate commerce law."
The Constant Aim of the Senator 's Life.
'To assist and stimulate the development and improve-
ment of the vast water system of the interior basin of the con-
tinent, extending between the Alleghany and the Rocky Mount-
A Photographic Interview. 505
ains, from Maine to the Gulf, has been one constant aim and
endeavor of my public life.
"I have no sympathy with the political economists who
would array the poor against the rich, with the empty and
sonorous demagogism which asserts that there is an irrepres-
sible conflict between capital and labor, and that would make
indiscriminate war upon corporations as the natural enemies
of the people; but we are confronted with many economic
problems, chief among which is that of cheap transportation,
and I believe its solution lies not in the representative legisla-
tion, but in competition between water lines and railroads.
Under the constitutional power of Congress to regulate com-
merce between the States, I have no doubt of the authority of
the Government to assume either partial or complete control
of all the great trunk lines of transportation and to regulate
the burdens that are imposed upon the productive labor of the
country.''
"How can that be accomplished?"
"It can best be done by establishing uniform rates of
freight, so as to prevent unjust discriminations between way
and through carriers, or by an intelligent system of internal
improvement, opening near or improving old routes of trans-
portation to the seaboard."
To Solve the Transportation Problem.
"The Atlantic communities, by their superior thrift and
vigilance, have secured advantages which have enabled them
to dictate terms to the producers of the West. They haw-
constructed thousands of miles of railroads and watered the
stock by countless millions of dollars, upon which the dividends
are paid from the exorbitant rate that the farmers of the Mis-
504 John James Ingalls.
sissippi Valley are compelled to pay for carrying food, without
which Eastern commerce would languish and the population
starve."
The Power of the Railroad Monarchs.
"The great carrying business of the country is under the
absolute control of a few persons, upon whose edicts depends
the prosperity of the Nation. By their combination they are
enabled to fix the price, control the supplies, create fictitious
demand or artificial scarcity, and thus disturb the whole basis
of values in the commercial world. With daring admirable
genius those monarchs have devised, and with inconceivable
energy they have constructed, a system of highways the most
wonderful known to man."
"Your friendship for the waterways does not interfere with
your admiration for the greatness of the railroad?"
Miracles of Engineering Skill.
"'The capitalists of Boston have bored a tunnel five miles
long through a mountain of granite at an expense of $20,000,000
to reach the region without ascending an insignificant eleva-
tion of 1500 feet, and to shorten the distance but forty-three
miles. New York has the Erie and the Central, with their
•connections; Philadelphia and Baltimore, other independent
lines, built at stupendous cost, climbing mountains by inclined
planes or piercing them by tunnels, crossing great rivers by
viaducts that are miracles of engineering skill, all to persuade
our produce to flow to their respective markets. If they should
•share the expense of transportation with the producers, then
there would be less cause for complaint; but the rates are es-
tablished high enough to pay interest on the bonds, dividends
on the stock, the cost of operation, deterioration and waste
A Photographic Interview. 505
of plant, and extravagant salaries to swarms of ornamental
officials.
"Those who are familiar with the railroad legislation and
jurisprudence of the last dozen years, and reflect that these
gigantic expenditures are derived from the revenues of the
roads, can readily perceive why corn that may be worth Si. 00
in New York in ordinary years only brings 20 cents in Missouri
and Kansas.
"But Nature, so bountiful to us in all things, has not left
us without peaceful methods of redress. It is not necessary
that we should use the railroads of Eastern capitalists nor pay
tribute into the coffers of Eastern merchants."
"You mean the water cure, I suppose, Senator?"
"The water cure is what I mean. Water is a great blessing
when put to its proper uses," said the Senator, smiling. "This
great valley, the great grain empire of the earth, lias no natural
connection with the Atlantic seaboard. Its rivers run south
and south flow the currents of its atmosphere. The gloomy
mountain ranges that wall this valley interpose their external
obstacles to this enforced intercourse.
"We have an unequal system of movable highways, graded
with a facility of descent unattainable by the skill of the engin-
eer. It crosses in defiles to be spanned by costly viaducts of
massive masonry. There is no right-of-way to be secured
from avaricious proprietors of the soil ; no barriers to be pierced
by tunnels or ascended by the laborious engines dragging their
reluctant trains.
"No expensive appliances of machinery are required to
provide the power to move the vehicles that require transpor-
tation. Nature has furnished the motive power in the momen-
tum of the irresistible current that flows from the melting
506 John James Ingalls.
snows of the North, gathering force and volume as it descends
through thousands of fertile leagues, its waves now almost
unmoved by the keel from the mountain to the sea.
"These rivers and their innumerable tributaries, twenty
thousand miles in length, and draining the great food-producing
area of the world, are the natural outlet for all the production
of the valleys through which they flow. They offer a perpet-
ual invitation to the farmers of the West to avail themselves
of their cheap and accessible transportation."
"Senator, it is the first time I have ever heard you grow so
eloquent over water." The Senator laughed.
' ' I rather expected that," he said. ' ' I thought I was giving
you a little too much water. Well, I '11 be merciful, and give
you relief by changing the subject. In the meantime, let me
add that already, by the improvement of the mouth of the
Mississippi, New Orleans has become accessible for sea-going
vessels of the largest tonnage. By the removal of the tem-
porary obstructions and the improvement of the channel, it is
not improbable that men, now living, will see ocean steamers
from Liverpool and London ascending the Mississippi and dis-
charging and receiving cargoes at the port of St. Louis."
''Is demagogism necessary to succeed in politics?"
The Ways of the Skillful Political Navigator.
