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THE LIFE OF
DAVID DUDLEY FIELD
i
THE LIFE
DAVID DUDLEY FIELD
HENRY M. FIELD
It was the boast of Augustus that he found Rome of brick and left it
of marble. But how much nobler shall be the sovereign's boast, when he
shall have it to say, that he found law dear and left it cheap ; found it a
sealed book, left it a living letter; found it the patrimony of the rich,
left it the inheritance of the poor ; found it the two-edged sword of craft
and oppression, left it the staff of honesty and the shield of innocence.
— Lord Brougham.
NEW YORK
CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
1898
E4I5
^■^^'?-yi■'
Copyright, 1898
By henry M. field
■\V0 COP! !-:s RECEIVED.
i69C.
TO STEPHEN J. FIELD
JUSTICE OF THE SUPREME COURT OP THE
UNITED STATES.
We are all that are left ! One by one, father, mother,
brothers, sisters, have passed on till we are standing
alone ! When, last of all, our eldest brother left us,
it would have fallen to you to write the story of his
busy life, but that you were so engrossed with your
duties on the bench as to forbid any other labor.*
Hence the task has fallen to me, who can only write as
a layman. But if the picture be wanting in some pro-
fessional details, it will at least be drawn by a loving
hand. And yet it is not from mere personal regard that
we cherish the memory of our beloved dead, but that he
was a great figure in his generation. We who were
nearest to him felt the inspiration most, and now that
he is gone, we recognize more than ever what we owe
to him, as next to what we owe to those who gave us
being, and it is our highest ambition to be not unworthy
of such a brother, and of such a father and mother.
/67
*The preparation of this volume was begun soon after the
death of Mr. Field, and has occupied all the time that the writer
could give to it for three years. It is a singular coincidence that
as he closes his work upon it, his brother retires from the
Supreme Court of the United States after a service of thirty-
four years and six months — a longer time than that of any
other man who ever sat upon the bench since the foundation of
the Government, not excepting the great Chief Justice Marshall.
I c
PEEFACE
" For at least a third of a century," said the late Mr.
Austin Abbott, ' ' David Dudley Field was the most
commanding figure at the American bar." This alone
would justify, if it did not demand, some record of his
long and splendid career, while the traditions of his great
arguments still linger in the memories of the survivors
of his generation. But he was not merely "a figure at
the bar," however "commanding" ; he was a reformer
and reconstructor of the law itself ; in which the work
that he did cannot be appreciated without some knowl-
edge of the unsatisfactory state of the law when he
entered upon the practice of his profession.
In the colonial period of American history, our law
was the common law of England, that dates back to
the time of Alfred the Great, and was overlaid with the
accumulations of a thousand years. The Acts of Par-
liament were scattered through hundreds of volumes.
There were whole libraries of decisions of the courts —
decisions that were often so contradictory as to create
hopeless confusion. And even more confusing than the
law itself, was the administration of the law, as there
were two Forms of Procedure : in Law and in Equity ;
PREFACE.
whereby what was decided in one might be reversed in
the other. Was there any necessity for this roundabout
way to secure simple justice? Was it not possible to
reduce somewhat the enormous bulk of the English
law ; to gather up the mighty fragments that were
scattered all along the centuries, and frame them into
fixed codes? Such were the questions that a young
lawyer asked himself more than fifty years ago. He
believed that, even where chaos reigned, it was within
the power of man to restore order : to cut a passage
through the jungle, and "cast up an highway" that
should lead straight to the Temple of Justice. But the
very suggestion was so presumptuous as to seem to
be almost sacrilege. It was a want of respect to the
traditions of the most conservative of professions. The
Reform and the Reformer were attacked with argu-
ment and ridicule : by lawyers and judges ; in courts
and legislatures. But he was in that stage of early
manhood when one is inspired by high ideals. The
very idea of justice was sacred to him. God was the
Great Lawgiver, and human justice should be framed
as far as possible on the foundation of eternal justice.
That was the only thing that could hold the world
together. If, as Mr. Webster tells us, "Justice is the
great interest of man upon earth," there can be no
greater service to humanity than to establish justice by
law. The union of Justice and Power is the only solid
foundation for human society. Inspired by such a con-
PREFACE.
viction, the Reform of the Law was to its projector a
holy crusade. ' Brought up in the old Puritan faith that
the law of God was not only for the wise but for the
simple, he would have the law of man brought down tc
the intelligence of all who were under it. No for-
eign phrases should obscure its meaning. Every word
should be in the dear old English tongue wherein we
were born. If all men could not understand the intri-
cacies of the law, they could at least understand justice,
as they felt the stings and wrongs of injustice. He
would have the pressure of the law like the pressure of
the atmosphere, resting alike upon all, yet not as a
burden, but as the very breath of life, the inspiration of
freedom as well as of justice, that makes men strong
and nations great. Thus the law should be "of the
people, by the people, and for the people."
Such was the dream of the young Reformer. But
how far did he achieve what he undertook ? A Lord
Chancellor of England, the late Lord Cairns, said that
he ' ' had done more for the reform of the law than any
other man living ; " and expressed his amazement that
he could vmdertake the enormous labor it involved,
while at the same time carrying on a large professional
practice. This was indeed the wonder of all who knew
him. The work of the student and the codifier alone
was more than enough to absorb the undivided labor of
the longest life. But the Reformer was not a recluse,
shut up within the walls of libraries, which no sound
PREFACE.
from the outer world could invade. He was a soldier
who was always in the thick of the fight, as must be
one who was a "commanding figure at the bar." Nor
was this all. No man was more deeply interested in
the political questions of the day. A Democrat by
principle, he was one of the first to break with his party
on the point of the extension of slavery, which he fought
in conventions, when he stood almost alone — a move-
ment that took form in the old Free Soil party, which
was the nucleus of the Republican party, that at last
won its victory in the election of Lincoln, and kept pos-
session of the government for a whole generation after
the war.
But above all professional or political ambitions was
the Reform which he undertook in his early manhood,
and which filled up the measure of his days till he
breathed his last in his ninetieth year, a purpose thus
briefly recorded on his tomb :
HE DEVOTED HIS LIFE TO THE REFORM OF THE LAW:
TO CODIFY THE COMMON LAW ;
TO SIMPLIFY LEGAL PROCEDURE;
TO SUBSTITUTE ARBITRATION FOR WAR ;
TO BRING JUSTICE WITHIN THE REACH OF ALL MEN.
Did any man, living or dead, ever aim higher than
this ? Is it possible to conceive of anything more noble
than "to bring justice within the reach of all men"?
How far he succeeded is another question, which the
PREFACE.
writer, after telling the story in a simple narrative,
leaves to the reader, asking only that his opinion, what-
ever it may be, should be formed entirely apart from
personal considerations. The character here portrayed
was a very positive one, and roused strong antagonisms.
The Reformer — like other Reformers — was a man of
war from his youth, and gave, as well as received,
tremendous blows. But all this is over now. He has
gone to the grave, and in that grave should be buried
all the passions of the hour. But though he is gone,
his work remains, an inheritance to future generations,
and may safely be left to the verdict of posterity. His
name has passed into history, and by history let it be
judged.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
PAGE
From the Stock of the Pilgrim Fathers. ... 1
CHAPTER II.
Birth and Boyhood. Removal to Stockbridge. . . 13
CHAPTER III.
The New Home. Going to College. . . . .26
CHAPTER IV.
Studies Law and Enters Practice in New York. Mar-
riage : Death of his Wife : A Year Abroad. . 84
CHAPTER V.
The Reform of the Law. The Codes of Civil and Crim-
inal Procedure. 42
CHAPTER VI.
A Domestic Episode. The Golden Wedding. . . .57
CHAPTER VII.
Codification of the Common Law 68
CHAPTER VIII.
Adoption of the Codes at Home and Abroad. . . 84
xiii
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER IX.
"The Commanding Figure at the Bar." . . . .97
CHAPTER X.
Position in Politics. A Democrat, but opposed to the
Extension of Slavery. Annexation of Texas. Rise
of the Free Soil Party 107
CHAPTER XI.
The Nomination of Lincoln. A Chapter of unwritten
History 121
CHAPTER XII.
The last Effort for Peace 141
CHAPTER Xni.
The War that had to come 1G3
CHAPTER XIV.
Re-establishment of the Reign of Law. . . . 183
CHAPTER XV.
Work and Play. How he "Warmed both hands at the
fire of life." 208
CHAPTER XVI.
An International Code. Arbitration Instead of War. 219
CHAPTER XVII.
The long Vacation : Going round the World. . . 243
CHAPTER XVIII.
A NEW Chapter in Politics. A Disputed Presidential
Election. Two Months in Congress. . . . 263
xiv
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER XIX.
Joy anu Sorrow. The Death of his Son. Visit to his
daughter in jamaica 277
CHAPTER XX.
The Afternoon of Life. The Queen's Jubilee. Death
OF Sib Anthony Musurave 295
CHAPTER XXI.
The Peace Conuress in London. 308
CHAPTER XXn.
Visit from his daughter and her sons. The Death of his
brother Cyrus 323
CHAPTER XXIII.
The last summer among the Hills 329
CHAPTER XXIV.
Homeward bound. The going down of the Sun. . . 337
PORTRAITS
DAVID DUDLEY FIELD
THE FATHER AND MOTHER
THE FIGURE AT THE BAR
JUSTICE STEPHEN J. FIELD
JUSTICE DAVID J. BREWER
CYRUS W. FIELD .
PAGE
Fronlisjnece
Facing 64
100
196
306
328
CHAPTER I.
FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
The liistory of New England dates from Plymouth
Eock. But the Mayflower was from the beginnmg a
sort of forlorn hope. Of the hundred pilgrims that it
had on board, the greater part were so worn out with the
three months' voyage, and the winter's cold, that when
the spring came one half were in their graves ; so that
the brave little ship is but a picturesque figurehead in
the great drama of American history, and has its place
of honor chiefly as the pioneer of larger emigrations
that had in them more of the seeds of empire. Ten
years later came John Winthrop with an expedition a
thousand strong, and founded the Colony of Massachu-
setts Bay. About the same time another pilgrim ship
had among its passengers a gi-andson of John Field,
the astronomer, who, a hundred years before Isaac
Newton, introduced into England the Copernican
Astronomy. That he was a Puritan of the Puritans
may be inferred from his very name, the good old
Scriptural name of Zachariah. But Puritan as he was,
he was none the less a man of affairs, of the energy
3 FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
and enterprise that are needed in the making of a new
country.
Some historical critics, to whom nothing is sacred,
would take from us the heroism of our Pilgrim fathers,
by telling us that they were not seeking ' ' freedom to
worship God " so much as to better their worldly for-
tunes. But the two things were not inconsistent in the
Puritan any more than in the "canny Scot," whose
psalm-singing and long prayers did not prevent his
being thrifty at a bargain, or a tremendous fighter on the
field of battle. The men who landed on the rock-bound
coast of New England, had first of all to fight for exist-
ence ; to find homes for their wives and children. But
wherever they went in the wilderness, they carried the
ark of God with them, and
"The sounding aisles of the dim woods rang
To the anthem of the free. "
Full of the hfe of the New World, Zachariah Field
remained but a few years near Boston, when he pushed
into the interior over a hundred miles to the valley of
the Connecticut. The old records of Hartford show
that he was one of the original proprietors, who bought
the land from the Indians, part of which was held
as the property of the town, and part was assigned to
individuals in proportion to the amount contributed to
the purchase. As he was still in the vigor of man-
hood he was one of the forty-two men furnished by
FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 3
Hartford to take part in the Pequot war. He was
afterwards one of a company that bought from the
Indians nine miles square of land lying north of
Mount Holyoke, and moved up the valley of the Con-
necticut, hving first in Northampton, and then in Hat-
field, where he died in 1666.
In venturing thus far towards the frontier he exposed
his family to great dangers from the savages that were
lurking near the settlements. A few years later King
Philip's war stirred up the Indians from one end of
Massachusetts to the other. The massacre of Bloody
Brook (a part of Deerfield), in which a whole company
of soldiers were killed, sent a thrill of horror through
the new settlements, that were soon deserted, the peo-
ple fleeing to Northampton for safety. But a few
months later the whites turned the tide in the battle of
Turner's Falls, which gave them rest for some years,
till the Indians were stirred up again by the French, and
attacking Deerfield at night, set fire to the town, and
massacred part of the inhabitants, and made prisoners
of the rest. In all these terrible scenes few famihes
suffered more than the Fields, of whom some were
killed and others, including women, were carried off as
captives to Canada.
But in spite of all dangers the brave settlers held
the fort, or rather held the frontier, and became the
ancestors of families who have kept the name in honor
in Northwestern Massachusetts for six generations.
4 FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
Among their descendants are not only ministers and
lawyers and judges, but men of business, whose vast
interests require as much financial ability as to be Sec-
retary of the Treasury of the United States ; so that we
may be pardoned if we claim it as another proof that
blood will tell, that Mr. Marshall Field, of Chicago, is
a direct descendant of the old Puritan, Zachariah Field.
But, though this tribe of Israel was of a fighting
race, the bravest of men do not care to be wakened too
often by the war-whoop of the savage : and a grandson
of Zachariah, " Ebenezer," signifying "Thus far hath
the Lord helped us," thought it more for his peace of
mind to go back to the land from which his forefather
came out, and returned to Connecticut. Nor did he
stop at Hartford, but went on to the shore of Long
Island Sound and took up his home in Guilford, in the
eastern part of the town, now called Madison, where
he married Mary Dudley, (a descendant of two govern-
ors of the Colony of New Haven) through whom the
name of Dudley came into the family. Here he and
those that came after him abode for more than a hun-
dred years. In the old burying ground where
" The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
may still be seen side by side three low headstones
which mark the heads of three generations: for after
Ebenezer came his eldest son, David, who settled in
the north part of Madison, probably as early as 1720,
FROM THE STOCK OP THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 5
in a district which, as it was yet uncleared, was called
' ' The "Woods, " where he soon after erected a frame
house of two stories, that was literally founded on a
rock, and is standing to this day.
After David came Timothy, who lived on the old
homestead, which he inherited from his father. He
was a man of great vigor and resolution, which led his
fellow-townsmen to look to him as a leader in troublous
times. When he was m the prime of manhood — a little
over thirty years of age — the War of the Revolution
broke out, and he entered the army. In 1776 he joined
the seventh regiment raised in Connecticut for the
defence of the State, and served under Washington,
when the great leader, rallying his forces after the dis-
astrous defeat on Long Island, took a position of defence
on the upper part of New York Island, between Fort
Washington and the East River, to watch the British
troops which then held the city, and took part in the
battle of White Plains. He was afterward in command
of a coast guard organized for protection against expe-
ditions that might attack towns along the shore of Long
Island Sound, in which he once saved Guilford from
a raid of Tories who landed June 17th, 1781, and had
begun to burn the town, when, mustering the farmers
with their muskets, he attacked them with such spirit
that he drove them to their boats, leaving their dead*
and wounded behind them.
Captain Field lived many years after the war, and
6 FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
was a fine specimen of the old "Continentals," who
united the character of the farmer and the soldier. The
older inhabitants of the town still remember his striking
figure. One who says " he can see him now," describes
him as "a large, broad-breasted, well-built man."
Even while engaged in peaceful pursuits he kept up the
mihtary style of dress of other days. ' 'He always wore
a cocked hat, short breeches, long stockings, and bright,
silver shoe-buckles ; and I never saw Mm, either on the
farm or abroad, that he was not dressed in this manner."
This revolutionary veteran had eight children, of
whom six were daughters. The sons were both minis-
ters. The elder, who bore his father's name of Timothy,
was one of the early pioneers of Western New York,
and was settled in Canandaigua, where are still many
of his kindred. He afterward returned to New Eng-
land, and became a pastor in Westminster, Vermont,
where he died in 1844, leaving a name that is held by
the old residents in loving remembrance. The other
son was the Rev. David Dudley Field, the father of the
subject of this biography.
It would be a very imperfect narrative that did not
pause before the figure of the venerable patriarch who
forms the link between past generations and the present,
and whom all who survive hold in tenderest love and
reverence. He was descended, as we have seen, from a
race of brave and God-fearing men, who in times of
danger defended the frontier settlements against the
FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 7
savages, and fought for their country's independence.
But it was a small world into which he came. Yet
not so small as it seemed. Those days had their
excitements as well as ours. It was just after the Rev-
olutionary war. Indeed he was born before the contest
was decided. The last gun was fired while he was in
his cradle. Such great events left their impression far
beliind them. The agitation remained long after the
conflict was over, and the mind of the country was still
rocked and tossed, like the ocean after a storm. Every
hamlet in New England was full of tales of the great
struggle. The actors in those scenes were still upon the
stage. There were men who had fought behind the
entrenchments on Bunker Hill; who had followed
Washington in all the vicissitudes of the long conflict ;
who had camped with him at VaUey Forge ; who had
witnessed the surrender at Yorktown. From a child
he was familiar with these heroic traditions, for at his
father's fireside he heard stories of the camp and the
field. Nor were such things altogether of the past, for
now and then, like distant thunder, came the sound of
wars and revolutions beyond the sea.
With all this, there was an intellectual life in New
England at the close of the last century and the begin-
ning of this, perhaps as great as at the present day. In
every town there were men of education and learning.
Yale College exerted a powerful influence in Connecti-
cut, as Harvard did in Massachusetts. It raised up a
8 FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
body of educated men — ministers, physicians, lawyers,
and judges — who were sca,ttered through the State,
filhng positions of influence, and forming an educated
class. The town of Guilford had as its minister Rev.
John Elliott, a man of high classical attainments, whose
discourses — a few of which are still preserved — show
him to have possessed uncommon ability and eloquence.
Like his older brother, this son of Captain Field chose
the profession of the ministry, for which indeed he had
such a natural taste, as might be interpreted as a Divine
call. A schoolmate used afterwards to relate how,
when boys, they would go off into the woods, where
"David" would mount a rock, and "preach" at him
as l^ng as his youthful listener would hear. As he
walked on the sea-shore, he shouted to the waves, which
seemed like answering voices, as they came rolling up
the beach. The late Dr. John Todd, who spent a part
of his early life in Madison, said : "In my boyhood I
used to hear about ' Mr. Field,' the young man who had
gone to college. I walked on the hard sands of the
beach where he had walked, I stood on the same fishing-
rocks on which he had stood, and I listened to the same
surf -roar of the sea to which he had listened."
Bent on an education, he applied to his minister, who
had the pleasure of a scholar in reviewing his old studies,
and fitted him for college along with two of his class-
mates, Erastus Scranton and Jeremiah Evarts, the
father of William M. Evarts, the late Secretary of
FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 9
State. They entered Yale together m 1798. Field and
Evarts were room-mates durmg their college course,
and always entertained for each other the warmest
affection. The class of 1803 numbered among its mem-
bers others whose names became honorably distinguished
in after life — Isaac C. Bates, Senator from Massachu-
setts ; Judge Hubbard of Boston, William Maxwell of
Virginia, Governors Tomlinson and Pond of Connecti-
cut, Junius Smith, who has been called the father of
ocean steam navigation, and Pelatiah Perit, an eminent
merchant of New York. But perhaps the best that
Yale College gave to its students then, came from the
personal influence of President Dwight, a man of such
noble presence, combined with such intellect and such
eloquence, as gave him a great ascendancy over the
minds of his pupils, who looked up to him as a king of
men. No one felt his influence more than Field, and
the impression remained to the end of his life. While
in college, and for some time after, the intervals of
study were occupied in teaching school, by which he
obtained means to complete his education. -
Graduating with high honors in 1802, he had next to
prepare for his profession. • At that time there were no
theological seminaries in the country, and students of
divinity pursued a course of study with some eminent
minister. Among these was Dr. Charles Backus of
Somers, to whom the young graduate went, and found
something better than theology in his future wife, a
10 FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
young lady who bore the name of Dickinson, the daugh-
ter of Captain Noah Dickinson, who had served as an
ofl&cer under General Putnam in the old French war,
and afterwards was in the army in the war of the
Revolution, and at the return of peace settled down
to the quiet life of a farmer. One who knew him only
in the last years of his life describes him as a man of
commanding appearance, nearly, if not quite, six feet
high, with an intellectual head and face, that made
him a fine type of "the gentleman of the Old School."
The daughter of this old soldier was long remem-
bered by those who knew her in her youth as having
great personal beauty, a light graceful figure, and a
very animated countenance. It was the fashion of
those times to give to daughters the names of the
Christian graces, which of course they were expected to
exemplify, such as Faith, Hope, Patience, and Charity.
One of her sisters was named Love, and upon this
daughter of the Puritans was bestowed the meek name
of Submit. In after years her children sometimes play-
fully told her that the appellation was not the most
appropriate, since she had a due share (but not a whit
too much) of true womanly spirit. As she was born on
the first day of October, 1782, she had but just reached
the age of twenty-one when she was married in 1803.
And truly, if a good wife is from the Lord, no one ever
had more reason to recognize a special Providence in the
gift than this young minister. From that day she was
FROM THE STOCK OF THE PILGRIM FATHERS. 11
for nearly fifty-eight years the hght and joy of his
home. Whoever in all those years shared her hospi-
tahty, "vvill not forget what brightness and sunshine she
shed around her. Whatever of success or prosperity
has attended the family, has been due in a great measure
to her unselfish spirit, which made every sacrifice for the
education of her children — to her perpetual buoyancy of
temper, to her womanly patience, courage, and hope.
These are tender memories that stand out in touch-
ing relief against the dark background of those early
times of struggle and of war, while the figures of
grandsires who perilled their lives for their country is
not only a matter of pride for the past, but an inspira-
tion for the future. Nobody felt this more than the
Law-Reformer, whose life was one long battle. In the
days when he had to stand almost alone against a host
of opponents, he was always able to strengthen his
courage by remembering that he had the blood of these
old soldiers in his veins.
CHAPTER II.
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. REMOVAL TO STOCKBRIDGE.
It is hard to transport ourselves back nearly a hun-
dred years, so as to enter into the life in New England
at the beginning of this century. It was very primitive
as compared with the life of to-day. There were no
railroads and no steamboats. Locomotion was slow
and difficult. If a country minister wished to visit his
brother in the next town to discusss the hard points
of Calvinism, he could not be whirled to the spot in
an electric car, but had to jog over the hills in his
" one-hoss shay." But after all the slower gait fur-
nished the more time to think and ' ' ruminate " by the
way, and many a minister has preached a sermon to
his horse before he preached it to his people. Perhaps
there was as much general intelligence, as much true
manhness and womanliness, and as much real happi-
ness, in those simple daj^s of our fathers as in these
eager and rushing days of ours. Happiness belongs to
no place or time. Love brings heaven down to earth,
and makes all things new, and no painter or poet could
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 13
have pictured a sweeter idyll than that of the home-
coming of the young minister with his young bride, as
they rode over the hills that autumn day, when the
woods were aflame with purple and gold, and down the
valley of the Connecticut to the village that was to be
their home for many years to come. Every step of the
way brought him nearer to the home of his childhood, to
the place where he was born, and to the College where
he was educated. What a joy it would be to drive
down to the seaside, where he used to walk upon the
beach, or to the City of Elms, to meet his old classmates
on Commencement day, when they would exchange their
experiences, their hopes and fears, as they ventured out
upon the scenes of active life. Apart from these imag-
ings the new parish might not have seemed quite so
inviting, for Haddam is a rough and rocky town, its
chief source of wealth being its quarries of granite.
Nor was there any beauty in the long, straggling vil-
lage. The old meeting house was a huge barn-like
structure, which answered not only for a place of wor-
ship, but for town meetings, and now and then for the
court, if some poor wretch was to be tried for murder,
when the eagerness "to be in at the death " was such
that no other roof could cover the multitude. But after
all nature had been kindly to the old town, which was
framed in between the rocky hills and the majestic river
that wound its way among them on its course to the sea.
The parsonage was not after the pattern of an Eng-
14 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD.
lish rectory, with its Gothic doors and windows cov-
ered with vines, nor of any modern architecture. No
Quaker dwelhng could be plainer than the two-story
frame house, that stood so close upon the street as to
leave but a few feet for a bit of green grass. Nor was
the salary oppressive. If he was not, like the preacher
in Goldsmith's Deserted Village, ' ' passing rich on forty
pounds a year, " his stipend amounted to but httle more,
though nominally it was more than twice as much — a
hundred pounds, or five hundred dollars ! This was
riches indeed had it all been paid in money, but in those
days there was very little money in the country. There
was no question between gold and silver as legal tender,
for it was not often that the people saw the glitter of
either coin, and those who could not pay in cash paid
"in kind." A farmer brought a load of wood, and
received credit for so much toward the minister's sal-
ary. * I have heard him say that in all these years he
never had at one time so much as a hundred dollars !
But what cared the young minister and his wife so long
as they had health, and heart, and hope ? If their
dwelling was plain without, it was bright within, as
the young mistress filled it with the sunshine of her
presence ; and never was it so warm and bright as on
* When Jonathan Edwards was settled in Stockbridge in 1750, the town
voted him a salary of six pounds, thirteen shillings and fourpence, law-
ful money, and a hundred sleigh-loads of fire-wood— of which twenty
were furnished by the white settlers and eighty by the Indians 1
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 15
a winter daj^, February 13tli, 1805, when they welcomed
into the world their first-born son, to whom they gave
his father's name of David Dudley Field.
Hardly was the little creature out of his cradle before
he began to show signs of a wall of his own. An old
dame who was employed in the family, and in after
years used to boast that she had administered to him
necessary domestic discipline, gave as a reason for it
that "he was a most determined little fellow." She
found it hard to break his will. In this the child was
father of the man. Many found the same difficulty in
the later stages of his career.
A boy so full of life could not but be fond of sports,
though under a little restraint, as he was the min-
ister's son ! But outdoor exercise of any kind exhil-
arated him, whether it was skating on the ice-bound
river, or being whirled at full speed over the crisp and
glittering snow.
Still keener was the enjoyment to sit on a winter
night before a blazing fire, and hear old men tell tales
of old times ! Their next-door neighbor had been a sea-
faring man. On a winter evening he and his boys were
commonly occupied in knitting nets for the shad fishery.
Then was the time for the old seaman's yarns, to which
young David would hsten with infinite delight.
As soon as he was old enough he had been sent to
school. But from all his schooling he gathered only
the rudiments of knowledge, for while he was still a
16 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD.
mere boy, his father took him in hand, to teach him
sometliing better than learning by rote, to think for
himself, as he would study out his sums in arithmetic.
If in after years he showed a remarkable power of rea-
soning, he owed it largely to the mental discipline that
he had in liis father's study.
Then came a passion for reading. But where to find
the books ! In those days there were no circulating
libraries. Indeed there was not a library of any kind
in the town except his father's, and that was composed
chiefly of books of divinity ! "Of tales and romances
there were none ; of the English classics little ; and of
poetry just three books — Milton's Paradise Lost, Young's
Night Thoughts, and Watts' Psalms and Hymns ! "
The Night Thoughts suggested doleful meditations, and
Watts' Psalms and Hymns were meant to be sung,
and as he was not a singer, he would not presume to
devote himself to them ; but the sonorous lines of Milton
caught his ear. He committed pages of them to mem-
ory, and was constantly repeating them to himself as
he was wandering about among the rocks and hills.
With this love of poetry and of nature, nothing
so captivated him as the broad bosom of the Con-
necticut, divided by a long and narrow island, which he
in his youthful enthusiasm thought ' ' one of the prettiest
spots in the world." Of all things in nature that speak
not and hear not, there is not one that can become
so real a companion as a river. Soft and still may
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 17
be its flow, yet in its gentle murmurs it whispers to
the heart, if it does not speak loudly, while it lulls the
too sensitive nature. It is not a dead thing, like yon-
der cliffs of granite, that change not with the pass-
ing centuries. It is alive, and the very image and
reflection of our own life, as it is ever in motion and
always in one direction, never turning back, but flow-
ing on and on, forever and forever ! Those who in
after years were accustomed to see the great advocate
at the bar, in the contests of professional life, could
not imagine how fuU his mind was of poetry and of the
love of nature. But those who knew him intimately
can see him in his boyhood, sitting for hours at the
window of his father's house, or in the summer time on
the grassy slope, or under the trees, in that silent com-
munion ^vith nature, which to him was one of the most
exquisite dehghts to the last hour of his life.
And now, as he looks at the river, there go the ships !
Even in those early days there was a considerable
inland commerce on the Connecticut as on the Hudson.
Sloops and schooners went down the river, bound to
New York, or it might be to the West Indies, and now
and then came a full-rigged ship, ^vith broad wings
outspread to fly across the sea ! AU this excited the
boy's imagination, till he was seized with a passion for
the life that thus passed before him, and went to his
father and begged him to let him go to sea ! — a passion
that grew stronger when there was a prospect of some-
18 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD.
thing more exciting than a seaman's hfe, however full
it might be of novelty and adventure, as all along the
coast was heard the sound of war, for among the recol-
lections of his boyhood, he recalled distinctly the break-
ing out of the war of 1812. Once, talking of the old
times, he said : "I remember when a boy seven years
of age, as I was riding with father over the hills to
Killingworth, a man met us on the road, and told us
that war was declared with England ! My father was
startled by the news. The country had been expecting
it, and yet it caused a shock when it came. It was a
strange coincidence, that at that moment there came
up a thunder storm. The sky grew black, the light-
nings flashed, and the thunder rolled from one end of
the heavens to the other, as if the elements were in
sympathy with the storm of war that was to burst
upon the country. I remember two privateers going
down the Connecticut river ; and once at New Haven
I saw English ships-of-war sailing up the Sound. I
remember also a playmate running up the liill behind
the village to tell us the great news that Bonaparte had
been beaten at Waterloo."
Life in a country village in those days was not very
eventful. There was not even the sensation of evil, as
it was a very peaceable community, where every man
dwelt in safety, with none to molest or make him afraid.
The farmers did not lock their doors at night, for there
was nothing to tempt a thief or a robber. The very
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 19
infrequency of crime made it more startling when it
came, an illustration of which may show the gravity
and the solemnity with which the people of New Eng-
land administered justice as under the authority, not
only of the State, but of God, who had commanded
that they should not bear the sword in vain.
In 1815 a man by the name of Peter Lung, living
in Middletown, of violent temper, and maddened by
intoxication, murdered his wife. He was arrested, and
taken to Haddam, the county seat, and confined in jail.
When the time for trial came, such was the excitement
of the people, and the eagerness to witness it, that the
court house did not suffice, and the trial was transferred
to the meeting house, whose wide floor and deep gal-
leries held a crowd, that looked on the scene with awe
and wonder. The venerable Judge Trumbull presided,
taking his seat in front of the pulpit, in his ruffled shirt
sleeves and bosom, and his short-clothes. The trial was
conducted with due deliberation, but the case was .clear,
and could have but one issue.
After receiving sentence the prisoner was taken back
to liis place of confinement, where the village pastor was
constant in his ministrations till the day of his execu-
tion, which was to be accompanied by a service such
as we know not if it could be found anywhere else in
Christendom, though it once existed in Scotland, and
is described by Scott in The Heart of Midlothian. It
was that a sermon should be preached at the execution :
20 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD.
and this not only to the spectators of the scene, that
they might profit by the lesson which it conveyed, but
in presence of the condemned, who was brought into
the church, and sat in the aisle in front of the pulpit,
and whom the preacher addressed in person. As the
prisoner had become attached to his spiritual adviser,
he desired him to be with him on Ins last day, to
strengthen him for the moment that he was to suffer,
and to preach the sermon ! The execution took place
in Middletown, and drew an immense concourse of
people from all the surrounding country. Mr. Field
took with him his son, but ten years old, whose eyes
were ready to burst when the soldiers brought in the
prisoner, and fifty years after he said : "I can see
them now, and hear the clang as they grounded their
arms ! " The sermon, as was fitting in view of the cause
of the crime, was a warning against drunkenness, from
Luke xxi. 34 : " Take heed to yourselves, lest at any
time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and
drunkenness, and cares of this life, and so that day
come upon you unawares ; " from which the preacher
denounced that which is the cause of so many acts of vio-
lence and blood. As he drew near the close, he turned
to the unhappy man before him, who rose and stood (as
he had done when receiving sentence from the judge),
to hear these last words before he was launched into
eternity. The preacher then addressed him as follows :
' ' Peter Lung : By your confessions, intemperate
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 21
drinking has been the cause of the calamities which
have come upon you. This inflamed your passions,
naturally \aolent and impetuous; filled your tongue
with prof aneness and threatening, and your hands with
frequent acts of violence, even upon her who was the
wife of your covenant. In a fit of intoxication you
inflicted upon her wounds, marks of which she carried
to the grave. What you have done, as it has been
judged by the proper tribunals, subjects you to an
ignominious execution. From this there is no escape.
But men who forfeit their fives to the laws of their
country, may upon repentance receive a pardon from
God. During your long confinement, as your life has
drawn nigh unto the grave ; as you have been counted
with them that go down into the pit; have you cried
day and night before God ? . , Pray God to search
your heart, to see if there be any wicked way in you,
and to lead you in the way everlasting. Whatever you
do, you must do speedily : for this day thou shalt die.
Before yonder sun shall set in the west, your proba-
tionary state will be closed forever. If in any doubt
about your preparation, you may yet find mercy. He
who pardoned the penitent thief on the cross, may
pardon you in the place of execution. Pray God, then,
if perhaps your sins may be forgiven you. Cry to Him,
God be merciful to me, a sinner ! and continue those
cries till death shall remove you hence. May the
Lord Almighty support you in the trjHng scene before
22 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD.
you, and through infinite grace have mercy on your
soul ! "
When this solemn service was over, the mourn-
ful procession took up its line of march, the soldiers
leading the way to the place of execution. Young
David, who followed in the throng, remembered how
the wretched man, dressed in a long white robe, that
was to be his winding-sheet, stood upon the scaffold,
which was guarded by a body of troopers, who closed
up around it, and cut the fatal cord with their swords.
When this last act was over, all turned away, and as
the people from the country round rode back over the
hills, they talked together of a scene the like of which,
at least in the feature here described, has perhaps not
since been witnessed in New England.
While these years passed on, the parsonage was
being filled with a little group of children. Seven were
born in Haddam, of whom one died in infancy, and
six were living, with ages from two to thirteen j-ears.
There were so many little mouths to be fed, little bodies
to be clothed, and the older ones to be sent to school.
How this problem was solved, is the secret of the mys-
terious power that lies in a woman's heart and hand.
With a salary of five hundred dollars, and six children,
there was no time for idleness. In those days there
were no Irish servants, and indeed hardly servants of
any kind, except a few colored people kept in old fami-
lies. Almost every woman in the country did her own
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 23
work with such "help" as she could now and then
find from the assistance of a farmer's daughter. Yet
such tasks did not daunt this gentle mother with her
delicate and slender frame. She did not count it hard-
ship or self-denial, for the passion of her life was
devotion to her husband and her children, and she
moved about the house with a light step, singing as she
went. All day long was the parsonage kept alive by
her busy hands and feet. But now she was to be left
alone for five months together, which was their first,
and — except a visit to Europe thirty years later — their
last separation.
This was an episode in his ministerial life that at
once separated and linked together his two places of
settlement. The people of New England had begun to
wake up to the idea of the Great West, which then
included Western New York, a large part of which was
still covered by the primeval forest. He read about the
emigrants from Connecticut and Massachusetts going
out into the wilderness. Why should he not go and
preach to them ? He was just in his prime, but thirty-
seven years old ! Who could endure hardship better
than he ? Whereupon he resigned his quiet parish on
the river side, and accepted an appointment under the
old Missionary Society of Connecticut, to the new settle-
ments on the southern shore of Lake Ontario and on
the banks of the Oswego River. The country was then
a wilderness, through which he rode on horseback,
24 BIRTH AND BOYHOOD.
preaching in log-houses and under the shade of trees.
This frontier had been the scene of constant fighting
during the then recent war, and as he rode along he
visited several of the fields of battle. Buffalo had been
burnt by the British, and was still bvit a small strag-
gling village, in which there was not a single church,
and he preached in the court house !
This absence continued for five months, during which
the young mother was left alone with her little flock, to
watch over them, and keep them safely within the fold.
In after years she often told us of the anxieties of those
days : how at night, when the little ones were in their
nests, she would go round the house to see that all was
quiet, and then lie down and sleep beside her children,
feeling that they were safe under the eye of God.
During this period she had a great comfort in her
oldest boy, who, though he was but thirteen years of
age, at once took in the situation, and felt that a certain
responsibility rested upon him to be in the place of the
absent father, as the protector of his young mother, and
of his only sister, and the four little boys, the youngest
of whom was but just out of his cradle. This feeling
of an older brother, as being the natural guardian of
the younger, remained through life : a care that was
rewarded in after years, when he lived to see the young-
est of those little brothers, and a son of that sister,
meet on the bench of the Supreme Court of the United
States.
REMOVAL, TO STOCKBRIDGE. 25
But at last the father was coming home ! On his
return he passed through Stockbridge, Mass., where
the old minister, Dr. Stephen West, past his eightieth
year, was no longer able to preach, and Mr. Field was
asked to supply the pulpit for several weeks, and soon
after was called to be the pastor, and settled the follow-
ing year, August 25, 1819, then beginning a ministry
that was to continue nearly eighteen years.
The removal was no small affair. Teams were sent
to Connecticut to bring the furniture — a week's journey
to go and return. There were beds and bureaus, tables
and chairs, and most weighty of all, boxes piled with
books, for the minister had accumulated a large hbrary.
Nearly fifty years after, the subject of this biography
and the writer of it, both of whom lived in New York,
had their summer homes in Stockbridge, and took their
exercise on horseback together. One morning as thej^
were riding over the hills, they passed bv a farmer's
door, who told them that he had in his possession one
of the teamster's waggons that had done service in this
memorable exodus, and they rode into the yard to see
it. There it was, looking like an old army waggon,
that had been through the wars. It required but little
imagination to picture it piled with aU the treasures
of the household, while on the top, riding high in air,
were perched half a dozen children ; and thus bearing
"Cfesar and his fortunes," it rumbled over the moun-
tains to the new home among; the Berksliire Hills.
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW HOME. GOING TO COLLEGE.
The removal of the family to Stockbridge was an
event to all concerned, and a turnhig-point m their his-
tory. It is with men as with trees, that the best of
them inay be improved by transplanting. True, the
Housatonic was not as large as the Connecticut, but it
has a beauty all its own as it winds its way through
the Berksliire Hills. At this point the valley widens,
stretching away in meadows, that rise gently into hills
covered with forests, till the horizon is shut in by an
amphitheatre of mountains. The village is on a plateau
near the river, and is laid out in one long street, arched
with elms, underneath which were the residences of
families some of which bore the names, as they retained
the manners, of the old Colonial aristocracy.
The town had a history, which, if not more notable
than that of many other New England towns, gave it
a local distinction. The fertility of the valley had
attracted a tribe of Indians, who gave their name of
Housatonic to the river, and it Avas to plant a mission
THE NEW HOME. 27
among them that the first white men came from East-
ern Massachusetts. What John Eliot had been a hun-
dred years before, John Sergeant was now, an apostle to
the Indians, by whom he was so beloved that when he
was laid to rest, they wished to be buried beside liim
that they might rise with him in the resurrection.
After him appeared the stately form of Jonathan
Edwards, who found the quiet of the wilderness a fit
seclusion in which to revolve the ever vexed questions of
"Fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute."
Then came one who was pastor of the church for sixtj-
years, that spanned the whole period from the time of
the old French war through the Revolution and the sec-
ond war mth Great Britain. This Was Stephen West,
who, though a man of small stature, was full of patri-
otic fire, as he showed when the tidings came of the
battle of Lexington, and the minute men were mustered
on the village green, and he addressed them, telling
them to do their duty to God and their country ! He
lived to a good old age, and was always a notable figure
in the town when he Avalked abroad arrayed in his three-
cornered hat, his silver knee buckles, and his gold-
headed cane, and all stood aside and uncovered their
heads with a deference that is too much forgotten in
these democratic, not to say degenerate, days.
In the Hne of this apostolic succession came the
new minister in the autumn of 1819. Among the spe-
28 GOING TO COLLEGE.
cial attractions for the young student was an excellent
Academy under the instruction of a famous teacher,
Mr. Jared Curtis, who had a reputation for turning out
thorough scholars. - And what was even more impor-
tant than the ' ' head-master, " he met here for the first
time three young men of similar tastes, with whom he
formed an intimacy that ripened into the closest friend-
ship, that continued to the end of their hves. These
were the brothers Mark and Albert HojDkins, the first
of whom afterwards became the President of Wilhams
College, and the other Professor of Astronomy ; while
the third was John Morgan, who became a Professor at
Oberlin, Ohio, where his name is held in honor, as are
the two others in the heart of every man who has been
a student at Williams within the past generation.* -
From the Academy the next step was to the College.
Had his father continued to reside in Connecticut, the
son would have gone, as his father did, to Yale. But
Western Massachusetts had a College of its own, which
bore the name of a gallant soldier. Colonel Ephraim
Williams, who went from Stockbridge, and fell in the
old French war. And so to Williams he went with the
other students from Stockbridge. Those were among the
* Mr. Field survived them all. It was while he was in Europe, in
the summer of 1887, that President Hopkins died; but on Ms return he
prepared, at the request of the Trustees of the College, a fitting tribute to
the memory of his life-long friend. It was delivered at the following
Commencement, and is published in Volume III of his Miscellaneous
Addresses.
WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 39
happiest days of his life. He loved study, and the harder
the subject the more he loved it for the very fact that
it taxed his intellectual ability. No matter what the
study was, Latin or Greek, or the problems of geom-
etry, he attacked them all with a fierce determination.
In those days scientific explorers in Europe and America
were beginning to make their discoveries, and his eager
mind was greatly excited by the mysteries which they
revealed. Long years after he said : "I remember, as
of yesterday, my feeling at my first lesson in chemistry.
The world had changed. Instead of a cold, inanimate
nature, I saw that everytliing was alive. The trees
seemed nodding to me as I passed ; the air whispered in
my ears ; every blade of grass, every green leaf, opened
its wonderful structure. The ground moved beneath
my feet; the rain, the light, and the clouds brought
messages ; and even the solid rocks stood full of affini-
ties, ready to dissolve and form again in new combi-
nations of their elements." But what fascinated him
more than aU was the starry heavens, even though it
was before the modest Observatory had arisen, with
its dome and its telescope. It was his interest in this
study, together with his personal regard for Albert
Hopkins, which led him in after years to give $25,000
to endow the professorship of astronomy.
How he ranked as a scholar compared with his class-
mates, I cannot speak from personal knowledge, as I
did not enter College for many years after : but even
30 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
then there was a tradition of a race of giants that had
gone before us: among whom stood the four Stock-
bridge boys. I heard a great deal about them from an
" Old Mortahty, " the "Professor of Dust and Ashes,"
who was the collector and purveyor of all the Col-
lege gossip, and as such the most copious, if not the
most credible, chronicler of his time. He used to say
to me, perhaps to exalt my family pride, " They all said
that Field was the best scholar that they had had in the
College in ten years ! "
And yet, though his standing was so high, he did
not graduate. ' ' The reason why I cannot tell. " Some-
thing had given offence to the President, Dr. Griffin,
who was somewhat tenacious of his dignity, and so the
young man left the College a year before the end of his
course, without waiting for the valedictory, that his class-
mates said was sure to be his. But whatever the petty
irritation, it was soon after removed, and from that time
to the hour of his death, Williams College had no more
loyal son than he. The very ground on which it stood
was sacred. How he loved tliis " Mother," he showed
by coming back almost every year to the old home, to
meet his classmates, the companions of other days, and
recall their common associations. At the Commence-
ment in 1875 — fifty years after the graduation of Ms
class — he delivered the Address before the Literary
Societies, in which he christened Ms Alma Mater
WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 31
"Williams the Beautiful." A few passages wiU show
the spirit of the whole :
"We, who have returned to this beloved teacher of our youth,
have come to recall and commemorate the past. We are think-
ing less of the new than of the old. We lay aside for the day
whatever thoughts of the busy world outside might disturb the
place or the time, while we revisit the scenes of college life, call
up again the memories of those early years, take one another
by the hand, look into one another's faces, listen to one another's
voices, and rekindle sympathies dormant or forgotten. How-
ever long or short be the time since we went forth from the
gates of this valley, however divergent our paths of life, we
stand here as brethren. The youngest among us is the comrade
of the oldest, as the recruit of to-day in a regiment that bears
upon its colors the names of a hundred fights, looks upon the
veteran as his comrade, and himself as one of a line of soldiers,
inheritor and partaker of their fame. Here as there the files
are continuous despite the changes in the ranks. Once a year
we have our muster, and though each roll-call, like that of the
morning after battle, bears many a name to which there is no
answer, our lines, however thinned, are never broken.
"The sight of these faces, of these old roofs and halls, of these
meadows and streams, and of these encircling hills, so quickens
the inward sense that it sees forms that have vanished and hears
voices that are silent forever. I behold my classmates as I
beheld them then filing into the chapel, or gathered at recita-
tions, or sauntering along the walks, or resting beneath the
trees. I naark their gait; I hear their earnest debate, their
hearty laugh, and I recall the strifes, the friendships, the greet-
ings and the partings of those far-off days. I look into the sky
— it is the sky of my boyhood ; the stars clear and silent shine
upon me as they shone fifty years ago.
33 WILLIAMS COLLEGE.
"We came as boys; we studied and contended with one
another. No doubt of the future gave us disquietude. The
hereafter was the land of promise, bright with the dew of morn-
ing. The collegian is a dreamer, and, for the most part, a
dreaming boy. He comes full of energy, incited by hope. He
lays his hand upon the book of knowledge and opens it. What
a revelation ! The curtain is lifted and a new world is spread
before him. He finds in every lesson something new ; the past
opens its treasures and Natiire reveals herself ; the rocks become
histories ; the clods grow instinct with life ; the streams pouring
froni the hills have something to tell.
"Was it not a great thing for us that, while we were shut
from the outer world by these mountain barriers, we were shut
within this valley ? I shall never cease to congratulate myself
that my sense of beauty was trained within the circle of these
mountains ; that the morning liglit gilded for my eyes the sides
of Greylock ; that I saw the sun at noon standing over this end-
less variety of wood, meadow, and stream; that the evening
twilight heightened while it softened the beauty of noon ; and
that when I looked from my window into the moonlight, it lay
like a transparent celestial robe upon the sleeping valley and
the watchful hills.
"So we passed our days. We formed a little community by
ourselves. Our cares were few, our hopes many, and our friend-
ships eternal. Factitious distinctions take no root in college
ground. Nowhere else is character more truly measured;
nowhere more than here is a sham found out. The words
' college-mate, class-mate, room-mate ' signify a great deal
beyond ordinary fellowship. Two students sitting under the
trees at evening, or walking in the moonlight, confide to each
other their inmost thoughts. Tlie heart is too fresh to doubt, too
young to betray.
WILLIAMS COLLEGE. 33
"College life, though short reckoned by years, is long reck-
oned by impressions. These impressions are as ineradicable as
the heart, whose pulsations begin and end with life. Go where
you will — take the wings of morning and seek the uttermost
parts of the earth ; lose yourself in African jimgles or South Sea
islands — the memories of college days will go and abide with
you. I have strolled along the Meles with a college-mate, and
while we talked of Homer, who sang upon its banks, and of
many other things, new and old, oiu- thoughts reverted to the
walks along the Hoosac, and we laughed as boys laugh over
college anecdotes. I have stood on the slopes of Lebanon* by
the side of an American missionary, and as we looked over the
sea into the West, our thoughts outran our sight, and lighted on
'Williams the Beautiful,' its historic Haystack and its Mission
Park."
This feeling continued as long as he lived. Seldom
did a Commencement pass that, if he was this side the
Atlantic, he did not return to the old beloved spot, which
had to him a peculiar fascination. The mountains about
it were like the mountains roundabout Jerusalem to the
pious Jew. Every walk along the riverside or among
the hills had its associations, so that he went about as in
a happy dream, recalling times long past, with lo\'ing
memories of the living and the d^ad. On the College
grounds no figure was more familiar than liis, nor in
the meetings of the Alumni, where he will long be
remembered with sorrow that they shall see his face
no more.
CHAPTER lY.
STUDIES LAW AND ENTERS PRACTICE IN NEW YORK.
MARRIAGE : DEATH OF HIS WIFE :
A YEAR ABROAD.
The young student had now come to the parting of
the ways. He had finished his College course, and was
to choose his profession. On that depended his futvire.
The character of his mind, his habit of questioning, and
his ardor in debate — -what some would call his combat-
iveness — drew him to the profession in which there were
great battles to be fought and victories to be won, and
he decided in favor of the law.
But where and how was he to get his education?
There were no law schools in those days, and a student
was fortunate who was so favored as to have a chair in the
office of some lawyer of repute, where, in the intervals
of such services as he could render, he had the freedom
of the meagre library, from which, as well as from
observing the practice in the courts, he could pick up
the rudiments of his profession.
Such an opportunity came to him through a family
resident in Stockbridge, but that might have been said
THE FAMILY OP JUDGE SEDGWICK. 35
to belong to the country, that of Judge Sedgwick, a
veteran of Revohitionary times : who had been a mem-
ber of the old Continental Congress; and, after the
adoption of the Constitution, a member of the House of
Representatives; from which Washington invited him
to enter his Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury ; but
who seems to have felt himself more at home in Con-
gress, where he served in both houses, being three years
in the Senate, and again in the House, where he was
Speaker of the Sixth Congress. After these long years
of service to his country, he retired from political life,
and returned to the law as Judge of the Supreme Court
of Massachusetts. When he passed off the stage he left
three sons as the inheritors of his profession, as well as
of his honored name. The eldest of these, Mr. Theodore
Sedgwick, had long practised law in Albany, where he
was the contemporary and friend of Martin Van Buren
and of others second only to him. On retiring from
practice he returned to Stockbridge and lived in the old
ancestral home. But his former partner, a gentleman
of Dutch descent, Mr. Harmanus Bleecker, still contin-
ued in Albany, to whom he gave Mr. Field an intro-
duction, that at once opened his door to the new can-
didate for the bar. ''
The day was fixed for his departure. His mother's
heart was very full, and yet with the courage that is
combined with the tenderness of woman, she would
have bid him go, if duty called him, like the Roman
36 LEAVING HOME. STUDY OF THE LAW.
mother, if it were to return upon his sliield ! His father
always found strength for any crisis in his rehgious
faith, and taking his son into his study, he knelt down
and commended his first-born son to the protection of
Almighty God, and then gave him for his only capital,
ten dollars and a little Bible, which he kept to his dying
day. Thus he went forth from under the paternal roof
with ten dollars, a Bible, and his father's prayers ! As
they came out of the door, the old-fashioned stage-
coach rolled up and took liim awa3^ His home was
behind him and the world was before him !
It was a long drive across the countr}', and the day
was far spent when he came in sight of Albany, and
crossing the river in a ferryboat, walked up the hill
that was crowned by the Capitol in which he was in
the future to make so many arguments before Courts
and Legislatures. If "the heart of the stranger " was
at first very lonelj', the feeling was soon removed by
the kindness of Mr. Bleecker, who, with true Dutch
cordiality, made him welcome, not only to his office, but
to his home, so that he wrote to his father : ' ' My situa-
tion is quite pleasant. Mr. Bleecker is very pohte and
very kind. I have every facility for study wliich I can
wish, and I endeavor to improve them. I feel in good
spirits. Stockbridge is indeed pleasanter, but when
our situation is not the best, it may be the next to it "
— a bit of practical philosophy, to make the best of
everything, that he carried through life.
REMOVES TO NEW YORK. 37
It was not long before he began to feel at home
in the dear old Dutch city, for which he had a kindly
feeling ever after ; but still his thoughts would turn
to New York as offering a larger field for his activ-
ity. And then what prizes there were in the line of his
profession ! He knew of a young man ^v^ho realized
from it five hundred dollars a year ! ' ' Could he ever
attain to such greatness as that ! "
Here again the way was o^Dened for him by the
Sedgwicks, for while the eldest of the family had been
in the practice of law at Albany, his two brothers,
Henry and Robert, were in the front rank of their
profession in New York, and showed the same readi-
ness to forward the interests of one who came from dear
old Stockbridge, who, thus invited, transferred his place
of study to the city that was to be his home for more
than sixty years.
V, While referring to this act of kindness, I cannot
refrain from mentioning another instance of the same
wliich was told me by the person concerned, the late
William C. Bryant, who, like Mr. Field, had studied at
Williams College, and afterwards entered on the prac-
tice of law in Great Barrington. But as the shy tem-
perament of the poet did not promise great success
at the bar, Mr. Henry D. Sedg-wick invited hun to
come to New York, with the kind assurance that he
' ' would see what he could do for him, " and showed his
friendship by introducing him to literary occupation
38 HIS MARRIAGE.
that ended in his connection with the Evening Post,
which brought both fame and fortune, an obhgation
that he was always ready to acknowledge, even when
he had risen to such eminence that there was no man
in all the city who was held in higher respect. Mr.
Bryant and Mr. Field came to New York about the
same time, and boarded in the same house, and thus
began an intimacy and friendship which continued
through life. -^
The change to New York was altogether to his taste,
as he was more in the current of life, with everything
to stimulate his ardor in his profession. His first busi-
ness was to make himself master of the law, to which
he applied his mind with such intensity as excluded
everything beside. Day and night he thought of noth-
ing else. By this devotion he so approved himself to
the Messrs. Sedgwick, that when the elder brother,
Henry, was obliged by ill health to retire from practice,
the younger, Robert, invited Mr. Field to become his
partner, a promotion which not only gratified his youth-
ful ambition, but enabled him to take another step that
was needed to complete his happiness. In the year 1829
(October 26th), when he was but twenty-four years old,
he was married to Jane Lucinda Hopkins, a cousin of
Mark Hopkins, who united such grace of person with
such refinement of manner, so much sweetness with so
much character, that he was the happiest of men in the
thought that he should always have that gentle figure
DEATH OF HIS WIFE. 39
at his side ; and when a year later he took in his arms
his first-born, a son, it seemed as if there was notliing
more that he could ask of God. And yet there was one
thing more — a daughter, as a companion to the little
brother, which was also his three years later.
But all this brightness was too much to last. After
but little more than six years, the bride of his youth
was taken from him, to be followed a few months later
by a last child, not a year old, who, even in the grave,
was laid to sleep on her mother's breast. Thus in a
few months all of joy that the world had given hun,
had vanished out of sight, and sick of heart, he left —
not his home, for home he had none — but his city and
his country, and crossed the sea.
In after years Mr. Field repeated the voyage so often
that Europe became almost as familiar to him as his
own country. And yet there is never but one first
view, when all impressions are fresh and new. A few
dates recall his first glimpses of England and the Con-
tinent :
" On the 3d of May, 1836, I took passage in the packet West-
minster for London. There were no steamers on the Atlantic in
those days. Among the passengers were Horace Binney, Pro-
fessor Hare, and John Hare Powell. On the 28th of May we
arrived off the coast of Cornwall where the ship was becalmed,
and most of the passengers, inchiding myself, went ashore at
Falmouth. The beauty of England at that season was enchant-
ing. The hawthorn hedges were in blossom. I took the mail
coach for Exeter, and from there posted to Bath, and from Bath
40 A YEAR ABROAD,
rode on the outside of a coach, the most delightful way of seeing
the country, to London. I remember well my sensations at see-
ing Windsor Castle, with the royal standard flying, as we drove
past in the valley below. The sights of London were of course
very attractive to me, as I had read of them all my life. My
eyes devoured Westminster Abbey, Westminster Hall, Temple
Bar, the Tower, and the other historical jilaces. I witnessed the
parade in Hyde Park on the anniversary of Waterloo, when the
Duke of Wellington received the salute of the troops, and I
remember the people going in and out of Apsley House, to see
the tables set for the Waterloo Banquet. In the House of Lords
I heard the Duke of Wellington, Lord Holland, Earl Gray, and
the Lord Chancellor. I remember the Dvike presenting a peti-
tion in which the petitioners asked that the Lords should not
yield to intimidation, 'That, my Lords,' said the Duke, as he
laid down the petition, in the tone of one accustomed to give
orders, ' is also my opinion. ' In the House of Commons I heard
O'Connell, who in the course of his speech, referring to the
upholders of Irish grievances, said ' They are men of blood ! '
at which there was a loud cry of ' No ! No I ' and the Speaker
drawled out, ' Order 1 Order 1 '
"After a few days' stay in London I went to Paris by the
Malle-Post, taking a seat in the coupe. From Paris, where I
spent a week or two, I returned to London through Belgium,
and soon set out for a tour on the Continent, visiting Holland,
Germany, Demnark, Sweden, Finland, Russia, Poland, Bohe-
mia, Austria, and Italy."
Of this first year in Europe lie wrote on liis return a
number of sketches full of the hf e and spirit of a young
American abroad for the first time, under the title of
" Sketches over the Sea," that appeared in the Demo-
cratic Review.
RETURN TO AMERICA. 41
This absence from his country was for more than a
year and at a very critical time. "When he returned in
July, 1837, it was to find the country in a financial col-
lapse. A panic had swept all the cities, and there was
a frightful state of alarm in all directions. But such
was the very time when men needed the counsel of
the ablest and most trusted legal advisers. Mr. Field
entered at once on the duties of his profession, and soon
found his practice larger than ever. If success at the
bar had been his sole ambition, he had as much of it
as any man of his age in the country. But there was
something connected with the law that attracted him
still more : not the law as it Avas, but as it should be —
an ideal of the law, which now rose like a star above
the horizon, towards which he was to direct his course
during the remainder of his long and eventful career.
CHAPTER y.
THE REFORM OF THE LAW. THE CODES OF CIVIL
AND CRIMINAL PROCEDURE.
When David Dudley Field began the study of law,
it was with a f eehng of reverence amounting almost to
awe. The libraries were filled with books giving the
laws of England and of all European states, illustrated
by thousands of cases, which showed how the law was
applied, not only in the familiar relations of life, but in
almost every case that was possible or conceivable in
human society. These mighty tomes, dark with age,
embodied the wisdom of past generations — the wisdom
of all countries and all times — the priceless inheritance
from all the past to the present and to the future in
secula seculoruni — an inheritance which it was almost
sacrilege to touch.
Such was the feeling with which this seeker after
knowledge and wisdom entered upon the study of the
law. Nor was it a feeling that he ever fully got over.
He was never, as some have supposed, an iconoclast
who would break down all ancient traditions. On the
contrary, he would conserve, not only "with judicious
DEFECTS OF THE LAW. 43
care," but wath religious care, all the treasures of wis-
dom and of learning that have come down from the
past. Beginning the study of the law with this feeling,
the first thing which he attempted was to make himself
master of the practice, and so hard did he work that he
had reason to say that "if ever there was anything
which he understood, it was the practice at common
law and in equity as then estabhshed in the Courts
of New York." But he had not gone very far in his
studies before he began to have misgivings as to whe-
ther the law as ' ' received from the fathers " was abso-
lutely ideal in its perfection. The more he studied it,
the more did it seem to him a very artificial structure — ■
comphcated by a multitude of legal technicahties that
made of it almost an occult science, to be understood
only by the initiated. In this opinion he was confirmed
by Mr. Henry D. Sedgmck, who had begun the prac-
tice of law in Massachusetts, and found it much less
embarrassed by these technical details than in New
York, where an excess of forms made the progress of
a case through the courts very slow. This might serve
the purpose of legal practitioners, as it made their ser-
vices the more necessary, or indeed indispensable, but
did it serve the purpose of those who appealed to the
law for protection ? Was there no way to hasten the
laggard steps of justice ?
While he was thus groping towards the light, he
was confirmed in his doubts by a couple of opinions
44 A DREAM OF REFORM.
from high authorities. One was Livingston's Report
of a Code for Louisiana; the other a Discourse on
the History and Nature of the Common Law, dehvered
before the New York Historical Society by Wilham
Sampson in 1823, and repubhshed with other papers
under the title ' ' On Codes and Common Law. "
Out of all this reading and thinking came into the
mind of the young student at law a vague and misty
dream of something better, which slowly crystallized
into a conception of a Reform, and then into a purpose
of attempting it, even if he should have to undertake it
single-handed and alone. But what could he do ? As
long as he was but the junior partner of an eminent
lawyer, it was not his business to make the law, but to
practise it. But afterward, when he opened an office
for himself, he was more free to indulge his dreams.
Now that he was his own master, was there anything
that he could do ? The ideal was plain enough : it could
be stated in a sentence, for it had but two elements :
first, that the law, as enacted by human governments,
should be founded in natural justice ; and second, that
it should be set forth in the simplest and clearest lan-
guage, so that it should be ' ' understanded of the people. "
These two points comprised the whole vast question of
law reform.
Reform of the Law ! It was a high-sounding
phrase, that must carry in it something that is vital to
the State: something which goes down to the very
LAW AND EQUITY. 45
foundations of government — to the granite base on
wliich rests the mighty fabric of human society. That
the reform might be complete, it must combine the sub-
stance of the law with the modes of procedure in the
courts whereby justice is adininistered. In the natural
order of division we should begin with the substance of
the law. But in taking down a mighty structure which
has been the work of ages, to rebuild it, it is more con-
venient to begin at the top, and dismantle it by degrees,
taking away stone by stone, and replacing the old by
the new. Following this toilsome but solid method of
reconstruction, the first step in Law Reform was in the
Codes of Procedure.
Mr. Field had long felt that the great impediment to
justice was that the way was made wearisome by the
double mode of Procedure in Law and Equity, wliich
was a sort of double-tracked road, on which a man
travelled the distance twice over — first being ushered
into a luxurious carriage, where he reclined on soft
cushions, and was carried swiftly and smoothly over
the ground for a hundred miles ; at the end of which he
was received most graciously, and assisted across the
track to another drawing-room car fitted up in the same
gorgeous style, and in a few hours was whirled back to
the place from which he started ! On alighting, his im-
pressions were somewhat divided. It was certainly the
poetry of motion, but as to progress toward his final des-
tination, reaUy he might as weU have stayed at home !
46 SYSTEM OF LEGAL PROCEDURE.
Such was the system of procedure in the Courts
when he returned to this country in the summer of
1837, and he began to consider what he could do for its
improvement. His first pubhc effort was a Letter to
GuHan C. Verplanck, pubHshed in 1839, on the Reform
of our Judicial System. After this he went to Albany,
and addressed a Committee of the Legislature on the
subject. - Two years later, at the general election in
November, 1841, he sought and obtained a nomina-
tion from the Democratic party for the Assembly of
New York, with the view of introducing law reform
measures into the Legislature. Being defeated through
the interference of Bishop Hughes in his opposition to
the Public School system, then prevailing in New York,
which he wished to subvert, he contented himself with
preparing the draft of three Bills to be introduced by
Mr. O'Sullivan, his colleague in the candidacy, accom-
panied by a long Letter in explanation of their provis-
ions. ./These Bills were introduced; but the Judiciary
Committee, to which they were referred, did not adopt
or recommend them. They were printed, however,
with the Letter, in the Journal of the Assembly.
The calling of the Constitutional Convention, pur-
suant to an act of the Legislature of 1845, gave him a
new opportunity. Before the delegates were elected,
and in January, 1846, he wrote and published in the
Evening Post a series of articles on * ' The Reorgan-
ization of the Judiciary," which were collected in a
REFORM OP PRACTICE OP THE COURTS. 47
pamphlet and ^viclely cii-culated. He wished to obtain
a seat in the Convention, with a view to promoting law
reform ; but the unpopularity to wliich he had subjected
himself by his hostility to the aimexation of Texas and
the extension of slavery, made it impossible for him to
obtain a nomination from the Democratic party, then
the only one from wliich he could expect an election.
But if he was not permitted to influence the Convention
by his voice witliin its walls, he could influence it from
without, and he did so to the utmost of his power, by
conversation and correspondence with the members, and
by articles in the newspapers. The Convention met on
the first of June, and during the whole summer he kept
at work. The Evening Post alone had nine or ten
articles from him, relating to different parts of the
Constitution. The instrument which the Convention
offered to the people was adopted at the general election
in November. It contained two law reforming provis-
ions— one in the first article, aiming at a general Code ;
and the other in the sixth article, aiming at the Reform
of the Practice; both to be set in motion by appoint-
ments of the Legislature. Both of these provisions
owed their existence very much to his voice and pen.
In anticipation of the action of the Legislature, he
published on the first of Januar}^, 1847, a little treat-
ise of thirty-five pages, entitled "What shall be done
with the Practice of the Courts ? Shall it be wholly
reformed? Questions addressed to lawyers." This he
48 MEMORIAL TO THE LEGISLATURE.
followed up by a Memorial to the Legislature before the
passage of any act by that body, to which he pro-
cured the signatures of Vice Chancellor McCoun,
Charles O'Conor, E. P. Hurlbut, F. B. Cutting, Theo-
dore Sedgwick, James J. Roosevelt, Joseph S. Bos-
worth, Erastus C. Benedict, and forty-three other law-
yers of New York. It was in these words :
" To the Senate and Assembly of the State of Netf York :
' ' The memorial of tlie undersigned members of the Bar in
the City of New York respectfully represents that they look with
great solicitude for the action of your honorable bodies in respect
to the revision, reform, simplification and abridgment of the
rules and j)ractice, pleadings, forms and proceedings of the
covirts of record. They are persuaded that a radical reform of
legal i^rocedure in all its departments is demanded by the inter-
ests of justice and by the voice of the people; that a uniform
course of proceeding in all cases legal and equitable is entirely
practicable, and no less expedient ; and that a radical reform
should aim at such uniformity, and at the abolition of all useless
forms and proceedings.
' ' Your memorialists, therefore, pray your honorable bodies
to declare by the Act appointing Commissioners, that it shall be
theu- duty to provide for the abolition of the present forms of
action and pleadings in cases at common law, for a uniform
course of proceeding in all cases, whether of legal or equitable
cognizance, and for the abandonment of every form or pro-
ceeding not necessary to ascertain or preserve the rights of the
parties." *
* This was presented to the Legislature, and a section introduced Into
the pending Bill in accordance with the Memorial, except that the word
which Mr. Field wrote '• every " was by mistake made to read " any."
CODES OF PROCEDURE. 49
Mr. Field's name was naturally brought forward in
connection with the appointment of Commissioner ; but
the conservative feehng was too strong, he was too rad-
ical, and Mr. Nicholas Hill was appointed in his stead.
The Commission, consisting of Mr. Hill, Mr. David
Graham, and Mr. Arphaxad Loomis, was estabhshed
by a law passed April 8th, 1847. The Commissioners
could not agree, however, in carrying out this pro-
vision, and Mr. Hill resigned in September. Bj^ that
time the feehng in favor of radical reform had been
strengthened, and Mr. Field was appointed in Mr. Hill's
place by a resolution of the two Houses passed on
the 29th of that month. Meantime he had published
"Some suggessions respecting the rules to be estab-
lished by the Supreme Court," designed to effect a con-
siderable reform in the pleadings and practice. Upon
the reorganization of the Commission, it went to work
in earnest, and on the 29th of February, 1848, reported
to the Legislature the first instahnent of the Code of
Civil Procedure. This was enacted on the 12th of
April following, with very little change, and went into
effect on the first of July. It was, however, but an
instalment of the whole work contemplated, and the
residue was reported from time to time in four different
"Reports, until the first of January, 1850, when com-
pleted Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure were sub-
mitted to the Legislature. These two works covered
the whole ground of remedial law.
50 THE WORK OF TWENTY-FOUR HOURS.
"The whole ground of remedial law !" Only six
words ! Yet it is not easy to take in the vast terri-
tory they cover, and the labor they involve ! This fell
most upon Mr. Field, for though he had two associates
on the Commission, they recognized the movement for
reform as begun by him, and to him, as the gallant leader,
they left the chief burden, which he in his eagerness
for the cause was not unwiUing to bear. The labor
involved was almost incredible. Of this I can speak
from personal observation. In the year 1847 I went
abroad, and spent the following winter in Paris, where I
was a witness of the Revolution of 1848, which upturned
all Europe. Returning in the autumn, I passed the
winter of 1848-9 in New York, and under Mr. Field's
roof. He was then in the inidst of his work on the
Commission, and I looked on with amazement at the
amount of labor that he did in every twenty-four hours,
for he was at the same time carrying on a profes-
sional practice which had grown to be one of the
largest in the city. No man stood higher at the bar, or
was engaged in more important cases both in the State
and the Federal Courts. It was at such a time, when
he was already doing the work of half a dozen men,
that this additional burden was put upon his shoulders.
But he did not shrink from the double duty, though he
could not have borne it but by the most careful economy
of his strength. As he was " called to be a soldier," he
HOW HE DIVIDED THE DAY. 51
divided the hours of the day with military precision. He
rose early, and, taking a cup of tea, mounted his horse,
which was standing at the door, unless it was a bitter
winter day, and rode up one of the avenues towards
what is now the Central Park. This morning ride was
never intermitted except in the severest weather. After
breakfast, if he was not required to be at the opening
of the courts, he shut himself up for two or three hours
in his library on the work of the Commission, and
then walked rapidly down town. Everybody knew
him, for he was tall and straight as a grenadier, and he
passed down Broadway with rapid strides, like a sol-
dier marching to battle. From his office he went to the
courts, where he remained till a late hour of the after-
noon, when he walked home again. The hour of dinner
was one of perfect abandon, into which no word of
business was allowed to intrude : the hour belonged to
his family, and he gave himself up to the enjoyment
of their society. When the last good story was told,
and the last laugh went round the table, he threw him-
self upon a sofa for a half hour's rest, from which he
rose hke a giant refreshed with wine, and ready for his
magnum opus ! Now the deck was cleared, and he
gave himself to that which was at once the task and
the joy of his life, the reconstruction of the Codes, the
fascination of which often kept him at his work till long
after midnight.
A life like this, kept up month after month, year
52 VISIT TO ENGLAND.
in and year out, would kill most men: it would have
killed him, but for the one " saving clause " that nature
had put into his iron frame. After the day's ' ' fitful
fever " he slept well. He had not only the power of
continuous labor such as I never saw in any other
man, but when the work was done, he could put his
hand on the macliine and stop it in an instant. He would
work all day and all night, and for days and nights to-
gether, with only the briefest snatches of sleep ; but when
all was over, he could lie down and fall asleep hke a child.
By this heroic discipline, and the alternation of work
and rest, he kept the fire in his bones, and the blood in
his veins, till he breathed his last in his ninetieth year.
There was also another restorative that he found in
his voyages to Europe. He loved the sea. He was a
good sailor, never yielding to the roughest storm, and
so in his later life he went abroad almost every year.
The fame of his codes went before him, so that his
reputation was as great in England as in America,
perhaps greater, as he had not been there, as here, in
such fierce antagonism with his opponents. In August,
1850, he went abroad with his family and left them in
Rome, returning to New York in December. In Eng-
land he found a small but determined party of reform
grappling with the double-headed monster of Law and
Equity. At a meeting of the Law Amendment Soci-
ety, at which he was present by invitation, Sir Rich-
ard Bethel, afterward Lord Chancellor Westbury,
MOVEMENT FOR LAW REFORM. 53
made a speech in which he said that he thought it "a
burning shame that a party could recover a judgment
on one side of Westminster Hall, and on the other side
be branded as a fraudulent rogue for having recovered
it!" And yet in presence of this monstrous absurdity
all the legal wisdom of England seemed insufficient to
devise a remedy. Even Lord Brougham, who had
taken up the cause of Law Reform with his accustomed
energy, while he commended the efforts for the fusion
of Law and Equity in America, doubted if it could be
effected in England. Perhaps, however, the long inter-
view that he had with Mr. Field may have removed
his doubts, for only a few months after he wrote from
Cannes that sooner or later it was sure to be adopted.
How new life was put into the movement for LaAV
Reform appears from the following in the London
Spectator :
"The visit of Mr. Dudley Field to England, and his interest-
ing statements to the members of our Law Amendment Society
this week, are real events in the progress of law reform in this
country. The injustice which the English people submit to in
the revered name of Law, and in the sacred, but in their case
profaned, name of Equity, is more enormovis than the future
historian will be able remotely to conceive. The keystone of
the barbarous Gothic portal to Justice in our common-law pro-
cedure was struck out some twenty years ago, when the logical
forms of legal contest were reduced to their now moderate num-
ber; other heavy blows have further undermined the ruin, and
almost cleared away whatever was feudal in that portion of
54 LAW REFORM IN ENGLAND.
their edifice ; and then came the raising of the new and noble
portal of the County Courts. Still, in all but the most trivial
litigation the delay and expense are such that justice can only
be had at a per centage utterly disgraceful to a nation either
honest or merely clear-handed and commercial. We still pre-
serve a diversity of tribunals, to administer laws that ought not
to be inharmonious; and we are prevented from making the
laws harmonious by the difficulties of finding tribunals able to
rule the concord and administer the whole field of law as a sin-
gle empire. In this case, as in a multitude of others, our young
relations across the Atlantic have done that which we only
longed to do. In this rivalry of nations, so far above all other
rivalries, they have pushed development of institutions which
they received from forefathers common to us both, to a more
rapid perfection than we. Mr. Dudley Field is one of three men
who framed a constitutional law for the State of New York,
under which the courts of legal and equitable jurisdiction have
been successfully merged ; the enactment has succeeded in prac-
tical working ; and the spectacle of ' Equity swallowing up Law '
has been so edifying to the citizens of his State that three other
States of the Union have resolved to enact, and four further
States have appointed conferences to deliberate uj)on, a similar
procedure. It is imj)ossible — however narrow-minded lawyers
may object — that what Americans find practicable and bene-
ficial should be either impracticable or disadvantageous to Eng-
lishmen."
Returning to New York in December, Mr. Field
published in the Evening Post five articles on "The
Completion of the Code," designed to secure the imme-
diate adoption by the Legislature of the two Codes of
Procedure which had been reported complete. But
SPEECH OF LORD SHERBROOKE. 55
they had still several years to wait. In May, 1851, he
rejoined his family in Europe, and travelled with them
over a great portion of the Continent, and into Egypt
and Palestine. While in England, on his return home,
a dinner was given him at the London Tavern by the
members of the Law Amendment Society, an account
of which was published in the Morning Chronicle of the
next day, December 22, 1851. Among the speakers was
Robert Lowe, afterwards Lord Sherbrooke, who was
Chancellor of the Exchequer under Mr. Gladstone. He
had lived for some years in Australia, and knew how
wise laws, whether framed in England or America,
affected legislation at the very extremities of the British
empire. In his speech he paid a tribute to Mr. Field
such as has seldom been paid to any legislator, living
or dead. He said :
"He trusted that his honorable friend, Mr. Field,
would go down to posterity with this glory — that he
had not only essentially served one of the greatest coun-
tries in the States of America, but that he had also pro-
vided a cheap and satisfactory code of law for every
colony that bore the English name. Mr. Field, indeed,
had not squared the circle ; he had not found out any
solid which answered to more than three denominations ;
he had not discovered any power more subtle than elec-
tricit}^ nor one that would bow with more docility to
the service of man than steam. But he had done
56 TRIBUTE TO MR. FIELD.
greater things : lie had laid the foundations of peace,
happiness, and tranquillity, in the establishment of a
system which would make law a blessing instead of a
scourge to manldnd. He believed that no acquisition
of modern times — if he rightly understood what had
been done in the State of New York — he believed that
no achievement of the intellect was to be compared to
that by which Mr. Field had removed the absurdities
and the technicalities under which New York, in com-
mon with this country and the colonies, had so long
groaned." And again: "As to the colonies, he could
only repeat that he trusted the example of New York
would not be lost upon them. While England was
debating upon the propriety of some small and paltry
reforms in the administration of law, a great master in
the art of administrative reform had risen there in the
person of his distinguished friend, Mr. Field, and had
solved the problem which they in England were timidly
debating. America had a great future before her, in
the establishment and diffusion of the arts of peace.
Let them leave to others — to absolute governments — to
have their subjects shot down in the street, rather than
wait even for the headlong injustice of a court-martial ;
but let it be the lot of England, hand in hand with
America, to lead the way in the arts of Jurisprudence
as well as in other arts — let them aim at being the legis-
lators and the pacificators of the world. "
CHAPTER YI.
A DOMESTIC EPISODE. THE GOLDEN WEDDING.
When a man has fought a long and hard battle — or
rather a three j^ears' campaign — with the prospect of
another trial of strength still longer and harder — he
maj' be excused if now and then he should retire from
the scene of action to enjoy a brief interval of rest.
Amid all the contests of the bar Mr. Field never forgot
the old home, nor the dear Father and Mother, whose
gray hairs gave them an added beauty, and whose
faces, filled vnth a sweet serenity, seemed to reflect the
peace of that better world which they were approaching.
Not that there had been anything very notable in
the years that had passed beyond the ordinary life in a
country parsonage. In the earlier daj^s of New England
the minister did not migrate from church to church so
often as now. Not infrequently a young man was
settled over a parish, and there remained for life, while
children and grandchildren grew up around him.
Not so with the Stockbridge pastor, whose experi-
ence was peculiar, in that, while he had but two par-
ishes, he had one of them twice over, swinging as it
58 THE SUMMIT OF LIFE AT SEVENTY.
were, like a pendulum, between the old and the new.
The people of Haddam, who in 1819 had let him go,
afterwards got into a divided state, which it seemed as
if no one but their old minister could heal, and called
him back again ; and he, the good man that he was,
who always thought more of others than of himself,
accepted, and for seven years preached in the old bar-
rack as before, though to another congregation, for the
sons had come in the place of the fathers, after which
the long and straggling parish was cut in twain, and
he took the Northern division of Higganum, where he
preached for seven years more. It was during tliis
period, in 1848, the year of the Revolutions in Europe,
that he went abroad with his son Stephen, and spent
several months in England and on the Continent.
In 1851 he completed his seventieth year ; when his
children, who had grown to manhood and womanhood,
felt that he had served his generation so faithfully that
his working days should come to an end ; and asking
the privilege of providing for his wants, they begged
him to return to Stockbridge, the dearest spot on earth,
and there abide till the going down of the sun. This
loving request could not be refused, and so he made his
last pilgrimage across the mountains, to the sweet home
in which he was to spend the remnant of his days.
Here it was that the autumn of 1853 recalled an
anniversary that was of interest to us all, as it com-
pleted fifty years since our father and mother had begun
AN UNITED FAMILY. 59
the journey of life together ; and now, as they had come
back to the old home, what more fitting than that chil-
dren and grandchildren should gather round the patri-
arch and his faithful companion for half a century, and
celebrate their Golden Wedding !
The family was not only a large one, but a very
united one : both from affection, and from the necessity
that was upon them to help one another. This mutual
helpfulness comes out most under an humble roof.
Love flourishes in a small interior. The arena is not
large enough for combats. It is the great and princely
halls that resound with fratricidal war. Where parents
and children sit round one table, or one fireplace, the
instinct of nature draws them together. If for once
I sketch a domestic scene, it is not so much to show the
beautiful family life in the old home, as to throw a
strong side-light on the central figure which it is my
purpose to portray. Thanks to our dear parents, who
never had an idle day in their lives, we were all edu-
cated to the habit of taking care of ourselves, and then
of one another. In this, as in many other things, the
eldest of us set an example which we all recognized
with grateful affection: and never did the heart of
the son and the brother come out more strongly than
at this family reunion. There was a light in his face,
that never shone so brightly as on this happy day.
Every man has two lives: the outward and the
inward; which may exist quite apart, even if they be
60 THE "other man."
not contrary one to the other. A man's pubhc hfe is
not his whole hfe, but only half of it, and perhaps not
the more interesting or attractive half, which may be
hidden out of sight by his public career. It is a deli-
cate matter to draw aside the veil that hides that inte-
rior hfe, but in the case of a strong personality, it may
be necessary in order to understand the real character
of the man. The soldier who is bravest in battle may
be the gentlest when he returns to his little cottage
under the hill; and he who is by his very profession
placed in antagonism to other men, and has to strike
heavy blows, may be quite another man when he returns
to the relations of domestic life. It is this "other man"
that I desire to disclose to those who thought they knew
him, but are just beginning to find out his true charac-
ter now that he is gone to the grave.
Few men in our great commercial city were better
known in one sense and less known in another. He
lived in New York for more than sixty years : no figure
was more familiar to the public eye ; and yet no man
was so little understood. Of those who knew him in
professional life, probably nine out of ten thought him
to be a man of iron, cold, stern and severe, all of which
he may have been in those contests of the bar which
were a part of his daily life. But at the same time
he was a man of the strongest personal attachments.
True, the circle of those whom he loved was not large ;
it was composed cliiefly of those of his own family.
THE GENEROUS ELDER BROTHER. 61
But the narrower the circle, the more concentrated and
intensified was the affection. Never was there, or could
there be, a more generous elder brother, one more anx-
ious to promote the interests of all the younger members
of his family. He had seen what a struggle it cost
his parents to give him a college education, and denied
himself every needless expense. In looking over his
letters from College, it is easy to see with what reluc-
tance he writes home for so much as twenty dollars,
and he wished that the other children should not require
similar sacrifices. On the day that he was twenty-one,
although he was but a lawyer's clerk, he wrote to his
father that his first desire was to lighten the burden
that rested upon him by helping his brothers and sisters
to get an education ; and the very first money that he
saved from his meagre income he sent to his sister
Emilia (afterwards Mrs. Brewer), then at a school for
young ladies in Hartford.
Three of his brothers went to Williams College, all
of whom were indebted to liim for assistance to carry
them through ; Jonathan and Stephen studied law in
his office in New York, as did in later years a nephew
whom we then knew as "Young David," but who is
now Mr. Justice Brewer, sitting beside his uncle on the
bench in the well known Court Room in the Capitol in
Washington. It was because he could be under the
protection of his older brother, that Cyrus was allowed
to go to the city at the age of fifteen, when he entered
62 THE GOLDEN WEDDING.
a great mercantile house as an errand boy, and thus
put his feet on the first round of the ladder, on which
he was to climb so high. Hence in the place of honor
in the family, next to the Father and Mother, was this
elder brother, to whom we all owed so much.
The Golden Wedding was on the last day of Octo-
ber, 1853. It was a beautiful day in the most beautiful
season of the year, when
' ' The woods of autumn all around oiir vale
Had put their glory on."
As we came together under the old roof -tree, our first
thoughts were of the absent and the dead. One child
had died in infancy. Another had been lost at sea,
though not till he had given promise of a brilliant
career. This was the second son, Timothy, who entered
the navy as a midshipman, and of whom his comrades
spoke as the life of the ship when they went up the
Mediterranean, and as foremost in pursviit of the pirates
who infested the Greek Archipelago. Stephen was on
the Pacific Coast. He had returned from Europe in
1849, when the country was wild with excitement over
the discoveries of gold in California, and had gone to
the land of promise, where his dreams were fulfilled in
his notable career at the bar and in the Convention to
form the Constitution of the State ; and on the bench,
where he was Chief Justice when called by Lincoln to
Washington. Cahfornia was not then so near to the
THE BROTHERS AND SISTERS. 63
East as now, and he could not be spared for a voyage
of many weeks to go and return. Cyrus too had gone
to South America, but arrived home the day before the
Golden Wedding. Matthew had been an engineer at
the South before the war, and built a number of sus-
pension bridges in Kentucky and Tennessee, one of
which spanned the Cumberland at Nashville, but was
destroyed in the retreat of the Confederate Army to
prevent its being crossed by the army of General Buell.
At that time he had returned North and lived in South-
wick, his wife's home, and once represented Hampden
County in the Senate. Jonathan had settled down in
Stockbridge, and was one of the leaders of the bar
in Western Massachusetts. So popular was he that,
though a Democrat in politics, he was elected by the
Republicans to the Senate three times in succession ;
and each time chosen to be its President — an honor
never before conferred on any member of that body.
With these brothers we had our two sisters, Emilia and
Mary. The latter, as the youngest of the group, was
the pet of the family, and yet was the first to be taken
from us [only three years later in Paris] ; and because
of her gentleness and that she died so young, she lives
in our memories as the sweetest of us all.
And now the dear old couple stood up side by side, as
they had stood fifty years before, to receive the congrat-
ulations of their children, in which I know not whether
there were more smiles or tears. How happy we all were
64 THE THANKSGIVING FEAST.
on that wedding day — a day that could never return !
Together we sat round the long table that had been
stretched to furnish seats for some forty guests. And
then we gathered, as of old, for morning and evening
prayers, when the Patriarch, who never looked so beau-
tiful as with that crown of white hair, commended us,
with a voice that was still strong, to the God of Abra-
ham, Isaac, and Jacob, praying that we might all be
the "cliildren of the Highest," "sons and daughters
of the Lord Almighty." Such prayers brought their
own answer, and as we went forth from the door of the
old home, we felt that we carried a blessing with us
that would abide through all the coming years, till we
too should be ' ' gathered to our fathers. " *
If any apology be needed for the introduction of this
domestic episode into a narrative that has to do with
grave matters of the law, I answer that my object is to
tell the truth, and the whole truth, of a remarkable life
* It was not long before our ranks were broken. Of the
group that stood round our Father and Mother on that day,
every one of my generation, except myself, has gone to the
grave. Mary died in 1856; the dear Mother in '61, and the eld-
er sister, Emilia (Mrs. Brewer), the same year; Father in '67;
Jonathan in '68, and Matthew in '70; which left but Four
Brothers to represent the family for nearly a quarter of a cen-
tury; and of these, two — Dudley and Cyrus — are gone. Stephen
still lives, but he was not at the Golden Wedding. Soon the
generation to which we belong will have passed away, but only,
as we hope and believe, that we all may meet on a happier shore.
THE FATHER
liPi pW^
THE MOTHER
/^v, X.
omL-
AFFECTION FOR HIS FAMILY. 65
and character. It is not enough that I hear men speak
of Mm as the honored dead, when to me he is the
beloved dead. I wish them to know him as I knew
him ; to know the sweetness of his nature, as well as
the force of his will ; and most of all, of the affection
that he bore towards those who were of the same father
and mother. I could go still farther and tell how
intense was his love for his children, and for the
grandchildren who were the idols of his heart. But
it is enough to speak of the generation to which I
belong. As one of the family, I can testify that, next
to those who gave us being, we owe what we are to one
than whom there was never a more dutiful son, or a
more kind and thoughtful brother.
But this family affection is often but a form of fam-
ily pride or ambition, a clannish feeling, that makes
one stand by his own kin against the world. But such
an interpretation would do great injustice to one who
was not only a lover of his clan, but of his race. I
never knew a man who was more quickly touched by
sorrow. How often have I heard him, as he came
home from the business of the day, tell of some poor
woman who had come to him with a pitiful tale of
poverty and want, whom he always received with the
utmost kindness, and listened patiently to her story,
too happy if he could relieve her distress, or put new
courage into her sad heart. Or as he walked home in
the evening, the gaslight flashed in the face of a poor
66 SYMPATHY FOR THE POOR.
girl on the street corner, who was trying to earn her
bread by seUing papers. As he caught sight of the pale
wan face, he would stop, making an excuse of buying
the evening papers, to say a few words that might cheer
her in her loneliness.
This tenderness of nature showed itself even in his
Codes, where he always leaned to mercy's side. Rigid
as were his ideas of absolute equality before the law,
yet he thought it not incompatible with justice that the
law should extend its shield most over those who needed
it most, and never was it in the more legitimate exer-
cise of its power than when it stretched out its long and
mighty arm to protect the poor and the helpless, the
widow and the child.
One more picture may close this domestic episode.
Among the many charities that have sprung up in
our country, none is more beautiful than that of the
Children's Aid Society, which takes the little waifs of
our cities, and transports them far away from the foul
and noisome streets to the green fields and waving
prairies of the West, where they can breathe the pure
air, and learn the ways of industry and virtue.
Kindred to that, though of more recent date, is the
Fresh Air Fund, which takes the same class of children
to the country, though for a shorter time, only for a
few weeks, that they may romp and play, and fill their
little mouths with good things, and get pure air in their
lungs and warm blood in their veins. One of these
ST. HELEN'S HOME. 67
delightful retreats is in Curtisville, a part of Stock-
bridge, where Mr. John E. Parsons of New York has
provided what he calls St. Helen's Home, in memory
of a beloved daughter. Here he has laid out some
acres, with buildings, clean and sweet, where in the sum-
mer hundreds are let loose, and run about the grounds
and climb the trees like so many squirrels, and the
passer-by may hear their laugh and glee, as a score
of little naked legs wade into the clear pebbled stream
that rushes under the bridge. They breathe the fresh
air all day long, to he down at night in clean beds and
sleep the sleep of innocence and peace. The place had
a fascination for Mr. Field, and he often took it in his
afternoon drive. Sometimes he would pile a dozen
children into a large carriage for a ride. They all
knew him so well that they looked for his coming. As
he sat on the veranda the tiny little creatures would
climb up on his knees two or three at once. I can see
him now as he took them in liis arms, and tossed them
into the air in a grandfatherly way ; while the "good
gray head " caught the last rays of the sun going down
in the West — fit type of the peaceful ending of his own
long day. Never was there a more beautiful picture of
the two extremes of life than this of sportive childhood
in the lap of age, wliich no stranger could look upon
without feeling that, if the "grand old man" had been a
man of war from his youth, he had always carried under
his martial cloak a warm, tender and loving heart.
CHAPTER VII.
CODIFICATION OF THE COMMON LAW.
The happiest scenes must come to an end ; meetings
must be followed by partings ; and so, after we had
gathered in the old home under the elms, and paid our
tribute to those to whom we owed everything, and
received their blessing ; we had to come back to the
scenes of common life, and take up again the work
that we had to do in the world. And here I resume
the thread of my story.
"A prophet is not without honor save in his own
country." It was all very well for Mr. Field to be
cheered to the echo by English barristers and members
of Parliament ; but here in America, where the practice
of the law was in a process of revolution, there was
quite another feeling. There were many lawyers and
judges who were not at all disposed to applaud the
Reformer ; who indeed would have been quite content
to have him spend the rest of his days in the mother
country, and practise at the English bar, if he would
only let his own country, and especially his own pro-
fession, alone. They were perhaps in a more critical
A SET-BACK TO REFORM. 69
mood from the fact that a fragmentary Code of Proce-
dure had been adopted m 1848, and made a part of the
law of the State of New York, and they were trjdng
to adjust themselves to the new conditions. But there
they wished the Reform to end. An Act had indeed
been passed by the Legislature appointing a Commis-
sion, consisting of Chancellor Walworth and two other
eminent lawyers, to codify the whole substantive law.
But the slowness of their work was in striking contrast
with the celerity of Mr. Field's. After two years' med-
itation, they reported only a small fragment of law,
which they did not recommend for adoption ; and their
final report was in substance one of grave doubt as to
whether the work assigned to them could or ought to
be done at all. Not unnaturally, the Legislature, in
April, 1850, repealed the Act itself ! This seemed to be
a fatal blow. To resuscitate the Commission would be
like raising the dead, and this was not an age of mira-
cles. In fact it was seven years before the miracle was
accomplished — years that were to Mr. Field like the
seven years that Jacob served for Rachel. But, like the
ancient lover, he never lost heart or hope. He pleaded
his cause in a series of Law Reform Tracts on "The
Administration of the Code" ; "Evidence as to its
Operation," showing that it had worked well ; "A Short
Manual of Pleading under the Code " ; and a discussion
of ' ' The Competency of Parties as Witnesses for Them-
selves," in support of which he drew up a memorial to
70 WHAT IS THE COMMON LAW?
the Legislature for the passage of a law to admit their
testimony.
But all this was only preliminary to a still more
sweeping Reform, which he proposed in another Tract
on "The Codification of the Common Law" — a change
that would be almost revolutionary, and which can-
not be understood without a brief explanation of this
"Common Law" which had not only ruled England
for so many generations, but had extended its rule over
the greater family of the descendants of Englishmen on
this side of the Atlantic.
What was the Common Law ? I am but a layman,
as unfamiliar with the mysteries of the law as of medi-
cine. But there is sometimes an advantage in looking
at a structure from the outside. It gives the spectator
a point of view from which he can take in the Avhole.
Looking on therefore, as we laymen do, from a rea-
sonable distance, what are we to understand by the
Common Law ? The phrase has a certain inajesty,
as if it were in Law what the Common Faith is in
Religion, a symbol of that which, though it be somewhat
dim and distant, is still too sacred to be lightly spoken
of. Perchance it stands as a synonym for universal
justice, and is called common — not because it is in
any sense low or commonplace, but because it is for all
men. If that were indeed its significance, it would be
a noble title for a noble thing. But when we discover
that the Common Law is only Common Usage, and is
HOW THE COMMON LAW IS MADE. 71
backed by no great legal authority, our reverence begins
to abate.
Yet such is the Common Law of England, from which
our own is taken. It is not a compilation of the laws
of the realm, of acts of Parliament, for with the greater
part of them Parliament had nothing to do. It is made
up for the most part, not of statutes, but of precedents,
of the decisions of judges, of whom some were learned
and some unlearned ; some ^vise and great ; some weak
and wicked. Derived from England as it has been,
nobody has spoken of it so contemptuously as Enghsh-
men themselves. "Do you know," said the great Jer-
emy Bentham, "how judges make the Common Law?
Just as a man makes laws for liis dog. When your
dog does anything you want to break him of, you wait
till he does it, and then beat him for it. And this is
the way the judges make law for you and me ! " To
make the best of it, we cannot help seeing that it is a
compound of good and bad ; that the stream of time,
which has brought down to us the wisdom of the past,
has also swept along on its mighty bosom other and
meaner things, the mere drift of the ages, with which
the present generation ought not to be burdened.
"But imperfect as it is, you cannot get rid of it,"
was the cry ; " it is here, and here to stay forever ! "
And as for Codification, that was impossible ! As well
might you attempt to imprison the vast and wandering
air, or set bounds to the waves of the immeasurable sea.
72 "walk in the old ways !"
Even if it were possible, such " narrowing" of the law
into a small compass would do more harm than good.
Some even thought its vagueness and uncertainty a
good feature, as it made it more "elastic," and left
more scope to the expansive genius of Young America !
But other objections were less fanciful. When we
are told that the great body of lawyers and judges in
the State of New York were opposed to it, we are not
to infer that it was from merely frivolous considera-
tions. Least of all would we impute to them unworthy
motives. A cause quite sufficient to explain it all is
found in the simple power of inertia, that weighs upon
us all like the power of gravitation. There is in every
man a reluctance to change old habits and usages. Nor
is this a bad trait. On the contrary, it may be all that
saves us from mistakes that might prove our ruin. It
may be our only protection from the consequences of
our own rashness and folly. Hence it is that we are
warned in holy writ to ' ' walk in the old ways. " Any
departure from this rule must first show that the new
way is better than the old. This Mr. Field endeavored
to prove by insisting on the absolute necessity of some
relief from a burden that had grown to such enormous
proportions. The law was so covered up by the deposits
of successive generations, that it lay scattered about as
if among dead men's bones, so that one might almost as
well seek for it in the catacombs. The richer it was in
its accumulations, the more unwieldy it became. The
CODIFICATION THE ONLY RELIEF. 73
greater the number of precedents to be quoted, the
greater the perplexity, for in running back to the decis-
ions of the courts for generations, it seemed as if every
possible case had been decided in every possible way. So
slowly moved the wheels of justice, that in some cases
a man could hardly hope for a verdict in his life-time.
An appeal to the Court of Chancery, for example, was
almost a mockery, as an English judge confessed, when
he inquired after a particular case and was told that it
had been referred to that Court, at wliich he asked in
a melancholy tone, "Have you the heart to send a
fellow- creature there?" This was a paralysis of jus-
tice from too much law — a result that is not an infre-
quent accompaniment of too many refinements in the
statutes or in the modes of procedure.
For all this confusion and delay there must be some
relief, if there was to be any virtue in the law or the
tribunals of England or America. And this could only
be by some process of condensation and simplification,
both of which were combined in "Codification," whereby
the whole of the Common Law could be framed into
distinct Codes, which should be so plain and simple that
the}' could be read and " understanded of the people."
Such was the aim of Mr. Field, his one great and
overpowering ambition. It was not to be a breaker
of the precious traditions of the past. He had no pur-
pose or desire to destroy the Common Law, but to pre-
serve it and exalt it by cutting off its excrescences,
74 CODE COMMISSION REVIVED.
and by translating it into the language of the people,
so as to make it worthy, not only of the free States of
America, but of all English-speaking peoples on the
habitable globe.
But the stronger the argument for the Code, the
more violent was the opposition. It was a case of an
irresistible force striking against an immovable body.
And so the battle raged, with constant alternations of
advance and repulse. In 1855 a bill was introduced into
the Legislature to reorganize the Code Commission,
making him one of the Commissioners, but its enemies
were alert and fought it at every step and defeated it.