"That depends on what you mean by the term. Occa-
sional surrender of political judgment to public opinion is pru-
dent, and respectful deference to widespread error is now and
then expedient. It is always well to keep the Pole-star hi
view, but when the wind is dead ahead, a skillful navigator will
either tack or drop anchor."
"Our destiny, Senator, you say, is continental?"
A Photographic Interview. 5°7
"Our destinv is continental. The Monroe doctrine is writ-
ten on every map of the United States. The tendency to
absorption is irresistible. The process will be peaceful, but
our northern boundary must be the Arctic Circle and our
southern the Isthmus Canal'."
"And in the way of our continental destiny, Senator, shall
we have a war with England or any other power?"
Our Only Enemy England, and She 's Afraid op Us.
"War? No, we shall have no wars. With whom should we
fight ? WTe have no dangerous neighbors and no dependencies,
nor colonial possessions. We are too powerful and too neces-
sary to the sustenance of mankind. We are at once the most
pacific and most martial of the nations, but our relations
with hYance are those of fraternity; with Germany and Aus-
tria, of cordial amity. We have no enemy but England, and
she is too vulnerable in every quarter of the globe and on every
sea to go to war with us. We have an unsettled score with
Great Britain for her malevolent insolence, but nothing is so
improbable as war. Hence, there is no need of costlv arma-
ments. Our standing army is only a national police force, and
the demand for a navy comes from contractors, maritime cit-
ies whose pusillanimous populations pretend to believe that
their accumulations are in danger from foreign ironclads, and
from communities adjacent to the ship and navy yards who
desire to profit by such enterprise."
'I'm- Wasting op Millions ox the Navy.
"In ten vears the ships we are building will he useless,
either for attack or defense. The millions we are spending
might as well be with the gentleman whose name I haw for-
50S John James Ingalls.
gotten — at the bottom of the sea. With every industry de-
pressed and a general outcry for economy in administration,
in a time of profound peace, we are dispatching costly fleets, at
an enormous daily expenditure, on luxurious pleasure excur-
sions, to play spectacular parts in the pageantry of the sea,
exchanging entertainments and hospitalities with other poten-
tates; drinking and carousing in foreign ports, upon the pre-
text that such performances are necessary for the national
honor and the national defense. I believe a Democratic ad-
ministration clamis the distinction of inaugurating the policy
for squandering our resources under the theory that we must
be prepared to protect ourselves against some unknown danger.
It is as absurd as it must be for the Secretary of the Navy to
start out on his morning walk down the Avenue with a Win-
chester on his shoulder, a pair of revolvers in his belt, and a
Bowie-knife in each boot, upon the idea that some ruffian
might attack him before reaching the Capitol."
"Senator, would you mind giving us your estimate of the
administration of President Harrison?"
Too Early to Give a Verdict on Harrison.
"Harrison's administration has been much more success-
ful thus far than Cleveland's was at the end of his first year.
Cleveland satisfied nobody, and was openly and unsparingly
denounced by his party organs. It is a great mistake for a
President to suppose that by neglecting his friends he can pro-
pitiate his enemies. Cleveland got no support from the Repub-
lican party by allowing Republicans to remain in office, and he
alienated many Democrats. The most formidable error of
Harrison is in regarding himself bound to follow a pernicious
precedent. Cleveland saw his blunder a year too late to enable
A Photographic Interview. 509
him to recover. Most people arc human, and prefer that reform
should be tried on their enemies rather than on themselves.
And if President Harrison acts on this line, he will have no
trouble. It is too early to predict what the verdict will be.
The statistics do not exist. Two years hence will be soon
enough. He has had a 'rocky' time so far, but has acquitted
himself with dignity, courage, and prudence. His tempera-
ment is dispassionate, but his ideals are high, and I am confi-
dent that he will grow constantly in public estimation and
approval."
"As President pro tempore of the Senate for several years,
your interpretation of that clause of the Constitution which
relates to the making of a quorum in either house of Congress
would be read with interest, in view of the recent contest in the
House of Representatives," the interviewer suggested.
"As President pro tempore of the United States Senate
now," replied the Senator, "I must decline at present to at-
tempt any interpretation of the clause."
"You have never, I think, Senator, been what is called a
strict constructionist of the Constitution?"
Not a Strict Constructionist.
"That question I cannot answer better," said the .Senator,
"than by referring to some remarks which I had occasion to
make on the subject in the course of debate in the Senate the
other day." And he turned over a file of the "Congressional
Record" till he came to the report of a speech, from which he
read as follows :
' Mr. President, the people of the United Slates have a reasonable
degree of respect for the Constitution, but they are no1 afraid of it. A
Constitution is a growth, not a manufacture, and the Constitution of
1890, by reason of the operation of the will of the people who made it, is
5 Jo John James Ingalls.
a vastly different instrument from the Constitution of 1789. Its authors
would not know it. They made it for specific purposes, not for the object
of enabling country lawyers to devise definitions, not for the purpose of
interposing barriers and obstacles to the will of the people of the United
States. The Constitution was made, not by the States, but by the people
of the United States — '
"And for what?
" ' In order to form a more perfect Union, establish justice, insure do-
mestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.' "
Something More Sacred Than Constitutions.
'The Constitution is perpetually invoked by the narrow,
rigid, and illiberal constructionists to interpose an insuperable
barrier against every effort to better the condition of the peo-
ple. The people of the United States do not regard the Consti-
tution with superstition or awe. They know that there are
some things more venerable than charters, more sacred than
constitutions, and those are the rights and the privileges which
charters and constitutions are ordained to establish and main-
tain. At every stage of national growth and progress we have
been met by the interposition of those minute and insectivo-
rous propositions that the Constitution was a barrier against
the determined and resolute will of the people."