The chief opposition came from the older members of
the bar, who seemed to have a power in the Legis-
lature to obstruct and defeat any action to which they
were opposed. Nor were they always very reserved
in boasting of their power, to which the only answer
of the Reformer was, "All things come to him who
waits ! " He did not have to wait much longer before
the old conservatism gave way. In 1857, on the 6th
of April — a day that was to be forever memorable in
the history of Law Reform — an Act which he had him-
self drawn up with the greatest care, was passed by
the Legislature, that a new Commission be appointed
"to reduce into a written and systematic Code the
whole body of the law of this State, or so much and
such parts thereof as shall seem to them practicable
and expedient, excepting always such portions of the
THE OPPORTUNITY OF HIS LIFE. 75
law as have been already reported upon by the Com-
missioners of Practice and Pleadings, or are embraced
within the scope of their reports."
Very simple words are these to "lay readers," who
do not take in all their meaning. But to the legal
mind that one sentence, " to reduce into a written a7id
systematic Code the whole body of the law," was
the foretokening of a Revolution. With this came to
Mr. Field the opportunity of his life. From the time
that he entered on the practice of law, he had been
possessed with the idea of Reform : it had been his
one thought by day and his dream by night. A part of
his scheme had been realized in the Codes of Procedure,
but the greater task of reconstructing and codifying
the substance of the Law itself, yet remained. It was
the same work of Reform — only in a higher and broader
sphere.
The nearer he came to the task, the larger it grew,
till the cloud that was like a man's hand expanded till
it covered all the horizon. No bounds could be put
to its circumference. "Law," says Hooker, "hasher
seat in the bosom of God, and her voice is the har-
mony of the world : all things in heaven and earth do
her homage, the very least as feeling her care, and the
greatest as not exempted from her power." But even
this magnificent sentence, one of the most splendid in
the English language, does not exhaust the extent of
its illimitable reign, for the law of which it speaks is
76 LAW NOT MADE BY ARBITRARY WILL.
only that of the material universe : but in law that is
to rule and govern mankind, there must be more than
blind force — more than power, even though it be the
power of God ; something that appeals to the moral
sense — to reason and to conscience.
Even the law of God liimself is not merely the edict
of Almighty Power, with no recognition of the wants
or weaknesses of men. That would make Him to be
like Shiva the Destroyer in the Hindoo theology, whose
tremendous power rolled over men like the Car of
Juggernaut, crushing all that came in its way. Not so
could any one tliink who had been brought up in a
New England home, where from a child he had been
taught that the Creator of mankind is the Father of all.
Nor could a Divine authority be claimed for any
human decrees. There was no sacredness in law that
was simply the creation of arbitrary will — of King, or
Kaiser, or Czar — it was only law that was founded in
absolute justice that partook of the character of God
himself, and had somewhat of His authority.
Approaching the law with such careful steps, it took
on a sacred character, as if it were a part of religion,
as it well might be, if it were conformed to the high-
est standard of rectitude. The work of the legislator
was not merely to apply the laws of nature to human
conduct. Nor was it merely the recognition of a bhnd
force, acting in one fixed and unalterable way, like
the law of gravitation. The law for communities
JUSTICE THE FOUNDATION OP LAW. 77
and states was for moral beings, and must have in it
a moral element — an element of justice so clear and
plain as to approve itself to him who was under it, so
that obedience should not be a matter of compulsion,
but of free choice and will. Justice, in the eye of the
Reformer, was the rock, the corner-stone, on which to
buUd the structure of human society. I never knew a
man who had a stronger sense of justice. In framing a
law it never occurred to him to modify it in the interest
of this or that individual, or of this or that class. The
first question that he asked — and the only question —
was. Is it right ? Is it just ? Of course, in the work
of codification, it was not his business to make the law ;
but in recasting thousands of statutes, there was bound-
less scope for improving the language by rejecting all
outlandish phrases, and reducing each statute to its sim-
plest form by putting it in plain old Saxon words, which
were most familiar to the common ear, and most suited to
"the roundabout common sense " of the common people.
With these two conditions, the law so plain that every
man could understand it, and so obviously just that
all should approve it, it would be a moral education
of the people, who, in learning at once their rights and
their duties, would be better fitted to be citizens of a
great and free Commonwealth.
Such was the task. How was it to be done ?
Though Mr. Field was at the head of the Commission,
the work was not left to him alone, for it was too enor-
78 THE lion's share OF LABOR.
mous for any one man ; associated with him were two
of the most eminent members of the bar, Mr. Wilham
Curtis Noyes and Mr. Alexander W. Bradford, and the
three were to divide the work between them. They were
to report at the next session of the Legislature a general
Analysis of the projected Codes, as preliminary to the
larger task that remained in the future. To this they
gave their first attention, Mr. Noyes undertaking to
prepare the Analysis for the Penal Code, and Mr. Field
the Analysis for the Political and Civil Codes.
After this they went to work on the Codes them-
selves, reporting at every session of the Legislature the
progress made up to that time. As fast as any part of
the Draft was prepared it was to be distributed among
the Judges and others for examination, and afterwards
to be reexamined, with the suggestions made, and finally
submitted to the Legislature. No compensation what-
ever was to be allowed to the Commissioners.
In this division of labor it will be seen that Mr. Field
had the lion's share of the work thrown upon him in
having assigned to him both the Civil and the Political
Codes. Was it not too much for a man who was no
longer young ? It was a work for a lifetime, and he
was already fifty-two years old. But he was still in
the full vigor of his splendid manhood, and the task
itself gave him a fresh inspiration. Enthusiasm took
the place of young blood, and supplied the vital force
to bear the tremendous strain.
THE CORPS OF ASSISTANTS. 79
Of course an undertaking so vast could not be car-
ried out in detail by any one man, even though he
should give to it the undivided labor of the longest life.
In his choice of assistants he preferred young men to old
men. They might not be so learned in the law, but that
was in one view of it a qualification, as they were more
free from the paralyzing influence of old traditions ;
more alert in mind as well as in body ; more quick
to receive new ideas ; and last, but not least, had more
power of continued labor. It was no light task to
be a co-worker with Mr. Field, for as he never con-
fessed fatigue himself, he made little account of fatigue
in others. So long as he was in command, those who
followed him must keep up with his tremendous pace.
And yet he was not a hard master, for exacting as he
was, and imperious in the carrying out of his plans, he
appreciated talent in others, and was very proud when
one of his adjutants showed uncommon ability. For
them it was an admirable training for professional Hfe.
In the preparation of the Political Code his assistant
was Mr. Austin Abbott, for whom it was a stepping
stone to his subsequent distinguished career.*
With a lieutenant so energetic the work did not
drag, and on the 10th of March, 1859, Mr. Field was
* The recent death of Mr. Abbott was a great loss to the bar
of New York. Had he lived, it was hoped that he would fur-
nish important contributions to this biography of one under
whom he had served for several years in the preparation of the
80 THE CIVIL CODE.
able to send out the first Draft of the Pohtical Code to
the parties to whom it was to be submitted, by whom it
was carefully examined, and returned to him for a final
revision, which took another year, so that it was not till
thirteen months later, April 10th, 18G0, that he was able
to offer this Political Code complete. At the same time
he suggested the importance of a "Book of Forms,"
which was provided for by a special statute directing
the Commissioners to prepare it. This too was assigned
to Mr. Field, under whose supervision it was prepared
by Mr. Thomas G. Shearman, in the same manner as
the three Codes : first a Draft, or, as in this case, two
successive Drafts were circulated, and the revised work
was reported to the Legislature on the 30th of March,
1861.
Then came the greatest labor of all in preparing the
Civil Code, in which Mr. Field had the invaluable assist-
ance of Mr. Shearman and of Mr. Austin Abbott, by
whose combined labors, under his constant oversight,
directing, inspiring and pushing on the great work, the
first Draft of the Civil Code was sent out on April 5th,
1862. The Draft of the Penal Code, which had been
Codes, and for whom he had the greatest admiration. Of all
the tributes to Mr. Field, none was more discriminating, or car-
ried more weight, than that of one who was not only in the front
rank of practitioners at the bar, but was also eminent as a
Teacher of Law, being the Dean of that Department in the
University of the City of New York.
COMPLETION OF THE CODES. 81
assigned to Mr. Noyes, was not presented till two years
later. It had been prepared with the assistance of Mr.
B. V. Abbott, and was then read over at meetings of all
the Commissioners, and amended by them.
The Political and Civil Codes were left entirely to
Mr. Field, except that Mr. Bradford prepared a first
Draft of that portion of the latter which relates to the
estates of deceased persons. After eight Reports to the
Legislature, the Commission submitted their Ninth and
last Report on the 13th of February, 1865 (Mr. Field's
birthday, on which he completed his sixtieth year), lay-
ing the full Penal Code upon the tables of the members.
The Civil Code was already in the hands of the printer,
but was not issued until the autumn. The revision
of the Civil Code involved as much labor as its original
draft. In this work, in addition to the gentlemen
already mentioned, Mr. Charles F. Stone rendered some
valuable assistance on the law of real estate.
These law-reform labors of Mr. Field occupied a
large portion of liis time for eighteen years, during
all of which, except the first two years, he not only
received no compensation, but had to pay the expense of
his assistants, amounting to many thousands of dollars.
The Codes for New York were written and rewritten
several times : every part of the Civil Code at least
three times and many parts eighteen times ! These
Codes, as completed, are contained in five octavo vol-
umes. Three of them— the Civil Code, the Penal Code,
82 THE RECOGNIZED AUTHOR OF THE CODES.
and the Political Code — give the substantive law. Two
of them — the Code of Civil Procedure and the Code of
Criminal Procedure — prescribe the practice of the courts,
and define their jurisdiction. In the preparation of the
Codes of Procedure, Mr. Field was associated with
Mr. Loomis and Mr. Graham ; and in the other Codes
with Mr. Noyes and Mr. Bradford ; all of whom were
able and distinguished men in the profession ; but they
gave to it far less time than he did, and wrought upon
it with far less intensity. Of his habits of working,
in the early morning hours and late at night, I have
spoken elsewhere, a strain that was kept up, not for a
few weeks or months, but for eighteen long years.
Thus he gave to it more time than all the others
combined, indeed all the time which could be spared
from the labors of an engrossing profession. With
liim it was the passion of his life — the work which
he was the first to propose, and was the most deter-
mined to carry through, and he wrought upon it with
all the ardor of personal ambition, so that he is univer-
sally recognized, at home and abroad, as the chief
author of the Codes.
"-^ In a letter to his brother Stephen — Justice of the
Supreme Court of the United States — he speaks thus
of the opposition he had to encounter :
' ' Now that my work is finished, as I look back upon
it, I am amazed at the difficulties I had to overcome,
and the little encouragement and assistance I received.
JUDGMENT LEFT TO POSTERITY. 83
It seemed as if every step I took was to be impeded by
something laid across my path. I was opposed in
everything. My hfe was a continual warfare. Not
only was every obstacle thrown in the way of my work,
but I was attacked personally as an agitator and a vis-
ionary, in seeking to disturb long settled usage, and
thinking to reform the law, in which was embodied the
wisdom of ages. This was perhaps to be expected when
I undertook such radical changes in the face of the most
conservative of professions. But he has little reason to
complain of the number or violence of his adversaries
who finds himself victorious in the end. As to any real
service which I may have rendered to American law,
and so to the cause of universal justice, of human prog-
ress and civilization, in short, as to any claim I may
have to the title of lawgiver and reformer, I am willing
to be judged by the wise and good after I have passed
away.
' ' One lesson, which I might perhaps have learned
by reading, has been taught me by experience, and that
is, that he who attempts reform must rely upon him-
self, and that all such enterprises have received their
start and impetus from one, or at most a very few
persons." ,
CHAPTER VIII.
ADOPTION OF THE CODES AT HOME AND ABROAD.
It is one thing to frame an ideal Code, on the strict-
est Hnes of justice, and quite another thing to have it
enacted into law by the law-making power, - ' I once
saw a Revolution, that taught me a good many things,
and chief of all, the vanity of human expectations.
When I stood in front of the Tuilleries and saw the
Royal Palace sacked by a mob, while he who but an
hour before was a king, was fleeing in disguise for his
life, it seemed as if the bottom was knocked out of
everything ; that there was nothing on earth that was
secure from being overturned and destroyed. \. 'But the
next lesson was not less a surprise : it was the marvel-
lous genius of the French people in the creation of a
new government. It was not many days before Paris
was flooded with constitutions, each of which was
believed by its projector to be almost inspired, and
that, if adopted, it would cure all the evils of human
society. Few of them were ever heard of again. One
or two were tried as experiments, but soon broke down
REFORMS SUBJECT TO CRITICISM. 85
for want of some needed balance in the political machine ;
till, four months after the Revolution, all these wild
dreams were exploded in a four daj-s' battle in the
streets between the people and the army supporting the
government, when the attempt to restore the golden
age was finally drowned in blood !
. - Since then I have not been so sanguine of seeing
great reforms carried by coups d'etat, whether by rulers
or by people. The march of mankind is slow, and it is
enough for any generation to help it a httle on its way.
We in America are not likely to see such a tragic end-
ing of our schemes for the improvement of human
society. Happily for us our reforms do not imply revo-
lutions. But for all that, a Reformer is a man who
pulls down as well as builds up, and must not be sur-
prised if he meets with criticism, for the mere suggestion
of reform is a reflection upon the old state of things
as needing to be reformed — an assumption which is
resented by those who are satisfied with things as they
are. The old ways are good enough for them : and it
seems to be almost an impertinence when a man comes
along who thinks that he is ^viser than his generation ;
and that he can teach them a better way, whether it be
in law, in politics, or in religion. '-^The Codifier there-
fore had no reason to complain if his new Codes, how-
ever skilfully "framed and put together," should not
be at once accepted by the public, or by those of his
own profession, who were content with the old tradi-
86 ADOPTION OF THE CODES SLOW.
tions and usages, which, if not ideally perfect, were
practically safe.
On his part he faced the situation squarely, and
found no fault with the closest scrutiny. He knew
very well that when the Legislature of New York
authorized the Commission to prepare the new Codes,
it had exhausted its power — that its action could not
bind any future Legislature (which might not be chosen
until some years later) to adopt the Codes so prepared.
When they appeared they must stand on their own
merits, and thereby be justified or be condemned. As
every Legislature was made up largely from the legal
profession, he took for granted that, while some might
be in favor of law reform, others would be opposed
to it ; and perhaps the greater number be simply
indifferent, looking upon it as merely an experiment.
The report bound no one. To the last moment the
Legislature held the power in its own hands ; and
though the country lawyers were quite willing, as a
matter of professional curiosity, that Mr. Field and his
associates should amuse themselves with their beautiful
Codes, it would be quite another thing to ask the whole
bar of the State to put their necks under the yoke ; and
when it came to that point, the "Reformers" might
hear from the back districts !
With such natural repugnance to change, it was not
surprising that the adoption of the Codes was slow.
Even the Codes of Procedure, though they concerned
OPPOSITION IN THE LEGISLATURE. 87
but the outward forms of administration of justice,
instead of the substance of the law, met with opposi-
tion both within and without the Legislature. Although
they had been submitted complete on the first of Jan-
uary, 1850, they had to wait long for recognition, and
even as yet are only adopted in part. The Code of
Civil Procedure was once passed by the Assembly,
but defeated in the Senate ; and a different Code, pre-
pared by M. H. Throop, though mainly founded upon
Mr. Field, was adopted between 1876 and 1880. The
Code of Criminal Procedure was not adopted until 1882.
Thus the progress of reform was slow : it was only
the outer walls of Conservatism that had been carried,
the fortress itself was still to be stormed and taken.
The revision of the Codes had taken the Commissioners,
with all their assistants, eight years of the hardest labor.
Not only had they been outlined with the utmost care,
but every chapter and article had been revised and
re-revised, till some portions were changed no less than
eighteen times. But all this was not enough to insure
its adoption. There was not a meeting of the Legisla-
ture that Mr. Field had not to make a pilgrimage to
Albany, to appear before the Committee of the Senate
or of the Assembly, where he was always sure to meet
the determined opposition of some of the ablest mem-
bers of the Bar in the State, in which they were sup-
ported by a large number of the legislators, who, from
professional instinct, were opposed to innovations which
88 DEFEAT OF CIVIL AND POLITICAL CODES.
would oblige them to re-learn, at least to some extent,
both the substance and the practice of the law.
These were heavy odds, against which the Reformer
had to stand almost alone, using all his power of argu-
ment and of persuasion, with only partial success. The
Penal Code was indeed enacted in 1881, and has been
the law of the great State of New York for fifteen
years ; but the Civil and the Political Codes have not
been adopted to this day ! The Civil Code, wliich he
looked upon as the most important of all, has passed
one of the houses, the Senate or the Assembly, again
and again ; twice it has passed both by large majori-
ties ; but failed in either case of receiving the signature
of the Governor, who shrank from the responsibility
of putting his name to a Reform which reconstructed
the very substance of the Law.
These repeated defeats were of course a sore disap-
pointment to the Reformer, but after all they ought not
to have surprised him. In any great movement for
reform, allowance must be made for the natural con-
servatism of old institutions, what in mechanics would
be called the power of greatest resistance. It could not
be an easy thing to move an old Commonwealth, like
New York, wedded to old laws, some of which dated
from the time w^hen the Dutch held Manhattan Island.
But there was another and broader field in the new
States and Territories, where the ground had not been
preoccupied, and so "westward the star" of reform, as
INTRODUCED IN STATES AND TERRITORIES. 89
well as of empire, "took its way." Whenever a
government was to be formed, its framers saw the
advantage it would be to begin its pohtical hfe with
the very best methods of securing justice. While some
of the older States, like Ohio and the Carolinas, adopted
only the Code of Civil Procedure, sixteen other States
and Territories — Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Arkan-
sas, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Kansas, Nebraska,
Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Oregon,
and Washington — adopted in substance both the Civil
and the Criminal Codes of Procedure ; and to outdo
them all, Cahfornia, the Queen of the Pacific, led the
way in adopting, not only the Codes of Civil and Crim-
inal Procedure, but also the three Codes, Civil, Penal,
and Political ; and Dakota, which was the first of the
States or Territories to adopt the Civil Code, has in due
time taken all the rest, a fitting crown to the great
State of the Mid- Continent.
And not Dakota alone ! Beyond the Dakotas lies
another State three times as large as New York, a
Highland region, with valleys between the mountain
ranges, rich as the valley of the Nile. But its first
occupants were of the lawless character that often
hang on the border, so that when the stalwart sons
of the West marched acro&s the plains with their rifles
on their shoulders, they found that the first thing was
to put down lawlessness with a strong hand, after which
they proceeded to lay the foundations of a great Com-
90 ADOPTED IN FULL IN MONTANA.
monwealth worthy of its position in the very heart of
the Continent. In this no man was more conspicuous
than Colonel Sanders, who was the first to represent
Montana in the Senate of the United States. But that
he owed anything — or that Montana owed anything —
to the Reform in New York, was first disclosed in the
following letter :
Helena, Montana, January 24th, 1896.
My dear Dr. Field : I learn that you are to write a biography
of your eldest brother, Mr. David Dudley Field, and I am very
much pleased to know that so active and useful a life is to be
described by so faithful and entertaining an author. The State
of Montana will feel a personal interest in this book of yours, as
to his labors, more than to those of any other man, is she
indebted for the very excellent system of statutory law now
in force within her limits.
It was my good fortune to know him for a number of years,
and his lively interest in the codification of our laws not only
intensified my own interest in it, but gave to it an intelligent
direction. For a considerable period we sought to secure legis-
lative action here, and your brother, although he lived remote
from Montana, and was always busied with very large affairs,
was never so busy but that he took a lively interest in our prog-
ress, and by his advice assisted us in the consummation of this
great legislation. Although advanced in years, he surprised
me by his earnestness and activity in this matter, and compre-
hended, and seemed to carry in his mind, the smallest details
which appertained to the accomplishment of this work. Enter-
taining a very high opinion of the beneficence of codification, it
was my good fortune during the last years of his life to meet
him frequently, and to receive from him information and sug-
LETTER OF SENATOR SANDERS. 91
gestions, which he frequently gave also by letter, not only to
myself, but to members of the Commission who had this codifi-
cation in charge. During these years, while the work pro-
gressed, and while we were waiting the passage of the enact-
ment, his lively interest in it and assistance induced me to
resolve to furnish him a copy of the statute as it should be
finally passed ; but the inevitable end came to him before that
event.
And so I turn to you with some expression of the thanks
which the people of Montana feel, and which I certainly feel,
for the labor which he performed, and of which we have been
able to avail ourselves in the passage of a system of laiv which,
for comprehensiveness, coherence and perspicuity, stands without
a parallel in the history of legislation.* If our local needs
* To an inquiry whether this included all the Codes, the
writer replies in a second letter that the legislation came to
Montana by the way of California, which had adopted it from
New York, and that, though there were some slight changes in
the transmission, they do not affect the substantial fact that the
laws which rule Montana to-day are the work of Mr. Field, to
whom he gives the honor, and to him alone. I quote his very
words : ' ' There were thrust into the Codes, as passed in Cali-
fornia, certain pre-existing statutes of this State pertaining to
the same subject matter, and local as to our conditions and
needs ; but we have the Political Code of your brother, the Civil
Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Code of Criminal Proce
dure, and the Penal Code. These last two, however, are con-
solidated, and are known in our statutes as the Penal Code, and
pertain to crimes, and the methods of their punishment. In a
few instances, possibly, our code commission, instead of taking
the statutes from California, may have preferred a .substantial
form of the same statutes taken from Colorado, South Dakota,
92 TEIBUTE TO MR. FIELD.
and infirmities have thrust into his codification some legislation
not projected on the high plane of his code, it is our fault, not
his ; and it does not impair the great task which he performed,
not only for Montana, but for all other States availing them-
selves of his noble work. At a period of life when other
men would have considered their labors to be over, he was as
keenly alive to the adoption of these laws by the various States
as any person I have ever known.
He was not acquainted in Slontana, nor do I know that
he ever visited this State, but he took as lively an interest in
improving its legislation as if he had founded it, and was wholly
identified with its history. Having edited these statutes and
published them, it seemed to me appropriate that some recogni-
tion of his services in behalf of improved legislation and codifi-
cation should be had ; and, in the preface, I took occasion to
or some other State ; but these instances are very few, and I
consider the Montana codes substantially the legislation pre^iared
by your brother. Departures from the form as prepared by him
are so insignificant that in generalizing upon the laws they need
not be referred to."
To this it should be added that so thorough and complete has
been the process of "boiling down" the myriads of enactments
and of precedents scattered through libraries in England as well
as in America, that the several Codes of Law, Civil, Penal and
Political, with the Codes of Procedure, are all compressed into
a single volume much smaller than the Revised Statutes of the
United States ; so that a citizen of Montana, who has but little
money to spend on books, needs to have lying on his table but
three : an English Dictionary to teach the knowledge of his own
mother tongue ; this Book of the Law, to show him his rights as
a member of civilized society ; and the good old Family Bible
to teach him his duties to God and to man.
CODIFICATION THE BOON OF THE POOR. 93
mention his name, regretting only that the opportunity was not
afforded me to say more. If the courts whose quandaries he
has settled ; the lawyers whose doubts he has resolved ; and the
citizens whose legal rights in simple and concise words he has
defined ; could speak in your volume, his name and memory
wovild certainly be blessed. His was a great life to look back
upon, and I doubt not your volume, which I bespeak, will set it
forth in alluring sentences with such detail and generalization
as shall make it coveted by all intelligent young men of our
country.
The profession to which I belong will appreciate, but cannot
exaggerate, the great services rendered by your brother, not
merely to it and the coui'ts, but to the humblest citizen of the
land, in simplifying the law and bringing it home to their
hearthstones. Indeed codification is peculiarly the boon and
benediction of the poor, and it furnishes some facilities whereby
the ignorant may become icise.
His services in endeavoring to secure the settlement of all
international differences by arbitration bespoke a noble nature,
humane in purpose and enlightened in comprehension ; and in
these days, when careless speech seems fraught with so much
peril, and the spii-it of frivolity pervades so many high places,
his words of truth and soberness, born of sanity and prudence,
raise him in the esteem of philanthropists throughout the world.
It was my fortune to know something of him personally, and
these great services which he rendered to mankind in no way
oppressed him. He rose superior to the weariness of the daily
toil, and was as cheerful and active in social life as any person
I ever knew. With my wife I recall a journey with him down
the Hudson River one summer day, a stream with which I flat-
tered myself I was somewhat familiar, not merely from i^ersonal
observation of it, but from the works of Irving and Lossing and
Bryant, and others who had exhausted their genius in painting
94 THE VICTORIES OF PEACE.
its beauties and describing its history ; but your brother pointed
out new places of interest along that historic stream, and related
the events which have made it immortal, until from Albany to
Manhattan Island it was all aglow with history and romance.
The dullness of appreciation of the legislative improvements
with which he was identified, I cannot wholly comprehend, but
I am satisfied that the States which have availed themselves of
his services count these enactments as among their most pre-
cious possessions. To fitly describe such a life as he led is an
inspiring task, and I do not doubt but that affection and duty
will lift you to the occasion, and give us a biography not only
worthy of his own renown, but also worthy of your own pen.
Such men never die.
I trust confidently your book will occupy a shelf along with
the biographies of Sumner and Garrison and the autobiography
of Mr. Sherman, an example and inspiration to the youth of the
land, who may learn therefrom the rewards of courageous, intel-
ligent and patient toil. To those of us who knew him and can
bear witness to his great service for mankind through so many
years, it will seem fitting justice that his name be handed down
by dutiful affection to the gratitude and admiration of future
ages. Very truly yours,
W. F. Sanders.
These are the victories of peace, which are indeed
no less renowned than the victories of war. As a mes-
senger of peace Law is next to Rehgion, and most of
all laws adopted by the people themselves from a sense
of justice, and for their own protection. No army
crossing the Continent could carry in its mailed hand
such a pledge of peace to future generations.
Nor was the effect of this legal reform limited to our
LAW REFORM IN ENGLAND. 95
own country : the movement was soon felt by our kins-
men across the sea. As we had derived our laws from
England, she was equall}" interested with us in any
improvement in that which was our common heritage.
This need was felt by her greatest statesmen. In the
year 1867 I was in London, and saw a good deal of
John Bright, who was full of congratulations on the
issue of our civil war, which gave him unbounded hope
not only for our country, but for the reaction upon his
own. He thovight it would be no harm to England to
learn a lesson from America. Among other things, he
said very earnestly : "I ^vish we had a man in England
to do for us in the way of the reform of the law what
your brother has done for America ! " But where to find
the man was the difficulty. So far as he knew the man
did not exist. But there were some of his countrymen
who were not above profiting by our example. What
America had done England could do. The interest
thus excited led to the appointment of a Parliamentary
Committee, and a Crown Commission, to consider the
whole subject of Law Reform ; and t\\ace when in
England— in 1851 and in 18G7— Mr. Field was invited
to meet \vith them, and explain the methods and extent
of codification in New York. On the latter occasion
there were present the most eminent legal authorities of
the Kingdom, including five Lord Chancellors— Lord
Westbury and Lord Cranworth ; Sir Page Wood, after-
Avards Lord Hatherlev ; Sir Hugh Cairns, afterwards
96 ADOPTED IN THE ENGLISH COLONIES.
Lord Cairns ; and Sir Roundell Palmer, afterwards Lord
Selborne. They sat to a late hour of the night, and
when they rose Lord Hatherley took their visitor by the
hand and said, "Mr. Field, the State of New York
ought to build you a monument of gold ! "
It was not long before the American Codes of Pro-
cedure were adopted in substance in Great Britain and
the Colonies. A few years later (in 1874) Mr. Field
went round the world, and found to his surprise his sys-
tem of practice in use in the courts in India ! He could
hardly believe his eyes when he was confronted by the
rules that he had prescribed, word for word as he had
written them in his library in New York ; and saw
justice administered according to them in those far-off
ends of the earth, Singapore and Hong Kong !
This was not ' ' the drum beat, which, following the
sun, and keeping company with the hours, encircles the
globe with the martial airs of England," but it was
something better than the sound of war — the whisper
of peace, soft as the murmurs of the sea, yet touching
every shore — peace founded upon justice to subject
races — the Hindoo, the Malay, and the Chinaman —
whose rights are not only guaranteed by England, but
may we not add (this, I am sure, will not offend the
majesty of England) still further guarded and protected
by some wise provisions, that have been adopted from
American law.
CHAPTER IX.
"the commanding figure at the bar."
A man may frame the laws of a country, and never
practice in the courts. The two things are distinct, and
yet they may be united. Mr. Field was a lawyer be-
fore he became a reformer, and one grew out of the
other. It was in the daily practice of the law, that he
saw its defects, and the need — even the necessity — of its
being cleared of all drift wood, and being brought into
a compact and orderly form. But who would begin a
contest that would continue for a great part of his life ;
and in which he might sacrifice himself for the pubhc
good ? As there was no one else who had the boldness
— some would call it the rashness — to undertake it, he
was forced to the front. Even then his life might have
been made easy if he had abandoned the practice of his
profession, when he might have shut himself up in his
librarj^, and devoted his days and nights to the study of
all the Codes from Justinian to Napoleon, from which
to construct a more perfect body of law for his country.
But to continue at the bar, he would be brought into
daily contact and antagonism with those who were bit-
98 IN THE COURT ROOM.
terly opposed to his reform. Yet, disagreeable as it
might be, it had its advantages, as this constant alterna-
tion kept him in touch with the practice in the courts,
so that he saw at once its excellences and its defects — a
knowledge that was indispensable to any system of
reform. Here were two lives — the life of the ideal and
the life of hard reality — going on at the same time side
by side, yet when it came to writing the stor}^, it was
necessary to separate them, and treat of each apart in
order to keep the unity of the subject, and having struck
upon the trail of Reform, it seemed better to follow it
to the end, even though it should be anticipating in the
order of time, after which we could resume the course
of the professional career.
The first part being closed, we now change the scene
from the stillness of the library to the excitement of
public halls. There is nothing in our American life —
not even a popular election, or the meeting of Congress
— that stirs the blood more than a trial, on the issue of
which may depend men's fortunes, or even their lives.
Then the court room becomes an arena of combat,
where lawyers are the gladiators, with judges and
juries for spectators, and a crowd filling every niche
and corner, hanging on the words of the speakers, and
waiting, it may be in breathless anxiety, for the issue.
In such an arena the subject of our story takes his place.
How did he bear himself with the leaders of his day ?
and what will be his fame with posterity ?
GREAT LAWYERS OP THE PAST. 99
No man can speak for posterity, but one who was
familiar with all his contemporaries, the late Mr, Austin
Abbott, did not hesitate to speak of Mr. Field as ' ' the
most commanding figure at the American bar ! " This
may be taken as the impulsive utterance of a generous
friend, whose sense of loss was quickened by the sudden
death of the object of his admiration. The bar of New
York counts many illustrious names from the days
of Alexander Hamilton, whose leadership no man would
dispute, unless it were his rival, Aaron Burr. After
him came Thomas Addis Emmet, who was living when
the young student of law first came to New York. I
remember well the picture he gave me of that truly
great man, around whom there lingered the sad memo-
ries of all that he had done and suffered for ' ' his own
loved island of sorrow." Judge Story has described a
scene in the Supreme Court of the United States when
Emmet was pitted against Pinckney, of Baltimore, a
combat of giants, which left on the judges and specta-
tors the highest estimate of the abilities of both. A
few years later stood at the bar of that high court
Daniel Webster, for whom the admiration of the
American people amounted almost to awe. But he too
belongs to a former generation.
After these "three mighties," it would be presuming
to speak of any one of half a dozen great lawyers of our
time as above all others. They are too near us to be
rightly judged. There are many stars in our American
100 CHARLES O'CONOR AND WILLIAM C. NOYES.
firmament, and it is only when they have receded into
the distance that future astronomers will determine
which was the star of greatest magnitude. The writer
would think it a very poor tribute to one whom he
holds in reverent as well as loving memory, if he were
to exalt him by depreciating others. So far is he from
this that it is a pleasure to recognize those who upheld
the name and fame of the bar of New York. To old
citizens whose memories carry them back as far as
Thomas Addis Emmet, it may seem as if his greatness
were equalled, if not surpassed, by one whose father
emigrated from Ireland just before his birth, the late
Mr. Charles O'Conor. Mr. William Curtis Noyes also
stood in the front rank of his. profession. But he died
in 1864 — thirty years before Mr. Field, who had the
mournful duty of pronouncing his eulogy. Had he
lived to as great an age, he might have had as great a
reputation at home and abroad.
Of this small group of leaders of the bar only one
remains, Mr. William M. Evarts, who has had a long
life of distinction both in his profession and in the ser-
vice of his country, as United States Senator and Sec-
retary of State. In legal contests he and Mr. Field
were often pitted against each other. One such I
remember, in which the famous Thurlow Weed was
prosecuted for libel upon Mr. Opdyke, the Mayor of
New York, growing out of some transactions in the
WILLIAM M. EVARTS. 101
war.* It was a study to watch the two combatants.
No men could be more unHke. Mr. Field, like a pow-
erful athlete, went straight to the mark. No flights of
fancy turned him aside from the object he had in view.
To this Mr, Evarts was a perfect contrast. Though of
slender figure, he had an alertness of mind, a quickness
of perception, that made him a very dangerous antag-
onist. He was famous for his long sentences,! that
stretched on and on till sometimes the meaning seemed
to be "in wandering mazes lost." And yet it was
delightful to hear him, (even though the current of his
thoughts was like that of a beautiful river winding
hither and thither,) and listeners sat breathless to catch
the last word. Such was the great advocate and
lawyer who is with us still. Long may he be spared
in the city of which he has been a resident for half a
century, and in which he is looked up to with universal
respect and veneration, for his own great qualities, and
as one of a small group of ' ' commanding figures at the
bar," of whom he is the last survivor.
It is therefore without raising any question of pre-
eminence, that the biographer gives the outline of another
figure that could not but attract attention at any bar or
* I saw them again pitted against each other in the arguments
before the Electoral Commission in Washington.
+ When he was criticized for this, he answered with his pleas-
ant humor that "he did not know that anybody had reason to
complain of long sentences except the criminal classes."
102 KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW.
in any public assembly, at home or abroad, in Congress
or in Parliament, the figure of one whose very presence
was "commanding," and served at least as a favorable
introduction, when he rose to address any body to which
he was a stranger.
As to the standing of a lawyer, how he ' ' ranks, " (if
we may use a military word,) that probably depends, at
least among his professional brethren, quite as much on
his knowledge of the law given to his client, it may be
in the privacy of his office, or in a brief statement before
the court in which there is no attempt at eloquence, as
in his most labored efforts at the bar. In this knowl-
edge of the law even those who differed most from Mr.
Field would hardly claim that he had any superior.
All who call themselves lawyers are supposed to under-
stand its general principles. But few men kept up the
study as he did from the very necessity that was upon
him in the reconstruction of the law, which compelled
him to be familiar, not only with the Common Law of
England and America, but with the jurisprudence of
other countries, running back to the Roman law, which
was the foundation of them all. This vast learning
could not but be of service in his professional practice.
Being thus master of the law, it did not take him
long to make himself master of a case. No man was
quicker to ' ' see through " an involved legal question.
But that did not supersede the most careful study
to the minutest detail. To those who knew how
CLEARNESS IN STATING A CASE. 103
he was absorbed in his Codes at all hours, early
and late ; at morning and midnight ; the wonder was
that he could find time for anything beside. But no
trial ever came on and found him unprepared. His
power of abstraction was such that he could, if need
were, forget everything else, and concentrate his mind
upon the special case, analyzing it as a chemist analj'zes
a compound substance. Under the blaze of this search-
light, he took it, as it were, to pieces, separating the
immaterial from the material, the essentials, on which
the whole question turned, and, like a skilful general,
massed his forces on the vital point.
When he had thus made himself master both of the
law and the case, he had no difficulty in making others
see it. He had a singular precision of language, that
came in part from his training in the higher mathe-
matics, so that when he put a proposition in words,
it was with a sort of mathematical exactness, until it
might be said of him, as was said of Webster, that
" when he had stated a case he had argued it."
But an argument, however logical, may fall flat from
the coldness of him who presents it. Of this indiffer-
ence he was never guilty. When he undertook a case,
he put his own personality into it, and as he had great
confidence in his own judgment, his opinions, when
once formed, were very positive. And tliis was one
element of his power — that he believed in himself ! It
may seem like making a virtue of egotism and self-
104 THE EXTENT OF HIS LEGAL PRACTICE.
confidence to say that a man must believe in himself in
order to have power over others, but no man ever did
much in the world who did not believe in himself.
Of course, as with all lawyers of large practice, the
number of his cases in sixty years was beyond counting.
At one time his law practice was said to be larger than*
that of any other member of the New York bar. Some
idea of the innumerable litigations in which he was
engaged may be formed from a glance at the fifty vol-
umes of ' ' Cases and Points, " in which briefs and records
are bound together in the order of time. Of course, all
such documents were but fragments, huge but unshapen
masses of rock that were to be framed into the building
of some great argument, but, even as they are strown
over the field of legal controversy, they show an almost
preternatural activity. *
' ' But where was the place for Law Reform to come
in?" was the question that everybody asked ; to which
he replied that it was a wonder to himself, but added
with his usual philosophy, "In one way this outside
work was a benefit to me, for the intensity of my pro-
fessional life required some relief from the incessant
* These volumes were sent to his brother, Mr. Justice Field,
to be kept by him during his life, and at his death to be given
to the New York State Law Library in Albany. They are sup-
plemented by a dozen Scrap-books, containing slips from news-
papers concerning the same litigations and other points of jjer-
sonal history, that may furnish materials to some future historian.
THE LAW AS A BUSINESS. 105
mental strain, to which the pursuit of an ideal, like that
of Law Reform, was a healthful diversion" : ["health-
ful diversion ! " — that is good for a work that occupied
him for eighteen years ! ] " and may thus have kept
me from breaking down."
As to the mere ' ' business " of the law, it is for the
most part, like any other business, very prosaic, requir-
ing no labored argument or eloquence, but only a clear
head, a good intelligence in ascertaining the facts of a
case, and what relief or redress may be furnished by
the law. This is the every-day round of the profession,
in which there is no opportunity for a great advocate
to show any superiority to his brethren, all of whom
are supposed to be to that extent learned in the law.
If anybody were to go to court to hear Mr. Field, and
the case were one of some commercial transaction —
perchance a question of damages, which might be a
matter of figures — he would probably hear only a simple
statement of the case, which would be all that it required.
But give him a great cause, in which great principles
were involved, and he rose to the occasion with a min-
gling of argument and of eloquence, in which there
was a moral as well as intellectual power. When
he had such a cause to defend, it was with an ear-
nestness which I always thought he inherited from his
father, who, as a preacher of the Gospel, was wont
to speak "with authority," because he spoke from the
infallible "Word," which no man could question. The
106 CLOSING AN ARGUMENT.
same positiveness appeared in his eldest son, whom I
have heard laying down the law as founded in eternal
justice, in a tone of solemnity that seemed to be an echo
of the old Puritan when he read the Ten Commandments
with a hushed awe, as if he had been with Moses in
the Mount, and had heard the very voice of God !
Then it was, as he drew near to the close of an argu-
ment, that the great advocate appeared in his fullest
power. It was not that his personal presence, however
"commanding," overawed the court, but there was
something in his voice which no judicial bench could
choose but hear. It was not the soft, persuasive tone
of one who pleads for mercy for his client. There
was nothing of the abject or even of the humble peti-
tioner ; but straightening himself up to his full height,
he demanded a just verdict ! At that instant there rose
before him a sense of the majesty of justice as some-
thing greater even than mercy — as the world is ' ' estab-
lished in righteousness," which is only another name for
justice — and that justice he demanded, not only in the
name of the law of his country, but in the name of a
just as well as an almighty Lawgiver in heaven.
DAVID DUDLEY FIELD
THE FIGURE AT THE BAR
[From the painting by Hardie in the Capitol at Albany]
CHAPTER X.
POSITION IN POLITICS. A DEMOCRAT, BUT OPPOSED
TO THE EXTENSION OF SLAVERY. ANNEXATION
OF TEXAS. RISE OF THE FREE SOIL PARTY.
' Much as Mr. Field loved his profession, he loved his
country more. Absorbed as he was in the practice of
the law and in his legal reforms, at the same time he
kept watch of public affairs, though at first he only
looked on from without, as an interested spectator. In
his political creed he formed his own opinions from the
beginning in a way that was rather surprising in one
who was born in Connecticut, a State that when he
was a boy was the seat of the rankest "Federalism,"
and had welcomed in its Capitol the Hartford Con-
vention, which protested against the war of 1812, as
threatening to destroy the commerce of New England,
and in which there were mutterings of disunion not
unlike those that half a century later burst forth in the
civil war. That out of an atmosphere thus surcharged
with anti-democracy should come one so free from it,
would seem to indicate a complete mental evolution. It
108 HIS THEORY OF GOVERNMENT.
may have been owing in part to his legal associations
in Albany and New York, but most of all was it due to
an independence which asserted itself in early manhood.
He thought for himself, and studied the questions of
political economy, as applied to all governments, and
then specially to his own. In general he held that most
countries are over-governed, though he would not go
quite so far as to adopt the extreme maxim of democ-
racy, ' ' The best government is that which governs least, "
for that would seem to imply that the ideal state of
society was no government at all ! But he did believe
that the tendency in all governments was toward over-
legislation. Sixty years later he wrote an article for
the North American Review on the Theory of our
Government, in which he says : ' ' There are two theo-
ries of government, the liberal and the meddlesome,"
meaning by the latter that which ' ' dabbles " in all the
pursuits and occupations of men, and of necessity grows
into a system of favoritism, which leads every kind of
industry to hang on the central power, and thus demor-
alizes the manliness of all who live under it. He would
not object to the protection of new industries in time
of war, or in the infancy of the Republic, till they were
able to stand alone ; but the habit of appljang to the
Government for protection grew to an enormous abuse,
that was not at all in harmony with the simplicity
of our government. That was what he called a
"meddlesome," and he would have added, a "mischief
NOT MADE FOR A POLITICIAN. 109
making" government. Instead of this "paternalism,"
in which the government was to play the part of a
" nursing father " to certain interests, whereb}^ the many
were taxed for the benefit of a few, he would adopt the
wider rule : "Protection to all and favor to none ! "
- With such principles, between the two parties that
divided the country — the Wliigs and the Democrats —
he sided with the latter, and the first pohtical speech
he ever made [in 1842] was in Tammany Hall ! a
strange beginning for one who was to spend a large
part of his hfe in fighting against it ! [The par-
ticular occasion, however, was not one of great impor-
tance, as it only concerned the nomination of Robert
H. Morris for Mayor.] But while thus sincere and
outspoken in his convictions, he was not made for a
pohtician. He was too rigid and unbending in his
principles, and would not be bound by caucuses or con-
ventions. As the natural consequence, he never held
an office in his life, except for two months in Congress,
to which he was sent for a special purpose, to prevent
what he thought to be a great public wrong. He was
once offered the appointment of Judge of the Supreme
Court of New York, wliich he declined, feeHng that his
place was at the bar rather than on the bench. His
only public position was that of Commissioner of the
Code, which could hardly be called an office, for,
although it involved enormous labor, it was all work
and no pay. " But if he was hedged about with no
110 HIS ABSOLUTE INDEPENDENCE.
official dignity, lie had what was far hetter — absolute
independence, freedom to think, and to speak what he
thought. The very fact that he asked nothing for
himself gave him the more weight, so that few men in
public life had a greater influence than he, though he
stood apart and alone, determined to follow only what
was dictated by his own sense of public justice and
public honor.
Here beginneth a chapter of political history that has
never been fully written, but which ought to be, as it
takes us back half a century, to a period when old issues
were gone, and old parties were broken up, and all
tilings became new. In that long conflict, which lasted
for a whole generation, there was no bolder or braver
combatant for liberty than Mr. Field. Though he was
a Democrat, he would not be in bondage to the name,
and the moment that he saw that the party was to be
used as a means of extending slavery, he spurned its
authority, and led the way for others to follow.
The first thing which aroused the alarm of the more
independent men in both parties was the movement for
the annexation of Texas, then almost a terra incognita,
so unoccupied as to invite the floating population that
always hangs on the border of civilization, who had but
to cross the Rio Grande to roam over the land at will,
recognizing no authority but their own. When this
had gone on for a few years, and the settlers had
come to number a few thousand, they declared their
THE ANNEXATION OF TEXAS. Ill
independence of Mexico ! This was their own affair,
with which we had no concern, till it was proposed to
annex it to the United States ! The motive of this was
clear. It was not merely to add to our domain, but to
give a preponderance of territory and of representation
in Congress to the slave-holding States. The line had
been drawn in 1820 by the Missouri Compromise : —
that slavery should not extend North of a certain par-
allel of latitude ! But there was no obstacle to its
expansion Southward. New territory would bring
increased population, that would enable the South to
maintain its control of the government.
The proposal to annex a territory large enough for
an empire, Mr. Field looked upon as a gigantic rob-
bery, which was all the worse if Mexico was too weak
to prevent it. As for title, we had no more right to
Texas than to Canada. In April, 1844, there was a
great demonstration at the Broadway Tabernacle at
which he spoke with the utmost vehemence against
what he regarded as a national crime. Thus he began :
" Fellow Citizens : The President has sent to the Senate a
treaty to annex to the territories of this Union a tract of country
six times as large as the State of New York — a country which
till lately was a part of the neighboring and friendly Republic
of Mexico, and which even now is engaged in open war for its
independent existence. This treaty has been negotiated with
a suddenness, a secrecy and haste unparalleled in our annals —
a suddenness, secrecy, and haste which have no excuse in the
nature of the act itself or in the circumstances of the country.
112 DENOUNCED AS A CRIME.
We are in profound peace with all the world, and tranquil at
home. What then can justify the President in entering upon
and consummating, so far as depends on him, a treaty of such
importance, almost before the country was aware it was con-
templated ? This annexation was ofifered to the Administration
six or seven years ago, and rejected on grounds in which the
whole country seemed to acquiesce. We were, therefore, unpre-
pared for this movement, till it came upon us like thunder in a
clear sky. But I trust we have, nevertheless, warning enough
to prepare for the storm. The President was not elected with
reference to any such question, nor was the Senate, nor the
House of Rei^resentatives. It is of all questions one in which
the people should be consulted, and their will ascertained before-
hand. We appeal from the President to the Senate, from the
Senate to the States of the Union, from the States to the sov-
ereign people. If they determine that this measure shall be
accomplished, let it be ; if they do not, let no secret cabal, no
set of men in power, effect it. . . .
"Admit that the cause of quarrel between Texas and Mexico
was just ; yet the strviggle was one in which we had no right to
interfere ; and, if we had followed the advice of the fathers of
our country, we should not have interfered.
' ' How was the revolution accomplished and made successful ?
By aid from this country ; without aid from us, Texan indepen-
dence coiild not have been established. It was well known that
bands of hunters were organized in the Western States to hunt
in Texas, though there was nothing for them to hunt but Mexi-
can soldiers. The aid our people sent them in men, in money,
in munitions of war, accomplished the revolution. Mexico com-
plained, and how was she answered by our Government? It
said, We mean in good faith to fulfil our treaty stipulations,
but it is impossible to prevent our men from going over ovir
ANNEXATION MEANS WAR. 113
immense frontier ; we cannot maintain a cordon of troops for
a thousand miles, in an uninhabited country ; but we will pre-
vent all aid from this country as far as we can.
"That answer absolved the Government ; but, if it were not
able to prevent the wrong which om- citizens perpetrated, let
it not profit by it. Let us not proclaim our weakness as our
excuse, and then take advantage of the spoliation which our
weakness permitted. The state of the case is simply this : Mex-
ico has been despoiled of one of her finest pi-o\dnces ; the spoilers
went out from among you, because you could not prevent them.
Then take not back to your bosom the spoilers and the spoil.
If you receive them, the whole world will pronounce you faith-
less. . . .