Can Be Made to Fit Ale Emergencies.
' ' I recollect that there was a great demonstration that
there was no power in the Constitution to coerce a State which
saw lit to go out of the Union. But we found it; we found
it somewhere in its latent recesses — 'public welfare,' 'blessings
of liberty,' wherever it might be, we found it. We are told
that the abolition of slavery was without warrant in the Con-
stitution, but we found the warrant, and when we found it
A Photographic Interview. 511
could not be done in the letter, it was amended by the sword.
It is a fair warning to those who attempt to insist upon verbal
and lingual interpretations against the will of the people, that
whenever the elasticity, the capacity to carry out the wishes
and the will of the people is not sufficient, there will always be
found a way to amend it."
The Senator's Best Speech.
The Senator is modest in his way, and refuses to express
any opinion as to the merits, relative or absolute, of any of his
own efforts. Being asked which of all the notable addresses
he ever delivered he likes best himself, he paused for a moment,
seeming rather puzzled, but then an expression of relief came
over his face, and, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, he
answered, evasively:
"I think Washington's Farewell Address was probably the
best."
This was a sly allusion to a rather unusual task which was
imposed upon the Senator as presiding officer of the Senate on
the anniversary of Washington's birthday two years ago. A
proposition never made before and never repeated since was
then put forward by Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts. It was
that the anniversary should be celebrated by the Senate hav-
ing the senators meet in the chamber at the usual hour to
hear the presiding officer recite Washington's Farewell Address,
and for no other business.
It Was His Duty to Reciti:.
The proposal was adopted almost unanimously by the Sen-
ate, most of the senators agreeing to it out of pure devilment.
But Senator Hoar was very serious about it, as he always is
512 John James Ingalls.
about everything; and the situation was serious to Senator
Ingalls, although it was ridiculous to most of his brethren.
Senator Ingalls was presiding officer, and upon the presiding
officer devolved the duty of giving the recitation.
Senator Ingalls, according to the custom of the Senate,
could have made any other senator presiding officer, tempora-
rily, by simply designating him as such, and he was greatly
tempted to call Senator Hoar to the chair for that occasion ; but,
on thinking the matter over, he decided the other way. Anj'-
thing in the shape of trickery or a practical joke in connection
with the presiding officer's chair he could not seriously con-
template ; so when the morning of Washington's birthday came
around, and when the senators had assembled on the floors,
and the public had crowded into the galleries to witness what
they expected would be a circus, Ingalls was on hand with his
copy of Washington 's address.
How the Senator Read Washington's Farewell Address.
Promptly on the reading of the order of the day, he began
his recitation. Some of the senators were evidently prepared
for a little gentle guying, and the crowds in the galleries were
looking for lots of merriment; but it didn't come. Ingalls
was as solemn as an owl, as cold as ice, as dignified as a statue,
and from beginning to end of the recitation there wasn't any-
thing in the chamber but the most marked attention and the
most exemplary decorum. When it was all over, everybody
seemed to be just as solemn as Ingalls had appeared at the
beginning.
DlGNIFlI-D IN THE CHAIR. A FlGHTER ON THE FLOOR.
Ingalls on the floor has provoked and participated in some
of the most exciting scenes that ever enlivened the chamber,
A Photographic Interview. 513
but there never has been anything but the most perfect order
in the chamber with him in the chair. As presiding officer, he
has exercised a wonderful control over the Senate and the
audience in the galleries, while in debate on the floor he has
raised the devil.
Although he does not say so himself, it is pretty certain
that the speech which gave the Senator more solid comfort
than any other he ever delivered was his celebrated one of
March 25, 1886, in which, while indulging in his favorite pas-
time of abusing Mr. Cleveland, he gave the Mugwumps a furi-
ous lashing. As he still stands by the sentiment then expressed,
be did not consider it necessary to give the interviewer any
new experience of his estimate of the Civil Service reform.
The Senator Says "Job" Is the Greatest Boor.
"What is the greatest book in the English language?"
Senator Ingalls was asked.
The Senator reflected a moment, then stepped over to a
book-case, and, taking down a small Bible, turned over a few
pages. "The book of Job,'- lie said, "is the oldest and, in
my judgment, the highest production of the human intellect.
It is especially interesting because it shows that humanity
at the dawn of history was engaged in considering the same
problems that perplex us now — immortality, the existence of
•evil, the afflictions and misfortunes of the good in this world,
and the prosperity of the wicked. We have made no progress
in solving these problem^. The barriers are insurmountable.
The centuries are silent. The soul struggles, aspires, beats its
wings against the bars, thitters. and disappears."
"Is it within the capacity of statesmanship to give the
poor a better chance and to make a more equal distribution of
514 John James Ingalls.
wealth ? Is the world better than it was ? Are the people hap-
pier? Is religion growing or declining? Will poverty ever be
extinguished?"
But the World Is Constantly Growing Better.
"This has been the great problem of the government since
history began. The differences between men are inherent.
Some are thrifty, sagacious, industrious, sober, enterprising;
others are dull, lazy, dissolute, and careless. Then we must
admit there is something which, for want of a better name, we
call luck, so that the dish is always right side up when it rains.
All men cannot be rich, famous, happy. There is not enough
to go around. But the discontented, the unfortunate, and the
wretched attribute their calamities to everything else rather
than to themselves. They blame society and government for
their failure, and attribute the success of their competitors.
to the injustice of statutes. All that legislation can do is to
protect the weak from the oppression of the strong, the poor
against the exactions of the rich; give them all equal opportu-
nity, equal privilege, and an equal chance in the race of life.
The world is steadily improving. The boundaries of human
happiness are enlarging. The poorest artisan now has oppor-
tunities for enjoyment, for improvement, for study, for cure in
sickness, for the preservation of health, for the joy of living,
that five centuries ago were beyond the reach of kings."
The Senator's Conception of God.
'Poverty will never be abolished, nor misery, nor pain, nor
disease. They are inseparable from the state of humanity.
Were all men contented and secure, progress would cease and
the^race would expire. The age is essentially devout and
A Photographic Interview. 515
religious. The mind has been largely emancipated from super-
stition and from creeds, and has entered upon an excursion
that cannot be foretold, but that is certain to be momentous.
The authority of the Church has undoubtedly been greatly
weakened and impaired, but this does not imply that religion
is retrograding. As the race advances, it clothes God with
higher attributes and dignifies Him with more lofty functions,
because it is capable of noble conceptions. The gloomy and
exorable God of the Puritans has disappeared. He has been
succeeded by a Supreme Being of infinite mercy, tenderness,
and goodness; a ruler, a law-maker, a legislator, subject to
limitations and restraints imposed by His own perfections."
Looks for Another Christ and Another Revelation.
"There was a profound truth in the declaration of Voltaire,
that if there was no God, it would be necessary for man to in-
vent one. This was flippant and irreverent, perhaps, but true.
God is indispensable. Man perceives this, and the higher his
development the more distinct is his perception. The popu-
larity of Ingersoll and his school is not an indication of infi-
delity, but is rather the strongest evidence of tin- religious
spirit of the times, its receptivit v, its eagerness for instruction,
its hunger and thirst for knowledge about what can never be
known. No age has ever been so profoundly moved by the
consideration of the problems of the hereafter as this, and I
have no doubt that in response to the search for eternal truth
another Christ will come and another revelation will be made."
"What should be done with the Louisiana Lottery?"
The Lottery Ulcer Should Be Cauterized,
"It is a plague spot, a moral ulcer, thai should be cauter-
ized; it is a disgrace to cur civilization that it is permitted to
516 John James I. \ galls.
use the mails and the Post Office Department to debauch and
plunder the Xation to the extent of $20,000,000 or $30,000,000
every year."
"How long will it be before the last pensioner connected
with the late war for the Union becomes extinct? And how
much will the Government then have paid to the pensioners of
that war?"
A $4,000,000,000 Estimate of the Total War Pensions.
"According to the tables of mortality, the last surviving
soldier of the war for the Union will expire between 1940 and
1950, but the pension-roll will rapidly diminish before that
time. Pensions to widows and dependent relatives will, how-
ever, continue for a much longer period. Before the account
is finally closed, I think the Government will have paid not
less than four thousand million dolla'rs."
"Don't you think that some day the ex-Confederates will
be admitted to the pension-rolls of the United States?"
A Little Rap at the Democracy.
The Senator paused to reflect, and his rather hard face
melted into a playful smile as he answered: "It will not be
surprising if some provision is ultimately made for pensioning
the ^ex-Confederate soldiers should the Democratic party be
restored to power."
"Don't you think that senators and representatives are
poorly paid for theii work?"
"It is impossible for the Government to compete with the
private employers in compensation for special services. Leg-
islation is not an occult science and does not require unusual
faculties nor extraordinary attainments. The ordinary bus-
A Photographic Interview. 517
iness of Congress can be successfully conducted by the average
merchant or lawyer. It affords opportunity for the exercise
of the highest powers, but good, solid common sense and in-
dustry are the essentials. The Government should only pay
what is necessary to secure such services as are requisite for
the performance of its work.
"Salaries should be sufficient for decent support Pol-
itics has been a favorite pursuit for men of ambition and en-
ergy in all ages, and will probably continue to be for all time
to come. But no one is compelled to dedicate himself to the
public service. It is voluntary, and if the conditions are
unsatisfactory, there is no obstacle to retirement. While it
would be agreeable to receive more, my impression is that if
salaries were doubled, expenses would be doubled, and the
result would be the same. Probablv a majority of both
houses receive as much now as they could earn in any other
capacity for the same amount of work."
"Can Germany, Senator, manage to get along without Bis-
marck? Will civilization and progress lose bv Bismarck's re-
tirement? Will Europe still have abler statesmen than Amer-
ica? And will European statesmanship continue to have a
greater influence than American statesmanship upon the des-
tiny of nations"-1"
No One Indispensable — Not Even Cleveland.
"No man is indispensable. Lincoln died at 7 in the morn-
ing, and at 10:30 the Government was running along as if he
had never existed. Perhaps the country will survive the
temporary silence and retirement of Grover Cleveland. So
Germany will probably stagger along without Bismarck, al-
though he is one of the most potential forces in European
5*8 John James Ingalls.
politics. Brave men lived before Agamemnon, and whenever
there is an emergency or a crisis, there is a leader. But the
dominant power on the globe now is, and for centuries will
continue to be, the United States of America. It is in the
same arena that the finer conquests of civilization are to be
accomplished."
"Wouldn't it be better if we had a restricted franchise,
and what kind of qualification would apply — propertv, educa-
tion, or length of residence?"
Manhood Suffrage the Correct Thing.
'To your main question I would answer: ideally, yes; prac-
tically, no. Any excluded class in a popular government in-
evitably becomes hostile. A citizen who is denied rights that
others enjoy becomes a conspirator. Undoubtedlv it would
be better if every voter could read and write. So would it
be better if every voter were healthy, moral, well-dressed,
with a balance in the bank; but this is unattainable. Man-
hood suffrage is the thing. There are plenty of men who
are illiterate, yet good citizens; and lots of fellows who
have money and can speak seven or eight languages who are
scoundrels.