' ' The annexation of Texas is war with Mexico I We have
the authority of our venerable President [Tyler] that it is not
merely the provocative of war, but war itself. War, moreover,
declared by the President and Senate, when the Constitution
confided the war-making power to Congress. Consider what
must follow such an act. You extend your frontier from the
Sabine to the Rio Grande. Your troops must occupy the fort-
resses of Texas. Your troops instead of Texan troops must
defend them against Mexico. Are you prepared for war ? If
you are, in the name of justice, in the name of honor, let it be
fairly and manfully waged 1 I am for war too, when necessary,
in defence of the rights and liberties of our country. But I
am not for an aggressive war against a weak and unoffending
neighbor. The people of this republic are the best judges of
that question ; let them decide it. If we are to have war, let it
be such a war as our forefathers waged, in self-defence, for the
maintenance of our rights and honor."
But in spite of all warnings, it seemed that the
Democratic party was to be given up to blindness in
114 THE WAR WITH MEXICO.
taking this step. At the Baltimore Convention a few
weeks after, Mr. Van Buren was thrown overboard,
simply because he had written a letter against the annex-
ation of Texas, and James K. Polk was nominated on
a platform committing the party to it. Polk was elected
and Texas was brought into the Union. Then came
the war that Mr. Field had predicted, which, though
we were victorious, was looked upon by the best people
of the North with a repugnance that no tidings of vic-
tory could remove : as I once heard Rufus Choate say
with his inimitable touch of beautj- and tenderness :
* ' The wail of the daughters of Mexico is no music to
our ears ! "
But when the cruel war was over, it appeared that
the South had a larger purpose still, for it ended not only
with the annexation of Texas, but of California also,
which, however, was obtained, not by conquest, but by
purchase ; and with this further acquisition came the
demand that it should be admitted as a slave State !
Anticipating this, Mr. Wilmot, a Democrat in Congress
from Pennsylvania, had introduced as an amendment
to a bill for purchasing Mexican territory, his famous
proviso : ' ' That as an express and fundamental con-
dition to the acquisition of any territory from the
Republic of Mexico, neither slavery nor involuntary
servitude shall ever exist in any part of the said ter-
ritory," which was adopted in the House, but rejected
in the Senate. Soon it became a battle-cry for the
NO MORE SLAVE TERRITORY. 115
North. At the same time Mr. Field wrote the famous
"Secret Circular" and "Joint Letter," designed to
rally the anti-slavery portion of the Democratic party.
In 1847 he was a delegate to the Syracuse Convention,
where the Democratic party was split in two over the
question of the extension of slavery, and on that occa-
sion he introduced the famous resolution, long after-
ward known as "The Corner- Stone," which was for
years displayed at the head of the leading column
of the Albany Atlas, as the rallying cry of the Free
Democracy. It was in these words :
' ' Resolved, That while the Democracy of New York, repre-
sented in this convention, will faithfully adhere to all the com-
promises of the Constitution, and maintain all the reserved
rights of the States, they declare, since the crisis has arrived
when that question must be met, their uncompromising hostility
to the extension of slavery into territory now free, or which
may be hereafter acquired by any action of the Government of
the United States."
^ Matters came to a head in 1848 with the nomination
of General Cass. When the Democrats of New York
assembled in mass meeting to hear the report of their
delegates to Baltimore, they were very much excited.
Mr. Field wrote the address, which declared their strong
disapproval. Carrj-ing their feeling into action, a por-
tion of the party refused to support General Cass, and
nominated Mr. Van Buren for President, and Charles
Francis Adams for Vice-President, on the platform of
IIG BEGINNING OF THE FREE SOIL PARTY.
no more extension of slavery. In support of these
principles and candidates, Mr. Field spoke at a large
meeting in the city, and wrote the address of the
Democratic- Repubhcan Committee to the electors of
the State. Nor did he confine himself to New York ;
he carried the war into New England, into Faneuil Hall,
where he was introduced by Charles Sumner, and spoke
with a spirit of resistance to the domination of slavery
that seemed as if it were an echo of the days of the
Revolution.
Here was the beginning of the Free Soil party,
which took the field with increased determination when
it was proposed to open Kansas and Nebraska to the
introduction of slavery ! - There was a Chinese wall
in the way in the Missouri Compromise, which declared
that slavery should never cross the line of 36 degrees
and 30 minutes ! All above that was holy ground,
consecrated to liberty. But what spot on earth was
ever sacred to an ambitious politician ? Stephen A.
Douglas, of Illinois, was the most popular man in the
Northwest, and if he could make himself equally popu-
lar at the South, he would have a triumphal march to
the Presidential chair. For this it was only necessary
to break down the barrier to the extension of slavery,
when Southern statesmen would be able to boast :
" No pent up Utica contracts our powers,
But the whole boundless Continent is ours."
ANNULLING THE MISSOURI COMPROMISE. 117
But it was a delicate matter to touch the Missouri Com-
promise. It could not be done openly and avowedly, but
it might be made of no effect by giving it a new inter-
pretation, to which Mr. Douglas was competent, pre-
paring a bill in which it was declared to be " the true
intent and meaning of the act, not to legislate slavery
into any state or territory, nor to exclude it therefrom,
but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form
and regulate their domestic institutions in their own
way, subject only to the Constitution of the United
States." This was not a repeal of the Missouri Com-
promise ! Oh no ! Those who voted for it would
never lay sacrilegious hands on anything so sacred,
which had come down to them from their fathers !
That old fortress of liberty- was left standing in the
wilderness, a picturesque ruin, covered with moss,
while the sappers and miners had cut a way through
the forest, broad enough for the whole South to march
round it,
No sooner had the partition wall been broken down
than planters from Kentucky, Tennessee and other States
farther South came by boat-loads up the Missouri River,
with all the field-hands from their plantations, and
swarmed into what was then known as the Platte
Country, where the ' ' hot bloods " became the famous,
or infamous, "Border Ruffians," that long kept the
country in a state of terror. There were also settlers
from the East, but "on the side of their oppressors
118 SLAVES BROUGHT INTO KANSAS.
there was power," for they were supported by the
national government, which undertook to put down
resistance by law, arresting opposers and throwing
them into prison, till the blood of the North, that was
supposed to be very cold, began to boil as never before.
Indignation meetings were held in the Eastern cities, in
which collections were taken up to supply the Northern
men with rifles. Nor was this confined to New Eng-
land : the city of New York was the focus of a great
popular excitement. Never shall I forget a meeting in
the old Broadway Tabernacle, that was crowded by
men in a state of irritation that could hardly be con-
trolled. I was in the ante-room with Henry Ward
Beecher, who was pacing up and down, hke a lion in
a cage. As I sat near him on the platform, I saw that
he was under the power of a great passion, which cul-
minated in a dramatic scene when he took up in his
hands a chain that had been used to bind the limbs of
men in Kansas, and raising it above his head, he dashed
it to the floor, and trampled upon it in token of his con-
tempt and scorn for a government that could stoop
so low. Such was the excitement that, had there been
a call for volunteers, many would have been read}' to
take their muskets on their shoulders, and set their
faces towards the West. It was easy to call this fanat-
icism, but it was the kind of fanaticism that soon after
flamed out on the field of battle. Mr. Field was the last
man to be called a fanatic, but he was stirred to indig-
EXCITEMENT AT THE EAST. 119
nation by the audacity of the South on the one hand,
and the cowardice of the North on the other. Of course
there was a great outcry that he had deserted his party,
and been false to his Democratic principles, to which he
replied in a letter to the Albany Atlas, dated May 22,
1856 :
"Though I have not hitherto acted with the Republican
party, my sympathies are of course with the friends of freedom,
wherever they may be found. I despise equally the fraud
which uses the name of Democracy to cheat men of their rights ;
the cowardice which retracts this year what it i^rofessed and
advocated the last ; and the falsehood which affects to teach
the right of the people of the Territories to govern themselves,
while it imposes on them Federal governors and judges, and
indicts them for treason against the Union because they make
a constitution and laws which they prefer, and collects forces
from the neighboring States and the Federal army to compel
them to submission."
This Kansas business gave a tremendous impulse to
the Free Soil Party, which grew to such proportions as
to give a strong hope that it might elect its candidate
for the Presidency, for which it nominated Fremont,
whom Mr. Field supported in speeches in New York
and Pennsylvania.
By these successive strokes, the wedge was driven
deeper and deeper, by which the old Democratic party,
which had so long ruled the country, was cleft asun-
der, while the Free Soil Party grew stronger and
120 FORMATION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY.
stronger with every battle that it fought, until it
united with the Anti-slavery portion of the Whigs,
and formed the Republican Party, that was in the
fullness of time to gain the control of the government
in the election of the man for the hour. Here the
curtain rises on a great figure, and on a series of events
with whose beginning we enter on the most awful, the
most tragical, and yet in the end the most triumphant,
period in American history.
CHAPTER XI. ♦
THE NOMINATION OF LINCOLN. A CHAPTER OF
UNWRITTEN HISTORY.
Man proposes, but God disposes. Ambition over-
leaps itself. The political manoeuvering which was to
make a popular leader President, ended in his defeat,
and the election of his rival. It was one thing for
Douglas to carry a measure in Congress, and another
to settle with his constituents at hoine. When he
returned to Illinois, he found that he had lighted a fire
on the prairies that could not be put out. He had to
make a campaign through the State, and wherever he
went he was confronted by a new antagonist, a tall,
lank, ungainly Kentuckian, with not a single grace of
manner, but whose long right arm could deal heavy
blows. No two men were more unlike even in their
personal appearance, for while the new-comer stood six
feet four, Douglas was so diminutive in stature that he
was nicknamed the Little Giant, a picturesque combi-
nation of two such figures on the same stage. But
the contrast in the personality of the men was soon
forgotten in the earnestness on both sides, which made
122 FIRST APPEARANCE OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
it one of the most exciting political contests ever seen
in this country. The question was one of supreme
importance, that of carrying slavery into the new
Territories, and roused each to put forth his utmost
strength. Douglas had the advantage of a great repu-
tation and the skill acquired in many a hard battle,
but with all this he carried the State only by a bare
majority, and was reelected to the United States Senate,
but the contest for the first time made the name of
Abraham Lincoln known to the American people.
There is nothing that rouses popular enthusiasm
like the discovery of an unknown great man. The
fame of this debate went beyond the bounds of Illinois,
till the echo was heard even in the East, and though
the scene of contest was so far away that it was like
the voice of one crying in the wilderness, yet the voice
was so clear and strong that men pricked up their ears
to hear, and asked who it was that spoke, and what
manner of man he was ? The next step was to invite
him to come to New York and give a lecture on the
political situation. How well I remember his first
appearance before an Eastern audience ! It was in the
Cooper Institute as it was in the old days, when the
platform of the great hall was not in the middle, but
at the far end, and I can see him now as the door
opened, and the tall figure came forward, accompanied
by William Cullen Bryant and David Dudley Field.
As I sat on the platform close to the speaker, I caught
LECTURE AT THE COOPER INSTITUTE. 123
every word, and observed every gesture. He spoke in
a high-pitched voice, in which there was not a trace of
the smooth-tongued orator ; but there was a singular
clearness in his stj'le, with a merciless logic which no
listener could escape, as he unfolded link after link
in the iron chain of his argument.
But there was more in evidence that night than skill
in debate : there was a revelation of the man, as one
who loved his party, but loved his country more. The
fairness to his opponents was quite unusual in politi-
cal combatants. It was not as if he were fighting an
enemy, but reasoning with a friend. The lecture closed
with an appeal to the South, that was not at all in a
tone of threatening, but of pleading with kindred, with
those who were our brothers — if brothers estranged, yet
brothers still — partakers with us in the great inheritance
of liberty. It was this "sweet reasonableness," this
"gentleness of wisdom," and above all, the tone of
' ' sad sincerity " that gave me, who heard him then
for the first and the last time, an indelible impression of
the character of Abraham Lincoln.
But three months passed and this man of the people
was a candidate for the Presidency, a step forward
which took the country by surprise, and which to this
day is enveloped in some degree of mystery. If we
were in France we might say that "it is always the
unexpected that happens," but among a people that
are not so readily carried away by sudden impulse,
124 HOW A PRESIDENT IS NOMINATED.
events come to pass in a more regular and orderly way.
Since the campaign of Fremont the Republican party
had grown in numbers till it was strong enough to make
a bold strike for the possession of the government ; and
when the Democrats split into two factions, and nomi-
nated two candidates, while a third party, made up of
old Whigs and Know-nothings, nominated a third, the
Republicans felt, like Cromwell, that "the Lord had
delivered the enemy into their hands. "
The custom had long obtained of nominating candi-
dates for the two highest offices of the government —
President and Vice-President — by a National Conven-
tion made up of representatives from all the States,
to double the number of their members of Congress,
a fair apportionment, and a good way to get at the will
of the people so long as they were left to freedom of
choice. The danger came in only when one man under-
took to do their choosing for them, in which case the free
election became a solemn farce. New York, having
two Senators and thirty-three members of the House
of Representatives, was entitled to seventy delegates,
that were to be designated by a State Convention which
met at Syracuse a few weeks before the National Con-
vention. One who was a member of the nominating
Committee appointed by this Convention tells me that
they came together with all due gravity, as if they
were a legislative body to enter into high debate on
matters of national importance. "But," he added,
THURLOW WEED. 125
' ' we might have saved ourselves the trouble, for while
we were in the room with closed doors, as if delib-
erating in the profound secrecy of a papal conclave,
Thurlow Weed sat just outside the door to tell us whom
to nominate ! "
Mr. Weed was an old campaigner, who had fought
many battles and won many victories. I once heard
the late Mr, Edwards Pierrepont, in a case before the
courts, speak of him, as he sat at the bar, as ' ' the man
who had made Senators, Governors and Presidents ! "
He was now to try his hand again, and laid his schemes
with full assurance of victor}^ The first thing was to
have well in hand the delegation from New York. He
knew the men for his purpose. They must be men of
good standing in the party, whose names would have
weight with the pubhc, but at the same time he wanted
supple, pliant men, not too scrupulous about little mat-
ters, who held him in awe, and would defer to his
political sagacity. Of course, he had no use for men
like Horace Greeley or David Dudley Field, who were
too independent and self-willed. When they reached
Chicago Mr. Greeley (to Mr. Weed's great disgust) was
elected a delegate from Oregon ! Mr. Field was left
standing without, but found that an outsider may some-
times have an influence as great as an insider, of which
he was to give signal proof before the contest was over.
The Convention met in Chicago May 16th, 1860, in
a huge, barn-like structure that had been erected for
126 THE CHICAGO CONVENTION.
the purpose, called " The Wigwam," Here the Repub-
licans, as they answered to the roll-call, mustered
465 strong ! All went smoothly for the first two days,
and seemed to point to one man who among all the
candidates stood foremost, as if appointed by heaven
to lead them to victory. This was the distinguished
Senator from New York, William H. Seward. Nor
did there seem a doubt of his nomination. On the
eve of the decisive day Thurlow Weed said that he
"was sure of success," and Mr. Evarts, that "the vic-
tory was certain, and would be rapid ! " Indeed Mr.
Greeley, who was strongly opposed to it, gave up the
contest, and at midnight telegraphed to the Tribune in
New York, that the opposition could not concentrate
upon any candidate, and that Governor Seward would
be nominated !
But when the morning came, and the divisions of
the Republican army marched into the Wigwam and
grounded their arms for the more peaceful work of
the vote, to the amazement of friends and foes, the
natural heir to the crown was defeated, and Abraham
Lincoln proved to be the man of destiny. As this
was a surprise even to the Convention itself, we cannot
help asking by what influences, open or secret, it was
brought about, for we cannot exaggerate its impor-
tance. It was the turning-point in the life of Lin-
coln. If he had not been nominated that morning,
he would have remained to be, what he was before.
WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN. 127
a country law5'er in Illinois, making his round with the
circuit of the courts. He might still have been a con-
spicuous figure in Western politics, (for he was not a
man to sink into oblivion,) but for the time at least it is
probable that he would have returned to his profession
and the even tenor of his hfe would have flowed on as
gently as before.
Nor was the result of less moment to the countr5\
With the defeat of Lincoln the hand on the dial of his-
tory would have been turned backward. The mighty
succession of events that followed — the secession of the
Southern States, the call to arms, the four years' war,
and the abolition of slavery — all would have been passed
over to another generation. Hence it was a critical
moment in our national life. In view of the tremen-
dous consequences that followed in peace and war, it is
not too much to say that the whole course of American
history turned on the decision of that hour !
As we come to the how and the why of this sudden
revolution, I turn to a "Life of Lincoln," a massive
octavo of nearly eight hundred pages, by a distinguished
author, Henry J. Raymond, the founder and editor of
the New York Times ; who was thoroughly acquainted
with the whole history of American politics ; with the
rise and fall of parties and of men. He records briefly
that "On Thursday, the 17th of May, the Committee on
Resolutions reported the Platform, which was enthusi-
astically adopted. A motion was made to proceed to
128 Raymond's life op Lincoln.
the nomination at once, and if that had been done, the
result of the Convention might have proved very dif-
ferent, as at that time it was thought that Mr. Seward's
chances were the best. But an adjournment was taken
till the morning, and during the night the combinations
were made which resulted in the nomination of Mr.
Lincoln. "
So much and no more ! This is very calmly stated,
as if it were in the natural order of the proceedings.
But the reason for this subdued tone is apparent in the
Preface, in which the author says that the book was
" prepared during the Presidential canvass of 1864,"
and that ' ' its main object was to afford the American
people the materials for forming an intelligent judgment
as to the wisdom of continuing Mr. Lincoln for four
years more in the Presidential office."
The purpose of the book, then, was to be a campaign
document, issued to influence the coming election, a help
that was sorely needed at that hour when there was
real danger of Lincoln's defeat — a danger that was
not removed till after Sherman's capture of Atlanta.
While there was any doubt as to the result, it would
have been the height of unwisdoin to open old wounds,
and revive old antagonisms. For the time it was a
duty to forget past "unpleasantness," and unite all
hearts to save the Republic.
But now that the danger is past, that the war is
over, and that we are seeking after the truth of his-
A MYSTERY TO BE SOLVED. 129
tory, we go back to the original documents, and appeal
from the Mr. Raymond of 18G4 to the Mr. Raymond
of 1860, when he was just from the Chicago Conven-
tion, and tells a fuller and a plainer story, letting out
the real state of things on that memorable night when,
as he mildly puts it, "the combinations were made
which resulted in the nomination of Mr. Lincoln."
Combinations by whom ? Was there a movement all
along the hne ? Or was there a secret Gunpowder Plot
to make an end of Mr. Seward's political ambition ?
Some have found an easy way to explain the result
by assuming that there was no plot at all, but only that
the delegates, in their calm deliberations in the stillness
of the night, had come to the painful conclusion that
they must sacrifice their personal preferences to the
' ' pohtical necessity " of having a candidate who could
carry the four doubtful States of Illinois, Indiana, Penn-
sylvania and New Jersey ! No doubt that had its
weight, but it is one thing to say that it was a reason,
and another that it was the one and overmastering
consideration. The latter ]\Ir. Raymond flatly denies,
and even goes so far as to say that, on the contrary,
" The nomination finally made was purely an accident,
decided far more by the shouts and applause of the vast
concourse which dominated the Convention than by the
direct labors of any of the delegates."
Here then we are all at sea. A flippant dismissal
of the subject only deepens the mystery. If at mid-
130 PERSONAL RIVALRIES.
night it was conceded on both sides that the result was
inevitable, that Seward would be nominated the next
morning ; and at the appointed hour he was defeated ;
then between midnight and morning something hap-
pened. What was it ? To talk in a general way of
' ' political necessity " is to evade the question : it is an
explanation that does not explain. Instead of asking,
What did it ? it is more to the point to ask, Who did it ?
for it was not abstract considerations, but a living pres-
ence that appeared in the darkness of that memorable
night. It was not a miracle, wrought by unseen hands.
It was the work of men, who were not only in the flesh,
but very much alive. To Mr. Raymond, looking on as
a spectator — eager, earnest, and knowing all the actors
in the foreground — the contest seemed to be not so much
a political as a personal one. There was no difference
among the candidates as to the platform of principles on
which the battle was to be fought : but there came in
another element more powerful than all the logic in the
world — the personal antagonism, that no man can tame,
and that often carries a public body by storm. Whoever
has been present at a political convention — especially if
it be to choose a President — knows that it is a cyclone of
warring ambitions, of which it is not possible to get any
adequate impression except from one who was in the
storm-centre, and who can truly say, "All of which I
saw, and part of which I was."
If we cannot get such an inside view of the Conven-
A MELANCHOLY TALE. 131
tion from biographers and historians, perchance we
may get it from the newspaper correspondence of the
day, where we need no higher authority than Mr. Ray-
mond himself, when the final decision reUeved him from
all restraint, and he was free to declare the truth, the
whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He does not
seem to have been in any doubt as to who defeated his
candidate. As no one can tell the story so well as
himself, it is better to let him tell it in his own words.
A few days after the Convention adjourned, there
appeared in the New York Times a letter of two col-
umns and a half, whose very date is significant, and
prepares us for the melancholy tone in which it begins :
"Auburn, May 22, I860.— I have turned aside from'
my direct route homeward, to pay a visit of respect and
friendship to Governor Seward. I found him as busily
and happily engaged in directing the improvements in
his delightful country residence as if no such incidents
as treachery and disappointment ever disturbed the
tenor of political life. " As to his future, ' ' he regards
his public life as definitely closed. You may dismiss
all the speculations in which the public journals are just
now indulging as to his place in the new RepubHcan
administration — if we have one — as idle and useless.
Henceforth the only sphere of his labors will be his
home, and the society which surrounds it."
From this mournful picture of fallen greatness, Mr„
Raymond turns to the author of it, and makes a savage
132 THE "treachery" OF GREELEY.
attack upon Horace Greeley, as the creeping, crafty,
and malignant destroyer of the great statesman. How
a poor young man, coming from a farm in Vermont to
be a type-setter in a printing office in New York, could
rise to such influence and power, is shown by a reference
to his career. As Mr. Raymond would have it, he owed
it all to Mr. Seward. ' ' For twenty years Greeley had
been sustaining the political principles and vindicating
the political conduct of Mr. Seward through the col-
umns of the most influential political newspaper in the
country " ; during all wliich " he was proud to have been
his personal friend and political supporter," a devotion
that continued till he was alienated by the fact that
the great Senator did not sufficiently recognize the hard-
working Editor, but listened more to the wily influence
of Thurlow Weed — a dissatisfaction that grew to such
a point that once, in a moment of irritation, he wrote
a letter to "the party of the other part," in which he
announced that "the firm of Seward, Weed and Greeley
was dissolved ! " This ahenation — though it did not
come to an open and public rupture — was never healed.
For six years the retired member of the firm was
" Nursing his wrath to keep it warm,"
till the Chicago Convention gave him the opportunity
to "wreak upon Mr. Seward the long-hoarded revenge
of a disappointed office-seeker " !
This was a heavy charge to throw upon Mr. Greeley.
THE PART OF MR. FIELD. 133
No matter how much he pleaded innocence — or, to put
it more gently, wished to divide the responsibility of the
nomination — Raymond retorts bitterly : " He awards to
others the credit that belongs transcendently to himself,"
and to sum it all up he says : ' ' The great point aimed
at was Mr. Seward's defeat ; and in that Mr. Greeley
labored harder, and did tenfold more, than the whole
family of Blairs, together with all the gubernatorial
candidates to whom he awards the honors of the effec-
tive campaign."
This is sufficiently explicit. But Mr. Raymond has one
more indictment to make. The next day he returns to
the subject in an editorial in which he brings under the
same condemnation ' ' Dudley Field, who labored with
equal energy in the common cause," though he does not
presume to impute to him the charge of " treachery " to
Mr. Seward, to whom he was never under the slight-
est obligation. He was a Democrat of the old school,
who left his party because it had surrendered to the
Slavery power ; and had joined the Republicans, but
had no part in their family quarrels. But he did
not take kindly to the new creation in American
pohtics of a "boss," who, with none of the responsi-
bilities and the restraints of office, assumed absolute
control, setting up one and putting down another : and
his chief objection to Mr. Seward was, that if ' ' This our
Caesar" were throned in the Capitol, he would have
his proconsuls in the provinces, and as the State of
134 THE TWO MEN WHO WERE RESPONSIBLE.
New York was the richest "provmce" in our American
empire, he saw a famihar figure sitting in the place of
custom, receiving tribute, and dividing the spoils, in the
fine old Roman way.
In coupling together the names of Horace Greeley
and David Dudley Field — for he does not mention
another man — Mr. Raymond brings the matter down
to a fine point, to specific and definite personalities, and
singles out the two men who in his opinion were above
all others responsible for the defeat of Seward, and
the nomination of Lincoln. That the result was not
due to Mr. Greeley alone, or chiefly, I have his own
declaration, for I once spoke to him about it, giving hun
credit for the sudden change in what seemed to be the
inevitable course of events, which he disclaimed as
doing him too much honor. * This at the moment sur-
prised me, until I learned that there was reason for his
not assuming too much, since at that dark hour when
he sent his despatch to New York, he was thoroughly
demoralized as to the event of the coming day, and
* Indeed so far was Mr. Greeley from wishing to pose as the
original Lincoln man, that when he went to Chicago he had
in view another candidate, Mr. Edward Bates, an eminent law-
yer of St. Louis, who, being in a slave State, though only just
on the border, would not alarm the timid conservatives, who
were frightened by the very name of an abolitionist, and whose
nomination might give an impetus to emancipation in Missouri.
So fully was he possessed with this idea that, even after
A CRITICAL SITUATION, 135
would have ' ' thrown up the sponge " if he had not
been hterally ' ' held up " by a stronger will than his
own, and by more unflinching courage.
To see how critical was the situation, that not a
moment was to be lost, we have to introduce another
witness, who will take us farther on in unravelling the
mystery of Mr. Seward's defeat and the nomination that
followed. It was midnight : in a few hours all would
be over : whatever was done must be done quickly.
It is on the night before a battle that the battle is
planned, though it be not till the morning that it is fought
and won. It is of the preceding council of war that our
new witness has somewhat to relate — not as a reporter
of what somebody else said or did not say, but of what
he saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears.
This is the late Mr. James A. Briggs, a man of the
best New England stock, a nephew of Governor Briggs
of Massachusetts, a lawyer by profession, who had lived
for twenty years in Cleveland, during which time he
became an intimate personal and political friend of Mr.
Chase. In 1857 he removed to New York, having his
Mr. Lincoln was nominated, and Mr. Greeley had returned to
New York to hear the shouts for "Old Abe," he was not satis-
fied till he had put himself on record [in The Tribune of
May 21st, 1860] thus: " I think that Judge Bates, to whom I never
spoke nor wrote, would have been the wiser choice." This at
least frees him from the responsibility of having forced Mr.
Lincoln upon the Convention.
136 AN IMPORTANT WITNESS.
home in Brooklyn, from which, on November 1st, 1859,
he wrote to Mr. Lincoln to come and lecture in Plymouth
Church. This was the lecture that was finally given
in Cooper Institute. Mr. Briggs was an ardent Repub-
lican, and went to the Chicago Convention in hope to
promote the nomination of his political chief. Here he
was in a position to have a full inside view of the move-
ments of the several divisions of the party that were
strugghng for the ascendency, and afterwards felt it to
be his duty to put on record an account of what passed
under his own observation. It is brief, but right to
the point. He says :
' ' I have always thought that Mr. Lincoln was more
indebted to Mr. David Dudley Field for his nomination
for the Presidency at Chicago in 1860, than to any
other one man. I was present at that Convention
as the friend of Mr. Chase, but soon found that the
nomination was to go either to Mr. Seward or to Mr.
Lincoln, and then I was for Mr. Lincoln.
' ' I was at the Tremont House, with Mr. Field, Mr.
Greeley, Mr. George Opdyke, and Mr. Hiram Barney.
The night before the nomination, about midnight, Mr.
Greeley came into Mr. Field's room, and threw himself
down with a feeling of despair, and said ' All is lost ;
we are beaten ! ' "
[Mr. Greeley was subject to such sudden depression,
and the events of the day, and the anticipations of the
morrow, had tried him to the utmost. He had been all
COLLAPSE OF GREELEY. 137
the evening in a state of unnatural excitement, * which
ended in his sending his message to New York, from
which he came back to Mr. Field's room to throw him-
self down in a state of collapse, till a strong man lifted
him up and set him on his feet, and breathed new life
into him. Who it was that rendered that kindly office,
I leave to Mr. Briggs to tell :] "To Mr. Greeley's
cry 'All is lost ! ' Mr. Field rephed ' No, all is not lost !
Let us up and go to work ! ' His energetic voice and
manner seemed to inspire Mr. G-reeley with new life,
and both immediately went out to renew the struggle.
Mr. Field particularly worked with a determined will
* When I was looking about for sources of information, Senator
Dawes directed me to Mr. Edward R. Tinker, of North Adams,
Mass. , who was a member of the Convention, and could speak
from his personal knowledge. Mr. Tinker went on to Chicago
in the train with some of the delegates from New York, and
was with them in their quarters in the Tremont House, in what
INIr. Weed called "The Conspirators' Room," and was in and
out at all hours of day and night. He says that on the night
before the vote Mr. Greeley was in a very irritable mood. As
the hours drew on, he became more and more excited over the
impending defeat, the blame of which he charged upon others,
telling them that they were throwing away their votes, at which
he raged and stormed, and finally burst away and rushed to the
telegraph office to send a message to New York that Mr. Seward
would be nominated in the morning, and then, completely
exhausted, returned to Mr. Field's room, where he found a man
who was not so easily dismayed.
138 DEFEAT TURNED TO VICTORY.
and resolute purpose that seemed to know no such word
as fail. He went from delegation to delegation, and as
he was from New York, Mr. Seward's own State, and
yet was opposed to his nomination, he had great influ-
ence in turning the tide of feeling in favor of Mr. Lin-
coln. Before morning they returned in high spirits,
when Mr. Field said : ' The work is done ! Mr. Lincoln
will be nominated ! ' Mr. Greeley seemed equally con-
fident— a confidence which was justified by the event.
But it was in those midnight hours that the work was
done. That was the turning-point in that memorable
Convention, and therefore a turning-point in the politi-
cal history of our country. For the issue then reached,
I have always been convinced, from what passed under
my own eyes, that more was due to Mr. Field than to
any other man."
Here then at last we seem to have come to the
Transformation Scene — to the time, the place and the
actors. This is the missing link in the history which
connects and explains all the rest. We can well under-
stand that the delegations were debating among them-
selves the means of making some combination without
which there was not, and could not be, any hope of
success, wavering this way and that, when the sudden
inrush of two determined men put an end to the divis-
ions, and led them to form in the ranks that led to vic-
tory. I have read many Lives of Lincoln, and have
FURTHER EVIDENCE. 139
never found any other explanation of what transpired
that night that was satisfactory or even plausible.
This testimony of Mr. Briggs is of the direct and
positive kind that cannot be controverted except by
impeaching a man's intelligence or his veracity ; and
coming right after that of Mr. Raymond, the one con-
firms the other, answering to the requirement of the
old Mosaic law, that ' ' in the mouth of two witnesses
every word shall be established."
But there is other evidence still, for where brave
men lead the way, the hesitating and the doubting
follow ; and it was not long before what was going on
was whispered from chamber to chamber, from dele-
gation to delegation, so that when the morning dawned
there was a general premonition of what was to
come. As the delegates poured out of the hotels on
their way to the Convention, the elder Blair, the most
sagacious politician in the country, turned to Mr. Field
and asked what he thought would be the result ? and
when he said, "Mr. Lincoln will be nominated," the
old man answered in a very positive way, " Well, if
ive succeed, it will be oiving to you ! ". And so spoke
New England in the voice of the gallant Anson Bur-
lingame, who, after the decisive vote was taken, came to
Mr. Field, as he was sitting on the platform, and said,
' ' You have nominated Mr. Lincoln : now help us to
nominate the ' bobbin-bo}' ' " [Governor Banks, of Mas-
sachusetts] ' ' for Vice-President ! "
140 A CHAPTER OF UNWRITTEN HISTORY.
Nor was this the observation of but a few indi-
viduals : it was common talk among the delegates,
and those who had watched the course of events.
In the train that brought home many of the mem-
bers of the Convention, and others who had been spec-
tators, was Mr. Clarkson N. Potter, of New York, after-
wards Member of Congress, who told his friends that
he saw and heard one and another pointing to Mr.
Field, and whispering, ' ' That is the man who nom-
inated Lincoln ! " This general rumor is a sort of
presumptive evidence, which, when confirmed by divers
witnesses, outweighs any number of negatives, which
merely tell what this or that man did not see or hear,
and, in the absence of all opposing testimony, must
be considered to decide the question.
If I thus recall a chapter of unwritten history, it is
not that I wish to magnify the part of an individual ;
nor that he ever made any claim to recognition on
account of it, (a brave soldier is more concerned to win
the battle than to dispute for the honors of victory) ; but
that, since it has fallen to me to write the life of one
who had a part in this making of history, I put on
record the testimony of others, as but just to the mem-
ory of him who has passed beyond the reach of any
earthly ambition.
CHAPTER XII.
THE LAST EFFORT FOR PEACE.
It is a brave man who can take the consequences
of his own acts. Mr. Field had helped to nominate
Lincoln, and to elect him, and he must bear his share
of the responsibility. The country was now to face a
crisis such as it had never faced before. The clouds
began to roll up from the South and gather all round
the horizon, till many at the North were frightened at
the prospect, and loudly declared that the election of
Lincoln was at once a blunder and a crime !
Against all such harsh judgments, or fearful por-
tents, Mr. Field stood firm, prepared to show that it
was neither a blunder nor a crime ; that it was the
only course that could bring a peace worth having, and
re-establish the Republic on everlasting foundations.
It was something to have the issue clearly drawn.
Mr. Seward had predicted an "irrepressible conflict," but
all good men joined in the prayer, ' ' Give peace in our
time, O Lord ! " But how could the conflict be kept
back much longer ? The country was growing ; the
population was increasing by millions, and the South,
142 THE WARNING OF DANGER.
with its "peculiar institutions," demanded the right of
way wherever it would go. Forty years before an
effort had been made to divide the country by the line
of the Missouri Compromise, but that had been broken
down, and now the South claimed the right, not only
to march Westward up to a fixed parallel of lati-
tude, but beyond it along the mighty courses of the
Mississippi and the Missouri, stopped by no barrier of
river, or plain, or mountain, till it reached the Western
Sea.
But the election of Lincoln was a danger-signal — a
warning not to go too far ! Not that he had any design
to encroach upon the South. He had no such aversion
to slavery as a New Englander might have, for he was
born in a slave State, and looked upon slavery as a con-
dition for which the present generation was not responsi-
ble, and that was to be tolerated where it existed before.
He would observe rehgiously all the compromises of
the Constitution. But beyond that he could not, and
would not, go : he would not do violence to his com-
mon sense in regarding slavery as belonging to an
ideal state of society ; nor was he ready to see the Free
States of America converted into a great Slave Empire !
But the South was not wilhng to wait to see the new
President installed in office : it looked upon his election
as a threat, which it must meet in a tone of defiance.
It demanded as the price of its remaining in the Union
new concessions, new guarantees, for slavery ; that no
"peace at any price !" 143
bounds should be set to its extension now, or in any-
future time. This was putting the pride of the North
to the utmost strain. Yet such was the desire for
peace — peace at any price — that it was willing to sub-
mit to almost any conditions. Even Mr. Seward,
opposed in theory to slavery as he was, was ready that
we should bind ourselves hand and foot by such an iron
chain as this : "No amendment shall be made to the
Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress
the power to abolish or interfere within any State
with the domestic institutions " [a synonym for slavery]
"thereof, including that of persons," [how carefully
they avoided the word slaves !^ "held to labor or ser-
vice by the laws of said State " !
And this resolution was adopted in the Senate by a
two-thirds vote, 24 to 13, and in the House of Repre-
sentatives by a little more than two-thirds, 133 to 65.
Could the spirit of concession farther go ?
But the South would not be pacified ; it would not
listen to anything. Scarcely had the result of the elec-
tion been declared — to be exact, only six weeks later,
December 24th — when South Carolina, which John C.
Calhoun had long since familiarized with the idea of
separation, took the lead, as if ambitious of the place
of honor, in a formal act of its Legislature, by which
it seceded from the Union, and the Governor issued
his proclamation declaring South Carolina to be a
* ' separate, sovereign, and independent State ! "
144 THE SOUTHERN STATES SECEDE.
This was a revolution, but one for which she had
been long preparing. Her public men did not hesitate
to say that it was but the culmination of events for a
long course of years. Mr. Rhett, an old politician, said,
' ' The secession of South Carolina is not the event of
a day. It was not caused by Lincoln's election, nor
by the non-execution of the fugitive slave law. It is
a matter which has been gathering for thirty years.
The election of Lincoln was only the last straw that
broke the camel's back. But it was not the only one.
The back was nearly broken before ! "
With such unpleasant memories of the past, it is not
surprising that South Carolina felt the step she took to
be a happy deliverance. She did not stand upon the
order of her going. If she had waited a little longer,
with a show of hesitation and reluctance, it would have
given a touch of formality and of grace to her good-bye
to the sisters with whom she had been so long asso-
ciated. But she had no farewells to give, and no tears
to shed. So far from this, she was in a happy mood,
and danced away with that "gayety of heart" with
which France ten years later rushed into war with
Germany ! The parallel might be carried still further !
The business of secession once begun, the work went
on briskly. Two weeks later, with the opening of the
new year, 1861, Mississippi followed the example of
South Carolina. Two days later Alabama and Florida
locked arms and went out together ; to be followed
THE PEACE CONFERENCE. 145
near the close of the month by Louisiana ; and last of
all, on the 5th of February, by Texas, the mighty State,
for which we had gone to war with Mexico. Georgia,
which was kept back by Alexander H. Stephens, came
a little later and filled up the procession of States that
marched out of the Union before Mr. Lincoln had taken
his seat in the Presidential chair !
But the procession was not yet full. Virginia, the
mother of Presidents, stood on her dignity, not to be run
away with by less important States, and chose to act
for herself. "With the old memories of the Revolution
in her heart, she lingered, and finally decided, before
taking the last step, to make one more effort for peace,
by way of a friendly Conference in Washington, to
see if it were not possible to agree on some method of
adjustment. It was a novel proceeding to go outside of
Congress, to submit grave questions to a body having
no legal authority. But the North did not stand upon
formalities, if only it might bring peace, and it responded
promptly to the call. As none of the seceded States
were parties to it, only twenty-one States were rep-
resented, but these sent 133 delegates — a body that was
not only respectable in numbers, but one of great dig-
nity in the men that composed it, and that was pre-
sided over by one who was himself a Virginian, as
well as a former President of the United States, Mr.
John Tyler. A committee composed of one from each
State, twenty-one in all, was appointed "with authority
146 CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION.
to report what they might deem right, necessary, and
proper to restore harmony and preserve the Union."
Of this committee Mr. Field was a member, a position
to which he was entitled as the chairman of the New
York delegation. Thus he was forced into the place of
a leader, though the part of the North was not to pro-
pose, but to listen. As it had only exercised its right-
ful authority in voting for a President, and was satisfied
with the result, it had nothing to say except to repeat,
with increased emphasis, its readiness and determination
to stand by the compromises of the Constitution.
But that was not enough, for the South had been
going through an education in its ideas of slavery, until
it came to regard it as so far from being an evil that it
was a positive good, an institution that was according
to the fitness of things ; ordained by nature itself, as
shown in the natural superiority of the white race.
Thus exalted by conscious greatness, the men of the
South were not at all abashed at the boldness
of the undertaking to make radical changes in the
Constitution, that had been framed by Washington,
Franklin, Madison, and Hamilton. Slavery must be
" unconfined " ; it must have full sweep. Into whatever
territory a master emigrated, he must have freedom
to take his slaves with him ; and if, when the popula-
tion was sufficient for statehood, the majority were
for slavery, slavery they should have, no power on
earth withstanding !
A NEW FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW. 147
And there must be a new Fugitive Slave Law,
with all the modern improvements ! If a master
wished to go to Boston, he must be free to take his
black man-servant with him, and if the latter, snuffing
the air of liberty, were to run away, the city police
must find him and deliver him up to his master ! He
might not be hunted with bloodhounds, but all the min-
ions of the law would be on his track ; and if he could
not be found, the city or State must pay for his loss !
Even this would not satisfy the South. What most
galled the Southern people was not the loss of a slave
now and then, but the fact that they could not bring
the North to see things as they saw them. They must
do violence to our consciences, compelling us to accept
as right what we believed to be wrong ; to call evil
good and good evil. This was asking us to stifle
the instincts of humanity. They might as well have
demanded that we should stop the beating of our hearts.
Had it been possible to comply with these conditions,
even then the seceding States gave no promise of return
to the Union, nor had their sister States any authority to
make it for them. All that could be said was that they
would (if they saw fit) take it into respectful (or not
respectful) consideration. They might come back, or
they might not even take notice of the invitation. But
if they did return, it would not be by any means as
prodigal sons, with penitence for the past, or promise
for the future. If they came at all, it would be as mas-
148 HARD CONDITIONS FOR PEACE.
ters in the old baronial halls. If there was any repent-
ing to be done, it must be by those upon whose tame
and cowardly spirits they looked down with just con-
tempt.
These were indeed hard conditions of peace, conditions
that we cannot read, even at this distance of time, with-
out being almost ashamed of our country. And yet to
this degree of humiliation a large portion of the North —
God forgive them ! — were ready to submit.
Mr. Field had hstened with as much patience as he
could to these extraordinary proposals. But while he
listened the fire burned, and he could not keep silence.
Time was passing. It was the 20th of February, and
in less than two weeks there would be a new govern-
ment in the Capitol. He must give warning of the
impending danger. With perfect courtesy to his oppo-
nents, but with a firmness that could not but command
their respect, he set forth the position of the North in a
speech which ought to be preserved in every historical
library, as it was an historic scene, the last effort for
peace before the breaking out of the most terrible
civil war of modern times ! As he rose to speak he
felt the gravity of the situation. It was not in his
nature to be a prophet of evil ; but lightly as some
talked of it, he felt that the government, and the coun-
try itself, were in danger of going to pieces, and he
spoke with a sad sincerity, which those who heard
remembered long after. He did not assume to speak
SPEECH OP MR. FIELD. 149
for others, but his own position he would not have
misunderstood, and he ' ' cleared the air " in the very
first sentence : ' ' For myself, I state at the outset that
I am indisposed to the adoption, at the present time,
of any amendment of the Constitution." This was
sufficiently explicit. And now he proceeds to give the
Reason Why :
To change the original law of thirty millions of people
is a measure of the greatest importance. Such a measure
should never be undertaken in any case, or under any circum-
stances, without great deliberation and the highest moral cer-
tainty that the country will be benefited by the change. In this
case, as yet, there has been no deliberation ; certainly not so far
as the delegates from New York are concerned. The resolutions
of Virginia were passed on the 19th of January. New York
( her Legislature being in session ) appointed her delegates on the
5th of February. We came here on the 8th. Our delegation
was not full for a week. The amendments proposed were sub-
mitted on the 15th. It is now the 20th of the month. We are
urged to act at once, without further deliberation or delay.
To found an Empire, or to make a Constitution for a peo-
ple, on which so much of their happiness depends, requires the
sublimest effort of the human intellect, the greatest impartiality
in weighing opposing interests, the utmost calmness in judg-
ment, the highest prudence in decision. It is proposed that we
shall proceed to amend in essential particulars a Constitution
which, since its adoption by the people of this country, has
answered all its needs, with a haste which to my mind is un-
necessary, not to say indecent.
Have any defects been discovered in this Constitution ? I
have listened most attentively to hear those defects mentioned.
150 THE CONSTITUTION GOOD ENOUGH AS IT IS.
if any such have been found to exist. I liave heard none. No
change in the judicial department is suggested. The exercise
of judicial powers under the Constitution has been satisfactory
enough to the South. The judicial department is to be left un-
touched, as I think it should be. You propose no change in the
form of the executive or legislative departments. These you
leave as they were before. What you do propose is : to place
certain limitations upon the legislative power ; to prohibit legis-
lation upon certain important subjects ; to give new guarantees
to slavery ; and this, as you admit, before any person has been
injured, before any right has been infringed.
There is high authority, which ought to be satisfactory to
you — that of the President of the United States, now in office ! —
for the statement that Congress never undertook to pass an im-
constitutional law affecting the interests of slavery except the
Missouri Compromise. Well, you have repealed that I You have
also every assurance that can be given, that the Administration
about coming into power proposes no interference with your in-
stitutions within State limits. Can you not be satisfied with
that ? No ! You propose these amendments in advance. You
insist upon them, and you declare that you must and will have
them, or certain consequences must follow. But, gentlemen of
the Soutli, what reasons do you give for entering upon this
hasty, this precipitate action? You say it is the prevailing
sense of insecui'ity, the anxiety, the apprehension you feel lest
something awful, something unconstitutional, may be done.
Yet the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Seddon) tells us that Vir-
ginia is able to protect all who reside within her limits, and that
she will do so at all hazards. Why not tell us the truth outright ?
It is not action under the Constitution or in Congress that you
would prevent. What is it then ? You are determined to pre-
vent the agitation of the subject. Let us understand each
ARGUMENT BY QUESTION. 151
other. You have called us here to prevent future discussion of
the subject of slavery. It is that you fear — it is that you
would avoid — discussion in Congress, in the State Legislatures,
in the newspapers, in popular assemblies.
[The reader will observe the peculiar style of the
speaker, in which he argues by questions, short and
sharp, that he rains upon his opponents as if from a
battery or a mitrailleuse, to which they can make no
reply — a mode of attack upon dangerous sophistry that
has been held in honor from the days of Socrates. ]
But will the plan you propose, the course you have marked
out, accomplish your purpose ? Will it stop discussion ? Will
it lessen it in the slightest degree ? Can you not profit by the
experience of the past ? Can you prevent an agitation of this
subject, or any other, by any constitutional provisions ? No !
Look at the details of your scheme. You propose through the
Constitution to require payment for fugitive slaves — to make
the North pay for them. You are thus throwing a lighted fire-
brand not only into Congress, but into every State Legislature,
into every county, city, and village in the land.
This one proposition to pay for fugitive slaves will prove a
subject for almost irrepressible agitation. You say to the State
Legislatures, ' ' You shall not obstruct the rendition of fugitives
from service, but you may legislate in aid of their rendition " —
thereby implying that the latter kind of legislation will be their
duty. You thus provide a new subject for discussion and agi-
tation for all these Legislatures. In the border States especially,
such as Ohio and Pennsylvania, you will find this agitation
fiercer than any you have hitherto witnessed, of which you
complain so much. You will add to the flame until it becomes
a consuming fire.
153 YOU CANNOT STOP DISCUSSION.
You propose to stop the discussion of these questions by the
press. Do you really believe that in this age of the world you
can accomplish that? You know little of history if such is
your belief. Free speech is stronger than constitutions and dy-
nasties. You might as well put your hands over the crater of a
burning volcano, to extinguish its flames, as to attempt to stop
discussion by such an amendment of the Constitution. Stop dis-
cussion of great questions affecting the policy, strength, and
prosperity of the Government ? You cannot do it I You ought
not to attempt to do it !
I wish to speak kindly upon this subject. I entertain no un-
friendly feelings toward any section. But while you are thus
complaining of us in the free States, because we agitate and dis-
cuss the question of slavery, are you not, in a great degree, re-
sponsible for this agitation yourselves ? Do you not discuss it
and agitate it ? Do you not make slavery the subject of your
speeches in the South, and in the presence of your slaves ? Do
you not make charges against us, which in your cooler moments
you know to be unfounded ? Do you not charge us in the hear-
ing of your slaves with the design of interfering with slavery in
the States, with a design to free them if we succeed ?
All this yovi have done, and if discontent, anxiety, and mis-
trust exist among your people, such discussion has contributed
more to produce them than all the agitation of the slavery
question at the North. But your amendments are not pointed
at your disciissions ! That kind of agitation may go on as
before. It is only the discussion on the other side that you
would repress !
If the condition of affairs among you is as you represent it,
have you no duties to perform ? Is there nothing for you to do ?
Should you not tell your people what we have assured you upon
every proper occasion, that the Republican party has always re-
WE ARE STILL FOR PEACE, IF POSSIBLE. 153
pudiated the intention of interfering with slavery, or any other
Southern institution, within the States ? This you all know.
Have you told your people this ? If you would explain it to
them now, would they not be quieted ? Do not reply that they
believe we have such a purpose. Who is responsible for that be-
lief ? Have you not continually asserted before your people,
notwithstanding every assurance we could give you to the con-
trary, that we are determined to interfere with your rights ? It
is thus the responsibility rests with you.