'To make property or education the condition of suffrage
and citizenship would be an absurdity. In addition to these
considerations, any political party that should advocate such
political restriction would incur the animosity from any quar-
ter. So, with regard to any amendment of naturalization
laws requiring long residence before foreigners could vote, un-
less both parties should concur, neither would dare to take the
initiative."
A Photographic Interview. 519
Such a wide range of subjects having been covered, and
the long list of notes of interrogation having been exhausted,
not to mention the great draft made upon the Senator's time
and patience, nothing was left for the interviewers to do but
to thank the Senator for his courtesy, and depart.
"I am in your hands," repeated Senator Ingalls, rising to
see his visitors out. "And now, please, treat me consider-
ately. If anything I have said will serve in any degree to
facilitate your undertaking, it will be a great satisfaction to
me to know it.
"I hope that your experiment will meet with the success
which your enterprise deserves.
"Good-bye. Come again."
LETTERS.
Atchison, Kansas,
Thanksgiving Evening, November 28, 187.:.
Dear Father:
I found your letter on my return from the United States
Circuit Court at Topeka yesterday afternoon. It was my in-
tention to have an old-fashioned celebration, for we rigidly
adhere to all the traditions; but I woke in the night with
a violent attack of sick headache, which enabled me only to
' take a cup of coffee for breakfast, and barely left me in a
condition to join the family at dinner. \Ye had a turkey of
superb dimensions and cooked to perfection; potatoes, cran-
berries, celery from our garden, macaroni with cheese, quinces
and pears from California, fresh figs from your boxes, raisins
from Malaga, filberts, almonds, cheese from Nemaha County,
pound, fruit, and jelly cake, mince and pumpkin pie; so
that you see we did not suffer in our lonely cabin upon the
frontier in the far West. Frank was with us, and we talked
over old times, and remembered you all, from one end of the
continent to the other. It has always been a hope of mine to
unite the entire family on some Thanksgiving Day, here in
Kansas under my own roof. I am the eldest of the brood, and
the first emigrant, and could accommodate a crowd as well as
any of them, and trust I may some time realize the anticipation.
The children banqueted with us at discretion. They think
you grow figs as peaches grow in my garden, and regard you
520
Letters. 521
as the beneficent genius of their tender years. They continue
in remarkable health, and give unabated promise of excellence.
My furnace is not yet in operation, but is in position, wait-
ing the adjustment of the hot-air ducts. I think it will add to
our comfort, as it certainly will conduce to the ease of the faith
ful Pendleton, who regards the fire-chamber capable of con-
suming four-foot wood with sentiments akin to ecstasy.
It has been very cold for a few days past, and the river is
filled with floating ice that moves slowly southward, indicating
that the current is gorged below. A strong north wind has
been blowing all day, filling the air with clouds of yellow dust
from the bars.
Frank continues to grow in the graces and good opinion of
all who know him. He has many extraordinary mental char-
acteristics: self-possession, poise, command of his faculties, a
temper serene and placable, and intellectual powers that are
prophetic of future growth. He seems to have fine capacity
for work, and an absence of enthusiasms and sensibilities,
which go so far to make life endurable and successful. He is
doing a great deal of outside work : visiting, calling upon the
members of the church and congregation; and has the entire
confidence of his people.
I have thought much to-day of the long career of my life,
which has been extended so long beyond my early anticipations,
and rendered conspicuous by so many blessings which I am
conscious I have not deserved, and which I never hoped to
enjov. Standing upon the uplands of middle life, my child-
hood and youth seem like the experiences of another planet ;
and though I have suffered much from the tortures of dis-
turbed functions, diseased nerves, sensibilities unnaturally
acute, the war in my members between the spirit and the flesh.
522 John James Ingalls.
the agonies of conflict between unconquerable appetites, pas-
sions, impulses, and ambitions, and a conscience too sensitive
to submit to moral anodynes, yet I have much to recall with
gratitude to some Benign Power that has given me moderate
measure of worldly success, a modest competence, and a reason-
able assurance of the esteem of mv fellows ; a happy home,
and hopeful children, whom it shall be my chief care to teach
to shun the errors that have been my bane.
I have thought much, also, of that benevolent destinv that
has protracted our existence as a family, unbroken through so
many years; that gave to us in our early years the benefit
and advantages of parental restraint and care, and has given
to you the opportunity of seeing the practical results of your
anxiety and toil in the establishment of your children in repu-
table positions in widely dissociated spheres in life. As time
passes on, the burden of existence becomes more grievous:
these anniversaries, once so bright and festal, grow ominous with
shadows, and have a deep, sad, and solemn significance. Laden
with the inexpressible pathos, the yearning regrets, the fare-
wells of the past, its melancholy and its eternal pain, thev also
point with prophetic augury to that future, near or far, when
anniversaries shall be no more. How happy thev who live so
that they are never afraid to die!
I trust that we may know many returns of this ancieat fes-
tival; but, more than that, I hope that when, on some future
Thanksgiving, the last survivor of us all recalls the vivid mem-
ories of those who have gone before, no grief may dim his vis-
ion save that which separation always brings, and that he may
confidently and gratefully anticipate the hour which shall sum-
mon him to join a reunited family in a brighter world than
this; a world which shall seem as the glorious wakening from
Letters. 523
a fevered dream, where sorrow has no dominion, where dis-
tance cannot separate, where time cannot chill, and the tragic
limitations of earthly being are forever unknown.
With love to all at home,
Very truly your son, J.J. I.