Although such is my conviction, supported, as I think, by all
the evidence, I am still for peace. Show me now any proposi-
tion that will secure peace, and I will go for it if I can. We
came here to take each other by the hand, to compare views,
explain, consult. We meet you in the most reasonable spirit.
Anything that honorable men may do, we vnll do.
We will go back to 1845 when you admitted Texas ; back to
the Missouri Compromise of 1820. You certainly can complain
of nothing previous to that time. If, since then, there has been
any law of Congress passed which is unjust toward you, which
infringes upon your rights, which operates unfairly upon your
interests, we will join you in securing its repeal. We will go
further. If you will point ovit any act of the Republican party
which has given you just cause for apprehension, we will give
yovi all security against it. We will do anything hut amend the
fundamental law of the government. Before we do that we
must be convinced of its necessity.
When you propose essential changes in the Constitution you
must expect that they will be subjected to a critical examina-
tion; if not here, certainly elsewhere. I object to those pro-
posed by the majority of the committee —
1. For what they contain, and
2. For what they do not contain.
154 HOW THE FATHERS LOOKED UPON SLAVERY.
I do not propose to criticise the language used in your propo-
sitions of amendment. That would be trifling. I think the
language very infelicitous, and, if I supposed those propositions
were to become part of the Constitution, I should think many
vei'bal changes indispensable ; But I pass by all that, and come
at once to the substance.
I object to the propositions. Sir, because they iv&iild put into
the Constitution new expressions relating to slavery, which %oere
sedulously kept out of it by the framers of that instrument — left
out of it, not accidentally, but because, as Madison said, they
did not ivish posterity to linow from the Constitution that the
institution existed.
But I object further, because the propositions contain
guarantees for slavery, which our fathers did not and would not
give. In 1787 the Convention was held at Philadelphia to estab-
lish our form of government. Washington was its presiding
officer, whose name was in itself a bond of union. It was soon
after the close of a long and bloody war. Shoulder to shoulder
— through winter snows and beneath summer suns — through
such sufferings and sacrifices as the world had scarcely ever
witnessed — the people of these States, under Providence, had
fought and achieved their independence. Fresh from the field,
their hearts full of patriotism, determined to perpetuate the
liberties they had achieved, the people sent their delegates into
the Convention to frame a Constitution which would preserve to
their posterity the blessings they had won.
These delegates, under the presidency of "Washington, aided
by the counsels of Franklin and Madison, considered the very
questions with which we are now dealing, and they refused to put
into the Constitution which they were making such guarantees
to slavery as you now ask from their descendants. That is my
interpretation of their action. Either these guarantees are in
WE WILL GIVE NO NEW GUARANTEES. 155
the Constitution, oi- they are not. If they are there, let them
remain there. If they are not there, I can conceive of no possi-
ble circumstances under which I would consent to admit them.
Mr. MoREHEAD : Not to save the Union ?
Mr. Field : No, su* — no ! That is my comprehensive answer.
Mr. MOREHEAD : Then you would let the Union slide ?
Mr. Field : No, never I I would let slavery slide, and save
the Union. Greater things than this have been done. This year
has seen slavery abolished in all the Russias.
Mr. Roman: Do you think it better to have the free and
slave States separated, and to have the Union dissolved ?
Mr. Field : I would sacrifice all I have — lay down my life,
for the Union. But I will not give these guarantees to slavery.
If the Union cannot be preserved without them, it can not long
be preserved with them. Let me ask you if you will recommend
to the people of the Southern States, in case these guarantees
are conceded, to accept them, and abide by their obligations to
the Union ? You answer. Yes ! Do you suppose you can induce
the seceded States to return ? You answer. We do not know !
What will you yourselves do if, after all, they refuse ? Your
answer is, " We will go with them!"
Then we are to understand that this is the language of the
slave States, which have not seceded, toward the free States :
' ' If you will support our amendments, we will try to induce the
seceded States to return to the Union. We rather think we can
induce them to return ; but, if we can not, then we will go with
them ! "
What is to be done by the Government of the United States
while you are trying this experiment ? The seceded States are
organizing a government with all its departments. They are
levying taxes, raising military forces, and engaging in commerce
with foreign nations, in plain violation of the provisions of the
156 THERE IS NO MIDDLE GROUND.
Constitution. If this condition of affairs lasts six months lon-
ger, France and England will recognize theirs as a government
de facto. Do you suppose we will submit to this, that we can
submit to it ?
I speak only for myself. I undertake to commit no one but
myself; but I here declare that an Administration which fails to
assert by force its authority over the whole country will be a
disgrace to the nation. There is no middle ground; we must
keep this country unbroken, or ive give it up to ruin !
We are told that one State has a hundred thousand men
ready for the field, and if we do not assent to these propositions
she will fight us. If I believed this to be true, I would not con-
sent to treat on any terms.
From the ports of these seceded States have sailed all the fili-
bustering expeditions which have heretofore disgraced the land.
Their new government will enter upon a career of conquest un-
less prevented. Even if these propositions of amendment are
received and submitted to the people, I see nothing but war in
the future, unless those States are quickly brought back to their
allegiance.
I do not propose to use harsh language. I will not stigmatize
this Convention as a political body, or assert that this is a move-
ment toward a revolution counter to a political revolution just
accomplished by the elections. Nor will I speak of personal
liberty bills, or of Northern State legislation, about which so
much complaint has been made. If I went into those questions,
much might be said on both sides. We might ask you whether
you had not thrown stones at us I
[Then, turning to the second part of his argument,
Mr. Field wished his Southern brethren to understand
that, if they were to enter upon amendments of the
RIGHT OP THE NORTH TO PROTECTION. 157
Constitution, the North had concessions to ask as well
as to give ; that it might at least demand protection
for its citizens when they visited the South. At present
a man from Massachusetts or Vermont could hardly-
cross the line without danger of insult or of violence,
unless he professed entire satisfaction with the patriar-
chal institution. If he saw slaves sold on the block or
flogged on a plantation, he must suppress liis indig-
nation, or he would be mobbed ! Mr. Hoar, an emi-
nent citizen of Boston, who Avent to Charleston to attend
to a legal case invohnng the rights of a Northerner,
was driven out of the city, and hardly escaped without
a personal attack. With the memory of such treatment
in mind, Mr. Field proceeds : ]
As to what is left out in the plan of reconciliation, the
majority report altogether omits those guarantees which, if
the Constitution is to be amended, ought to be there before any
others that have been suggested. I mean those which will
secure protection in the South to the citizens of the free States,
and tliose which will protect the Union against futiure attempts
at secession ; guarantees which are contained in the propositions
that I have submitted as proper to be added to the report of the
majority.
But, Sir, I must insist that, if amendments to the Constitution
are required at all, it is better that they should be proposed and
considered in a General Convention. Although I do not regard
this Conference as exactly unconstitutional, it is certainly a bad
precedent. It is a body nominally composed of representatives
of the States, and is called to urge upon Congress propositions
158 BETTER TO HAVE A GENERAL CONVENTION.
of amendment to the Constitution. Its recommendations will
have something of force in them ; it will undoubtedly be claimed
for them in Congress that they possess such force. I do not like
to see an irregular body sitting by the side of a legislative body
and attempting to influence its action.
Again, all the States are not here. Oregon and California —
the great Pacific dominions, with all their wealth and power,
present and prospective — have not been consulted at all. Will
it be replied that all the States can vote upon the amendment ?
That is a very different thing from proposing them. California
and Oregon may have interests of their own to protect, proposi-
tions of their own to make. Is it right for us to act without
consulting them ? I will go for a Convention, because I believe
it is the best way to avoid civil war.
Mr. WiCKLiFFE: If a General Convention is held, what
amendments will you propose ?
Mr. Field : I have already said that I have none to propose.
I am satisfied with the Constitution as it is.
Mr. WiCKLlFFE: Then, for God's sake, let us have no Gen-
eral Convention !
Mr. Field : I think the gentleman's observation is not logi-
cal. He wants amendments, I do not. But I say, if we are to
have them, let us have them through a General Convention.
And I say, further, that this is the quickest way to secure
them. If a General Convention is to be called, let it be held
at once, as soon as possible. If gentlemen from eight of the
States in this Conference represent truly the sentiment of their
people, as I will assume they do, there is no other alternative.
We must have either the arbitrament of reason or the arbitra-
ment of the sword. The gloomy future alone can tell whether
the latter is to be the one adopted. I greatly fear it is. The
conviction presses upon me in my waking and my sleeping
REASON OR THE SWORD. 159
hours. Only last night I dreamed of marching armies and news
from the seat of war 1 [A laugh from the Kentucky and Vir-
ginia benches.]
The gentlemen laugh. I thought they, too, had fears of war.
I thought their threats and prophecies were sincere. God grant
that I may not hereafter have to say, " I had a dream that was
not all a dream ! "
For my own State and for the North I have only to say that
they are devoted to the Union. The love for the Union is the
strongest of our political affections. New York will stand by
the flag of the country while there is a star left in its folds. If
the Union should be reduced to thirteen States — if it should be
reduced to three States — if all should fall away but herself, she
will stand alone to bear and uphold that honored flag, and
recover the Union of which it is the pledge and symbol. God
grant that time may never come, but that New York may stand
side by side with Kentucky and Virginia to the end ! That we
may all stand by the Union, negotiate for it, fight for it, if the
necessity comes, is my wish, my hope, my prayer. The Consti-
tution made for us by Washington, Franklin, Madison, and
Hamilton, and the wise and patriotic men who labored with
them, is good enough for us. We stand for the Country, for the
Union, for the Constitution.
Was there ever a more manly appeal to the sense
of justice, as well as to the love of country that might
linger in the hearts of those whose fathers had fought
for American independence ? Did it call for any sacri-
fice of interest or of pride on the part of the South ?
None whatever. Was there a tone of threatening to
inflame the proud Southern spirit ? Not the slightest !
He who pleaded so earnestly for peace spoke more in
160 WHAT DANIEL WEBSTER FORESAW.
sorrow than in anger — not as to enemies, but as to those
who were, or ought to be, friends and brothers. Thirty
years before Mr. Webster had a vision of a conflict, but
only as it appeared far off on the horizon, and in horror
he put it out of his sight, only leaving the impression
in these sad but immortal words that now seemed pro-
phetic : "When my eyes shall be turned to behold for
the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him
shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of
a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discord-
ant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or
drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! " His prayer
was answered, and the black cloud disappeared, but
only to reappear in the next generation. Mr. Field
was haunted by the vision of a "gloomy future,"
that would not let him sleep while his country was
going to ruin. He dreamed of ' ' marching armies and
news from the seat of war" — the very mention of which
in the Convention only provoked the representatives of
Virginia and Kentucky to laughter. No wonder that
such light-hearted men had nothing to propose, or even
to consider soberly, when they could not believe that
danger was nigh. The mirthful Virginians who could
not repress their merriment at Mr. Field's suggestion of
a possible conflict, may have recalled it with an altered
feeling when the sound of cannon was heard on the other
side of the Potomac, and the fair fields of Virginia were
"drenched in fraternal blood."
WHY DID THEY FIGHT AT ALL? 161
Alas for the lessons of human experience ! In the
history of nations, as in the lives of individuals, we are
constantly reminded of what "might have been." It
was the greatest crisis in American history. The coun-
tr}^ stood on the brink of civil war. If in that awful
hour the South had listened to the warning of one of its
truest friends, what might have been ! One moment's
pause ! one step backward ! and all might have been
saved ! And saved, not by any unmanly concession ;
by any humiliating surrender ! It would have been
Peace with Honor : with confidence restored and friend-
ship made stronger than ever ! True, when the con-
flict came, the sons of the South fought bravely,
for they had the blood of Revolutionary ancestors in
their veins. But why should they have fought at all ?
After four years of battle and of blood they had gained
nothing and lost everything !
Here for the present we will let the curtain fall. It
will be more pleasant to find, as we shall in a future
chapter, that when the cruel war was over, and was
followed by the Period of Reconstruction, Mr. Field
was the strongest defender of the rights of the Southern
States to be restored to their former place, as parts of
' ' a glorious Union, " that should be henceforth and for-
ever ' ' One and Inseparable ! "
CHAPTER XIII.
THE WAR THAT HAD TO COME.
The war had come ! We had shut our eyes to it —
we could not and would not believe it till the last.
Even the secession of the Southern States was looked
upon at first as merely ' ' sulking ; " the natural fret-
fulness of "wayward sisters," whose pride had been
wounded by their defeat in the election, but who needed
only a little kindly soothing to be reconciled to the inev-
itable. And so the warlike manifesto did not disturb
the equanimity of the North, as it proceeded to the
inauguration of the new President, trusting that when
the thing was done, and could not be undone, the sober
second thought of our Southern brethren would bring
them back into the fold. But in twelve months we
had been making history very fast. Not quite a year
before, on almost the last day of winter, a man of giant
frame from the West had made his first appearance in
New York. And now reappears the same tall figure,
though in another guise, standing erect in a carriage,
as he rides down Broadway, bowing to the tens of
thousands who crowd doors and windows and house-
tops— not to see "great Csesar pass," but to see a man
INAUGURATION OF LINCOLN. 163
of the people, elected by the people, to rule over the
people, of the Great Repubhc ! The joy of the occa-
sion was a little — or not a little — damped a few days
later by the fact that as he came nearer to Washington
the cheers were not so unanimous, and that at the last
moment he had to make his entrance at an unexpected
hour, to escape a plot that had been laid for his assassi-
nation ! But at last he was in the Capital, and had
taken the oath of office, and was President of the
United States.
For a few weeks there was a lull of excitement —
the "silence in heaven" before the thunder-burst —
when from far down the Southern coast a dull boom
"came rolling on the mnd," and instantly the land
rose up at the sound of war. That first shot upon
Sumter made an end forever of "Peace Conferences."
The South had been warned that it "must have either
the arbitrament of reason, or the arbitrament of the
sword." It chose the latter, and had to take the conse-
quences to the bitter end.
A body of soldiers on parade is always a gay specta-
cle, and Broadway was crowded more than ever when
our gallant Seventh Regiment marched down on its
way to the front, soon followed by regiments that came
from under the shadow of Bunker Hill, all moving
towards the Capital, which was for a time cut off from
communication with the North, as if it were in a state
of siege.
164 NORTHERNERS FLEEING FROM THE SOUTH.
The unaccustomed and troubled state of things was
brought home to me by a Kttle personal experience.
One evening a company of gentlemen were gathered
round my brother Dudley's table, among whom was
Vice-President Hamhn, a very important personage
at that moment, when there had been a plot for the
assassination of the President. Wishing to send word
to Washington by a messenger, I was asked to try to
work my way through. I got as far as Perryville,
where I found the Seventh Regiment waiting for the
means of transport. After some hours the ferryboat
from Havre de Grace brought a crowd of refugees,
among whom was Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., then a
student at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in Yir-
ginia, where the political atmosphere had become too
warm for him, and he started North, but found it not
easy to get through Baltimore, as every stranger was
an object of suspicion. Seeing the danger, he put on
a bold face, as if he were a Southerner to the manner
born, and drove to Barnum's Hotel, entered his name
and took a room, by which the watchers were thrown
off the scent, and then sauntered down the street till he
could turn a corner, when he jumped into a cab and
drove to the boat, which was just pushing off from the
wharf. It was a narrow escape, and he warned me
against rvmniug into the same danger, telling me that
I could not possibly get through Baltimore, where I
might be subjected to very rough treatment. Yielding
THE PLAGUE OF OFFICE-SEEKERS. 1G5
to his earnest representations, we came back together
to New York. To what dangers we might have been
exposed we saw a few days after, when the Sixth
Massachusetts Regiment, which was the first to respond
to the call of the President, was stoned and fired upon
in the streets of Baltimore, and had to force its way to
the Capital.
While such clouds were gathering Mr, Field could
hardly restrain his impatience at the pettiness of politics
that was sometimes forced upon him by the impor-
tunity of others. At the outset of a new administra-
tion there are always rivalries among the seekers for
office. Mr. Lincoln knew how his nomination had
been opposed by the supporters of Mr. Seward. But
he was the most forgiving of men, and with his native
generosity he had put Mr. Seward at the head of his
Cabinet, which led some of his followers to push them-
selves to the front with a haste that, to say the least,
was not quite dignified. For this Mr. Field personally
cared nothing ; but he was not willing that his brave
companions in arms, the old Free Sellers, who had
fought the battle against slavery, and formed the most
radical and determined wing of the Repubhcan party,
should come in as the rear-guard to a crowd of office-
seekers. In justice to them he had a long interview
with the President, in the presence of Mr. Seward,
Mr, Chase, Mr. Welles, and Mr, Preston King, in
which the matter was fully explained, and both parties
166 THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN.
were relieved of any further responsibility, Mr. Lincoln
took in the situation at once, and with his usual tact
settled these family differences, so as to unite all in the
one purpose of saving the country — an issue that now
extinguished the thought of anything else. As soon
as the people of the United States found themselves
plunged in a tremendous conflict, all personal interests
gave way to the one thought of the common safety,
and those who had been divided in their political rela-
tions stood side by side in the ranks of war.
Then events came thick and fast. An army recruited
from the North was soon massed in Washington for
its defence, while an opposing army mustered on the
other side of the Potomac, where on the 21st of July,
1861, was fought the battle of Bull Run, which, though
not a great battle as compared with those of a later
time, has a place in history as the first conflict of four
terrible years.
"When it was thus made evident that we were to
have war in earnest, Mr. Field offered his services
to Mr. Lincoln, who, recalling perhaps the saying,
" Old men for counsel and young men for war," might
well think that a man fifty-six years of age could be
more useful to his country in sustaining the spirit of
the people, than at the head of a regiment or a division.
This is no place to enter into a history of the mighty
events that followed. As I look back upon it, it seems
like a horrible dream. Why then should we recall it ?
LOOKING BACK TO THE WAR. 167
It is more than thirty years since the last shot was
fired, and a new generation has come upon the stage, to
which it is all ancient historj\ Why should we revive
such painful memories ? Not to reopen old wounds,
but to heal them. Great historical events are seen
best at a distance, when the passions they aroused are
gone. That time has come. When the leaders of
armies on both sides can meet on their fields of battle
and rear monuments alike to friend and foe, we may
well say that the old bitterness between the North and
the South is past, and that we can now look upon the
great struggle in the calm light of history.
But at the time there was no "calm light of history."
Events were all in the future. Was there a hope of
success sufficient to justify a conflict so awful ? Some
of our best friends abroad thought not. John Bright
saw from the first that it was a death-struggle between
Freedom and Slavery, and stood firm for the North,
But Mr. Gladstone was so shocked by the horrors of
the war that he looked upon it as one of the most awful
tragedies in history. That a nation like ours — of one
race and blood, all speaking the same language, and
having the same religion — should go to war among
ourselves, and engage in the work of mutual destruc-
tion, seemed too horrible for belief, and he would fain
shut his eyes from the sight ! Near the close of the
second year of the war he wrote a letter to the late
Mr. Cyrus W. Field, which is one long and passionate
168 LETTEK OF MR. GLADSTONE.
outcry, that shows his utter despair. The historical
vahie of such a letter from such a source will justify
its quotation here :
11 Carlton House Terrace, November 27, 1863.
Mjj dear Sir: I thank you very much for giving me the
"Thirteen Months." * Will you think that 1 belie the expression
I have used if I tell you candidly the effect this book has pro-
duced upon my mind ? I think you will not ; I do not believe
that you or your countrymen are among those who desire that
any one should ixxrchase your favor by speaking what is false,
or by forbearing to speak what is true. The book, then,
impresses me even more deeply than I was before impressed,
with the heavy responsibility you incur in persevering with this
destructive and hopeless war at the cost of such dangers and
evils to yourselves, to say nothing of your adversaries, or of an
amount of misery inflicted upon Europe such as no other civil
war in the history of man has ever brought upon those beyond
its immediate range. Your frightful conflict may be regarded
from many points of view. The competency of the Southern
States to secede ; the rightfulness of their conduct in seceding,
(two matters wholly distinct and a great deal too much con-
founded) ; the natural reluctance of Northern Americans to
acquiesce in the severance of the Union, and the apparent loss
of strength and glory to their country ; the bearing of the sep-
aration on the real interests and on the moral character of the
North ; again, for an Englishman, its bearing with respect to
British interests — all these are texts of which any one affords
ample matter for reflection. Bvit I will only state, as regards
* "Thirteen Months in the Rebel Army. By an impressed
New Yorker." The letter is taken from the Life of Mr. Field by
his daugliter. published by the Harpers.
THE IMPOSSIBILITY OF SUCCESS. 1G9
the last of them, that I, for one, have never hesitated to main-
tain that, in my opinion, the separate and special interests of
England were all on the side of the maintenance of the old
Union ; and if I were to look at those interests alone, and had
the power of choosing in what way the war should end, I would
choose for by the restoration of the old Union this very day.
But there is an aspect of the war which transcends every
other : the possibility of success. The prospect of success will
not justify a war in itself unjust, but the impossibility of suc-
cess in a war of conquest of itself suffices to make it unjust ;
when that impossibility is reasonably proved, all the horror, all
the bloodshed, all the evil j)assions. all the dangers to liberty
and order with which such a war abounds, come to lie at the
door of the party which refuses to hold its hand and let its
neighbor be.
You know that in the opinion of Europe this impossibility
has been proved. It is proved by every page of this book,
and every copy of this book which circulates will carry the proof
wider and stamp it more clearly. Depend upon it, to place the
matter upon a single issue, you cannot conquer and keep down
a country where the women behave like the women of New
Orleans, where, as this author says, they would be ready to form
regiments, if such regiments could be of use. And how idle it
is to talk, as some of your people do, and some of ours, of the
slackness with which the war has been carried on, and of its
accounting for the want of success I You have no cause to be
ashamed of your military character and efforts. You have
proved what wanted no proof — your spirit, hardihood, immense
powers, and rapidity and variety of resources. You have spent
as much money, and have armed and perhaps have destroyed as
many men, taking the two sides together, as all Europe spent
in the first years of the Revolutionary war. Is not this enough ?
170 YOU HAVE DONE ALL THAT MEN COULD DO.
Why have you not more faith in the future of a nation which
should lead for ages to come the American continent ; which in
five or ten years will make up its apparent loss or first loss of
strength and numbers ; and which, with a career unencumbered
by the terrible calamity and curse of slavery, will even from the
first be liberated from a position morally and incurably false ;
and will from the first enjoy a permanent gain in credit and
character such as will much more than compensate for its tem-
porary material losses ? I am, in short, a follower of General
Scott. With him I say, "Wayward sisters, go in peace."
Immortal fame be to him for his wise and courageous advice,
amounting to a prophecy.
Finally, you have done what men could do ; you have failed
because you resolved to do what men could not do. Laws
stronger than human will are on the side of earnest self-defence ;
and the aim at the impossible, which in other things may be
folly only, when the path of search is dark with misery and red
with blood, is not folly only, but guilt to boot. I should not
have used so largely in this letter the privileges of free utterance
had I not been conscious that I vie with yourselves in my admir-
ation of the founders of your republic, and I have no lurking
sentiment either of hostility or of indifference to America ; nor,
I may add, even then had I not believed that you are lovers of
sincerity, and that you can bear even the rudenesss of its tongue.
I remain, dear sir. very faithfully yours,
W. E. Gladstone.
Cyrus Field, Esq.
This was a terrible indictment of our country, the
more so as the words were those of a friend. But one
assumption, which the writer took for granted — that
it was impossible to subdue the Rebellion — has been
WHERE WOULD HE DRAW THE LINE ? 171
answered by the event. Our country, with the help of
God, did achieve the impossible !
But the moral question still remains, Was it a just
war, or a wicked war ? the answer to which we rest
on two points : that the conflict was, sooner or later,
inevitable, (as we have shown by the estrangement
between the North and the South, that grew year by
year, till it culminated in the secession of eight States ; )
and that, at the same time, a separation into two
countr'ies was impossible.
If Mr. Gladstone would divide the United States into
two nations, where would he draw the line ? There is
no natural boundary between us — no dividing seas, nor
chain of mountains. Switzerland is throned upon the
Alps, whose snow-clad heights are a barrier against
invasion from her more powerful neighbors. India is
protected by the Himalayas from the descent of any
modern Alexander the Great. But we have no such
ramparts to defend us one from the other. Nor are the
North and the South divided by great rivers, as Canada
is separated from us by the St. Lawrence and the Lakes.
We have indeed one mighty river that drains the Con-
tinent ; that is to North America what the Amazon is
to South America ; but it does not, like the Amazon,
run Eastward to empty into the Atlantic, but South-
ward to empty into the Gulf of Mexico. Wherefore
the line of division that is drawn between our two
Republics must be purely an artificial one. Nor could
172 NO NATUEAL BOUNDARY BETWEEN US.
it be even a straight line, on one parallel of latitude,
but, following the borders of the States, it would zigzag
across the Continent. These irregular boundaries would
not matter so long as the States were all one Country,
for this very interlocking of territory would not be
driving so many wedges into one another's sides, to split
them apart, but so many bolts of iron to hold them
together.
But the situation would be changed utterly if the
great expanse of territory were divided into two coun-
tries, peopled by two powerful nations. The closer the
contact the worse for both when there was one ever-
present source of irritation, since on one side would
be a Republic built on Freedom ; and on the other a
Republic (?) built on Slavery ! The States of Ken-
tucky and Ohio are divided only by the Ohio River.
What power on earth could keep the slaves on one
side from steahng across the water in dark nights to
the land of liberty ? There would be no Fugitive Slave
Law to bring them back. The movement Northward
would be as constant as if it were led by the Polar Star.
With such provocation, how long would the fiery Ken-
tuckians restrain their anger ? The only protection for
the South would be a standing army, a demonstration
on one side that would provoke the same on the other,
till the zigzag line across the continent would be like
chain lightning, flasliing incessantly, and keeping two
great nations forever on the verge of war ! Seeing all
TWO NATIONS WOULD MEAN PERPETUAL WAR. 173
this, the men of the North, who were not "fire-eaters,"
and had no love of war for its own sake, said, Since
the issue is inevitable, we may as well meet it in our
day as leave it to our children. If the war must come,
let it come now ! Better — a thousand times better — to
have a war of four years, than a war, like that of the
Spaniard and the Moor, to be handed down from gen-
eration to generation !
Of all public men in the country, no one saw more
clearly the inevitable issue than Mr. Lincoln. Long
before he was President he said to himself and to
others : "A house divided against itself cannot stand.
I believe this government cannot endure permanently
half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union
to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall —
but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It wiU
become all one tiling, or all the other. Either the oppo-
nents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and
place it where the public inind shall rest in the belief
that it is in the course of ultimate extinction ; or its
advocates will push it forward till it shall become alike
lawful in all the States — old as well as new, North as
well as South."
What Mr. Lincoln saw from his point of view in
the West, Mr. Field had seen even at an earlier date
in the East. For years he had been fighting against
the slave power, which was steadily advancing to the
complete control of the government. At last the
174 MR. CHASE AND MR. STANTON.
issue had come, to be settled, not by political conven-
tions, but on the field of battle ; and if he could not
march with the regiments, he could at least support
them by keeping up the patriotic spirit at home. "^Again
and again he went on to Washington, where he had
frequent interviews with Mr. Lincoln and the mem-
bers of his Cabinet, of whom he was most attracted to
Mr. Chase and Mr. Stanton, as they were old Demo-
crats, and as on them fell the chief burdens of the war. *
They in turn found support in his unconquerable spirit,
* Several years after — when the war was over — in an argu-
ment before the Supreme Court of the United States on
"Military Tribunals for Civilians," Mr. Field thus referred to
Mr. Stanton : "It has been my fortune to be with him in some
of the darkest hours of the tempest, and I can bear personal
witness to his indomitable energy ; to the erect front which he
maintained against all disaster ; to his industry, which knew
no weariness ; and to his absolute devotion to the public service.
Next to the President himself, and to the illustrious man who
organized that gigantic system of finance which carried us
through without a shock to the public service, to the amaze-
ment of the Old World and the admiration of the New ; next,
I say, to the President and his Minister of Finance, the country
owes more to him than to any other civilian. His services may
be for the time lost in the blaze of military glory. His labori-
ous days, and the plain building where he passed them, are now
eclipsed by the clouds that rolled from the fields of Vicksburg
and Shiloh, from Gettysburg and Antietam, from Atlanta and
Petersburg, but when history writes the record of this war, we
shall find there, in light, the name of Edwin M. Stanton."
INTERVIEWS WITH MR. LINCOLN. 175
that never gave up even in the darkest hour. After
the great defeat of the Second Bull Run, Mr. Stanton
telegraphed to him to come to Washington. He went
on the same night, and going to his house early the
next morning, he found the great War Secretary at
breakfast, as calm as a man could be at that terrible
moment, when despatches were pouring in with one
continued tale of disaster ; that our army was fall-
ing back, as if it might be compelled to seek for
safety behind the defences of Wasliington ! Together
they went over to the War Department, where they
found the President, with Mr. Chase and General
Halleck. It was no time to exchange compliments,
and Mr. Field felt that he must speak plainly as to
the anxiety that pervaded the North at the result
of the campaign, in which McClellan, after leading
a mighty host almost to the gates of Richmond, had
been driven from the Peninsula, and Pope had been
defeated in the very sight of the Capitol. At this free-
dom of speech Mr. Lincoln took no offence, but turn-
ing to Mr. Chase, said, "Mr. Field has a right to
express himself freely : let us explain the situation to
him," and sitting down before a large map that hung
upon the wall, he gave a general outline of the plan of
the campaign, which showed how perfectly he under-
stood it, and how competent he was to give, not only
suggestions, but, if need be, commands, as to the con-
duct of the war.
176 HIGH ESTIMATE OF HIS ABILITY.
The same lesson lie had at another tune when he
was invited to accompany the President, with Mr. Chase,
Mr. Stanton, and Admiral Dahlgren, in a government
steamer down the Potomac to Acquia Creek, where
General McDowell was then in command, who was
sent for to come off to the steamer, and came with one
or two of his aides, all bespattered with mud, from
riding over the horrible roads. But neither Mr. Lin-
coln, nor anybody else, cared for the outward appear-
ance of these rough riders, but only for what they
knew and could report. To hear this all gathered round
the cabin table, where was spread out a map of the
country, on which they studied the whole field of the
contending armies as if in a council of war.
These interviews and conversations raised Mr. Field's
estimate of Mr. Lincoln's ability, as he saw under that
plain exterior a man, not only devoted to his country,
but of such quickness of observation and excellent judg-
ment, even in a subject so foreign to him as that of
war, that he had a better idea of the way to conduct
a campaign than many an officer, with his glittering
sword and epaulets. This combination of intelligence
with frankness won, not only the heart of Mr. Field,
but his fullest confidence, as he saw that the govern-
ment was not, like a great ship of war in a tempest,
drifting to destruction for want of a capable com-
mander. However threatening the storm might be,
there was a master on the deck, of cool head and brave
IMPARTING COURAGE TO OTHERS. 177
heart, whom it was the duty of all on board to support
till the storm blew itself out, and the ship, though with
broken masts and torn sails, floated into the haven
where she would be.
Thus strengthened in heart and hope, Mr. Field
came back to impart to others the same confidence, of
which at times there was a pressing need. There was
no want of courage in the soldiers. The army was
always ready to do its part. Nor were the most trying
moments those of battle, for then all were strung up
to the highest pitch of daring. But for the country at
large, for those far away among the Northern hills,
the great trial was the long suspense, the slow move-
ment of armies, the horrors of the battle-field, from
which thousands were borne to the hospitals, where
were mingled the dying and the dead. All this made
the hearts sick of those whose sons and brothers were
in the field, to a degree that at times almost paralyzed
the nation. Then the great demand of the country was
not so much for more soldiers at the front, as for more
supporters in the rear, a mighty reserve of invincibles,
who never despaired of the Republic.
And now, standing off at the distance of thirty years
— the lifetime of a generation — we may venture on one
or two general reflections upon the Civil War. Leav-
ing aside the purely moral considerations, it may not be
going beyond the mark to say that, next to the Revolu-
tion, it was not only the most stupendous, but the most
178 THE WAR INDISPENSABLE TO THE UNION.
beneficent event in American history. War is not always
a curse : it may be the necessary means of the greatest
good. Our country has passed through three wars,
each one of which has had a part in the making of the
nation. It was by an eight-years' war that the Colo-
nies gained their independence ; the War of 1812 raised
the United States, if not to a position among the great
military powers of the world, yet to one that promised
to make it next to Great Britain on the sea ; while this
last array of a nation in arms forced upon the world
the question : If the States were so terrible when
divided and warring against each other, what would
they be when united ?
We may even go a step farther, and say that the
war for Disunion was indispensable to the Union itself,
since it eliminated the only cause of separation between
the North and the South, to the happy issue that they
should be One Country thenceforth and forever !
At the same time it inspired both with a mutual
respect, which is the first step to any closer relations.
In this primary discipline war is the greatest of all teach-
ers. Nothing subdues the loftiness of an opponent Hke
an unexpected show of power. Up to this time the peo-
ple of the two great Divisions did not know each other.
Separated, not only by distance, but by different social
systems, they grew up with a traditional dislike and
aversion. The Southern planters formed an aristo-
cratic class, made up of landed proprietors, who, living
INTRODUCED ON THE FIELD OF BATTLE. 179
by the labor of others, were apt to despise those who
worked with their own hands. They looked upon the
people of the North as a race of canting hypocrites, who
worshipped the almighty dollar, and who were so lack-
ing in manly spirit that they could be treated with a want
of respect bordering on rudeness, and yet not be pro-
voked into resistance ! From this impression they had
a rude awakening, like that of the French when they
rushed into war with the slow, plodding Germans, but
soon found themselves engaged in what, to use a mod-
ern phrase, might be called "a campaign of education."
The North and the South were never really acquainted,
till they were introduced to one another on the field
of battle. From that time they came to regard one
another with profound respect, for both sides dis-
played the qualities that compel honor and admiration.
"Braver men never to battle rode." And the bravery
seems to have been equally divided. If our imagina-
tion be taken by what the German poet pictures to the
eye as "the battle's splendor," we have it here, for
never in the history of war was greater courage shown
on both sides, if it be measured by the number of the
wounded and the dead. In the Franco-Prussian War
the greatest carnage was in the cavalry charges
at Mars-le-Tour, when nearly one-half fell killed or
wounded, a proportion that was surpassed in many of
the regiments on both sides at Chickamauga. The
battle of Waterloo began at noon, and continued to the
180 THE GLORY OF REUNION.
going down of the sun : that of Gettysburg was fought
on and on for three days, and ended at last by the
repulse of a charge that was more desperate than that
of the Old Guard.
And is all this glory of the battle-field to be put away
and forgotten ? On the contrary, we cherish the memory
of it as that of which we are justly proud. Our coun-
try has passed through the greatest civil war in history
— a war that raged over half a continent — and it still
lives, and is stronger than ever. And what is more,
we of the North are proud of those who fought against
us, of their courage and endurance, in the strength of
which we both share, as we are no more twain, but one.
If there was nothing so terrible as Disunion, there
has been nothing more glorious than Reunion. For-
eigners do not know what to make of it, when they see
Northern and Southern Generals meeting at Gettysburg
and Chickamauga, raising monuments to those who
fought and fell on both sides. But these heroic memo-
ries are the proud possession of us all. Nothing in our
country reflects more honor upon the generosity of the
American people than the vast cemeteries. North and
South, in which are gathered the forms of those fallen
in battle, with this inscription :
" On Fame's eternal camping ground
Their silent tents are spread,
While glory guards with ceaseless round
The bivouac of the dead."
ASSASSINATION OF LINCOLN. 181
But this is anticipating the times of reconcihation,
while in the order of our chronicle we are but at the
close of the war, which, if it had its burst of sunshine,
had also its dark cloud that covered the whole heaven.
In the midst of our rejoicing at the return of peace,
came the assassination of our beloved President, and
for the time all our pride was turned into mourning for
him who had carried us through the great ordeal of our
national existence. Overwhelmed at the country's loss,
Mr. Field went to Washington to attend the funeral, and
rode from the Capitol in the carriage with Mr. Stan-
ton, who told him of the President's dream on the night
before the fatal event. As the members of the Cabinet
were coming in, Mr. Lincoln said that he had a pre-
sentiment that something was going to happen, for he
had had a dream like one that he had before the battle
of Chickamauga. He was standing by a river where
the current was swift, rushing by like a torrent, which
seemed to prefigure a course of events that could not
be checked or controlled. What could be more signifi-
cant of an event that was coming very near, that was
to sweep him away from all part in human affairs ?
That very night the flood came and bore this emanci-
pator of a race out of human sight, leaving behind him
as his only memorial a country saved and an immortal
name.
CHAPTER XIV.
RE-ESTABLISHMENT OF THE REIGN OF LAW.
The war was over ; but it left wreck and ruin
behind. North and South had both suffered immeas-
urably ; but the North the less, as its population was
double, and its resources were ten times greater, while
the South was left almost a desert. Towns and cities
had been bombarded, and the cotton fields, for the
product of which the looms of England and the Conti-
nent were standing still, presented a scene of blackened
desolation.
But even this was less appalling than the sacrifice in
tens of thousands of Southern homes, from which some-
times father and sons had gone out together, of all whom
but one or two returned. The angel of death had been
abroad in the land, till it might almost be said, as in
the plague of the first-born in Egypt, that there was
not an house in which there was not one dead !
The North too had the joy of victory dampened by
what was harder to bear than the loss of a battle. Our
country never witnessed a military pageant so imposing
as the return of the army through Washington, where
A LEGACY OF THE WAR. 183
from morning to night was heard the tramp, tramp of
the legions that had been through the fire, carrying
proudly the flags that had been torn by shot and shell.
But in all the triumph of that day there was one bitter
sorrow : that their beloved President was not there to
answer to the roll of the drums and the waving of
banners.
The assassination of Lincoln was a national calam-
ity. Great as was the blow to the North, it was still
greater to the South, which lost in him its best friend.
But for that, the sufferings of both, instead of being a
source of mutual irritation, might have brought them
into a sympathy of sorrow, that would in time have
softened into a feeling of tenderness even among those
who had fought against one another. But that fearful
tragedy tore open the old wounds, so that it was years
before they could be healed.
One of the legacies of the war was martial law,
which is the law of barbarism, that must be endured
so long as the savagery of war continues, but winch
quickly demoralizes those who have been accustomed to
the gentler ways of peace. To soldiers in command it
very soon becomes the natural course of justice, with
the advantage that judgment is quick, and may be fol-
lowed by speedy execution. It certainly affords great
facihties in judicial proceedings. There is none of the
"law's delay," which is so tedious to a man of high
spirit, who is invested, not with ' ' a Httle, brief author-
184 MARTIAL LAW STILL ENFORCED.
ity, " for if it be " brief, " it is not ' ' little, " as it involves
the power of life and death. A captain, put at the
head of a command in the backwoods, in his small
dominion is as absolute as the Czar of Russia. Let
him but fix his "glittering eye" on some backwoods-
man who does not do him reverence, and he has but
to send a troop of horse, and take the man out of his
cabin, and bring him before a ' ' drum-head court
martial," and he can be tried, sentenced, and shot
and buried in an hour I He need not fear the conse-
quences, for dead men tell no tales, and can make
no appeals. But with all its facilities, this ' 'happy des-
patch" may have unexpected issues. In his haste to
do justice he may shoot the wrong man ! Such
accidents will happen now and then to a soldier who
"does not stand on ceremony," and, under the form of
military law, he may be guilty of a cold-blooded assas-
sination !
This was one of the abuses of power on both sides
that are almost inevitable in a civil war. But I speak
here only of our own sins, not of the sins of others. In
the Northern States, and especially in the Border States,
there was many a man who was suspected of want of
loyalty to the government, of sympathizing with the
enemy ; and who for such suspicion was branded as a
"copperhead" — which meant a rebel in disguise, and
very thin disguise at that — and was liable to be arrested
and tried before a court martial, and executed, before
A SENTENCE TO DEATH. 185
there was an opportunity to appeal to a court that could
stay the hand of the executioner. How near one might
come to the scaffold, even though he escaped it, appears
in a case which is the more notable as it occurred
near the end of the war, after the capture of Atlanta,
and when Sherman was preparing for his March to
the Sea.
In October, 18G4, a man in Indiana was arrested at
his home, and thrown into prison at Indianapolis, and
two w^eeks after was brought to trial by a "military
commission" upon "charges of conspiracy against the
authority of the United States, inciting insurrection,
disloyal practices, and violation of the laws of war ! "
This was a vague, general charge, that would seem to
be barred by the fact that, even if it were true, a mili-
tary commission had no business to try it, since Indiana
was not the theatre of war, and no more under martial
law than Massachusetts. If a man had been disloj-^al
to his government, the courts were open, and he was
entitled to be tried, not by soldiers, who were not the
best men to weigh evidence, but by a judge and jury.
There was clearly a "want of jurisdiction." But tliis
objection was overruled — the man was brought before a
court martial and convicted, and sentenced to be hanged !
The sentence was approved by the President, and he was
to be executed on the 19th of May, 18G5 — more than a
month after the surrender of Lee — a grim tragedy to be
enacted at the close of the war, in the first joy of peace,
186 BROUGHT BEFORE THE SUPREME COURT.
to send to the gallows a man who had never taken
up arms against his country ! But his time was get-
ting short. It was but little more than a week to the
day appointed for his execution, that a petition was filed
in the Circuit Court of the United States for Indiana,
showing that a grand jury of that Court had convened
after his arrest, but that no indictment had been found
against him ; and that he had at no time been in the
military, naval, or militia service ; nor within any State
engaged in rebellion against the United States at any
time during the war. The petition demanded that he
be delivered to the proper civil tribunal to be tried, or
discharged from custody.
The defence was that Congress had authorized the
President to suspend the writ of habeas corpus during
the rebellion ! Yes : but that authority was not unlim-
ited either as to time or place : it was not to be con-
tinued after the war was over, nor was it to be exer-
cised in every part of the United States. Indeed the
act expressly excepted ' ' States in which the adminis-
tration of law had not been disturbed, wdiere any who
were arrested as prisoners should be brought before the
Judges of the United States Circuit and District Courts,
and if the grand jury did not bring in an indictment
against them, they were to be discharged ! "
Here then was the question — whether martial law
could be assumed and enforced in a State that had not
been touched by war ; and a private citizen could be
PART OP MR. FIELD IX THE CASE. 187
seized by military order ; tried by a court martial, and
sent to the scaffold !
The case was one that appealed very strongly to
Mr. Field, and he entered into it, not as a matter of
professional business, but from a sense of justice.
While the war lasted, no one was more earnest that it
should be carried through to the end. But when the
war was over, it was time that the Temple of Janus
was shut ; and that the people should return to the
ways of peace. True, some ardent partisans thought
the advocate was deserting his principles ; "going back "
on his party. But he knew no party in the Courts of
Law. If that was treachery to his party, he had at
least good company, for there stood by his side, not
only that sturdy old Democrat, Judge Black, of Penn-
sylvania, but a distinguished Republican who had
fought in the war, and was afterwards President of
the United States, General Garfield. But the burden
of the argument fell on Mr. Field, who rose to the
height of the occasion, in exposing the injustice of car-
rying martial law into a State where there had been no
Avar. The court listened in fixed attention to the very
last word, as he closed in a tone of the deepest solemnity :
' ' Thus, may it please the Court, have I performed
the part assigned me in the argument of this case.
The materials were abundant. I only fear that I may
have wearied you with the recital or erred in the selec-
tion. I could not look into the pages of English law ;
188 THE CLOSE OF HIS ARGUMENT.
I could not turn over the leaves of English literature ;
I could not listen to the orators and statesmen of Eng-
land ; without remarking the uniform protest against
martial usurpation, and the assertion of the undoubted
right of every man, high or low, to be judged accord-
ing to the known and general law, by a jury of his
peers, before the judges of the land. And when I
turned to the history, legal, political, and literary, of
my own country — my own undivided and forever indi-
visible country — I found the language of freedom inten-
sified. Our fathers brought with them the liberties of
Englislimen, Throughout the colonial history we find
the colonists clinging, with immovable tenacity, to trial
by jury. Magna Charta, the principle of representation,
and the Petition of Right. They had won them in
the fatherland in many a high debate and on many a
bloody field ; and they defended them here against the
mercenaries of the crown of England. We, their chil-
dren, thought we had superadded to the liberties of
Englishmen the greater and better guarded liberties of
Americans.
' ' These great questions, than which greater never
yet came before this most august of human tribunals,
are now to receive their authoritative and last solution.
Your judgment will live when all of us are dead. The
robes which you wear will be worn by others, who will
occupy your seats in long succession, through, I trust,
innumerable ages ; but it will never fall to the lot of
PUBLIC OPINION THEN AND NOW. 189
any to pronounce a judgment of greater consequence
than this. It mil stand when the statue which with
returning peace we have raised above the dome of the
Capitol shall have fallen from its pedestal, its sword
broken and its shield scattered in pieces ; nay, when
the dome itself, which, though uplifted into the air,
seems immovable as the mountains, shall have crum-
bled ; it will stand as long as that most imperishable
thing of all, our mother-tongue, shall be spoken or read
among men.
"That judgment, I hope and I believe, will estab-
hsh the liberty of the citizen on foundations never more
to be shaken, and ■s\all cause the future historian of our
greatest struggle to write that, great as were the vic-
tories of our war, they were equalled in renown by the
victories of our peace. "
This was the language, not only of conviction, but
of a courage which cannot be fully appreciated at this
distance of time. Xoio the case seems so plain that we
wonder that any judge on the bench could hesitate a
moment as to his decision. But thirty years ago the
people of the North were thinking of their dead Ijang
on a hundred Southern battle fields. To say a word
for those who fought against us, seemed to be false to
our country. This feeling was in the air, and could
not but invade the bar and the bench. Though
it seems now that there could be but one side, then
there were two ; and the other side was argued by a
190 THE END OF MARTIAL LAW.
lawyer of the very highest rank, Mr. Stansbery of Cin-
cinnati, then Attorney- General, supported by the ability
(which no one could dispute), as well as the bull-dog
pugnacity, of General Butler. That their arguments
had weight was proved by the fact that the court was
divided ; of the nine judges four voted to sustain the
decision of the court martial, which would have sent
the prisoner to an ignominious execution.* It was a
narrow escape, but one of immense significance. When
the prison doors were opened for a man who had been
standing for weeks and months in the shadow of the
scaffold, it was a signal to the nation that martial law
was ended ; that the reign of terror was over ; and that
the reign of peace and justice was begun !
So far, so good ! But that was not the last echo of
the Civil War. If disaffection to the government was
* The opinion in the case was written by Mr. Justice Davis
of Illinois, of whom Mr. Lincoln was wont to speak as "the best
friend he had in the world." No man knew better the natural
sympathy, even to tenderness, of the late President, and how,
if he had lived, instead of taking the airs of a conqueror, who
would triumpli over the vanquished, he would have been the
first to pour oil into their wounds ; to soothe their pride ; and
to turn away their thoughts from the sad legacies of war to the
brighter hopes of peace. In reading the opinion of tlie Justice,
one cannot help thinking that, both in its preparation and deUv-
ery, he must have been conscious that he gave expression, not
only to his own sense of justice, but to what would have been
the first prompting of a great heart that had ceased to beat.
THE TEST OATH CASES. 191
not a capital crime, it could be punished in other ways.
If the law could not take a man's life, it could deprive
him of the means of subsistence by imposing conditions
that would shut him out from the practice of liis pro- / ^■^'^^
fession. This was effected by the cunning de^dce of a
"Test Oath," a form of torture worthy of the Inquisi-
tion, as it was expressed in the new Constitution that
was framed for the State of Missouri, in which a man
who would hold an office, or be a lawyer or a minister
of the Gospel, must swear that he had never had any
part in the Rebellion, or sympathy icith it, >\dthout
wliich oath he could not ' ' hold any office of honor, trust,
or profit, or be permitted to practice as an attorney, or
counsellor at law ; nor be competent as a bishop, priest,
deacon, minister, elder, or other clergj-man of an}-
religious persuasion, sect, or denomination ! " The
penalty for neglect to take this oath was, not only
immediate stopping of the practice of his profession,
but a fine of five hundred dollars, and imprisonment
from six months to two years !
The pro\'ision of the Constitution which lays down
these requirements is very long and minute, pointing
out the offence %vith such manifold specifications as to
show that it was a net carefully woven to catch the
smallest offender. Or, to take another illustration, it
was Hke the scj-the of Father Time,
" Which cuts down all,
Both great and small."
192 OPINION OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON.
Monstrous as all this was, it could not be said that
it was a new thing under the sun. The passion for
vengeance after war is as old as history. Rome made
her captives pass under the yoke. Nor was it the first
time that it had appeared in American history. At
the beginning of the Revolution there were in the colo-
nies many who still longed for peace, and who could
not see that there was any sufficient reason for rushing
into wa,r with the mother country because of some petty
impost such as a tax on tea ! But they were branded
as Tories, Some moved across the border into Canada ;
others emigrated to Nova Scotia. Those who remained
kept very quiet. But no sooner was the war over
than they were required, as the condition of citizen-
ship, to swear, not only to be loyal to the government,
but that they had always been so ! Tliis was putting
a premium upon falsehood and perjury, against which
Alexander Hamilton protested, as a direct violation of
our Treaty with Great Britain, as well as of the Con-
stitution of the United States, so that Mr. Field, in
his argument against Test Oaths, was not fighting a
new battle, but only against the same injustice that
roused the indignation of Alexander Hamilton nearly
a hundred years ago.
But he had no occasion to refer to a treaty with
England : it was enough to appeal to our own Con-
stitution, as against that of the State of Missouri,
which contained such sweeping disqualifications that
THE "crime" of a CATHOLIC PRIEST. 193
it must be itself put to the test to see whether it did
not violate a higher law. To this end it was first
brought before the Supreme Court of the State of
Missouri, which upheld it, from which it was appealed
to the Supreme Court of the United States, where we
are now to follow it. As if to show in full relief the
' ' tall heads " that it was to strike down, the test case
was that of a priest of the Roman CathoHc Church,
who had been convicted by the State courts of Missouri
of the "crime" of teaching and preaching without
having taken the oath prescribed by the Constitution !
Here again Mr. Field appeared before the Court, and
in the very opening of his argument, thus analyzed
the new form of Inquisitorial justice :
' ' Dividing this oath into all its separable parts, it
will be found to contain eighty-six distinct affirmations
or tests ! It is both prospective and retrospective ; that
is to say, it speaks from the time when it is actually
taken by each person, and relates to all that has gone
before ; so that, if taken by Mr. Cummings (the priest *)
now, it will embrace aU his past life, and, if taken five
years hence, it will embrace not only all his life that is
now passed, but the five years from this time forward.
"Altogether, it is a novelty in this country, and I
* There was also the case of a lawyer the issue of which
would depend upon the decision in this, which explains the
allusion on the next page to more than one client.
194 THE STATE AGAINST THE NATION.
believe it is a novelty in the world. I have searched in
vain for anything in history so sweeping and severe.
"The State of Missouri steps between the Christian
flock and its pastor. He cannot ascend the pulpit and
preach to a devout congregation the resurrection of the
dead and the life of the world to come ; he cannot teach
the forgiveness of sins at the bedside of a dying peni-
tent ; he cannot bless the bride at the altar ; without
calling God to witness that he is superior to all these
tests.
' ' The Supreme Court of Missouri, the highest tribu-
nal known to the laws of that great Commonwealth,
has affirmed the judgment of the Circuit Court, and
thereby declared that there is nothing in the political
system of that state to forbid the imposition of such a
test. It is for you. Supreme Judges of all the land, to
declare whether there is anything in the political system
of the nation to forbid it."
The legal argument which follows, though not so
long as that in the preceding case, which made an end
of martial law, had the same cumulative force, as one
proof was piled upon another, till the advocate dis-
missed the question in these words :
' ' Here I leave the cases of my clients — cases impor-
tant not to them only, but to the whole people of Mis-
souri. That State was born in conflict. The dispute
about her admission into the Union seemed likely to
di\nde the Union. Slavery, which she then warmed in
1 y
THE END OF TEST OATHS. 195
her bosom, stung her, viper that it was. The poison
entered her vitals, and she has been purified from it
only by blood and fire. An avenging Nemesis decreed
that her deliverance should be effected through suffer-
ing proportionate to her error.
"She is now free. This oath, so vindictive and
repulsive, is her last deformity. Let her be rid of that,
and she will stand erect as well as free.
' ' My clients, defeated at their own firesides, seek
protection here. They know that to this chamber they
can come for shelter, as fugitives of old sought refuge
beside the altar. You stand the ultimate arbiters of
constitutional rights ; immovable, however tumultuous
passions may surge and beat around you, the one stable
and permanent element in the government of the coun-
try. Presidents appear and disappear like shadows.
Senators and Representatives enter the doors of their
chambers, and go out again, no one knows whither.
You remain the ornament and defence of the Constitu-
tion— decus et tutamen.'"
The decision of the Court soon sent the Test Oaths
in the way of Martial Law, and it was a special pleas-
ure to Mr. Field that the opinion was delivered by
his brother, who had been appointed to the Bench by
President Lincoln in circumstances somewhat peculiar. *
- * After the war with Mexico the discovery of gold liad
caused such an emigration to the Pacific Coast that California
soon had a population that justified its admission as a State.
196 THE OPINION BY MR. JUSTICE FIELD.
These two decisions of the Supreme Court of the
United States settled two great questions, and settled
them forever. There was no more danger to life or
hberty by martial law, or that a man should be deprived
of the right to practise his profession, because he could
not, or would not, swear that he had taken no part in
the Rebellion, or had any sympathy with it. The law-
But the settlement of titles to land was made very difficult by
the fact that large tracts were overlaid by Spanish grants and
Mexican grants, and later by the "squatter sovereignty" that
seized whatever was unoccupied. This conflict of claims made
endless perplexity. Whichever way a case was decided, it was
sure to be appealed, till it drifted on to the Supreme Court of the
United States, where the Judges themselves were confused by the
contradictory opinions. To get some light on these vexed ques-
tions, a law was passed by Congress creating another seat on the
Supreme Court, to be filled by a Judge from the Pacific Coast,
whereupon the Senators and Representatives from California
and Oregon went in a body to President Lincoln, to ask for the
appointment of Mr. Stephen J. Field, then Chief Justice of Cali-
fornia, whose name they presented, not as their first choice,
but as their only choice. While the nomination was pending,
Mr. John A. C. Gray, a well known citizen of New York, and
an old friend of Mr. Lincoln, went to speak to him about it.
He found the President agreed entirely in the fitness of Judge
Field, and had but one question to ask : "Does David want his
brother to have it ? " "Yes," said Mr. Gray. "Then he shall
have it," was the instant reply, and the nomination was sent
in that afternoon, and confirmed by the Senate unanimously.
This was the Justice to whom it fell four years later to write
the opinion in the Test Oath cases. '^
SLAVERY ABOLISHED FOREVER. 197
yer was free to practise in the courts, and the priest to
appear in the pulpit or the confessional, or kneel at the
bedside of the dying. So far every man in the South
had recovered his freedom, and had all the rights of
a citizen of the United States.f But where were the
States themselves that had taken part in the Rebellion ?
Were they once more equal members of the Union, or
were they conquered provinces to be held in a state of
vassalage to await the pleasure of the conqueror ? If
they were restored at once without conditions, and with
their old institutions — slavery and all — they would be
left just where they were before, and would need but a
few years to recover their strength, when the battle
might be renewed. The old State governments, that
had been fighting the Union for four years, could not
be left in possession. But when they were deposed,
who or what should take their place ? There must be
some sort of government, or the whole South would
relapse into anarchy. The natural suggestion was that
a commander who was at the head of a Department
should take possession of the State Capital, as a nucleus
round which the loyal elements might gather until the
time of full reconstruction should come. Meanwhile the
first necessity was to get rid of Slavery. Mr. Lincoln
had issued his Proclamation as a war measure, but it
was all-important that it should be confirmed by an
amendment imbedded in the Constitution of the United
States, which was accomplished in the Constitutional
198 REIGN OF THE CARPET-BAGGERS.
way, by being proposed by a vote of Congress, and
confirmed by the votes of three-fourths of the States.
When this was done so that it could not be undone
— that the spectre of Slavery and Disunion would never
come back to plague us — it would seem as if the Pro-
visional Governments in the South had accomplished
their mission, and might be allowed to depart, to return
no more. But what authority established by force of
arms ever willingly resigned its power ? An officer
placed in absolute control of a State, felt the dignity
of his position, and would make the most of it ; and
if a Legislature was refractory, would turn it out of
doors, as Cromwell dismissed the Long Parliament.
Even four years after the war, when General Grant
was President, General Sheridan, who was in com-
mand in New Orleans, asked permission to arrest the
whole Legislature of Louisiana, but fortunately the
cooler head of liis chief restrained the impetuosity of
his lieutenant.
Meanwhile the reign of the carpet-baggers had
begun, and men who had hung round the camps dur-
ing the war, but never showed their faces in the front
of battle, were made Governors, and, supported by a
Legislature of negroes just off the plantations, went in
for a general spoliation. There was not much left in
the South to steal — the freebooters might as well have
undertaken to rob the dead — but they could at least
IMPEACHMENT OF ANDREW JOHNSON. 199
issue bonds, which, though sold at a low rate, would
yet accomplish the purpose to gather in the spoils.
How long this would have continued, and how far
it would have gone, it is hard to say if the inroUing tide
of corruption had not struck against the breakwater of
the Supreme Court of the United States, wliich in the
memorable ' ' McCardle Case " took in review the whole
question of the Constitutionality of the Reconstruction
Acts of Congress, which, its opponents claimed, was a
flagrant invasion of the liberty and rights, not only of
a single individual, but of milhons of our countrymen.
In this case, as in all the great cases that he under-
took, Mr. Field threw his whole soul into it. He was
indignant at the continuance of military rule after the
war was over : that regiments should be kept in Charles-
ton and New Orleans as if they were in a state of siege.
When was the reign of peace and of law to begin ?
This argument has a special interest to me as I hap-
pened to be in Washington at the time and heard it in
part, when it was interrupted by a singular circum-
stance. While Mr. Field was speaking a messenger
came to summon the Chief Justice from his place on
the bench to a duty to which no Judge had ever been
called before — to preside over the Senate sitting as a
Court to try an impeachment of the President of
the United States ! This postponed the case in the
Supreme Court for several weeks, when Mr. Field
resumed and concluded his argument. Without under-
200 THE RECONSTRUCTION ACT.
taking to follow it in detail, it is enough to quote a ,
single passage to show the vehemence with which he
spoke, and how he carried his position by the continued
thrust of questions to which there could be but one
answer :
"A point very much urged in the argument, and constantly
referred to in public speeches, is Necessity ! These military gov-
ernments of the South, they say, are legal because they are
necessary. The usual phrase is : ' This government has a right
to live, and no other government has a right to contest it ; and
whatever Congress determines as necessary to this national life
is right.' What necessity do they speak of ? There is no Fed-
eral necessity. The Federal courts are open ; the Federal laws
are executed ; the mails are run ; the customs are collected.
There is no interference with any commissioner or officer of
the United States anywhere in the country. There is no neces-
sity, therefore, of a Federal kind for an assumption of the gov-
ernment of Mississippi. What, then, is the necessity ? Is that
the reason why the military government is there ? If you are
to wait until you get repentant rebels— or I should perhaps
rather say, if you wait until you make rebels repentant by fire
and sword— you will have to wait many generations. Of all
the arguments, that of necessity has the least force. ' We will
not allow the Southern States to govern themselves, because, if
we do, the government will fall into the hands of unrepentant
rebels 1 ' Well, what is that to you. if they obey the laws— if
they submit to your government ? Do you wish to force them
to love you ? Is that what you are aiming at ? Of course, it
should be the desire and the aim of all governments to make the
people love as well as obey ; but as an argument for a military
government, it is an extraordinary one. 'Well then,' they say.
THE PLEA OP NECESSITY. 201
' we must protect the loyal men at the South, and therefore the
military government, which is the only one adequate to the end,
must be kept up.' To that I answer, first, that the General of
your armies, the person upon whom this extraordinary power
has been thrown, himself certified that there was order through-
out the South, so far as he could observe. But are tliere no
other means than military coercion ? The Union men of the
South, we liave been told, were in the majority, and have ever
been in the majority, and it was the minority by which the people
were driven into secession. Is government by the United States
necessary to sustain the majority — a majority, we are told, of
the white people ? They say that secession was carried by
a minority of the whites against the majority, and that the
majority have always been loyal. That is a perfect answer,
then, to the objection. ' Necessity ' is the reason given by
tyi'anny for misgovernment all the world over. It was the rea-
son given by Philip II. for oppressing the Netherlands by the
Duke of Alva ; it was the reason given for the misgovernment
of Italy by Austria ; it was the reason given for the misgovern-
ment of Ireland by England.
" 'This Nation has a right to live ! ' Certainly it has, and so
have the States, and so have the people. Every one of us has
the right, and the life of each is bound up with the life of all.
For who compose my nation, and what constitutes my country ?
It is not so much land and water. They would remain ever the
same though an alien race occupied the soil ; there would be the
same green hills, and the same sweet valleys, the same ranges
of mountains, and the same lakes and rivers ; but all these com-
bined do not make up my country. They are the body without
the soul. That word, country, comprehends within itself place
and people, and all that history, tradition, language, manners,
social culture, and civil polity, have associated with them. This
wonderful combination of State and nation, which binds me to
202 THE ACT REPEALED BY CONGRESS.
both by indissoluble ties, enters into the idea of my country.
Its name is the United States of America. The States are an
essential part of the name and of the thing. They are repre-
sented by the starry flag, which their children have borne on so
many fields of glory, the ever-shining symbol of one Nation and
many States. They are not provinces or countries ; they are
not principalities or dukedoms ; but they are fiee republican
States, sovereign in their sphere, as the United States are sover-
eign in theirs ; and all essential elements of that one, undivided
and indissoluble Country, which is dearer than life, and for
which so many have died. As the State of New York would
not be to me what it is, if, instead of the free, active Common-
wealth, it were to subside into a principality or a province, so
neither would the United States be to me what they are, if,
instead of a union of free States, they were to subside into a
consolidated Empire. For such an Empire we have not borne
the defeats and won the victories of civil war.
The case had this further remarkable issue : that it
was never decided by the Supreme Court, though pre-
vious decisions indicated clearly what the result would
be. Having been interrupted while the impeachment
of Andrew Johnson was going on, the decision was
postponed, perhaps that Congress might be spared the
humiliation of having its own act declared null and
void. The Court therefore deferred judgment, and
the act was speedily repealed, a victory in another
form, which emphasized still further the wantonness
and wickedness of this cruel legislation.
After such heavy bombardments the iron gates of
military rule seemed to be giving way. If the military
THE ENFORCEMENT ACT. 203
occupation continued, it was not quite so arrogant.
The South no longer felt the pressure of the iron hand.
The arguments against Militarj' Tribunals for Civilians,
and against Test Oaths, had done their work ; and that
in the McArdle case required no judicial decision, inas-
much as Congress itself hastened to repeal the act in
which it had assumed an authority which it did not
possess. But there is nothing that men or governments
are so reluctant to abdicate as power, and if it be
restrained in one form, it will appear in another. There
was still an opportunity for Congress to accomplish by
indirection what it did not dare to claim openly. The
right of suffrage had been given to the colored people
of the South. But how to enforce it was the problem.
To that end Congress passed an Enforcement Act,
which provided that ' ' if two or more persons should
band or conspire together ... to injure, oppress,
threaten, or intimidate any citizen with intent to pre-
vent or hinder his free exercise and enjoyment of any
right or privilege, granted or reserved to him by the
Constitution or laws of the United States, said persons
should be held guilty of felony ! " Nearly a hundred
persons were indicted in Louisiana, eight of whom
appeared before the Circuit Court, and three of them
were convicted, from which they appealed to the Supreme
Court of the United States. This was the famous
Cruikshank case, in which Mr. Field appeared for the
defendants.
204 THE ACCUSATION OF CONSPIRACY.
The act had been skilfully framed. One word in
it was enough to rouse the suspicions of the North —
the word "conspire," which suggested that there was
a dark and deep-laid conspiracy to defeat the result of
the war by secret combinations to spread terror among
the colored people, and so to drive them away from the
polls, and deprive them of the fruits of their new-born
hberty. To this Mr. Field replied :
' ' An accusation of conspiracy is of all accusations the most
dangerous to meet, and the easiest to make men believe, in an
excited community. It is the harshest engine of tyranny ever
used under the form of law ; and its frequent use is the strong-
est evidence of misgovernment. From the bloody days wlien
the compassing or imagining the death of a king was the miser-
able pretence upon which tyrants took the lives and confiscated
the estates of their victims, to the present hour, no surer proof
of good or evil government can be found than the chapter on
conspiracies in the statute-book of a country. One has but to
compare the statutes of well-governed Connecticut with the
statutes of misgoverned Ireland, to learn what an odious engine
of oppression is the law of conspiracy."
But his main argument turned on the relation of
the States to the general government. Overstrained
as had been the doctrine of State rights by the South
to justify secession, yet it would be going too far the
other way, if the result of the war should be to destroy
the States, uniting them all in one consolidated govern-
ment. The States still existed, not to be overrun and
trampled down by armies or by undue assumptions of
CONGRESS CANNOT DESTROY A STATE. 205
the central authority. If Congress could by its action
destroy the rights of the States, so that they would be
but weak and helpless members of one central power,
the Republic would have passed into a Kingdom.
And when it undertook to lay down stringent
prohibitions as to interference with the ballot in the
States, it must go one step farther and consider how it
could enforce its prohibitions without running against
the buckler of State sovereignty. As Mr. Field put it :
"Congress cannot destroy a State. If to-morrow
the Legislature of Massachusetts should pass a law
denying the right of suffrage to every colored man in
the Commonwealth, Congress could not authorize the
President to march the garrison of Fort Warren into
the State House, and turn the members out of doors.
Why could not Congress do tliis ? The answer is that
Massachusetts is a self-existing and indestructible mem-
ber of the American Union, and neither Congress, nor
any other department of the Federal Government, has
power to destroy any essential attribute of the sover-
eignty of that Commonwealth. In saying this I am
justified by recent decisions of this Court. No longer
ago than 1868 this Court, speaking by its late Chief
Justice (Mr. Chase), uttered these memorable words,
which will live in constitutional history as long as the
Constitution lives in its vigor : ' Not only can there be
no loss of separate and independent autonomy of the
States, but it may be not unreasonably said that the
206 AN INDESTRUCTIBLE UNION
preservation of the States and the maintenance of their
governments are as much within the design and care
of the Constitution as the preservation of the Union
and the maintenance of the National Government.
The Constitution in all its provisions looks to an
indestructible Union composed of indestructible
States.^" The language of an older Judge, the ven-
erable Justice Nelson, was not less emphatic. Five
years before he had said from that bench : ' ' The Gen-
eral Government and the States, although both exist
within the same territorial limits, are separate and
distinct sovereignties, acting independently of each
other within their respective spheres. The former in
its appropriate sphere is supreme, but the States within
the limits of their powers not granted (or reserved) are
as independent of the General Government as that gov-
ernment within its sphere is independent of the States.
, . . The two governments are upon an equality.
In respect to the reserved powers the State is as sover-
eign and independent as the General Government."
Here the differences of opinion were distinctly out-
lined. The two positions involved two theories of
government. If the General Government were to take
to itself all that came within the range of life, Kberty
and protection, what was there left for the State Gov-
ernments to do? Their occupation was gone. "For
what is there in the world," said Mr. Field, "for State
legislation, but life, liberty, and the protection of the
OP INDESTRUCTIBLE STATES. 207
law ? " If the General Government assumed this, it
assumed everything, and the States were but the
executors of its imperial will. That was a perfectly
intelligible form of government, but it was not the
government that was established by the fathers of the
Republic in the Constitution of the United States.
This was the Ark of the Covenant, that must be kept
sacred from the touch of any destroying hand. In the
previous generation the Constitution had the greatest
of American statesmen as its Defender and Expounder.
But Mr. Webster never saw the nation under such a
strain as that of the Civil War — a convulsion so awful
that it seemed to turn back the course of nature, and
we had to look round to see if it had not destroyed
both Liberty and Law in one tremendous ruin. Then
the work had to be done all over again by men of the
post-helium period, like Mr. Field, who, seeing how
vital was the Constitution to the National existence,
"compassed it about on every side," buttressing the
ancient walls, till now the Citadel is stronger than ever,
standing
" Four square to all the winds that blow."
CHAPTER XY.
WORK AND PLAY. HOW HE "WARMED BOTH
HANDS AT THE FIRE OF LIFE."
The greatest service that Mr. Field ever rendered to
his country (always excepting his Codes) was the long,
stout and stubborn fight for the rights of the South
— a contest, not in battle, nor on the floor of Congress,
but in the highest Court of the land, where it went on
year after year, till justice triumphed at last, but only
at the sacrifice to him who led the fight of many old ties
and friendships. This was the painful thing about it,
that he had to part company from many of his dearest
friends, to whom it seemed a kind of treachery to the
^ ' grand old party " that had carried the country through
the war, to unloose its iron grasp on the "conquered"
States. But Mr. Field's partj^ ties had been long
weakening. He was too independent to be a politician.
Though he was one of the founders of the Free Soil
party, and took all the hard knocks in the days of con-
flict, he left to others the spoils of victory ; while his
connection with the Republican party may be said to
have ended with the death of Lincoln. The day after
the funeral he had an interview with Andrew Johnson,
RETIRES FROM THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. 209
in which they discussed the pohtical future. As both
had been old Democrats, they were agreed as to the
general principles of republican government. In the
immediate crisis Mr. Field's most earnest hope was
that the new President would carry out the conciliating
policy of his predecessor. But Johnson was so wanting
in tact, that he was soon at loggerheads with Congress,
which threatened him with impeachment. Yet head-
strong as he was, Mr. Field always thought that he
was right and Congress wrong. But so eager was the
latter to crush out whatever stood in its way, that it
did not always stop to consider its own constitutional
powers. Its assumptions of authority were checked
only by the decisions of the Supreme Court, and even
then the policy of the Government was to rule the
South by force. ^^Seeing this tendency in the Repub-
hcan party towards what he looked upon as a great
political heresy, the centralizing of all power in the
general government ; (a power that had become stiU
more odious by giving the vote to millions of negroes,
who could neither read nor write ;) this old Free Soiler
gradually withdrew from the party which he had done
so much to create, hoping for some better leadership
from the lesson of sore experience.
But the administration of Grant was a disappoint-
ment almost equal to that of Johnson. He was a great
soldier, but he carried too much of military authority
into civil life, and thought he could govern the country
210 HIS LARGE LEGAL PRACTICE.
as he commanded the army. So apparent was this
that many of those who had supported him for the first
term hoped that his own good sense would lead him
to retire with dignity, and that the country would
choose some wise statesman to preside over it. But
could there be anything more grotesque than the nomi-
nation of Horace Greelej^, who, "svith all his talents as
an editor, was a man of great weaknesses, of a childish
vanity, which those about him would use for their own
selfish purposes ? So absurd did the nomination appear,
that Mr. Field could not bring himself to take any part
in the canvass, nor even to cast his vote.
Thus relieved from all political ties, he was free
to give himself up whollj' to his legal practice, which
had grown to immense proportions, v. In looking over
his papers, I find huge folios filled with reports of the
great cases in which he was the leading counsel, and
I am amazed at the multiplicity and variety of the
questions raised. The principles of law may be few
and simple, but their applications are infinite. And
here comes into exercise a penetration which is a sort
of genius, as it belongs only to a very high order of
mind, a quality which, when united with eloquence of
speech, makes the great advocate like Rufus Choate, a
combination of talents that is inherited by one who
bears that illustrious name. *
*Mr. Joseph H. Choate, of ^lew York.
THE JOY OP COMBAT. 211
A practice so large was of course a constant strain
upon Mr. Field's intellectual and even physical strength.
But did he count it a hardship ? On the contrary, it gave
him the keenest enjoyment. No profession is a drudgery
to him who is a master of it. An artist loves to paint,
if he can paint ivell, and a great advocate is not unwill-
ing to show the "hidings of his power." ► The harder
the case the better ! The more it tasks his strength,
the greater its fascination ! He is attracted by its
very difficulties, as the man of science is attracted by
a problem that taxes all his powers. The greater
the issue, the greater the courage it demands, and
the strategy in laying out the field and marshal-
ling the evidence. But in all this there is a mental
excitement, not unmixed with pleasure, especially by
one who is conscious of his strength, and is of that
combative temperament, which I must confess was
fully developed in Mr. Field. As he was very positive
in his opinions, so he was in his likes and dishkes.
He was a man after Dr. Johnson's own heart, who
"loved a good hater." He did not merely have a mild
disapprobation of wrong : he hated it, and hated the
man that did the wrong. And hence he looked upon
fighting as in many cases not only the natural thing,
but the right thing. If this wicked world was ever to
be reformed, so he reasoned, it must be turned upside
down ; and in order to this there must be fighting and
a great deal of it. It was one of his maxims that the
212 NOT A COLD, HARD MAN.
only men who made any lasting impression on the
world were the fighters ! Where would have been the
Reformation if Luther had not been a man of war ?
And so he reasoned that, in his own profession of the
law, "the combat" must "deepen" for years, and per-
haps for generations, if there was to be any progress.
With this instinct of the warrior, he never counted
the odds, though he should be warned that there were
many adversaries, nor even though it were added that
there were giants among them ! He always preferred
"a foeman worthy of his steel." Nothing irritated
him more than to have a weak opponent, whose mind
was so flabby that there was nothing to take hold of,
or to make an impression upon. But give him a pow-
erful antagonist, and he was more than willing to take
the heaviest blows, as it was with him a point of honor
to return them with interest. -^
This was one side of the man. But were it all I
had to say of liim, it would do him great injustice, as
it would give the impression that he was a man of
iron (as he was), but that he was nothing more ; that
he was a cold, hard man, with few friends and many
enemies ; and withal that he was so preoccupied with
the duties of his profession, that he had little time for
the courtesies, the amenities, and the enjoyments of life.
Nothing could be more unjust or untrue. He was
indeed a many-sided man, engaged in manifold activi-
ties, and enjoyed them all ; and was inflamed with
SUMMER IN THE COUNTRY. 213
the gaudium cei'taminis — "the rapture of the strife"
— when he entered into the contests of the bar.
But the bravest soldier sometimes longs for the quiet
of his tent, and no one ever welcomed it more than
Mr. Field. Though his professional life was in the
city, he loved the country. He was a country bo}",
born on the banks of the Connecticut, where he loved to
sail on the broad river, or to ramble among the hills —
a passion that remained with him till the last hour of
his life. When he was fourteen years old, his father
removed to Stockbridge, one of the most beautiful vil-
lages of New England, where his son, even when grown
to manhood, and occupied with large affairs, always
spent his vacations, and the happiest day in all the year
was that on which he turned his back on the city, and
started for his summer home. He Avas particular as
to the very day of going, and would take his flight, if
possible, on the 20th of May, partly because it was his
father's birthday, but also because it was the time of
the apple blossoms. The valley of the Housatonic is
full of orchards, which are then all aglow with their
delicate white blossoms, and the air is laden with
their perfume.
His first home was at Laurel Cottage, near the foot
of Laurel Hill, which Miss Sedgwick has made the
scene of "a very thrilling passage in "Hope Leslie" ;
but a few years later he bought a large farmhouse,
perhaps a hundred years old, with two or three hun-
214 HIS MORNING RIDES.
dred acres of ground, on the top of a hill, that is a
background for the village which it looks down upon,
taking in the valley of the Housatonic, and having a
wide sweep of mountains all round the horizon.*
About the same tune I bought a more modest farm-
house, with a few acres, a little farther to the West, so
that we saw each other every day, and almost every
hour of the day. He was very regular in his habits,
rising early for his morning ride, in which I was often
his companion. Nothing could be more exquisite than
those rides over the hills, drinking in the dewy fresh-
ness of the morning air, with the song of birds, and all
the sights and sounds that mark the wakening of
nature to a new day's life. If I was detained from
going, I kept a lookout for him, and saw him at a dis-
tance, as that tall figure came up the road under the
willows, and if he caught sight of me, he was sure to
turn into our grounds and ride up to the door to give
me his morning salutation. He had been accustomed
in his boyhood to hear the old divines of New England
speak of this world as "a wilderness," which was fit
only for a state of probation, and would call out to me,
"Well, Henry ! for this 'wilderness world' this is
pretty good ! " and then turn with a hearty laugh, and
ride away, repeating some fragment of poetry, of which
* Dean Stanley, who spent several days with Mr. Field, said
the view was the most beautiful he had seen in America.
WHEN DAYS WERE DARK AND DREARY. 215
his head was alwaj^s full. If it was after the summer
was past, I could hear faintly the murmur of the famil-
iar lines :
" Ere, in the Northern gale.
The Summer tresses of the trees are gone,
The woods of Autumn, all around our vale,
Have put their glory on." *
Nor was he limited to his morning rides. Such was
the exhilaration of being in the country, and living in
the open air, that he was always getting up excursions
to Monument Mountain, or Mount Everett at one end
of the county, or Greylock at the other, from which
he now and then rode over the mountains, and came
down into the valley of the Connecticut.
But the climate of New England is variable, and
sometimes even in midsummer there was a day that
was dark and dreary. But the sudden change did not
trouble him. He was but too glad to have the excuse
for a blazing fire, where, stretched in an easy chair, his
"creature comforts" were complete, and if he had a
few friends around him, he asked for nothing more.
Then was the time to see him at his best, as he was
free from care, and running over with reminiscences of
past years and distant lands.
* Written by Bryant when he was a young lawyer in Great
Barrington, and published in the United States Literary Gazette,
October 15th, 1824.
216 READING POETRY AND THE BIBLE
From this animated conversation he would turn to
reading. He had but Uttle taste for music or painting.
He was not a connoisseur of pictures, and he hardly
knew one tune from another. But he devoured books.
He was fond of poetry, and had innumerable pieces
at his tongue's end. Even the dullest listener could
not but be roused by his ringing voice, as he read
"The Ride of Paul Revere" and " How they brought
the good news to Ghent. " Then turning to Milton, he
would quicken his pace to the dancing gait of L' Allegro,
and after a pause reduce it to the slow and measured
steps of II Penseroso.
But for subhmity of style there was nothing to
him like the Bible. As he had been brought up
to read it at morning prayers, he was familiar with
it from Genesis to Revelation, and turned to it for
its poetry and its eloquence. In this he was like Mr.
Webster, of whom the late Chief Justice Chapman, of
Massachusetts, once told me that the greatest intellect-
ual treat of his life was in hearing him, not in a public
lecture, but in private conversation, discourse of the
Book of Job, of which he would talk by the hour, and
on which he had sometimes wished to write a com-
mentary ! Mr. Field had the same enthusiasm for his
favorite psalms, such as "The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want" ; and Luther's psalm, "God is our
refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."
In certain passages, such as ' ' They that go down to
THE FOUR BROTHERS. 217
the sea in ships ; that do business in great waters ;
these see the works of the Lord and his wonders in the
deep " ; there was a majestic roll like the roll of the sea,
to which there came back a response like the sound of
many waters, ' ' Oh that men would praise the Lord
for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the
children of men ! '' But his enthusiasm did not stop
with the poetry of the Bible : he found poetry in its
prose : in the stately rhythm of the old Hebrew, as in
Solomon's dedication of the Temple, or Jacob's farewell
to his sons. I can hear him now reading: "Reuben,
thou art my first-born ; my might and the beginning
of my strength," and "The sceptre shall not depart
from Judah, nor a law-giver from between his feet,
till Shiloh come, and unto him shall the gathering of
the people be. "
These are sweet memories of a brother's life, but
there was something nearer and sweeter still. While
he had good will toward all men, his affection was
reserved for an inner circle, into which no stranger
could intrude. What he was to his daughter and her
children will appear in the next chapter, when we follow
him in pursuit of them round the globe. But what he
was to his brothers I can tell. Our father's family was
a large one — ten children in all — eight sons and two
daughters. But one by one they dropped away, till,
a full quarter of a century ago, the two sisters and
four of the eight brothers were gone, leaving behind
218 HE TOUCHED LIFE AT EVERY POINT.
Dudley, Stephen, Cyrus, and myself, as the only sur-
vivors. As three of us lived in New York, it needed
only a visit from the Judge in Washington to bring us
all together. Those were our happiest moments, when
we could sit round one small table — "we four and no
more ! " — and all be boys again. We talked of all
things past, present and to come ; of school days and
College days ; of our modest ambitions as we looked
out from the Berkshire Hills upon the great world at
a distance, and began to dream dreams and to see vis-
ions ; of our early struggles and disappointments ; and
of the varied hfe of the after years. Into all this no
one of us entered with more of abandon to the spirit of
the hour. As he talked of his youth, his youth came
back again ; the old light was in his eyes ; and an
inexpressible sweetness (of wliich no man had more for
those he loved) flushed in the noble countenance. And
now — as I think of the immense vitality that carried
him into his ninetieth year ; of the great part that he
acted in the world ; and of all that he was to us who
knew him best ; whereby he drew to himself love at
home and honor abroad — it seems as if he touched life
at every point, and got out of it as much as it had to
give, or that was worth living for. If it were all to
be put in a single line, I know of none more fitting
than that which was written of Walter Savage Landor,
" He warmed both hands at the fire of life ! "
CHAPTER XYI.
AN INTERNATIONAL CODE. ARBITRATION INSTEAD
OF WAR.
The year 186 G will be memorable in history as that
in which two hemispheres were united, so that it could
be said, in a real and true sense, that there was no
more sea ! The honor of that great achievement be-
longs to an American, as was fully recognized by the
best authorities, who knew its whole histor}^ from the
beginning to the end, such as Lord Kelvin and the late
Sir James Anderson and Sir John Pender. There was
nothing in which the Great Commoner of England, John
Bright, delighted more than to refer, as he did in his
speeches again and again, to "his friend Cyrus Field,"
as ' ' the Columbus of our time, who, after no less than
forty voyages across the Atlantic in pursuit of the great
aim of his life, had at length by his cable moored the
New World close alongside the Old ! " That magnifi-
cent tribute was simple justice. But there was an inside
history to the great undertaking. No one outside of his
own family will ever know the terrible strain of those
twelve long years, and how the spirit of the projector,
when cast down by defeat, was ralUed and reanimated
220 HIS LOVE OF ENGLAND.
by the undaunted courage of his eldest brother, who saw
in this iron hnk between the two countries, not only a
commercial benefit to both, but a new tie drawing nearer
together those who were of the same blood. Now that
the work was done, and that the two countries were no
more divided by the sea, but were literally within speak-
ing distance, why cDuld they not be brought into the
closest relations of mutual confidence ?
This was a dream that Mr. Field had long cherished.
Every summer he spent a few days or weeks in England,
where he had a large acquaintance with public men —
lawyers and judges, and members of Parliament — among
whom he found a great liberality of thought on all polit-
ical questions. Indeed he often said that, while America
was more democratic in her institutions, there was more
individual independence in England. We were too much
in bondage to parties, or to public opinion, the most
despicable tyrant that ever reigned over a high-spirited
people. A democracy might be the most galling tyranny
in the world. Better have one tyrant than a thousand !
Hence he felt that, in the great lesson of good govern-
ment, we had much to learn as well as much to give.
So he exchanged experiences with his English friends
with the utmost frankness, both assured that, no matter
how many defeats the cause of liberty might suffer,
right and justice would prevail at the last : that
" Freedom's battle once begun,
Though often lost, is ever won."
A NEW HOLY ALLIANCE. 221
The first thing was to have a perfect understanding
between the two countries. To this end he spoke in
England as he spoke in America, with the utmost frank-
ness ; aiming to exorcise distrust wherever he found it
on either side, and to allay the sensitiveness that made
it a matter of pride that each should stand in armed de-
fiance of the other. Such an attitude of jealousy and
suspicion was unworthy of either. Instead of this he
would that there should be a union in the two peoples
of all true-hearted men — the good, the wise, and the
brave — in a brotherhood that might in time take a legal
form by act of Congress and of Parliament. Nor need
it stop there, but extend from country to country, till
all nations should be bound together in a Holy Alliance,
not of despots and tyrants, but of the kindred races of
mankind.
That very year (1866) Mr. Field was present at a
meeting of the British Association for the Promotion of
Social Science at Manchester, and, perhaps inspired by
the great event that had sent an electric thrill through
two continents, he proposed the appointment of a com-
mittee to prepare the Outlines of an International Code, *
* Happily this scene is not left entirely to the imagination.
At the time an enterprising searcher after situations that prom-
ised to be turning points of history, took a photograph of
"Mr. Field proposing the preparation of an International Code,"
in which appear the well-known faces of some of England's most
illustrious men.
222 THE COMMUNITY OF NATIONS.
which it should report for correction and amendment,
and that, when thus completed, should be presented
to the different countries represented for their adoption.
The suggestion was welcomed with enthusiasm, and
a committee of eminent jurists appointed on the spot.
But when it came to carrying it out, they found an
embarrassment from their wide separation, so that each
one would have to work as it were " at arm's length,"
when they needed to be in constant consultation.
Mr. Field, however, did not lose heart or hope, but
returned to the charge the next year at the meeting
of the Association in Belfast, in an address on the
Community of Nations ; all of which were one in that
their interests were one ; while England and America
were so bound together by ties of blood that war
between them would be nothing less than fratricide.
No matter which was victorious, it would be an
unspeakable calamity to both. He said :
' ' We may look upon England and America frowning at each
other across the Atlantic ; mutually jealous, slow to redress
injuries, and ready to offer or receive affronts. Stimulated by
bad men, in the passionate madness of the hour, they rush into
war for what is foolishly called the supremacy of the seas. Let
it become an internecine war. We should fight each other by
sea and land. There would be battles in the Atlantic, the
Pacific, and the Indian Oceans. Wherever we could strike each
other, we should strike. You would batter down some of our
towns, and we some of yours. Timid merchantmen flying from
pursuing cruisers, burning houses along the coasts, and ships
A FRATRICIDAL WAR. 223
sunk upon the sea, would bear witness to the madness and f ury
of the great contending nations. At the end of all, after each
had burned and killed enough, one might be driven from the
sea, leaving the other in undisputed supremacy. But would
either be better off than when the war began? Would the
beaten and humiliated combatant be as useful to the victor as
before ? Would the victor be wiser, better, or happier ; to say
nothing of that store of hate which would be accumulated and
laid aside for the renewed strife of a later generation ? Would
the merchants of London and New York, or of Belfast and Bos-
ton, have gained by turning rich and useful customers into
exasperated and impoverished enemies ? Would the institutions
of England or America be improved by the conflict? Would
not the wealth and culture of both — all, indeed, w-hich makes
man better and happier in each — be lessened in the waste and
desolation of the struggle ? "
This was not the language of fear, deprecating a
contest for which one side was unprepared — it was the
manlj' utterance of reason and justice, spoken in the
name of humanity, and in the name of Almighty God,
who is the Father of all the nations of the earth, and
would have His children dwell together in unity.
That this might be our inheritance forever, it should
not be left to rest only on sentiment, but be assured by
a recognition of the Community of Nations, which were
indeed but separate members of one great family.
This was a part of modern civilization, of which the
ancients knew nothing. Two thousand years ago
every state that was conscious of its power stood apart,
224 BROTHERHOOD BORN WITH CHRISTIANITY.
sovereign and alone, in proud isolation and defiance :
" Old empires sat in sullenness and gloom,"
hardly recognizing a common humanity. In the Latin
language the very word liostis meant at once stranger
and enemy. There was no right but that of the
strongest. As Rome and Carthage looked across
the Mediterranean, the highest ambition of each was
to destroy the other. The Carthaginians claimed the
supremacy of the sea, and if any strange sail rose above
the horizon, they pursued it as if it were a pirate, and
seized its crew and threw them overboard. Nor did a
Roman feel that he violated any law, human or divine,
if he killed a Carthaginian. That two great powers,
looking out upon the same blue sea, could live as
friendly neighbors, never occurred to them. The idea
of the brotherhood of the whole human race was born
with Christianity.
But century after century had to come and go before
this brotherhood was recognized among communities
and states. It was not till what are comparatively
modern times, less than three hundred years ago, that
Grotius gave form to international law in his great
work on the Rights of War and Peace [De Jure Belli
et Pacis] , which was followed by Puf endorf some fifty
years after. But what they wrote then may not serve
the purpose now, for this is not the same world as that
of Grotius and Pufendorf . The nations do not stand
THE COUNTRIES DRAWING NEARER. 225
apart as they did three hundred, or one hundred, or even
fifty years ago. The ends of the earth are coming
together till it may almost be said that there are no
more "foreign countries." With our ease of cormnu-
nication it is as if we were of one language and of one
speech, and international communication leads almost
of necessity to international law. But it may be more
easy to understand one another's language than their
ideas of justice. If those who are brought in contact
were homogeneous, their relations would easily adjust
themselves. But in many cases their ways and ours
are not only different, but antagonistic, as we are of
different races and religions. There are in the world
a hundred and twenty millions of Moslems, to whom
the only law is that of the Koran, so that between
Egyptians and Englishmen justice has to be adminis-
tered by mixed tribunals composed of representatives
of both. With such confusion of ideas, it is not always
possible, even with the best intentions, to be just to
others, and just to ourselves.
Who then shall make the law for nations ? Is it not
almost inevitable that it will be made by force ; that the
%vill of the stronger will be imposed upon the weaker ?
And where should a reformer begin ? Was it neces-
sary to turn upside down the whole fabric of existing
law, crude as it might be ? By no means. Mr. Field
was no iconoclast to break in pieces the idols of the past.
His idea was not to destroy, but to improve. The world
226 WHAT IS INTERNATIONAL LAW?
would move slowly at best, but it might be kept moving
in the right direction. With no visionary dreams of a
millennium, or of an ideal state of society, he believed
that it was possible for nations to adjust their relations
to one another on such a broad plane of fairness and
mutual benefit, that they should no longer dream of
the glory of conquest as the height of their ambition.
But the preservation of peace was only one part of
International Law, though it might be the most impor-
tant part. Yet in its full extent it included all the rela-
tions of one country to another. As Mr. Field puts it :
"International law is that body of rules recognized among
nations, defining their rights and duties toward each other, and
the rights and duties of their people respectively, as growing out
of international relations. The law is vast in extent and infinite
in detail. It encircles the earth, holds or assiunes to hold the
strongest nations in its grasp, and affects to a greater or less
extent the relation of every human being. You may intrench
yourself in camps and fortresses, yet its voice will reach you ;
you may take the wings of morning, but you cannot escape its
presence. Its office is to regulate the conduct of your own
nation toward all other nations and all strangers ; and to govern
and protect you into whatever part of the world you go. No
sovereign is so haughty, no subject so poor, as to be beyond its
authority. It knows neither latitude nor longitude, wears the
same face under northern and southern skies, and utters one
voice to the Caucasian, the African, and the Mongolian."
So vast was the realm over which International Law
had sway. It was a power like gravitation that held
LORD RUSSELL ON THE CODE. 227
the world together. But to some it seemed to be an
indefinite and almost intangible tiling, which it was
quite impossible to reduce to any fixed form. It was
like one of the forces of nature, which, however power-
ful, could not be confined, and, as it were, imprisoned
within the iron bars of a Code. So thought Lord
Russell, the Lord Chief Justice of England, who is cer-
tainly one of the first authorities in the world. In a
recent Address before the American Bar Association,
he refers to the work of Mr. Field, but thinks he at-
tempted the impossible. He says :
" The rules of international law are not to be traced with the
comparative distinctness with which municipal law may be
ascertained. I would not advocate the codification of interna-
tional law. The attempt has been made, as you know, by Field
in this country, and by Professor Bluntschli of Heidelberg, and
by some Italian jiu-ists, but has made little way towards success.
Indeed, codification has a tendency to an-est progress. It has
been so found, even where branches or heads of municipal law
have been codified, and it will at once be seen how much less
favorable a field for such an enterprise international law pre-
sents, where so many questions are still indeterminate. After
all it is to be remembered that jural law in its widest sense is as
old as society itself ; ubi societas ibi jus est ; but international
law, as we know it, is a modern invention. It is in a state of
growth and transition. To codify it would be to crystalize it ;
uncodified it is more flexible and more easily assimilates new
rules. While agreeing, therefore, that indeterminate points
should be determined and that we should aim at raising the
ethical standard, I do not think we have yet reached the point
228 IS IT AN IMPOSSIBILITY ?
at which codification is practicable, or if practicable would be
a public good." *
But Mr. Field, with American audacity, saw no
such impassable barriers in the way. He had read the
prophecy of the last days, that the valleys should be
exalted and the hills made low to prepare an highway
for the coming of the Prince of Peace, and every strong-
armed toiler could help to clear obstructions out of the
way. As to the impossibility of framing a 'Code,' he
had said long before :
' ' There is no more difficulty in framing a Code of Interna-
tional Law than of national, or (as it is sometimes, though
inaccurately, called,) municipal law. The established rules of
International Law have already a written record ; they are con-
tained in the treaties entered into between nations, in acts of
legislation, in the decision of courts of law, and in treatises of
publicists. All that is thus contained can be gathered from its
various repositories, condensed, analyzed, and arranged, and
stated in distinct propositions."
* Lord Russell adds in the very next paragraph, ' ' Among the
most successful experiments in codification in English commu-
nities have been those in Anglo-India, particularly the Penal
Code, and the Codes of Civil and Criminal Procedure." He was
probably not aware that this was, in part at least, a contribution
from Mr. Field, who, in his journey round the world, spent a
few days at Singapore, and inquiring of the Attorney-General,
who called to see him, what was the Code of the Straits Settle-
ments, was answered, "The Code of New York" ! and indeed,
turning to the printed page, he read the very words that he had
written in his library on the other side of the globe.
OUTLINES OF A CODE. 229
Between two such authorities, it would be presum-
ing to give an opinion, but for Mr. Field it must be
said that he claimed nothing more than to be a pio-
neer of reform, leading the way where others would
follow. Though for convenience he used the word
"Code" * as part of a title, he took good care to define
the limits of what he undertook. In the preface he says :
" This work should be taken for what its name imports :
Draft Outlines of an International Code. It is not put
forth as a completed Code, nor yet as the completed
Outlines of a Code, but as a Draft of the Outlines."
Surely it would not be possible to take a more unpreten-
tious title. It was an experiment rather than a finality.
He said: "It is intended for suggestion, and is to
undergo careful and thorough revision." He was
content to labor, and that other men should enter
into his labors. In the second edition he makes full
acknowledgment of what he has received from others :
"I have had the advantage of many suggestions, and
have given the work a careful revision." Nor was he
disturbed if others should claim all the honor, quite
wilhng to leave it to those who should come after him
to do him justice.
* Even the word ' 'Law" itself has to be used in a peculiar sense,
for strictly speaking there can be no such thing as law which
does not emanate from a lawgiver, who has the authority to
make the law, and power to enforce it. both of which are want-
ing in the case of International Law.
230 EXISTING STATE OF THE LAW.
The first step was a study of the existing state of
International Law as laid down by writers of authority
on the multitudinous subjects which it embraces, and
as recognized in treaties between different countries.
The treaties made by Great Britain, if not a law to
the world, were a law to herself, so far as concerned
the countries with which they were made. If other
countries were to adopt the same rules, there might
grow up a general consensus of opinion and practice,
which would have the force, if not the form, of an
enactment of law. Another authority was found in
the diplomatic correspondence between different gov-
ernments ; and another still in the judicial decisions
of the higher courts in cases involving contested
points. These investigations, spread over a field so
vast, were reduced to a general result by drafting
into separate articles what were accepted as rules
of law, with comments and arguments in their sup-
port. The burden of this original examination and
analysis of authorities, throughout the greater part of
the work, was borne by Mr. Austin Abbott and his
partner, Mr. Howard Payson Wilds, and, on certain
special subjects, by Mr. Charles Francis Stone, all
members of the New York bar. Mr. Wilds was en-
gaged in these researches for nearly five years.*
* President Barnard, of Columbia College, prepared the titles
on " Money," " Weights and Measures," " Longitude and Time,"
and "Sea Signals."
THE WORK OP MANY YEARS. 231
With such experts ransacking hbraries and explor-
ing every source of information, there was accumulated
a mass of material that would have dismayed a man of
less courage than Mr. Field. But with his tempera-
ment, the greatness of the undertaking only stimulated
his indomitable energy, and all the hours that he could
snatch from his professional engagements — his morn-
ings and his midnights — were given to the work of
International Law.
And what came out of all these busy years ? A brand
new Code, evolved out of his own brain ? Not at all !