Washington, .March [3, 1X74.
Sweet Heart:
The day. is dreadful — cold, cloudy — with a gusty tempest
from the north bearing a storm of dust and gravel that blinds,
wearies, and disgusts.
The great senator [Charles Sumner] was borne to the Cap-
itol at nine and placed beneath the canopy in the Rotunda in
a square casket upon a black base, and covered with the rarest
and costliest flowers — lilies, violets, japonicas, smilax, camellias
in wreaths, garlands, crosses, with evergreens prophetic of im-
mortality. A dense surge of humanity moved endlessly through
the corridors, aimlessly, curiously, black, white, ragged, un-
kempt, chilled with the cold blasts, and filing past the cold,
livid, discolored face that lay beneath the transparent glass
like a drowned man under the ice. There were no tears. The
scene was heartless. Loud talk, vain babbling, and senseless
laughter echoed through the stony thoroughfares; and still the
throng surged on and on, without beginning and without end.
The Senate galleries were densely packed at an early hour.
Tier above tier, it was a solid mass of faces, relieved against
the dark drapery behind. At twelve the Senate was called to
order, the journal read, and some formal business transacted.
We were presented with black gloves and crape on the left arm.
Soon the House of Representatives were announced, and took
524 John James Ingalls.
their places on the south side of the chamber; then the repre-
sentatives from Massachusetts with their families as mourners,
noticeably old Ben Butler with his wife, a tall, graceful, striking-
looking woman with aristocratic features and bearing; then
the chief justice and associate justices of the Supreme Court in
their black gowns ; then the officers of the Army and Navy ; the
diplomatic corps in plain dress, headed by the formal courtier,
Sir Edward Thornton ; then President Grant and his Cabinet,
who sat by the head of the coffin, the silver mountings of which
shone through the mass of flowers. The President was dressed
in plain, dark clothes, and sat as expressionless as stone, some-
times drumming his hat upon his knee.
The scene was exceedingly impressive, and the solemnities
were austere, consisting only of prayer and selections read from
the Scriptures. At ten minutes past one the amen was pro-
nounced, and the House, the Court, the President, and the
guests retired slowly from the chamber, and the Senate ad-
journed till Tuesday noon.
I send you some violets from a great purple mass crowned
with white that exhaled their fragrance in the dim chamber
that shall know him no more forever. Keep them as a me-
mento of a great life that has ended to-day.
I woke at half past two this morning after, bad dreams,
feverish and restless, and longing for you and for Babv Con-
stance, who has grown so tenderly in my heart. Much of our
united lives came back to me, incidents forgotten, songs you.
sung to Ruth in winter midnights in the little back room up
stairs so long ago ; looks, caresses ; painful, sad regrets for the
injuries inflicted upon your love by my indifference and cold-
ness and unkindness; wonder that your love had not ebbed
away from me and left me stranded in miserv forever; hopes
Letters. 525
that we might not either be left long upon this desolate earth
to mourn the other's loss. Oh, my darling! my heart cries
out for vou and will not be comforted. You must never for-
sake me, here or hereafter. If you go before me to the undis-
covered country, guard me, and wait for me. If I precede
vou, search for me till you find me, with entreaties and impor-
tunities that will permit no denial, but will rescue me, though
ages intervene, from the profoundest abyss.
I received your letter this morning in which you speak of
the excitement about the judgeship, which has now, I suppose,
finallv terminated. Horton could not be appointed for many
reasons, chiefly because the delegation was against him upon
general grounds connected with his personal and political
career. Pomerov made himself specially obnoxious by med-
dling in the matter, and at one time I thought I was to be
beaten, as the President told me he would not appoint Foster,
and if we did not compromise and agree on some other man, he
would take charge of the matter himself. The question at last
became one purely of opposition to me, and the representa-
tives openlv boasted that they had at last got me beaten; but
the result has strengthened me greatly here and at home.
Horton promised the clerkship to a score, I presume, and I am
glad to know the secret of Mrs. 's advocacy; but it
may console her to know that he also promised it to Joe Wil-
son, Spaulding, Jo. Talbott, and many others, male and female.
Perhaps the future may have some reward for her fidelity to
his cause and her support of his fortunes.
This is a long letter, longer than I intended to inflict upon
you when I began; but I could continue for an hour, did my
other engagements afford me the time to spare.
526 John James Ingalls.
I hope you are comfortable and contented, and that you
will make your life active and useful, and not brood in solitude
over our separation. You have the children with you, while I
have nothing but the memory of you and them to console me
in my loneliness.
Write me often, and think always with tender love of
Your faithful and affectionate Husband.
Washington, Sunday, May 13.
My dearest Love:
Pullman regulates the temperature of his carriages by the
calendar, and not by the thermometer — no fires after May istf
and but one blanket ; so that my journey was not wholly com-
fortable. Then, at breakfast in the Union Depot at St. Louis,
Friday morning, the top windows at the north were open, and
a cataract of cold, damp air poured down my back into my
pantaloon pockets and stockings. So that I was chilly and
goosefleshy all day, and could not get warm through the night .
From St. Louis to "Washington, where I arrived about nine
p. m. Saturday, I continuously read the letters of the wife
of Thomas Carlyle, annotated by him after her death. I
never specially "honed" after him, even in my callow days;
but the letters are dramatically interesting. They disclose a
most desolate, gloomy, and lamentable domestic tragedy, and
are not without instructive admonition. I will send or bring
them to you. The unavailing penitence of the selfish, dyspep-
tic, irascible, tyrannical old man, after she had left him forever
to his gruel and his grumbling, is quite pathetic. She does not
seem to have loved him much, if at all, indeed, nor to have
Lktters. 527
been specially faithful to him, 1 judge; but in one way she was
his slave, and the record of forty years of servitude is dramatic.
Good women are so much better than good men, and bad so
much worse. Where the average lies I do not know. Per-
haps in gross, the moral aggregate is much the same.
I came to my old lodgings direct from the station and found
that Mrs. Crawford had taken the house in addition to her own
across the street. General Rosecrans is here with his family.
His wife is paralyzed and unable to move. He occupies my
old rooms, and his wife and daughter the floor above. I am
opposite them, on the second floor, in the rooms occupied by
General Henderson last winter. There are many other guests,
but unknown to me.
Going over to the Capitol, I bathed, and was shaved and
trimmed by the olive-skinned "John," the only barber whose
attentions I could ever endure without a shrinking shudder.
Judge Peters had come in from Chicago on the morning
train, and we had a consultation, resulting in an appointment
for Monday.
Mr. Plumb is yet here, and I expect to have an interview
with him, perhaps this afternoon.
I see no reason why I may not leave for Haverhill by Thurs-
day, and so home by the middle of the week thereafter.
The season is dilatory here also; foliage not being full, and
the air icy and shivery.
I feel guilty at going away and leaving you mistress of all
the confusion at home, but it really seemed unavoidable under
the circumstances, and the worst appeared to be over. I
thought of several little things, while awake in the cars the
other night, that might have been done: a niche for a vase or
statuette in the stairway in the space between the curved par-
528 John James Ingalls.
tition and the chamber wall; an upright register in the south
library wall, under the lower shelf in the new partition, etc., etc. ;
but "the wished-for comes too late." Don't forget to have
the windows all made weather-proof, and the floors planed
down among the finishing touches, and the well-curb and plat-
form repaired, and the veranda floors repaired also, but not
wholly relaid, as Neal will be sure to want to do if not reso-
lutely restrained.
I hope the dear little anonymous baby continues to thrive.
The delicate spark of her life was so near going out wholly that
I believe her preservation bodes good fortune for her and the
world into which she so prematurely came. But I babble. So
good-bye for to-day.
T hope the children are all obedient. Give them my love.
Your own J. J. I.
United States Senate Chamber,
Washington, May 13, 1881.
Dear Father:
I imagine that our dishes are bottom up when it rains not
more than those of our neighbors. We are all disposed to
think our misfortunes are exceptional, our diseases peculiar,
our destinies unprecedented; but the lot of humanity every-
where is much the same. Great careers are necessarilv few;
vast fortunes must be infrequent; kiu^s arid presidents are
scarce, and even the most exalted in station and estate receive
about tlu' same average of felicity as the rest of us. I have
seen all classes and conditions of men, from the lowest to the
loftiest, and the longer I live the more I am convinced that hap-
piness is in the individual, and not in his accidents. Many
Letters, 529
things seem alluring that attained have no charm, and many-
lives appear humble and obscure that are the vestibule of Par-
adise. And, after all, whether well or ill, the longest life is but
a brief pulsation, like the momentary Hash of a firefly in a gar-
den at night; and whether its transitory torch is to be extin-
guished forever or to be relighted and burn eternally, we hope
and dream, but know not.
Love to the family.
Very truly vour son, J- J. I.
Atchison, Sunday, January 24, 10 a. m.
Dear Constana :
The cold wave seems to have passed off, though I don't
like to say much about it ; for we had a pleasant day some time
ago and talked considerably and chuckled over it, and that
night the temperature sank below zero and stayed there for
two weeks. It was a struggle for existence. We closed all
the doors, shut off the hall, cut off the water, had fires in the
grates, stuffed cotton in all the crevices, and lived like Esqui-
maux in their igloos. But it really is lovely this morning. I
went out for a stroll, after breakfast, on the stone walk, in the
sun. Two fat brown birds hopped about in the branches of
one of the shrubs, and Jim Crow kept me company, sometimes
walking alongside, and then going before, and rolling over a
time or two to attract attention. When 1 pulled his tail and
his ears, he growled ferociously, and hissed like a snake, and
then rolled over again.
As I stood by the gate, looking down toward Mrs. Crow-
ley's cabin — she and Tim are both ill with the grip, influenza,
530 John James Ixgalls.
colds, rheumatism, antiquity, etc. — the pealing bells of St.
Benedict's broke out into a swelling tumult of exulting mel-
ody, vibrating and rising and falling, rolling north and south
and east and west, down the valley and up to the shining
zenith, and, after an entrancing interval, died away and were
still. It was quite incredible that some shock-headed Paddy,
who probably carries a hod or drives a dray during the week,
could, by pulling a rope a few moments, produce such an
ecstasy of sound on Sunday, without any idea that I would
write you a letter concerning it.
Yes, it is aggravating, as you say, to be obliged to suspend
your studies for a while, at the busy season, too; but it is bet-
ter than to keep on and break down completely at the end.
The mind has much influence, and a cheerful spirit is better
than medicine. Resolve to be well; don't brood upon dark
thoughts ; throw open the windows of your soul to the sun ;
take short views of life ; get plenty of air, plain food, and sleep,
with moderate exercise.
Write to me if there is anything you want. I should be
your friend, even if you were not my child. *****
I am going away next week, about the ist of February, to
speak at Ann Arbor, Michigan, in Kentucky, and some other
places, and shall be absent perhaps two weeks. A letter will
reach me at the Grand Pacific, Chicago, Tuesday and Wednes-
day, 2d and 3d, should you write next Sunday.