It was the same old law with modern improvements.
Was the law the only branch of human knowledge in
which there was no such thing as progress ? The
world was changing and the law must change with it.
If this was taking liberties with the past, it was a lib-
erty that must be taken by any generation ^vith the
work of its predecessors.
But modest as were its pretensions, the ' ' Outlines
of a Code" grew and grew into a volume that quite
appalls the ordinary reader. If I do not attempt a
critical analysis of such a work, it is because that is too
high for me ; it belongs to one whose life has been
given to legal studies, who only can appreciate the vast
range of subjects (the table of contents alone covers
forty pages ! ), and is competent to analyze each separate
part, so as to judge how far it is a real contribution to
International Law.
232 WAR SOMETIMES INEVITABLE.
Without attempting anything so ambitious, it may
be permitted to one who is not a lawyer to dwell briefly
on the last third of the book, which is given up to War,
in which it is apparent that the author has put into it,
not only his legal knowledge, but his whole heart,
hoping that long after he had passed away it might
remain as a plea for peace and good will among men.
To begin with, he did not deny that a war might
be sometimes inevitable — coming like a convulsion of
nature, a storm or an earthquake, which man was pow-
erless to resist. Nor would he deny that wars had some-
times subserved the cause of liberty and of civilization.
The gallant fleets of England destroyed the Spanish
Armada. By a seven years' war our country won her
independence. By a civil war of four years slavery was
destroyed. By war Italy was made united and free.
No appeal to justice could have persuaded Austria to
give up Lombardy and Venice : they had to be wrenched
from her on the field of battle. The tyrant Bomba
ruled Naples and Sicily till he was driven out by the
invasion of Garibaldi. In such cases war was the
only relief from a situation that was too terrible to
be borne.
But for the most part wars were precipitated by pride,
hatred or ambition. For such a war Mr. Field had a
double abhorrence : not only because it was wicked, but
because it was insane, in that it did not settle anything
but the question of brute force ! It did not prove that
HOW TO STOP A WAR BEFORE IT IS BEGUN. 233
the victorious power was right ; that its cause was
just ; and that the conquered state, which shrank back
defeated and almost destroyed, was a sinner above other
nations, or indeed above its victorious enemy. Nor did
it even settle the question of peace. On the contrary,
one war sowed the seed of other wars, that might be
continued from generation to generation, till one power
or the other was destroyed ; or if permitted to exist,
it was only as a subject or a slave !
Looking then at the question from before and after,
Mr. Field reasoned that the proper moment to stop a
war was before it was begun ; before any rash act had
put either power where it could not retreat with honor,
or at least without a sacrifice of national pride. There-
fore he reasoned that in case of differences between
two countries, the mode of procedure should be settled
beforehand, so that neither should be thrown off its
balance by some sudden irritation, but could look at any
question in the clear light and tranquil atmosphere of
peace and friendship. To this end he suggested three
simple provisions, which, if followed, would make war
almost impossible :
"First: that there should be a simultaneous reduc-
tion of the enormous armaments which now weigh
upon Europe ! " That alone would save millions of
dollars a day, and thus lift a burden that presses sorely
upon every power on the continent ; while the mere
pause would cool the hot blood of the belhgerents.
234 A PEACEFUL WAY OF REDRESS.
"Second: that if any disagreement or cause of
complaint should arise between nations, the one
aggrieved should give formal notice to the other, speci-
fying in detail the causes of complaint and the redress
sought, and that this complaint should be formally
answered within a certain period." This would prevent
hasty action, and give time for both parties to think it
over, and to ask themselves if there were really anything
in dispute that was worth fighting about. If such a
course had been pursued by France and Germany before
the fatal declaration of July, 1870, we should probably
have been spared the last Franco- German war ; although
it must in truth be said that the French were so mad
for war, to show that France, and not Germany, was
the great military power of the continent, that it is
doubtful whether anything could take the conceit out
of them but a few tremendous defeats. Then, indeed,
they began to open their eyes, and would have gladly
retreated. But it was too late, and they had to drink
the cup of humiliation to the very dregs. We on this
side of the Atlantic have taken care to avoid any possi-
bility of misunderstanding with our neighbors by insert-
ing a provision in our treaties with Bolivia, Guatemala,
Peru, San Salvador and New Granada, that a blow
should never be struck without full notice of any griev-
ance that might be peaceably composed.
' ' Third and last : If the parties did not agree,
they were to appoint a Joint High Commission " ;
THE ALABAMA ARBITRATION. 335
[representing the two countries] ' ' and if that failed, a
Tribunal of Arbitration " [made up of representatives
from other nations friendl}'- to both] .
Could there be anything more simple than this ?
Would it involve any sacrifice of dignity on the side of
either party ? Was there any humiliation in arguing
a question in a tone and temper of mutual respect, as
if each had the fullest confidence in the sincerity and
fairness of the other ? Such frankness would be a les-
son in national manhood.
We need not theorize about it when we have a case
in point, that is the best of all arguments. At the close
of our civil war there was a very bitter feeling against
England, from whose ports had gone out the ships that
had preyed upon our commerce till they had nearly
driven it from the ocean. The case hngered for six
years till Mr. Gladstone, seeing that the fires were still
smouldering, with a frankness that did him infinite
honor, made advances towards having the question
settled forever ; and, as if to show that England was
ready to meet us more than half way, instead of invit-
ing the American representatives to come to London,
he sent the English representatives to Washington, to
deliberate ^vith us under the shadow of the Capitol, where
both sides went to work with such earnest purpose,
that in a few weeks they had agreed to submit the whole
question to a Tribunal of Arbitration, to be composed
of five members ; one to be designated by the Queen,
236 PEACE WITH HONOR.
and anotlier by the President ; with a request to the
King of Italy, the President of the Swiss Confederation,
and the Emperor of Brazil, each to name an arbitrator,
and in case of the failure of either to act, the request
was to be transferred to the King of Sweden and Norway.
When the treaty was duly signed and sealed, the
English representatives came on to New York to embark
for home, and the night before they sailed, they were
entertained by Mr. Cyrus Field at Delmonico's, where
they had the opportunity of meeting several hundreds
of our most eminent citizens. The feeling on both sides
was one of unbounded relief and satisfaction. I can
hear now the ringing voice of the Marquis of Ripon
saying proudly, ' ' The treaty between the two countries
is an honest treaty, of which neither has reason to be
ashamed ! " Ashamed indeed ? There is nothing in all
our history of which we have more reason to be proud.
A few months later the Tribunal met in Geneva,
and after listening to the arguments of great advo-
cates on both sides, gave their decision that England
should pay an indemnity of fifteen millions of dollars !
Was it a humiliation of England that the case went
against her? Then was it a humiliation for us that
another arbitration a year or two later about the fisheries
on the coast of Newfoundland went against us ! The
only difference was that we had to pay but five millions,
while England had to pay fifteen ! Does that seem a
great deal of money ? Both together would not have
CASES THAT CANNOT BE ARBITRATED. 237
paid the cost of war for a week ! But really the ques-
tion of money is too paltry to be so much as named
when two governments have to decide the policy of two
great countries that profess to be civilized and Christian.
In closing the address with which he presented the
International Code, Mr. Field took good care to guard
himself from misrepresentation :
" I do not mean to say that every claim which one nation
may make upon another should be submitted to arbitration.
There may be claims which no self-respecting nation would sub-
mit to any arbiter, such as those which touch its equality or
independence. To put an extreme case : suppose Spain were to
claim the sovereignty of Holland, pretending that it had not
been lost by Philip II, or by any of his successors, I would not
have Holland submit such a claim to the decision of any arbiter
or of any human power. It is not difficult to draw the line
between questions which can, and those which cannot, be sub-
mitted to arbitration."
But if war is inevitable, or has already come, then
how shall it be conducted ? There is such a thing as
civilized war. War does not destroy all rights on
either side, for even enemies have rights. First of all,
war cannot be waged upon women and children, or
peaceable citizens going about their lawful occupations.
If a city is to be attacked, notice should be given to
non-combatants, that they may get out of the way.
To bombard a city with a hundred thousand inhabit-
ants in their houses, or going about the streets, would
238 CIVILIZED WARFARE.
be an act of barbarism, as atrocious as to set it on
jSre, The people of Moscow indeed put the torch to
their own city as a means of self-defence. But if Napo-
leon had set fire to it, his name would live in history
as that of another Attila, the scourge of God !
The first principle of civilized warfare is that it shall
be waged only between armed forces on land or sea.
This is imperative if we are to preserve the character
of civilized nations, and not wage war as savages and
barbarians. Against this savagery the proposed revis-
ion of International Law sets up every barrier of civil-
ization. If nations are seized with such madness that
they must have it out on the field of battle, let them
fight like men, and not like demons, whose only thought
is that of destruction, of the innocent as well as the
guilty, of the helpless as well as the strong. There is
at least a certain decency to be observed in the way
that nations begin and conduct a war. Here are a few
of the barriers that must not be broken down. There
shall be no wanton destruction of private property.
Armies may fight with swords and guns and cannons,
but not with poisoned weapons, nor explosive bullets
that not only kill, but tear the body in pieces. And
the Sisters of Charity and other good angels that hover
over the battlefield or watch in the hospitals to relieve
the agony of the wounded and the dying, shall be
sacred from all rude hands. Nor shall any fierce
invader bombard towns and cities that have no defence.
WAR NOT THE GREATEST OF EVILS. 239
All these ways of making war are relics of an age of
barbarism. Then follow chapters with such sugges-
tive titles as these :
" Of those who may icage hostilities; against tvhom hostilities
may be tcaged ; the instruments and modes of hostilities ; truce
and armistice ; medical and religious service ; prisoners ; hostil-
ities against property ; contraband of tear ; visitation, search,
and capture ; blockade ; prize ; and the effect of ivar uiion the
obligations of nations and their members, upon intercourse and
the administration of justice. In respect of neutrals, the abso-
lute right of a nation to remain neutral while others are at war
is asserted in the strongest terms."
Here is an array of topics, each of which is enough
for a treatise or a volume. But the end to be secured
was worthy of all the labor of the greatest and the best
of all countries, for it is a combined effort to put an end
forever to one of the greatest calamities that can afflict
mankind.
" I do not say," said Mr. Field, "that war is the greatest
of all calamities, for I think that national degradation and
slavery, or general corruption and the reign of fraud, are
evils still greater. An oppressed people may and must rise
against its oppressors. A nation attacked may and must defend
itself. He who would not fight to the death in defense of his
family or his country is not fit for this world. But, in propor-
tion as the defense is just, the attack is unjust. There would
be no occasion for the rising of an oppressed people if there were
no oppression, and no need of defensive war if there were not
first an aggressive war. And, of course, in proportion as you
diminish the aggression you diminish the defense. In other
240 THE HEROES OF PEACE.
words, if there were no aggressive and unjust war, there would
be no war of defense — that is to say, no war at all.
"Nor would I detract in the least from the merits of those great
captains who, fighting for the rights of their countrymen, have
earned renown ; nor would I dispute that there is in war frequent
occasion for, as there has often been a display of, high heroic vir-
tues. But the great men who displayed these virtues have them-
selves deplored the occasion and the evils of the war which they
had been obliged to wage. Our own Washington was not only first
in war but first in peace, as he was -first in the hearts of his
countrymen ; and it was the Duke of Wellington, if I remember
right, who said that there was nothing worse than a battle
gained except a battle lost.
" I would not, indeed, discourage the cultivation of the heroic
virtues or take away the opportunities of their exercise ; but,
assuredly, war is not the only school where they can be culti-
vated or exhibited. There will always be suffering enough in
the world for the exercise of all the virtues. Does not the ship-
master who puts his ship about in a stormy sea at the signal of
a shipwrecked brother, and stays by him through the dark and
perilous night till the daylight comes, that he may save him
at the risk of his own life, exhibit as much heroism as any of
those who fought at Waterloo ? Did not the captain of the
Northfleet, who the other day calmly accepted death that he
might save women and children, exhibit as much heroic virtue
as any of the brave six hundred who charged at Balaklava ?
Was Howard less a hero than Marlborough ? Would you not as
soon deserve the eulogy which Burke pronounced upon the for-
mer, as the poem with which Addison celebrated the victory of
the latter? Let him who would win renown through labor,
endurance, and self-sacrifice, go abroad into the world and make
war upon the wrong with which it is filled."
SIGNS OF THE GOOD TIME COMING. 241
With such devotion to the welfare of our race, the
"good time" for which we have been waiting through
all the centuries would soon come. Indeed in the vis-
ion of the speaker, it was coming now, and with this
glimpse of the dawn he brought his words to a close :
' ' I am not sanguine enough to suppose that war is in our time
to be put an end to altogether, but I do suppose that increased
intercourse and the general progress of civilization have more
and more inclined men to the ways of peace. The armor that
now hangs useless in our baronial halls ; the battlements that
now serve for ornament in place of defense ; the walls of cities
once formidable but now converted into promenades ; are so
many witnesses of successive steps in the progress from contin-
ual war to frequent and long-enduring peace. I do suppose,
further, that, by judicious international arrangements, the
chances of war occurring may be lessened, and that when,
unfortunately, it does occur, its evils may be mitigated. Such
has been the object of the imperfect work which I now
place, with all its defects, in the library of this Association,
the closing act of a task undertaken seven years ago, and
now fulfilled."
With this Mr. Field laid down the burden that he had
taken upon him seven years before. It was a work in
which it was impossible to make rapid progress. He
had to advance slowly, revising and re-revising every
page and line — only to feel at last that it was still very
"imperfect," and to submit it "with all its defects ! "
From this self-depreciation we may appeal to the judg-
ment of eminent jurists in Europe, and to the fact that
242 ONLY OUTLINES OF WHAT IS YET TO BE.
it has been translated into French and Itahan. Yet to
a work on which he spent years of labor, he gave only
the title of ' ' Outlines, " as if it were but the dim fore-
shadowing of Avhat he would have it to be. Such
indeed it was. This was not an affectation of modesty,
but an expression of his sense of how little he, or any
one man, could do. He would have been the last to
ask others to be satisfied with what did not satisfy him-
self, for he looked ujDon International Law as a jjrogres-
sive science, which must advance with the progress of
manldnd. The utmost he hoped to do was to make his
contribution to the "common weal" of the world.
Those who came after him would have far greater
opportunities, as they would have the wisdom of all the
ages. He was but one of the pioneers that went before
the grand army of progress to point the way. To the
future it belongs to fill up the "Outlines" that have here
been sketched on a broad canvas by a master's hand.
CHAPTER XVII.
THE LONG VACATION : GOING ROUND THE WORLD.
In the army of the United States officers of high
rank are retired at the age of sixty-four ! Their days
of battle are over ; their names are placed on the roll
of honor, and they can take their seats, like Roman
emperors, in the Coliseum, and look down serenely
upon those who are still engaged in the combats of the
arena. But in the professions there is no limit of age.
There may be veterans, but there are no pensioners,
who are provided for by a grateful country. Nor
would a man like Mr. Field accept any price, or any
honor, that retired him to the rear, which he would
have looked upon as a gilded exile from the stormy
activities of hfe. To live he must keep in the ranks of
war. That inaction would have cut short his days
seems probable, when we recall the fact that, after he
passed the age of military retirement, he not only sur-
vived, but was an actor in the stirring events of his
time, for another quarter of a century !
But he must have now and then a change of scene,
which he found by frequent visits to England and the
Continent, where he had so many friends that he was
244 ATTRACTION TO THE ANTIPODES.
as much at home as in his own country. He had also
travelled in the East. But now there was an attrac-
tion which drew him farther still. He was nearing the
line of seventy when he set out on the longest journey
of his life — to go round the world ; and not by the
shortest line, straight east along a Northern latitude,
but by the longest, that crossed the Equator, and
reached far down into the Southern Hemisphere. The
distance was great, but the attraction was greater, for
there at the Antipodes was the idol of his heart, his
only daughter, who was predestined to a life in ' ' lands
remote " when she became the wife of a Governor of a
British Colony. Sir Anthony Musgrave was the Gov-
ernor of Newfoundland at the time of the laying of the
Atlantic Telegraph in 1866, and gave a hearty English
welcome to Mr. Cyrus Field. This was the beginning
of an acquaintance, not only with his familj^, but with
that of his brother Dudley, whose only daughter he
married in 1870, when Sir Anthony was Governor of
British Columbia. From this distant post he was sent
half way round the world to Africa, to be Governor of
Natal ; and next was promoted to the Governorship of
South Australia, where Mr. Field set out to seek his
child, literally at the world's end.
But he could not go anywhere, to an}^ part of the
habitable globe, without keeping in mind the great mis-
sion of his life, the Reform of the Law. He had fin-
ished his New York Codes, and they were fighting their
JUST LAWS BETTER THAN PEACE SOCIETIES. 245
way across the Continent. When he went abroad, he
found a similar movement in other countries, which, if
not inspired from America was along the same lines,
and working to the same end, so that their reformers
and ours could exchange ideas in the most friendly
way, as fellow- workers in the same good cause. We
could reach out our hands across the sea, not only to
the great nation from which we are sprung, but to all
the races to which we were more distantly allied.
Mr. Field's ideas always had a logical relation one to
another ; and in his mind the natural order of progress
was that justice should go before, and liberty would
follow after ; and that ' ' the fruit of righteousness
would be peace," not only in the spiritual life, but in
all the relations that are formed among men.
This would be better than all the Peace Societies,
which had attempted much, but accomplished little.
There was a Peace Society in this country, which held an
anniversary once a year in Tremont Temple, in Boston ;
as another society met in Exeter Hall, in London ; at
which good men and good women deplored the great
armies and great battles, and prayed for universal peace.
But so far as stopping war, they did not so much
as stir a ripple on the mighty waters of public opinion
in Europe or in America. This was brought home to
us very clearly one evening in May, 1873, when Mr.
Field invited a few friends to his house in Gramercy
Park, to hear the report of Dr. James B. Miles, who
246 HOW TO PROMOTE PEACE.
had been abroad as the agent of the American Peace
Society. It was the same old story. Everybody in
England was in theory as much for peace as John
Bright, and yet that did not prevent constant warlike
preparations. Was there not a better way to culti-
vate the amenities out of which grow friendly relations
by looking into kindly faces, and listening to kindly
voices ? This was a large question to be discussed
before a small company in a private parlor. But tall
oaks from little acorns grow, and that very evening
these gentlemen resolved themselves into a modest
"Committee" — out of which grew a body more impos-
ing in name, as well as in numbers and in power, as it
brought together a few months later at Brussels some
of the most distinguished publicists of England and the
Continent, to form ' 'An Association for the Reform and
Codification of the Law of Nations," of which Mr. Field
was chosen the first President.
The movement was a success from the very begin-
ning. The peculiar charm of the new organization was
its unpretentiousness, its simplicity and its absolute free-
dom. It claimed no authority. It was in no sense a
political body, composed of delegates from different
countries, to advocate some policy that might be more
favorable to one than another. It was more like the
scientific associations that meet from year to year, now
in London or Edinburgh, and now in Paris or Vienna,
to record new discoveries in science, and lead the way to
A FREE CONFERENCE. 247
still greater achievements. Nor was it limited to jurists,
but included statesmen and political economists, with
perhaps here and there a dreamy philosopher, who had
in his brain some social reorganization, that would be a
cure for all the ills of the human race. But this only
enlivened the discussions, as it showed the wide range
of opinion that was allowed, and the contact, or even
collision, of such theorists with men who were nothing
if not "practical," might enlarge the ideas of both.
Naturally an intercourse so free and unrestrained led to
the formation of many friendships, as all national prej-
udices dissolved in the warm atmosphere of a generous
enthusiasm for a great cause, that of universal justice
and peace.
At the close of this first meeting Mr. Field gave
a dinner to the members, at which the burgomaster
of Brussels and the English Consul at Antwerp were
guests. As might be supposed, the occasion was one
of mutual congratulation between the representatives
of different countries, who felt that it was indeed one
step forward in the progress of the world.
This was sowing the seed that was to bear fruit in
many directions. The report of that first Conference in
Brussels (which was in its purpose and spirit, if not in
name, a Peace Congress,) attracted immediate attention
beyond the border of Belgium, so that when Mr. Field
arrived in Paris, he was feted by the French as well as
by Americans. In passing through Turin, he paid a
248 FROM EGYPT TO THE FAR EAST.
visit to Count Sclopis, who had been President of the
International Tribunal at Geneva, (when they celebrated
the event that was uppermost in both their minds in a
cup of tea, that was served for the first time from the
silver service presented to him by the United States
Government ; ) and in Rome he formed a very warm
friendship with the Prime Minister, Signor Mancini,
and other Italian statesmen.
But now he was to leave Europe behind, and the
long journey began when he embarked with his wife
from Brindisi for Alexandria. He had been in Egypt
nearly a quarter of a century before, in 1850, but had
only gone as far as Cairo, to get a sight of the Pyra-
mids ; but now he went up the Nile in a steamer to
the First Cataract, nearly six hundred miles.
But it was not till they returned to Cairo, and
crossed to Suez and took the steamer for Bombay, that
they felt that they were indeed bound to the Far East.
The voyage down the Red Sea, with Asia on one side
and Africa on the other, is full of historic interest.
Walking on the deck, when the sun is setting over the
Dark Continent, one can see on the other side his last
rays fall on the cliffs of Mount Sinai. Had my brother
been landed on that barren Arabian coast, as I was nine
years later (in 1882), he too might have been mounted
on his camel, measuring off the long stretches of the
Desert, "the great and terrible wilderness," on his way
to the Holy Land. But he kept down the Red Sea,
INDIA AND CEYLON, 249
and at Aden sailed out into the Indian Ocean ; and in
another week came in sight of the great wall of moun-
tains that are known as the Ghauts of Western India.
To the traveller there is no country in the world
more fascinating than India, which Mr. Field took in
to the full, as he went up the country to Allahabad,
where the two sacred rivers, the Jumna and the Ganges,
mingle their waters, and millions of pilgrims come to
wash away their sins ; and thence to Agra, with its
wondrous Taj, the most exquisite tomb in the world in
architectural beauty and grace ; to Delhi, the capital of
the great Mogul Empire ; to Cawnpore, where the blood
of the great massacre still cries from the ground ; to
Lucknow, that will always have a place in history for
its heroic defence in the terrible siege ; to Benares, the
holy city ; and last of all came down to Calcutta, the
capital of British India.
From Calcutta they sailed for Ceylon. While wait-
ing at Point de Galle for the steamer that was to take
them to Australia, Mr. Field went up to Colombo and
thence to Kandy, which is to Buddhists what Jeru-
salem is to Christians, or Mecca to Mohammedans ;
where is a shrine which they visit with the utmost
veneration, as it contains a sacred relic in a tooth of
Buddha ! Here are the two High Priests of that faith,
to whom he was introduced by the English official,
who said, to give him an idea of their exalted dignity,
*'This is the Buddhist Archbishop of Canterbur}', and
250 ON THE SOUTHERN OCEAN.
this the Archbishop of York ! " He asked them about
their doctrine of Nirvana, which they said "was not
that the souls of the departed sank into annihilation, but
found rest in a place of eternal and conscious repose."
Returning to Point de Galle, they embarked in a
Peninsular and Oriental steamer and bore away into
the vast Southern Ocean, to which all other oceans are
but seas. Never before had Mr. Field such an impres-
sion of the waters that girdle the earth. Day after day,
and week after week, they sailed on, and saw nothing
but the heavens above and the waters below, till, as
with the Ancient Mariner,
• • So lonely 'twas that even God
Seemed not there to be."
But there was a fascination in this very silence and
immensity. The sea was calm, and as he sat on deck
at night, above him shone the Southern Cross and all
the constellations that revolve round the Antarctic pole.
But of land there was not a sign, not even an island
thrown up by an earthquake, like the Peak of Teneriffe.
Nor was there a sign of human life, not even a sail on
the horizon, save once, when an Italian barque rose up
like a phantom ship, as it came out of the East and
sailed into the West, "looking," said Mr. Field, "as it
passed over the water, like a great white flying eagle."
But all voyages must have an end, and after three
weeks they had their first sight of Australia in the port
WITH HIS DAUGHTER IN ADELAIDE. 251
of New Albany, where they hailed their country's flag,
flying from the peak of two American whalers, which
had gone thus far from home in search of a cargo.
One of the captains was from New Bedford, Massa-
chusetts. His wife had accompanied him in his long
voyage, and made a little flower garden out of a box
on the deck, where were growing her native flowers
to remind her of her New England home.
Passing along to South Australia, they reached
Kangaroo Island, off Adelaide, on a bright moonlight
night. Never was a scene more striking. The ship
w^as moving on without a sail, every rope of her cord-
age distinctly traced on the background of the clear
sky, the shore visible along the island and up the bay,
while the revolving lights told them that they had reen-
tered the regions of civilized life.
The next morning the Governor's secretary came on
board to greet them and tell them the glad news that
Lady Musgrave had that morning, March 10th, 1874,
borne another son, for whom the bells were ringing out
a welcome as they drove into Adelaide from the port of
Glenelg. The little fellow for whom the bells rang, is
now Lieutenant Arthur Musgrave in the English army.
Although Mr. Field had been led to undertake this
long A'oyage to the Antipodes by the yearning of his
heart to see one who was inexpressibly dear to him, yet
he never visited any foreign country without making a
careful study of its natural features and resources ; of
252 MELBOURNE.
its towns and cities ; and above all, of its population.
In every place to which he came he had his eyes open,
observing and reflecting as to the future of the new
world which was rising in the Southern Hemisphere.
Though Australia was no longer to be drawn on the
map, and spoken of in geographies, as an island, but
as a Continent, it had many disadvantages in the vast
wastes of the interior, that were as desolate as the
steppes of Siberia, or the Desert of Sahara. Yet it
had many compensating advantages in its coast line of
thousands of miles, indented with bays and ports for
commerce, and above all in being settled by the mighty
English race, who have been the colonizers and civil-
izers of so large a part of the world.
Thus delightfully occupied in observations of every-
thing round him, and above all in the charming domestic
scene in the Government House, the weeks in Adelaide
flew quickly. But at last he had to tear himself away,
and they took a coast steamer for Melbourne, where
he was surprised to find a city not forty years old,
(it was first settled in 1835,) with over two hundred
thousand inhabitants ; with streets as wide as our New
York avenues ; with stately Parliament Houses ; an
University and a Cathedral ; libraries and museums ;
a Royal Park and other public gardens ; with courts
of law and banking houses, representing the great firms
of London ; and clubs and theatres and all the signs
of European civilization. Best of all, were the private
SYDNEY AND BRISBANE. 253
residences, whose architecture and tasteful surround-
ings showed that they were the abodes, not only of
wealth, but of English culture and refinement.
Another sail along the coast brought them to Sydney,
the old Botany Bay, to which at the beginning of the
century England transported its criminals, but that had
proved itself worthy of another population, which gave
it a character befitting the capital of New South Wales,
whose schools and colleges and churches showed that it
too, like Melbourne, was modelled after dear old England.
Continuing northward, the steamer stopped for a day
at Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, where Mr. Field
went up to the city and dined with the Governor, Lord
Normanby, little dreaming that his son-in-law. Sir
Anthony Musgrave (after being five years Governor of
Jamaica), would be Governor of Queensland, and there
die and be buried far from his native England !
And now they were no longer on the open sea, as
they passed inside of the Great Barrier Reef, the most
extensive range of coral reefs in the world, which forms
a mighty breakwater within which they had as com-
plete inland navigation as if they were on the coast of
Norway or the voyage to Alaska.
The last persons they saw in Australia were two
American missionaries, husband and wife, standing on
the high bank of Cape Torrens, and waving them a
farewell, a benediction which they heartily returned,
for one result of Mr. Field's journey round the world
254 CROSSING THE EQUATOR.
was to exalt his opinion of the character of the mission-
aries, and of the work they were doing, and he was
often heard to say that, if he had to choose between
them and our consuls, or even many of our ministers,
he would take the former as the best representatives
of his country.
As they approached the Equator, the sun was more
directly over their head, and the heat was so oppressive,
though relieved somewhat by the trade-winds, that they
were more than willing to take a long siesta in the mid-
day hours, and keep watch bj- night. It is commonly
supposed that the constellations of the Northern Hemi-
sphere are more brilliant than those of the Southern,
but in those midnights it seemed as if the stars came
nearer to the earth, and the heavens glowed with
immeasurable splendor.
The culmination of their long A'oyage was in the
Arafura Sea, where, between the islands of Bali and
Lombok, they were so near the shore that they saw the
natives about their cabins, while above them rose the
Peak of Bali, twelve thousand feet high — just the
height of the Peak of Teneriffe — which was girdled
with three zones : one from the sea upwards to the
clouds ; the second a robe of clouds, where a storm
with lightning was playing ; and the third the clear
top, shining in the sky.
And now they were sweeping along the shores of
Java, one of the richest islands in the world, with its
JAVA AND SUMATRA. 255
background of lofty mountains, and its foreground of
rich tropical vegetation, over which towered its majestic
palms ; an island that supports a population of thirty
millions, ten times that of the whole continent of Aus-
tralia ! It was night before they anchored off Batavia,
but so eager was Mr. Field to go on shore, that he went
at once, and at daybreak was exploring a city which, by
its innumerable canals, showed that it was in many fea-
tures a reproduction of its ancestral Holland.
Turning Northward from Java, they had in view
for two days the island of Sumatra, a thousand miles
long, and larger than all Great Britain. In this last
stretch they crossed the Equator, and were once more
in the Northern Hemisphere, as they landed at Singa-
pore, the Southern point of Asia !
Here they were still under English dominion. The
Governor was Sir Andrew Clarke, who invited Mr.
Field to dinner, at which he met the Maharajah of
Johore, who came in Oriental dress, and brought
his cook with him, that he might not eat forbid-
den meats. The Attorney-General also called on Mr.
Field, and when asked what was the judicial procedure
of the Straits Settlements, answered that they had the
New York Code, which, of course, was very gratifj-ing
to one who had the chief part in framing that Code on
the other side of the world. It seemed to say that
justice is of no country ; that it is the same in all lati-
256 SINGAPORE -AND HONG KONG.
tudes and longitudes ; the rightful inheritance of all
climes and of all the races of men.
From Singapore it is a week's sail to Hong Kong,
but here too he did not coine as a stranger, for his
Codes had gone before him, and the Governor, Sir
Arthur Kennedy and Chief Justice Smale joined to
do him honor ; while Messrs. Burroughs and Russell,
American merchants, received them with that generous
hospitality which the great mercantile houses in the East
are always so ready to show to distinguished visitors.
From Hong Kong it is but a few hours' sail across
the strait and up the Canton River to the great city
of that name, where Mr. and Mrs. Field were received
by Mr. Cunningham, agent of the firm of Russell
and Company, whose ample establishment was put at
their disposal, and partly fitted up to receive them.
Here they were treated with great hospitality ; every
day English or American residents were invited to
meet them at dinner. Archdeacon Graj^ of the English
Church accompanied them in their excursions ; the most
remarkable of which were a visit to the place of behead-
ing, a real Potter's Field, (where they were shown the
cleaver with which heads were struck off, and a bag
containing heads that were waiting to be sent to the
homes of those who had suffered death ; ) and a visit
to the Courts, where the accused were brought in with
chains about their necks ; one end of wliich was passed
through a hole in a heavy stone, that the poor wretch had
CHINESE JUSTICE. 257
to carry when he moved. As he came before the Judge,
he laid the stone on the floor and prostrated himself,
when the charge of crime was read to him, and he was
sternly interrogated about it, and his answers writ-
ten down. One of the accused denied his guilt and
stoutly protested his innocence, at which the Judge
ordered him to be put to the torture, not by the rack,
or by the touch of red-hot iron, but by hanging him
up by the thumbs and toes, which was agony enough.
The man stood it for about ten minutes, when he con-
fessed and was let down — a short way to extort a con-
fession, not always from the guilty, for it might be
from the most innocent, who would confess any crime
rather than suffer an agony that was worse than death
itself. This Chinese justice showed that China had
hardly emerged from barbarism. Instead of being a
sign of ci\alization, it was but a ghastly token of man's
inhumanity to man.
They returned by Macao, wliich is a little peninsula
long ago granted to the Portuguese, and once a place
of some commercial importance. It is now as quiet
as a country village, but the beauty of nature still
remains, enhanced by an interesting historical associa-
tion, as the visitor is taken into a pretty garden in
wliich Camoens, the Portuguese poet, wrote the Lusiad.
From Hong Kong the travellers took passage by the
French steamer to Shanghai, where they had a hearty
welcome from our Consul, Mr. Seward, and Mr. Wil-
258 AN OFFICIAL VISIT.
liam H. Fogg, a merchant from New York. As Mr.
Seward had an official visit to make to the Tao-tai, the
head man of Shanghai, answering to a French Prefect,
he asked Mr. Field to accompany him. So one morning
they set ont in their sedan chairs, winding through the
narrow streets till, as they approached the official resi-
dence, they were saluted with fireworks like Roman
candles. The Tao-tai came forward to meet them, and
took them into a room with benches on three sides,
where he waved them to the right and left, and took his
seat between them. Tea was then brought in, which
is always preliminary to any official discussion, and
when the latter was ended, they retired with the same
courteous formality.
But still more interesting to Mr. Field was it to see
the administration of justice, which had also its peculiar
features. As Shanghai had quite a large foreign pop-
ulation, there were mixed tribunals, in which foreign
Consuls sat wdth the Chinese authorities to watch the
proceedings. Mr. Field was present one morning when
Mr. Seward sat with a Chinese judge who despatched
business without much ceremony, as in a case where
there was a contest over a pile of silver dollars, which
were laid on the table. He made short work of it by
reaching out his hand, and taking a part and passing
it over to one man, and the remainder to the other.
The next case was a criminal one. The culprit was
found guilty and sentenced to be flogged, which was
THE INLAND SEA AND JAPAN. 259
done at once. He was laid upon his face on the ground,
while the executioner took a bundle of rods and began
to whip his bared legs. The man cried lustily, and when
he got up was further punished by the cagne, which is
made of two pieces of board, each with a half circle
cut in it, to be put together round the neck, so that the
man could not lay his head on a pillow or on the ground,
nor reach his face with his hands. A more cruel j)un-
ishment it would be difficult to imagine. Is it that the
enormous population of China makes them indifferent
to human life or human suffering ?
Leaving Shanghai in one of the Pacific Company's
steamers for Japan, they passed through the Inland Sea,
which, with its thousands of islands, is the most beau-
tiful Archipelago in the world. The American passen-
gers were reminded that they were nearing home as
one evening they heard voices on the upper deck sing-
ing ' ' Marching through Georgia ! "
From Yokohama Mr. Field made a visit to Tokio,
and an excursion to Inoshima and to the great statue of
Buddha at Dai-Butz. The evening before he left he
dined with Iwakura, the Prime Minister of Japan, at
his palace, in company with Mr. Bingham, the Amer-
ican Minister, Except for the swarthy figures and
Oriental costumes, the dinner might have been given
in Paris, as the service was in the French style, even
to the champagne.
In Yokohama he met Sir Harry Parkes, the British
260 GOOD BYE TO THE OLD WORLD.
Minister, who had been long in the East, and had a
hfe of incident, not unmixed with danger. One eve-
ning, as they were talking of the old times, he told of
an attack made upon him and his party by fanatics in
Osaka some years before. They were passing through
the streets escorted by English soldiers, when some
Japanese fanatics rushed upon them with sharp drawn
swords and began cutting at the soldiers. They did
bloody work, and one was bleeding freely, when Sir
Harry rushed up to him and bade him stand his ground,
saying, "Remember that you are an English soldier !"
He had come as near losing his head in Cliina as
in Japan. Dean Stanley told Mr. Field that Sir
Harry once described his conversation with a fellow-
prisoner, who with him was condemned by the Chinese
authorities to be executed the next morning ! They
passed a part of the night in comparing the sensations
they expected to feel when led out to execution !
A gruesome subject indeed for their midnight hours !
But by some happy intervention the morning brought
light into the prison cell, and the execution was indefin-
itely postponed.
When our travellers left Japan, they said good bye
to the Old World. As they steamed out of the harbor
of Yokohama the crews of the American ships of war
gave them three cheers. That was their last recogni-
tion, for once on the Pacific they saw not a sign of life
for seventeen days as they bore away to the East, over
HOME AGAIN. 261
a sea as calm as that of the Southern Ocean, and which
gave them the same sense of the infinite. Day after
day they saw nothing but the blue sky above and the
blue waters below, with the long swell, that never broke
into a ripple, over which the great ship moved as if
conscious of her strength. On the last day, as the}*
approached the coast, they ran into a heavy fog, which
compelled them to slow up for two or three hours, when
all at once it lifted and disclosed the bright top of a
mountain ten miles below San Francisco. At this the
good ship seemed to lift up her head, and dasliing on
with the speed of a race-horse, passed the Golden Gate
into the great harbor of the West, and stood still.
Their arrival was not unexpected, as Mr. Field's
brother, the Justice, who was here from Washington,
was waiting for him, and with other kinsfolk, the Ash-
burners, made the wanderers feel that they were once
more at home, and in a few days they were rested
from their voyage. A special car was put at their dis-
posal as far as Salt Lake, where they halted and visited
the Mormon City, and had an interview with Brigham
Young, who generously offered to introduce Mrs. Field
to his seventeen wives — an honor which she politely
dechned ! The next day they continued their journey,
and reached their Stockbridge home in July, 1874,
where, looking down from the hill top, they felt that in
all the world there was no spot quite so restful as this
"Happy Valley" nestled in the Berkshire HiUs.
CHAPTEE XVIII.
A NEW CHAPTER IN POLITICS. A DISPUTED PRESI-
DENTIAL ELECTION. TWO MONTHS IN CONGRESS.
When a man has just returned from a voyage to the
Antipodes, he might be excused if he should take at
least a breathing spell before he starts off on a new
expedition. But Mr. Field was not as other men are.
He was still in his prime, in his seventieth year, and it
was not in him to rest while there were new worlds to
conquer. The year before, when he helped to form the
Association in Brussels, he promised to be present at
the next meeting, though meanwhile he had to make
the circuit of the globe, and the very next month after
he reached home, he was again on the sea.
This time the meeting was at Geneva in Switzerland,
where he found that the good seed had taken root, and
was bearing fruit in the Old World as well as the New.
It received a new impulse from the very place of its
meeting, in the "Salle d' Alabama," so called from the
fact that in it had met the representatives of different
nations to arbitrate between England and America as
to the claims of the latter for the ships destroyed by
the Alabama in our civil war, for which the arbitrators
MEETING IX GENEVA. 263
awarded to our country an indemnity of fifteen millions
of dollars. This had made the hall historic, in memory
of which it was ornamented with agricultural imple-
ments, which had been moulded out of cannon, to sig-
nify that the reign of peace was approaching, when the
nations should learn war no more.
During the year past the Association had become
known even in the Far East. When Mr, Field was
in Japan he dined with the Prime Minister Iwakura,
and in the course of conversation mentioned that on his
return to America he was again to cross the sea to
attend the meeting of the Association for the Reform
and Codification of the Law of Nations, which was to
be held in October at Geneva, and suggested that Japan
should send a delegate ! The Minister was at once
interested, but did not know whether the Council, or
some official body mentioned by him, would approve of
it in the time required. But when the time came and
Mr. Field was on his way to his destination, he saw in
the papers that the Japanese envoy to Rome was also
en route to Geneva to attend the meeting. There he
was indeed, with his wife, and two very intelligent and
interesting persons they were, and added much to the
pleasure of the European delegates.
These annual meetings were getting to be great
events in the life of Mr. Field. As he was a good
sailor, he thought nothing of the week's voyage. The
change from life on shore was grateful to him, and he
264 JUDGES IN THE " ROBES OF OFFICE."
could sit on deck in any weather, and drink in the salt
sea air with a feeling of exhilaration.
The next year the Association met at The Hague,
where it was received with great distinction, not only
by the notables of the bench and the bar, but by the
court. As the King of the Netherlands was absent, the
Queen and the Ministers, and the two Chambers, hon-
ored them with all manner of attentions, ending with a
reception by the Queen at the "Palace in the Wood."
In two weeks he was again on the ocean on his return.
At home he took life more easily, going up to Albany
now and then to argue a case before the Court of Appeals,
where he was a little — or not a little — shocked at the
free and easy way of conducting the proceedings, and
finally persuaded both judges and advocates to adopt a
little more of ceremony : the judges to wear gowns, like
the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States,
which seemed to be the fitting "robes of justice" ; and
the bar to rise as the judges entered, and stand till they
had taken their seats. A little of this observance of the
stately forms of the past, he thought, by adding to the
outward dignity, added also to the respect due to the
highest courts of justice.
From Albany it was an easy change to Washing-
ton, where he was still more at home, not only in the
Supreme Court, but among the old habitues of the
National Capital, some of whom seemed to belong to
another generation. Thus he writes March 1, 1875 :
A NEW YEAR OPENS IN PEACE. 265
' ' Being in Washington, I paid a visit to the elder
Mr. and Mrs. Blair, both of whom are more than eighty
years old, and yet vigorous in mind, and (except that
he is a little weak in the legs) strong enough in body to
ride on horseback ! What a picture from the days of
our fathers it must be to see this aged couple riding
together over the hills, as we may suppose that Martha
Washington rode beside her husband a hundred years
ago ! "
The greatest satisfaction to him was to find that
"the war was over," not only on the battle-field, but
in personal relations, as well as in political life. After
four years of war, it had taken ten years of peace before
the angry waves were lulled to rest. But that happy
time had come at last. On the same date he wrote :
' ' I think the revolution in our politics is over, and
that hereafter we shall see things moving in their usual
channels. A Democratic House of Representatives
comes into power on Friday, the 4th of March, and w^e
shall have no more Enforcement Acts, Force Bills, Civil
Rights Bills or suspension of the Habeas Corpus."
This blissful state of mind continued through the
year, and on the next first of January (1876) he wrote :
" At midnight the bells rung out their chimes to salute both
the parting and the incoming year. I listened till they died
away at half-past twelve. This morning the flags are flying on
every flag-staff in the city, to greet the centennial year. This
patriotic fervor is a beautiful thing. With it no nation can fall ;
266 THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.
without it no nation can stand long. We have many faults, but
there is at bottom a fund of good sense, energy, love of right and
love of country, that will, I believe, carry us through all perils.
Every man, hewever, must do his duty to the public. The
trouble with us has been that each has been too much absorbed
in seeking his own prosperity. As if in sympathy with the time,
the weather has become perfect. The air is like May and the
sun warm."
Little did he think that a new storm was impending,
that would try the strength of our institutions almost
as much as the war itself, and bring him quite unex-
pectedly into public life. The crisis was one unknown
in our history, and which the fathers of the Republic
never dreamed of, even as a possibility — a disputed
Presidential election ! Through the ordeal of an elec-
tion the country had to pass in every four years, and
the time came round in the Centennial year of 1876, as
that completed a hundred years from the date of the
Declaration of Independence. But of the course of
events that year I knew little, as I had been for more
than a year following my brother round the globe,
and I remember well that, as we entered the harbor of
San Francisco, and the custom house officers came on
board, in my eagerness for news, my first question was,
' ' Who has been nominated for President at the Con-
vention in Cincinnati ? ", fully expecting to hear the
name of James G. Blaine, when to my surprise the
answer was "Rutherford B. Hayes," then Governor of
Ohio, a name that, however honorable in peace and in
TILDEN ELECTED. 267
vrar, (for he had been in the army, and borne a brave
and a manly part in fighting for his country,) I had
never happened to hear before ; while on the other side
had been nominated Mr. Samuel J. Tilden, the Gov-
ernor of New York, whom I had known for twenty
years, as he was not only a resident of the city, but
lived on Gramercy Park, a few doors from my brothers,
so that I knew all his goings out and comings in.
Between these two candidates, I thought we were sure
to have a good man, who, if not a great President, like
Washington or Jefferson or Lincoln, would be at least
a figure-head of the Great Republic, of whom we should
have no reason to be ashamed.
The election took place on the 6th day of November,
and the next morning it was announced all over the
country, without a dissenting voice, that Mr. Tilden had
received 203 votes in the Electoral College, while Mr.
Hayes had received but 166. It was a very simple sum
in arithmetic for any school-boy to subtract the one from
the other, which gave Mr. Tilden the handsome majority
of 37 electoral votes, so that he was duly elected Presi-
dent of the United States ! The Repubhcans gave it up.
The New York Tribune admitted it without a question,
explaining it in the only simple and natural way, that
it was all because "Mr. Tilden had too many votes ! "
But those were the days of the "carpet-baggers,"
when the Southern States were still in the hands of
Northern men, many of them worthless adventurers,
268 A PLOT TO CHANGE THE RESULT.
who had gone South after the war to spoil the Egyp-
tians, and who had the votes in their hands, and the
battle was not lost until they had made out the official
returns, and if perchance the majority happened to be
on the wrong side, what more easy than to throw out
a sufficient number, on the plea of fraud, to turn
the scales the other way ? The Democrats might do
the voting, but as long as the Republican ' ' returning
boards" did the counting, they could laugh at any
Democratic majorities.
This was a line of operation of infinite possibili-
ties, and a certain ' ' managing editor " figured it out
that if the returns from Louisiana, which had eight
electoral votes, and from South Carolina, which had
seven, and from Florida, which had four, making nine-
teen in all, could be taken from the column of Tilden,
and put to the credit of Hayes, it would give the latter
a majority of one ! This was a scheme fitly hatched in
the dark hours of night, which had been no sooner con-
ceived than the plotter, eager to set it in motion, has-
tened up town, to the Fifth Avenue Hotel, and waked
a Western Senator, who was one of the war horses of
the Republican party, and who believed that in politics,
as in war, anything was lawful to beat the enemy ! To
him was communicated the Gunpowder Plot to blow the
Democrats sky high ! "But the election was over ! "
' ' Oh yes, but it was not too late to change the result, for
the whole business was not settled till the official returns
HOW TO ALTER THE RETURNS. 269
were made ! " The policy was to keep these back till it
should be seen just what change of votes would be neces-
sary to make a majority on the other side ! To help
them in their plot, the conspirators had a private code by
which they could communicate with the boards at the
South, telling them not to make their returns to Wash-
ington till they had received the fullest information and
instruction from the North !
Never was a plot more skilfully laid, nor one in
which the engineers were more completely masters of
the situation. The wicked partners at the South were
ready to swear to anything ! If the Democrats had
carried Louisiana by a few hundred, or a few thousand
majority, the Republican managers would take their
solemn oath that there had been much more than that
number of fraudulent votes, for it was always wise to
have a liberal margin !
But was it possible that such a made-up majority
reversing the actual vote would be accepted by Con-
gress ? That was the question. As if to complicate
the case still more, the two houses were divided — for
while the House of Representatives, which had been
more recently elected by the people, was largely Demo-
cratic (so that if there were no election by the Electoral
College, and the choice were thrown into the House,
it would immediately elect Mr. Tilden), yet the Senate,
which held over, was still strongly Republican. Between
the two there was a strife that agitated the whole coun-
270 EXCITEMENT THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY.
try to such a degree that there were fears that it might
culminate in another civil war. Some bold hunters of
Kentucky threatened to march on Washington with a
hundred thousand men ! ' ' And they will soon see what
we shall do -with them ! " was Grant's quick reply. But
the uneasiness was universal. Congress met on the 4th
of December, but business was paralyzed by this all-
engrossing question.
Mr. Tilden had the good fortune to be represented
in the House by his most intimate personal friend, Mr.
Abram S. Hewitt, afterwards Maj^or of New York ;
but it was important to have also a legal representative
to meet the constitutional questions that might arise,
and as there was a vacancy in the delegation from
the city by the resignation of Smith Ely, who had
been chosen Mayor, Mr. Tilden wished Mr. Field to
take the vacant place, and he was accordingly nomi-
nated and elected, and served to the end of the term.*
No sooner had he entered the House of Representa-
tives than he became a very conspicuous figure by his
attacks upon what he regarded as the brazen infamy
of the false returns. One of the side scenes was the
examination of the Boards of Louisiana and Florida,
for which the House had appointed a special committee.
* Strange to say, Mr. Field had voted for Hayes, but so con-
vinced was he that Tilden was elected, that his sense of justice
revolted from an intrigue to rob him of the high office to which
he had been chosen by the American people.