Affectionately your Papa.
fail K^-^Il^i^ OJ'^Uj
(Thf^rnK^rtj^ ^^A Tlt^j .SMC
ftvy <1^ <^/< &*/€ c/V?Vb
532 Johx James Ixgalls.
Atchison, December 15.
Dear Constance:
The question about the loss of either of the senses is so
much a matter of sentiment and individual temperament that
there is nothing to be said by one that could influence another.
To me the loss of sight would be the greatest affliction,
because my love of Nature and physical beauty is so strong.
Hearing is limited. At a short distance the loudest sounds
are inaudible. vSo with taste. It gives delight, but the bodv
can be nourished without the sensibility of the palate and the
tongue. If dumb, we can still write and read and hear. If
we are unable to perceive the fragrance of flowers, we can vet
be charmed with their color and outline. If deaf, we can
communicate with the eye and the pen. But to be blind is to
be imprisoned in perpetual darkness; shut out from the uni-
verse, from the aspects of the earth, the sky, and the sea;
unable to go or come ; compelled to be led and fed and dressed
like an infant, and denied the joy of beholding the faces that
we love. But, after all, we adapt ourselves to these privations
without much grief. I have seen many blind persons, but
they are generally cheerful enough, and seem to enjoy life very
well.
The soul is independent of the senses. These are the ave-
nues through which it communicates with others temporarily,
and are not necessary to its existence. I have no doubt there
are many senses we do not possess; many properties of matter
with which we are unacquainted; many more dimensions
than length, breadth, and thickness; many more colors than
those which glow in the rainbow and the rose; many condi-
tions immediately about and around and within that we do
not perceive any more than my horse understands history and
Letters. 5 5 3
arithmetic, or than a fish swimming in the ocean comprehends
the great steamships with their cargoes of men and women and
merchandise ploughing the waves which are his firmament.
It is an incomparable morning. The grass glitters with
thick white frost, and the dense columns of smoke and vapor
from the town below ascend slowly toward the dazzling sky.
The vibrations of the convent bell, ringing for nine, linger for
an instant, cease, and are still.
Your affectionate Papa.
Washington, March 5, 1875.
My dearest Wife:
The Forty-third Congress ended amid uproar and confusion
indescribable.
I went to the Capitol at ten a. m. on Wednesday and re-
mained until one the next afternoon without sleep and almost
without eating. I presided much of the time, and was in the
chair till within five minutes of the final adjournment. Such
tumult and turmoil I never witnessed before; but I got through
without special difficulty, and was much complimented for
my coolness and adroit management of the disorderly ele-
ments. The Vice-President was absolutely helpless and sur-
rendered in despair, and sent for me to take his place while
he retired to his room. The attendance in the galleries was
immense.
I came home and went to bed at two P. m. and slept till
eight. Took a light lunch and went again to bed at ten and
slept till nine this morning.
The Senate assembled at twelve this noon in extraordinary
session. The new senators were sworn in, and the proceedings
534 John James Ixgalls.
were very interesting. The galleries and floor were thronged
with ladies and strangers.
Old Andy Johnson, whom I had never seen before, was
greeted with applause, as was General Burnside, the new sen-
ator from Rhode Island. We sat an hour, and then adjourned
till Monday.
I have taken Scott's seat in the middle aisle, direetlv across
from Mr. Conkling.
The Pinchbeck case is to be considered ; but I do not think
it will take long to dispose of it, as everybody is anxious to get
away as soon as possible.
The weather is inconceivably horrible — cold, wet, raining
all day and snowing or sleeting all night, with occasional fogs
thrown in by way of variety.
How much I long to be at home I cannot tell you. I shall
leave at the first possible moment that public business will
permit. I feel somewhat fatigued, now that the stimulus of
excitement is over; but hope soon to recover mv usual elas-
ticity. I know how much you need me and what a relief it
will be to you to turn the domestic sceptre over to
Your affectionate Husbaxd.
INDEX.
Page-
Preface
Introductory '
John James [ngalls ' '
Memoir.
Chapter I ■ 27
Chapter II
Chapter III 36
Chapter IV ;''
Chapter V 4:"
Chapter VI 4'S
Chapter VII 5"
Chapter VIII 6o
Albert Dean Richardson "'
John Brown's Place in History "''
Eulogy on Senator H. B. Anthony '
Happiness ° '
< (pportunity 9/
M v Spring Residence
Bine Grass ""'
Catfish Aristocracy ' ' -
Regis Loisel ' "'
The Last of the Jayhawkers • r45
The "Good-Fellow Girl" '57
The Annexation of Hawaii l6x
A Nation's Genesis ""'
A Dream of Umpire ' - 4
Hallucinations of Despair [78
Socialism Is Impossible ' 3 ;
Men Are Nol Created Equal [89
The Poor Man's Chance '95
The Immortality of the Soul ■ • ■ I"'*
The Character of General Grant An Enigma.
Why Christianity Has Triumphed
Gettysburg < 'ration 2I3
0
36 IxDEX.
Page.
Address at Osawatomie 228
Eulogy on Senator J. B. Beck 263
Eulogy on Senator B. H. Hill 268
Eulogy on Congressman J. N. Burnes 272
Fiat Justitia 277
"The Image and Superscription of Caesar" 309
The Humorous Side of Politics 339
Famous Feuds 348
The Stormy Days of the Electoral Commission 366
The Mountains 386
The Sea .387
Idyl 389
Epigrams 3QO
Garfield : The Man of the People 395
Blaine's Life Tragedy 4r5
Kansas: 15 \i — 1S91 443
"'Ad Astra per Aspera" 481
Kansas 4S3
A Photographic Interview 49°
Fetters 52°
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a% H 191 79 *
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