MR. FIELD IN CONGRESS. 271
At one or two of these examinations I was present, and
it was truly pitiful to see how the perjurers writhed
under the questions of their merciless interrogator. It
was onl}^ necessary to look in their hang-dog faces to
see that they were well aware that they did not, and
could not, deceive their inquisitors ! And yet one could
only look at them with a sort of contemptuous pity for
the poor creatures who were throwing away their honor,
if they had any to lose, for the benefit of outsiders who
took good care not to expose themselves to the just
punishment of the law.
But the work to be done was not confined to the
exposure of false witnesses. There were legal questions
to be settled by the highest authorities. As a supe-
riority to the House was assumed by the Senate, as the
body that was to receive the returns, to open the cer-
tificates, and declare the result, it became necessary
that the House should assert itself, and Mr. Field drew
five resolutions on the power of the House in respect
to the electoral count, which were reported from the
special committee by Proctor Knott and Randolph
Tucker. He drew also the objections to counting the
votes of Louisiana and Florida ; and further, as some
timid folk were afraid that the country would go to
pieces if it should be without a President for twenty-
four hours, he drew a bill, which passed the House,
to provide for the administration of the Presidency
in case of a failure to elect ! One step farther was
272 THE ELECTORAL COMMISSION.
the drawing of a bill for the legal procedure called
quo ivai'ranto, which the Democratic caucus voted to
have brought in, and which Mr. Field did bring in, but
which did not pass the House. Here he thought his own
party flinched from their guns, for he was very confident
that if he could once get the case before the courts,
Mr. Tilden would have established his title within six
months, imless indeed all law was trampled down by
the violence of party spirit.
But now all these dreams and warlike preparations
were laid aside by a new proposal. As there was a
dead-lock between the two Houses, wisdom finally pre-
vailed to this extent, that their difference of opinion
should be submitted to an impartial tribunal composed
of five Senators, five Representatives, and five members
of the Supreme Court, fifteen in all, which sat for sev-
eral days in the court room, where Mr. Field and Mr.
Charles O'Conor were on one side, and Mr, Evarts on
the other. The argument of the latter it was my privi-
lege to hear, and it was a great forensic display, although
his opponents might say that it showed more ability
than fairness. His whole argument revolved round one
point : that the Commission had no power — as Con-
gress had no poiver — to go behind the returns. Even
though they believed them, or even knew them, to be
false, there was no remedy ! The constitutional pro-
vision was simply that ' ' The President of the Senate
shall, in presence of the Senate and House of Repre-
CANNOT GO BEHIND THE RETURNS ! 273
sentatives, open all the certificates, and the votes shall
then be counted." But tvhat votes? The real votes
deposited by lawful voters, or the result of stuffed
ballot boxes, or a false count ? No matter for that !
Right or M'-rong, just or unjust, it must stand ! I can
hear him now saying, and repeating, that there was no
power that could go behind the Returning Boards ; that
the work was put into their hands "to be done, and
so done that it could not be undone ! "
This was the argument used in the Electoral Commis-
sion, when they sat by themselves to render their decision.
In vain did Mr. Justice Field put an imaginary case :
"Suppose the canvassers had made a mistake in
footing up the returns, that changed the result of the
election — a mistake that they discovered before the vote
was counted: was there no remedy?" "No !" was
the answer. "Then," said the Justice, "a mistake in
arithmetic, in the adding up of figures, may elect a
President of the United States, and Congress is power-
less to prevent it ! " Again he asked :
"Suppose the canvassers were bribed; or had entered
into a conspiracy to commit a fraud ; and in pursuance
of the bribery or conspiracy, altered the returns, declar-
ing elected persons not chosen by the voters, and had
transmitted their vote to the President of the Senate,
but that before the vote was counted the fraud was
detected and exposed : was there no remedy ? "
Again the same answer, ' ' No ! whatever fraud there
274 A WRONG FOR WHICH THERE WAS NO REMEDY.
may have been must be discovered and protested against
before the Boards made their returns " [an impossibihty
when the Boards were themselves the conspirators to
defraud ! ] ; to which the Judge answered :
" If this be sound doctrine, it is the only instance in
the world where fraud becomes enshrined and sanctified
behind a certificate of its authors. It is elementary
knowledge that fraud vitiates all proceedings, even the
most solemn ; that no form of words, no amount of
ceremony, and no solemnity of procedure, can shield it
from exposure or punishment."
Once more he put the question in this form :
' ' Suppose the canvassers were coerced by force ; by
men putting pistols at their heads, and threatening to
blow out their brains if they did not perjure themselves,
and swear to a lie : was there no remedy ? "
Again ' ' No ! No ! " an answer which not only con-
doned clerical errors and mistakes, but in giving the
highest reward to perjury, held out a bribe to every
degree of villainy and crime !
"But," said one of the leaders of the Republicans,
"if you had the trump card, wouldn't you play it ? "
"the trump card" being the perjured returns ! This
was a taunt worthy of the gamblers of Monte Carlo,
but hardly to be thrown in the face of the august
Electoral Commission ! But weak and wicked as it
was, it prevailed before that great Tribunal when they
disclaimed all power to discriminate between lawful
MR. HAYES INAUGURATED. 275
votes and returns that they knew, or might know, to
be fraudulent, and thus enthroned in the place of power
one who had not been elected by the American people !
So the deed was done, and on the ith of March, 1877,
Mr. Hayes was inaugurated President of the United
States ! His administration was in some respects a
marked improvement on that of his predecessor, who,
being a soldier, naturally leaned upon the army for sup-
port, and kept large garrisons in the Southern cities, as
if they were conquered provinces. To withdraw these
was one of the first acts of the new administration —
a step taken by the advice of the Secretary of State,
Mr, Evarts ; while the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr.
John Sherman, bj^ a wise financial policy, restored the
public credit, resumed specie payments, and began to
pay off the enormous debt incurred by the war at the
rate of a hundred millions a year ! In all these signs
of returning prosperity no one rejoiced more than Mr.
Field. But even this might be too dearly paid for by
the sacrifice of the national honor. As he looked over
the country, and saw the cities alive with the activity of
business, and the fields waving with abundance, there
was one bhght on the smiling landscape — that we were
under a government, or at least an administration, that
had no right to exist ; that there was in the chair of
President one who was not placed there by the people's
will. As to personal qualifications half the country
might prefer Mr. Hayes to Mr. Tilden. But that had
276 NO PROSPERITY CAN BLOT OUT THE WRONG.
nothing to do with the case. The question was not
which was the better man, but ivhom did the people
elect f He was the Lord's anointed, and no one
else could take the crown without sacrilege. The
assumption of authority by another was as flagrant an
usurpation as if General Grant had surrounded the
Capitol with troops, and declared that he would hold
possession. The right of the people to choose their own
rulers was the highest token of sovereignty, and it had
never been disputed. The country had just celebrated
the centenary of its independence, and in all that hun-
dred years there was never a question of right to the
succession. Were we to begin now, and follow after
the South American republics, where power can be
grasped by any pretender, if he has the army behind
him ? So reasoned Mr. Field, in whose view this seizure
of the Presidency was the greatest of crimes ; even
though the country, with its immense vitahty, might
survive the shock, and still flourish under it, or in spite
of it. No glittering prosperity could ever blot out the
memory of this stupendous wrong.
CHAPTER XIX.
JOY AND SORROW. THE DEATH OF HIS SON. VISIT
TO HIS DAUGHTER IN JAMAICA.
Even the most intrepid traveller is not likely to make
more than one gi-and tour around the world. Mr. Field
had gone to the ends of the earth to see his child, and
now it seemed as if the ends of the earth were coming
to him, when, in the regular course of promotion in the
Enghsh service. Sir Anthony Musgrave, after five years
in South Australia, was transferred in 1877 to the island
of Jamaica, of which he was Governor for five years.
This was within a week's sail from New York, and
brought those dearest to the father and grandfather
very near home. As he sat alone on the night of
February 12th, 1878, he wrote: "The last hours of
seventy- two years are nearly run out. I have had in
the main a happy and a prosperous year. My vigor,
bodily and mental, is unimpaired. The great event
of the past year in my domestic life has been the
visit of my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren,
which gave me unspeakable happiness " ; to which he
adds, as if it were from the overflow of a heart too full
278 MIDNIGHT REFLECTIONS.
to be restrained, that he had decided to build a church
tower in Stockbridge, with a peal of bells, in the name
of his grandchildren, living and dead, to be called the
Children's Chimes. "It will be a memorial of those
who are enshrined in my heart, while the ringing of
the chimes at sunset I trust will give pleasure to all
whose good fortune it is to live in this peaceful valley."
The generous purpose was carried out that very year.
The modest campanile was erected on the green in front
of the church, and bears an inscription which tells us that
THIS MEMORIAL TOWER
MARKS THE SPOT WHERE STOOD
THE LITTLE CHURCH IN THE WILDERNESS
IN WHICH JOHN SERGEANT
PREACHED TO THE STOCKBRIDGE INDIANS
IN 1739.
But Sergeant was not the only missionary in the wil-
derness. In his footsteps came Jonathan Edwards,
who, though he was the philosopher of his age, preached
not only to the handful of white settlers, but, by an
interpreter, to the Indians, till in 1758 he was called to
be President of the College at Princeton, where he died ;
after whom Stephen West was the pastor for sixty years.
The associations of three such saintly men may well
make the place holy ground.
The autumn of that year (1878) brought Mr. Field's
usual pilgrimage abroad, where he spent his time chiefly
on the Continent, going directl}'' from Liverpool to
Frankfort-on-the-Main to attend a meeting of the Inter-
A FEW WEEKS ABROAD. 279
national Association, which was made dehghtful by the
hospitahty of the warm-hearted Germans, who gave
them a pubhc dinner and an excursion to Homburg,
courtesies which certainly contributed to the cause of
peace and good will.
After the meeting he went on to Munich, and thence
through Augsburg, Ulm, Stuttgart and Carlsbad to
Strasburg and Metz, from which he visited the field of
Gravelotte, where (as he thought) the French ought
to have been victorious, and apparently would have
been but for the incompetence of Bazaine. From Metz
he went to Luxemburg, and drove about the town,
through the park built on the site of the old fortifica-
tions and along the deep ravines, which form a moat
round the beautiful city. If this did not rouse in him
the war spirit, it did the historical spirit, and so he must
needs make a pilgrimage to Sedan, and go over the
battle field, and visit the house where Napoleon the Third
surrendered to King Wilham of Prussia ! From these
warlike memories he came to Paris on a more peaceful
errand, to attend the meeting of the Institute of Inter-
national Law, where he met an old friend, Mr, Groes-
beck, of Cincinnati, and the representatives, not only
of different countries of Europe, but also of Asia, in the
Chinese and Japanese Ministers. One evening that he
dined with the former, it was amusing to observe the
diversity of languages. Neither of these Ministers
spoke any language but his own, but each had a secre-
280 VISIT OF DEAN STANLEY.
tary who could speak French, so that when the Chinese
Minister gave a toast, his secretary translated it into
French to the Japanese secretary, who translated it
into Japanese to the Japanese Minister ! It was well
that the sentiment that was to pass through three lan-
guages was one of peace and prosperity to all.
These visits to Europe were not unf requently returned
in America. The same autumn Dean Stanley crossed
the sea, accompanied by his friend Mr. (now Sir)
George Grove and Dr. Harper, who were all guests
of Mr. Cyrus Field in New York and at his place
on the Hudson. Then, wishing to show them a little
of the scenery of New England, he brought them up to
the Berkshire Hills, and after taking them to Williams
College, came with them to Stockbridge, where they
were for several days the guests of our oldest brother.
It was delightful to see the enthusiasm of the Dean as
he looked down from the hill top into the valley, through
which the Housatonic winds its way, and exclaimed
in surprise, "Why did you not tell me of all this?"
As we drove him to Lenox, the Stockbridge Bowl,
set in the bosom of the hills, reminded him of the lake
scenery of England. On Sunday he preached in the
Episcopal church, and (recalling the historical associa-
tions which he had learned only the previous day, how
Ephraim Williams of Stockbridge, as he was to go out
to the field in the old French war, made the bequest that
was the foundation of the College which bears his name,)
IN THE PULPIT AND BY THE FIRESIDE. 281
thus alluded to the young hero who had fallen in battle
a hundred and twenty-three years before : ' ' Had the
forefathers of this great nation not struggled to reclaim
the wilderness, and convert the savage, and build up
the Church of God by river and by forest ; had there
not been men like the gallant soldiers who guarded these
frontiers, to catch, in the intervals of war and blood-
shed, visions of a happy and peaceful future, and lay
the foundations on which learning and religion might
freely flourish and abound — this nation would never
have been born, this empire would never have arisen."
From the church he came to our cottage on the hill
and spent the afternoon. My brother had told me that
his delight was, not to see our cities, so much as the
interior of American homes. I can see him now as he
sat upon a low chair before the open fire, (for which
there was an excuse in a touch of frostiness in the
October air,) more interested to ask questions about
the country and its local history, than to speak of aught
which concerned himself or England. When at last we
walked across the lawn as the sun was going down in
the West, his gentle face seemed to reflect the peace and
calm of the day, as he said, ' ' I would not have missed
this for anything." In return for our little courtesy
he hoped to welcome us to Westminster Abbey, where
he could have the pleasure of going with us over the
ancient pile, pointing out the historic names of many
generations ; but alas ! before we crossed the sea again,
282 A YEAR MARKED WITH A CROSS.
he too was laid to rest in the shadow of tlie great Abbey
which he had done so much to make known to the world.
Thus in the midst of life we are in death, a warn-
ing that was soon to come home to us nearer still.
The year 1880 should be marked with a cross, in
token of a great sorrow, the death of Mr. Field's only
son, which came without a warning. It was midsum-
mer, and the city was deserted, as all who could get
away had fled to the seashore or the mountains. Our
family was divided in its country homes, Cyrus having
a place at Dobbs Ferry, and "Young Dudley" (as we
sometimes called him to distinguish him from his father)
at Hastings — both on the Hudson. But wherever we
were, Stockbridge was the paternal home, where our
father and mother had lived and died, and were buried,
and where the eldest and the youngest of the brothers
spent their summers, and here we had planned our
family meeting. Mr. Field, who was at the moment at
Long Branch, was to come up to welcome his brother the
Justice and his wife from Washington. His daughter-
in-law had come in advance, while his son, who was
very fond of coaching, would drive four-in-hand across
the country. A more beautiful excursion could hardly
be found in Old England itself than that from the Hud-
son to the Housatonic. It is all hill and valley, with
roads winding hither and thither through the woods or
along the course of streams, and when he took his seat on
the box, with no companion but the faithful " Michael,"
A FAMILY GATHERING. 283
and cracked his whip, they started at full speed, and
went up hill and down dale. Not the slightest incident
marred the dehght of the journey, till, as the sun was
setting over the Western hills, he drove up to his father's
door. Here were all the conditions of a deHghtful fam-
ily union, when in a few hours all was changed. After
the long drive of the day he slept soundly, but woke in
the morning and spoke to his attendant in liis usual
cheerful tone, when suddenly the heart stopped beating,
the golden bowl was broken, and life came to an end.
It Avas but a few minutes before we, who were near
neighbors, were on the spot. But one glance at the
marble face was enough, and all that could be done
was to soothe the distracted wife. A message was sent
immediately to his uncle Cyrus to be communicated to
his father, and the next morning brought both to the
home that was now turned into a house of mourning.
On the afternoon of the same day, August 10, 1880,
The Evening Post announced the sad event :
"Mr. Dudley Field, the only son and the partner of the emi-
nent lawyer David Dudley Field, died suddenly this morning.
He left Hastings-on-the-Hudson last Friday morning to drive
to Stockbridge, Mass., and was at that time in excellent health.
He had made arrangements to meet all his uncles at Stockbridge
this week, and Judge Field and the Rev. Dr. Field had already
joined him and were with him at six o'clock this morning, when
he died very suddenly of disease of the heart.
" Mr. Field was forty-nine years old, and was very well known
in this city both as counsel and advocate, although his profes-
284 DEATH IN THE MIDST OF LIFE.
sional reputation was necessarily overshadowed by that of his
father. He was very popular in the profession, being a man of
pleasing address and genial temperament, and his death will
be sincerely mourned by a very large circle of acquaintances."
The shock was all the greater because it was wholly
unexpected. It was the sudden close of a life that was
still in the prime of vigorous manhood, and that prom-
ised so much. From his very boyhood he seemed to
have every gift of fortune. From College he went
abroad, and spent a year in Europe and the East. But
the greatest of his opportunities was to sit at the feet
of a master of the law, and to enter upon practice with
the prestige of his father's name. Thus the world had
opened all its gates to him for a brilliant career. On
such a prospect the curtain now fell.
It was a sad day when the old home, known for its
hospitality, saw a gathering for another purpose, indi-
cated by the flag at half-mast. A note in his father's
diary gives the incidents of the last farewell :
" August 12. To-day my son was buried. The sky was low-
ering, but there was no rain. The funeral services were very
simple. At five o'clock our nearest friends came to the house,
where a prayer was said and a few verses of Scripture read, and
then the carriages wound slowly down the hill, following the
remains to the Episcopal church, where the full service was
read, the anthem chanted and the hymn ' Abide with me ' sung.
Then the body was borne to the grave by the workmen in. my
service, assisted by a few others, the pall-bearers, relatives and
assemblage following on foot. At the grave the coffin, covered
DUST TO DUST. 285
with flowers, was placed in a cedar cover, and the whole lowered
into a vault made of brick at the bottom and sides, and covered
with heavy slabs of marble. On the turf which covered the
ground I placed an anchor of flowers at the foot, and a broken
shaft of flowers at the head. Mournful chimes were then played
a few minutes, and we left the grave and the cemetery. By
this time the moon, half full, had taken the sun's place, and a
soft light shone upon us as we returned to our home. I could
but think that it was a merciful providence which had brought
my son to die imder his father's roof, and to be borne to his last
resting-place by his father's servants."
So ended a career whose possibilities seemed but half
fulfilled when he was cut down in the midst of his days.
But if the brilliant promise of his early life fades in
the distance, we cannot forget the warmth of a heart
that never grew cold. He had a great love of children,
and the early death of his only child was a blow from
which he never recovered. Perhaps none have a better
opportunity to know the heart of a young man than
his classmates in College. Living in daily intercourse,
they know one another more intimately and more truly
than in the great outside world. And therefore it has
been so grateful to us to hear those who knew him then
tell us that there was no one to whom they could go
more freely for any act of kindness ; and that all felt
that they had lost a friend when they heard that he had
gone to the grave. They will keep his memory green.*
* In 1883 his father placed a memorial window of his only son
in St. Paul's Church in Stockbridge, and one also in the hall of
the Kappa Alpha Society in Williamstown.
386 VISIT TO JAMAICA.
A heavy heart is not made hght by a change of
place. But it is a rehef to the burden of sorrow to turn
from dwelhng only on one who is ' ' loved and lost " to
another not less dear who still remains. So long as there
is yet one to love, a stricken father is not quite desolate,
mourning as one who will not be comforted. To find
such a change of scene and association Mr. Field left
New York at the close of autumn for Jamaica, of which
Sir Anthony Musgrave was the colonial governor. A
few notes from his diary will keep track of the voyage
and the visit :
"November 25, 1880. Started in the ship Atlas, bound to
Jamaica, on a visit to my daughter and her family. A snow-
storm had come in the night, and the streets, the ship and the
shores of the bay were all white as we steamed out to sea. It
was very cold, and I had to wrap myself in my warmest. But
the sea was not ruffled, the snow and rain had ceased, and the
night was fine. After a day or two the repose of the voyage
gave me relief from the constant strain of work, with the added
burden of so much sorrow. When I came on board I was nearly
worn out ; but the quiet of the sh(p, the absence of care, and
the softly murmuring sea soothed my nerves. Nobody impor-
tuned me, nobody called me. I was alone with myself, with a
small ship's company, and with nature, the sea, the winds, the
clouds and the stars.
" November 28. Dudley's birthday. As I sat upon the deck
all the morning, I thought of the bright day when he was born,
in a front chamber on Murray Street, looking out upon the
green of Columbia College, and a canary singing in his cage
over the coming of the child. I ran along the years of his life
THE RESTFUL SEA. 287
till he died. How my lieart was bound up in him ! Then I
thought of what was left to me in my daughter and her chil-
dren, to whom I am going. "
As they were sailing Soutliward, each day brought
a milder climate, and all the passengers were on deck,
enjoying the softer air, while he was for the most part
sitting in his sea-chair with a book. He had taken with
him the recently pubKshed "History of Our Times,"
by his old friend Justin McCarthy, and very interesting
he found it. It set him to thinking whether government
was really made much better by the long discussions in
Parliament or in Congress, apropos of which he recalled
an observation of Lord Normanby, whom he had met
six years before in Queensland, that in all his life in
Parliament he had never heard but two speeches that
changed the vote in the House of Commons : one was
a speech of Lord Palmerston on the famous Don Pacifico
case ; and the other a speech of Macaulay on the exclu-
sion of the Master of the Rolls from the privilege of
sitting in Parliament. So diflQcult was it to move the
government. Sir Rowland Hill told him of his expe-
rience in getting his plan of cheap postage introduced.
He argued and argued, but made little impression till
one day the Duke of Wellington sent for him to explain
it, and getting interested, told him he would take it up.
As the Iron Duke could speak in a tone of command,
soon everybody discovered that cheap postage was one
288 THE ISLAND OP JAMAICA,
of the greatest blessings ever bestowed upon the people
of England !
"November 30. The last day of autumn. About nine last
evening we passed Wattings Island, 1,000 miles due south from
New York and 470 from Kingston, and Bird Island at four this
morning, and at six stopped at Fortune Island and took on board
negro workmen for service on the ship and in port till her
return. From this we passed Castle Island and then struck out
straight for Cape Maysi, the eastern end of Cuba.
•'December 2. Kingston. We anchored off the harbor in
the night, and steamed up to town by seven o'clock this morn-
ing. 'The Governor's carriage was waiting for me, and I was
driven to King's House, where I found myself at eight o'clock
surrounded by my daughter and her husband and their children.
' ' December 6. At three in the afternoon we left King's House
in a landau and drove five miles to Gordon-Town, at the foot of
the Port Royal Mountain. There taking the horses, which had
been sent on before, we followed a bridle-path, said to have been
laid out by the Spaniards, for an hour and a half, when we drew
up before a low cottage, 4,000 feet above the sea. This is Flam-
stead, where Jeanie and her family have passed three summers.
It is said to be eighty years old, and is embowered in flowers
and vines. Kingston, city and harbor, is at our feet, and the
highest range of the Blue Mountains, 8,000 feet, fills the horizon
to the north and east. When Columbus was asked by Isabella
what Jamaica looked like, he crumpled a sheet of paper, and
then opening it half way, said that the surface was like that !
It was a good illustration. I never saw a mass of mountains
of so many shapes and so sharply cut. The thermometer now,
at eleven o'clock, stands at 71, and a gentle breeze stirs the
foliage about me as I write. Church, the artist, resided for a
while in these hills, at a cottage a mile or so to the southeast
THE MOUNTAIN SCENERY. 289
of Flamstead, and he thinks the climate the best lie has ever
known. The quiet is complete ; there is no neighbor within
fifteen minutes' walk.
"December 8. Yesterday at three P. M. we had a shower of
rain, lasting half an hour. When it ceased, we started on a
ride among the mountains— Jeanie, Anthony, an orderly, a ser-
vant on foot and myself, in single file, along steep mountains
and among stunted trees. We passed the spot where Jeanie
was thrown over the hillside from a runaway horse. It is a
frightful place, and it was a miracle that she was not killed.
Our path lay along Mount Elizabeth, to the southern end. The
views were grand. We did little more than walk our horses,
now and then starting into a gentle trot. Coming down from
the mountain one day, we saw a phenomenon I had never seen
before. It had been raining, and instead of a rainbow there was
a circle, an aureole, around the head of each of the riders as he
rode, mirrored in the mist on the opposite side of the ravine.
"December 20. Yesterday afternoon at five I went with
the Governor to the camp of the West- Indies Regiment to hear
the band. The musicians were all black except the leader. The
privates of the regiment are black, but the ofiicers are white.
I am told that there is not a black officer, high or low, in the
British Army.
"December 28. In the afternoon the Governor, Mr. Baden
Powell and myself, made a visit to the Commodore at Port Royal.
We were taken over to the tomb of a person who was swallowed
up in the great earthquake, thrown out again, and lived after-
ward thirty years !
"In Jamaica I learned two lessons. One was how completely
one phase of life and occupancy could be blotted out by another.
We are apt to think with amazement of the changes in Europe
which the Northern barbarians effected when they came down
290 ONE RACE BLOTTED OUT BY ANOTHER.
upon the Roman Empire. The example of Jamaica explains it
fully. The Spaniards colonized the island and inhabited it for
two hundred years, until it was taken from them by the Eng-
lish. There is not now, however, so far as I could learn, a ves-
tige of Spanish rule remaining, except the broken walls of a
convent on the north side of the island ; the names of three or
four small streams emptying into the sea, also on that side ; and
the corruption of a name constantly vised on the south side.
Near Kingston is a small river which rushes rapidly through a
ledge of rocks. This is now called ' Bog Walk,' a corruption,
no doubt, of Boca d' Agua.
"The other lesson was the impossibility of either a social or
political admixture of the Aryan and the Negro races. The
population of Jamaica is roughly estimated at 500,000, of whom
50,000 are whites, 100,000 browns, and the rest blacks. The
negroes live in comfortable huts, and the green lanes of their
villages are often charming. On market days there are crowds
of men and women buying and selling. The white dresses and
the headgear of the women make a pictiu-esque scene. But in
spite of all this, and though they are as free as the whites, and
have been so for seventy years, there is no mingling of the races.
The browns hold themselves aloof from the negroes, and the
whites from both."
It is a far cry from Jamaica to the Alps, and yet
there was Mr. Field in the following autumn. On the
last day of summer he left St. Moritz at seven o'clock,
drove up the Engadine to the Malaya Pass, and descended
by a very long and steep zigzag to the valley, a road
that is wonderful for its scenery. At Casteregno he
passed the boundary between Switzerland and Italy.
Here the chestnut trees begin to cover the sides of the
ON LAKE COMO. 291
valley. Having taken the extra post, he travelled rap-
idly to Lake Como, where a steamer was waiting, and
at six o'clock he was in the Grand Hotel at Bellagio.
A day or two after he had one of the surprises that
make the delight of travel :
"September 2. At the wharf this morning, as I was about
to go on the steamer for Como, I met my brother Stephen and
his wife, who had been at the Hotel Grande Bretagne all day
yesterday, neither of us knowing that the other was at Bellagio.
We went together to Como, and there I left them at the station
to go on to Milan, where I am to meet them on Monday. Around
the lake the houses, gardens, boat-houses, fountains, winding
walks, and the dark green foliage, with the variety of trees,
shrubs and vines, make scenes of indescribable beauty. The
charm of the Italian lakes lies in the grandeur of the mountains
that surround them, the frequency of bays and inlets, the wind-
ings of the lakes, and the softness of the climate, not to mention
the numberless villas which in the course of generations have
been built upon the shores.
"September 5. Milan. The town is full of visitors to the
Italian Exposition. I have visited it with great interest, con-
sidering what advances Italy has made since her unity has been
established. Of all the European nations, she is to me the most
interesting, from the progress she lias made since she was freed
from the rule of Austria, Naples and the Pope, and of the petty
sovereigns who divided and enslaved her, and has become one
united kingdom from the Alps to the Adriatic. Milan is a bright
and cheerful city. The people are better looking than the
French or Swiss ; the profiles and bearing of both men and
women are finer.
"September 22. Went to Mentone, where the house of most
292 MONTE CARLO.
interest to me was the Pension Anglo- Americana, in which my
grandchildren stayed in 1879. Arrived at Monte Carlo at five
and took lodgings for the night at the Hotel de Paris, opposite
the Casino. The day was wintry and the breakers dashed hard
against the shore. The road was either alongside the breakers
or above them, giving the most picturesque views of land and
sea ; a succession of headlands jutting out into the deep, with
bays between ; from which rose slopes covered with vineyards
and orange-trees, and dotted with churches and villas, and
behind all a glorious background of mountains. Strange that
all this beauty and sublimity should be profaned by the vices of
men, but here at Monte Carlo is the greatest gambling house in
Europe. After dinner we paid a visit to the famous (or infamous)
Casino, where we were required to present our cards, and received
in exchange tickets of admission to the Cercle des Etrangers.
and passed into a large hall, a sort of reception room, where men
and women were walking up and down, and then into the gam-
bling room, where were four tables, three for roulette and one
for faro, and all crowded with players, among whom were a
number of women ! Another entrance opened into a reading-
room, furnished with more papers than I have seen together
since I came abroad. Into this I strayed, and was met with the
ghastly news of Garfield's death ! I had no heart to think of
anything else, and came straight back to the hotel.
"Returning to Paris shortly after, I attended a memorial ser-
vice for the martyred President in the Protestant Church of the
Oratoire. No death since that of Lincoln has created such a
sensation throughout Europe as that of Garfield."
This year the Social Science Congress met in Dublin,
which Mr. Field had not visited before, and in his first
walk round the town he ' ' found the streets as dirty
DUBLIN AND IRISH HOSPITALITY. 293
as in New York" [happily our streets are better now],
and there was a great deal of squalid poverty, but these
unfavorable impressions were soon dispelled by Lord
O'Hagan, the Irish Lord Chancellor, who invited him
to be his guest at "Woodlands" and with true Irish
hospitality gave a dinner in his honor, at which thirty
sat down at the table, among whom were Archbishop
McCabe and Mr. W. E. Forster, the Chief Secretary
for Ireland, with whom he dined the next evening at
the Vice-regal Lodge in Phenix Park. Mrs. Forster
is a daughter of the famous Dr. Arnold.
But, with true American curiosity, the one spot in
Dublin that Mr. Field wished to see was the place where
Robert Emmet was executed, one of the saddest trage-
dies in history, with which every American is familiar.
The pathetic story of his secret engagement to the
daughter of Curran, as told by Washington Irving,*
and his courage in the face of death, have thrown a
romantic association over his name, which was increased
by the emigration of his brother, Thomas Addis Emmet,
with other illustrious exiles, to the New World, where
Mr. Field had seen them in his early days, and it was
*The picture by Irving in his "Broken Heart" receives its last
touch from the lines of Moore ending :
Oh ! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow ;
They'll shine o'er her sleep, like a smile from the West,
From her own loved island of sorrow !
294 A SUMMER IN ENGLAND.
a sad interest to stand on the very spot where perished
the youthful martjT of Irish independence.
It had become such a habit of Mr. Field to spend
part of his summer vacation abroad, that it is enough
to say that the next year (1882) he followed his usual
course, with only this change, that, as the place of
meeting of the Association for the Reform and Codifi-
cation of the Law of Nations was in Liverpool, he had
no necessity to cross the Channel. Nor was this a
hardship or privation, for though he had friends in
France, Germany, and Italy, yet next to his own coun-
try, there v/as no spot on earth where he felt so much
at home, and so much in love with the country and the
people, as in dear old England, where he spent two
delightful months, returning in October.
CHAPTER XX.
THE AFTERNOON OF LIFE. THE QUEEN'S JUBILEE.
DEATH OF SIR ANTHONY MUSGRAVE.
The happiest part of a man's life is when he has
come to "the land where it is always afternoon." The
struggles of life are over ; the battles fought, the vic-
tories won. Not that he has ceased to be an actor in
the world's affairs, but he has reached a higher eleva-
tion, where he breathes a serener air. Into that broad
upland Mr. Field had now come. Though he was
approaching his eightieth year, his eye was not dimmed,
nor his natural force abated. His form was as erect
and his step as quick and firm as ever. But there was
a little softening of the inner man. Old contests, if not
forgotten, were subdued. The combative element in
him was not quite so strong, perhaps because the victori-
ous can afford to be magnanimous. Or was it rather
that the sun had crossed the meridian, and that life, if
not quite so stirring as in the midday of battle, was full
of quiet thoughts, of cheering memories, and still more
cheering anticipations. With the years, as they had
come and gone, there had been a more general recogni-
tion at home and abroad of the immense service that
296 LORD COLERIDGE IN AMERICA.
he had rendered in his reform of the law, in sweeping
away the technicahties of legal procedure, which, from
once being sacred, had now become matters of ridicule
and contempt. In 1883 Lord Coleridge made a visit to
this country and was received everywhere by bench and
bar with the respect due to the Lord Chief Justice of
England. On the eve of his departure New York did
him honor in a great array of the legal profession at the
Academy of Music, which he addressed with a frank-
ness that disarmed all criticism. He did not assume
to speak for England, as he held a somewhat isolated
position in the politics of that country. ' ' I have never
shrunk," he said, "from calling myself a radical, who,
while greatly admiring Mr. Gladstone, find myself more
heartily in accord with Mr. Bright than with any other
living Englishman." A most happy introduction this,
which sounded as if the Lord Chief Justice of England
were almost a republican ! At any rate he sympathized
with liberty wherever he found it, and saw more to admire
than to criticize, and was more ready to learn than to
teach. In this spirit he referred to our systems of juris-
prudence, ' ' some of which he confessed he had not been
successful in mastering " — a gentle suggestion that even
here there were a few things that might be improved
in the administration of the law ! He had been told
that the English courts despatched business more rap-
idly than ours, and ' ' he could not express the pleasure
he felt to think that anything in England was done
I.AW REFORM IN ENGLAND. 297
faster than here — even a lawsuit ! " He had been told
also that the English judges take the liberty of assum-
ing the direction of affairs more than the practice of
some of our States would permit. From his point of
view he could not help thinking that the English were
right ; and yet from our point of view, so different
were the circumstances, that we might be right too.
But better than all was the lesson of England's expe-
rience. He said : ' ' As the result of ten years of labor
by a committee of which he was the chairman, the
English judges had recommended certain changes in
the methods of procedure, to simplify proceedings.
It was high time that something was done. A dis-
tinguished practitioner once said that he did not think
the world or England would be the worse if every case in
' Meeson and Welsby ' had been decided the other way ! "
But this conservatism was not confined to England,
for he had been told that in one of our States these old
methods of practice shone as bright as ever ! To such
worshippers of the past he suggested that, "as we had
in the Yellowstone Park a collection of the prodigies
and monstrosities of nature, so the lovers of these old
forms should set up a park for quaint pleadings, where
the absque hoes and surrebutters might be preserved
to gratify future curiosity "—to all which Mr. Field
listened with a quiet satisfaction that he had lived to
see the day when England and America were united
in the work of Law Reform.
298 KEEPING A BIRTHDAY.
But — to turn from the professional to the personal —
as our eldest brother was the head of the family, it
was a part of our household traditions to remember his
birthday. With the death of his only son, and the
absence of his only daughter, his three brothers were
his nearest kindred, and it would have been a sort of
sacrilege — at least towards our household gods — if we
had not all come together. We must meet somewhere :
if it could not be in New York, then in Washington, in
the well-known house on Capitol Hill, which has been
famous for thirty years for its generous hospitahty.
Here we met on his birthday in 1884. Of course it
added to our pleasure that others should share in our
admiration for one so dear to us, as when the Justices
of the Supreme Court of the United States came in a
body to pay their respects ; and at dinner the govern-
ment was represented by President Arthur and his
Secretary of State, Mr. Frelinghuysen ; Chief Justice
Waite, and Judges Harlan, Blatchford, aod Gray ;
Senators Edmunds, Bayard, and Gibson ; Mr. Carlisle,
Speaker of the House ; with Representatives Randall,
Tucker, Hewitt, and Dorsheimer ; to whom was added
a representative from the Antipodes in Sir Henry Parke,
whom Mr. Field had met on the other side of the globe,
at Sydney, where he was Prime Minister of New South
Wales. With his large stature and white hair he was
a striking figure, such as became one of the founders
of the new empire of the Southern seas.
VISIT TO HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA. 299
The next birthday (1885) rounded out his eightieth
year, when his brother Cyrus gave a reception, at which
were not only representatives of his own profession,
lawyers and judges, but men of science and learning,
Professors in Columbia College and in the University
of New York ; and men of affairs, merchants and bank-
ers— all of whom came together to do honor to one who
had done as much as any man of his day to establish
the foundations of the Commonwealth.
In the month of April he was invited to Halifax,
Nova Scotia, to make an address at the Dalhousie
University, where he was received with the greatest
courtesy by the bench and the bar. A number of the
judges went to the station to meet him and bid him
welcome. The Academy of Music was crowded to hear
his address on the Comparative Jurisprudence of the
English-speaking peoples. Of the impression made by
this visit I have heard from several quarters, but from
no one who was more enthusiastic than the late Sir
John Thompson, whom I met at the Bering Sea
Arbitration in Paris, and again at Ottawa, when he
was the Prime Minister of Canada, and made for him-
self such a reputation across the sea as led to his
appointment as one of the Privy Council, for which he
was called to England to be sworn into office, and had
gone with the Ministers to Windsor for that purpose,
where he died suddenly in the Castle, to the great grief
of the Queen. The English government paid an honor
300 THE queen's jubilee.
to his memory such as had never been given to any one
on this side of the ocean except to George Peabody, in
sending a ship-of-war to take his remains to Hahfax,
where he was buried with all the funereal pomp of a
great military parade with reversed arms and folded
banners. He was one of the men who could hardly find
words to express his admiration of David Dudley Field.
The year 1887 was an annus mirabilis, as it was
the year of the Queen's Jubilee, an anticipation of what
we have had ten years later. As it was to be in early
summer, Mr. Field sailed for England on the 1st of
June, and on the 21st, the great day of the feast, was
in his place in Westminster Abbey, in the Diplomatic
Gallery, where he and Mr, Phelps were the only ones
in plain dress, a stern simplicity which republicans might
regard as a distinction, (as it was for Franklin in Paris,)
in contrast with the rich costumes and decorations of
the European Ambassadors. The scene was one of the
greatest brilliancy, but of course all eyes were fixed
upon the central figure, eyes that were wet with tears,
when the Queen seemed to be lost in the mother, as she
kissed her children and grandchildren.
That was a time of general rejoicing in London, a
pleasant episode of which followed two days after in
a dinner given bj^ the Association of Foreign Consuls,
in which forty nations were represented : indeed every
nation that had diplomatic relations with England,
except China. As they came in one by one, and their
AN OLD SCOTCH CASTLE. 301
names were announced, now the Consul of Germany,
and now the Consul of Brazil, etc., etc., it seemed as if
indeed the ends of the earth were coming together, and
that tliis was a sign and token of the time when
"The war-drum throbs no longer, and the battle flags are furled
In the Parliament of man, the Federation of the world."
But no Parhament could keep a grandfather long
away from his grandsons, the eldest of whom, who bore
his own name, was at Dartmouth, on board the train-
ing ship Britannia ; while the two younger were in
Scotland, pursuing their studies under the watchful
care of Mrs. Drummond, a friend and kinswoman of
Dean Stanley. They lived in a castle, an old building
of irregular shape, once the scene of conflicts between
the Highlands and the Lowlands in their border feuds.
The grounds were charming, full of old trees and pleas-
ant walks. From the castle Mr. Field drove to the
school where were Arthur and Herbert, when he had
to confess that it was impossible to describe his emotion
as the dear boys opened the door and rushed into his
arms.
Returning from Scotland, he had a few days to spare,
and thinking it a good time to see ' ' how they do things
on this side of the sea," he went down to Durham
to attend the Assizes. There were two judges, one a
Protestant and the other a Catholic, both of whom went
to church before they went to court, Mr. Field attended
302 THE ENGLISH ASSIZES.
the service in the Cathedral, where he had a seat in the
chancel, and observed the judge, as he came in wig and
gown with an escort of the sheriff, chaplain and police-
man, after which there was a sermon ! The two judges
had apartments in the old palace of the bishops. At
eleven o'clock they came to the court house in a stage
coach, preceded by trumpeters. This was preserving
the majesty of justice ! Mr. Field went first to the
criminal court with the judge and sat beside him all the
morning. He charged the grand jury, who stood in a
side balcony a few feet higher than the judge. Then
he waited for them to act on the indictments presented,
while he read the depositions of the committing magis-
trate. After half an hour two of the grand-jurors
came into the balcony and the ofiQcer in charge passed
down to the clerk of the assize, in a net bag fastened to
the end of a pole, two indictments, and withdrew. The
person indicted was brought in and put on trial. In one
case two defendants were tried for highway robbery ;
one was acquitted, the other found guilty and sentenced
to penal servitude. A woman was put on trial for con-
cealing the birth of a dead child. She had no counsel,
but the judge was very lenient, and when the jury
found her guilty, with a strong recommendation to
mercy, he let her off with only a week's imprisonment.
Mr. Field then went over to the ci\al court, where
Judge Matthew was sitting, and in the evening dined
with the judges at the Castle.
A GREAT NAVAL REVIEW. 303
Two old customs he found still kept up at Durham :
one, for the judges to receive on leaving each a jacobus,
to help them procure protection on their forward jour-
ney ; the other, to be entertained by the Dean, where
as they dine a hymn is chanted, and at the end the
Dean gives them his blessing and a shilling !
From Durham he went to Bath, the great resort of
English fashion a hundred years ago, and still famous
from its association with the distinguished figures of
a former generation. Here lived Lord Chatham and
Gibbon the historian ; Fielding, the novehst ; Lady
Huntington, the friend of "Wesley ; Napier, the author
of the Peninsular War ; and Walter Savage Landor.
Leaving these memories behind, Mr. Field was .next
to witness a demonstration of the present greatness of
England in the naval review at Portsmouth, where he
was a guest on board of one of the troop ships and fol-
lowed the Queen's yacht through the whole squadron,
a display of "sea-power" such as the world never saw
before, nor since till ten years afterward (1897), when
it was eclipsed, but only by England herself, and in the
same Avaters.
From the Isle of Wight he came back to London to
attend the Peace Conference at Guildhall, where they
were welcomed by the Lord Mayor, and in the eve-
ning a great banquet was given at the Mansion House,
at which there were three hundred guests, and 'Mr.
Field had to respond for his countrymen.
304 DEATH OF SIR ANTHONY MUSGRAVE.
That summer (of 1887) seemed to be devoted to fetes
and celebrations. But after the sunshine come the
shadows : and the next year he was called to England
on a sadder errand. He was spending the summer at
his seaside home on the Sound. The 9th of October was
the birthday of his daughter, and his thoughts were fly-
ing over the seas to her, when a message from his brother
Cyrus was put into his hand, telling him that her hus-
band, Sir Anthony Musgrave, had died at Brisbane, the
capital of Queensland, the day before, after an illness
of but five hours ! The shock was the more terrible
in that it was wholly unexpected. He was in the full
vigor of manhood, and never more active or more use-
ful. Brought up in the service of his country, he was
an admirable type of that class of men Mdio, trained for
their high positions, have done so much for the glory
of England. With his long experience in different
parts of the world, he may have well looked forward
to many years of usefulness and honor. His death was
therefore a great public loss. But the most agonizing
reflection to Mr. Field was that his only child was a
widow, and far away on the other side of the globe.
But, thanks to the ocean telegraph, it was possible to
communicate with her, and with his message of sym-
pathy went the assurance that he would meet her in
England, to which he assumed that she would imme-
diately return ; and he sailed the next month. He
met her at Plymouth, which was her first port, and
A QUIET SUMMER IN STOCKBRIDGE. 305
came with her to London. After a week or two they
went to Scotland, to see her youngest son, Herbert. To
a stricken mother no sympathy could be so tender as
that of one who had shared her great sorrow. He
was still there at school near the picturesque old castle,
whose occupants were as venerable as its ancient walls.
Returning to London, it was necessary to make plans
for the winter. It was too late to return to America,
and the winter in England would be bleak and cold.
And so, after some deliberation, Mr. Field decided to go
with a party of friends to Egypt, where they spent the
winter, going up the Nile, and did not return to England
till the spring, and reached America in May.
After nearl}^ a year's absence from his country he
was glad of a quiet summer in Stockbridge. Nothing
was so restful to him as nature, and he was more than
willing to exchange the ceaseless roar of London for
the stillness of the Berkshire Hills. The last of June
brought the day of Commencement at Williams Col-
lege, and we drove up through the county together.
With the beauty of the season were the associations
of other days, as we passed over the same old roads,
through the woods, and by lake and stream, that we
had travelled many times when life was young.
At Williamstown he missed his life-long friend Mark
Hopkins, to whom it had been his sad privilege to pay
his tribute of love and admiration the year before.
There were a few old veterans wandering about the
306 ATTEMPT TO KILL JUSTICE FIELD.
grounds, as if looking for some familiar face that they
should see no more. At the meeting of the alumni
Mr. Field was the most conspicuous figure, and when
he entered the dining hall, the whole company rose and
greeted him with cheers. Grateful as all this was, it
was a constant reminder that he belonged to a genera-
tion that was rapidly disappearing.
The summer was passing quietly when there came
a shock to us all. On the 14th of August the tele-
graph brought the astounding news that that very day
there had been an attempt upon the life of our brother
Stephen by the notorious Terry, who had threatened to
kill him because of a decision which he had given on
the bench — a threat which might have been treated
with contempt had it not been that he was a man of
blood (he had killed Senator Broderick in a duel many
years before), which led the government to detail an
officer to accompany the Judge on his visit to Califor-
nia to hold court — a precaution that proved to be very
timely, as the bully, who was a giant in stature, fol-
lowed him from place to place to carry out his threat,
and finally approached him at a table and struck a blow,
and raised his arm for another, which would probably
have been fatal, if the officer had not shot him dead on
the spot ! The tragedy created great excitement in
California and all over the country. Although the
issue was a relief, we could not feel that our brother
was quite safe till he had crossed the Continent and we
had him under our own roof.
JUSTICE DAVID J. BREWER
IThough two Presidents of the United States had been assassinated, the
attack on Justice Field was the Jlrst on a Justice of its Supreme Court. Had
he fallen in the discharge of his duty, he would have been succeeded soon
after by one of his own blood. Justice Brewer is the nephew of Justice Field
and of David Dudley Field, whose Christian name he bears, and in whose
office he began the study of law. and inherited the courage of both his
uncles, as well as their clear head and determined will.^
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BAR ASSOCIATION AT CHICAGO. 307
The season closed with more grateful associations.
Mr. Field, in addition to the duties imposed upon him
by his connection with societies at home and abroad,
was also the President of the American Bar Associa-
tion, which met this year (1889) at Chicago. It was
not the first time that he had been in that city on a
similar errand. Thirty years before it had been his
fortune to deliver an address at the opening of the Law
School of the University of Chicago on the Magnitude
and Importance of Legal Science. The present occa-
sion brought together hundreds of lawyers, not only
from the West, but from all parts of the country. In
his opening address he reviewed the changes in statute
law in the States and by Congress during the preced-
ing year. The sessions continued for three days, and
were closed, in the usual American style, by a dinner,
at which he presided "with a dignity and grace," says
one who was present, "that gave a pecuHar charm
to the occasion." It was a lesson in courage, and
an inspiration and example to the young men of the
profession, to see so many of the most distinguished
members of the bar gather round this old warrior, who
had fought the battle of law reform for half a century.
CHAPTEE XXI.
THE PEACE CONGRESS IN LONDON.
The summer of 1890 found Mr. Field once more in
England, so regular was the swing of the pendulum
from one side of the ocean to the other, from the land
of his fathers to the home of his children. His daugh-
ter, after the death of Sir Anthony Musgrave, had
taken a house at Harrow for the education of her sons
at the famous school founded more than three hundred
years ago, from which have come many who have added
to the glory of England in arms; in literature and
science ; in the pulpit and at the bar.
To be with those so dear to him was to Mr. Field
the chief attraction to England, but he had also this
summer a special engagement, to preside at a Peace
Congress, to be held in London, that would bring
together representatives from many countries, who
were enlisted one and all in the common cause of
promoting the peace of the world.
As it was necessary for him to be in London, or
very near to it, no suburb could be more convenient
than Harrow, which is only ten miles away, and from
its elevation (for it is "Harrow-on-the-Hill") one can
LONDON IN THE SEASON. 309
almost see the dome of St. Paul's, so that while he was
far enough from the great city to be out of its rush
and roar, yet he was so near that he could be whirled
into it in half an hour, and be brought back again at
any hour of day or night.
As the meeting of the Congress was not to be until
July Mr. Field had several weeks to enjoy the society
that gathers only in a great capital. At a lawn party at
Mr. Gladstone's he met Lord Ripon, whom he had last
seen at a reception in New York, on his return from
Washington, where he had led the way for the Ala-
bama arbitration. As he was afterward the Governor-
General of India, he had represented England in two
hemispheres. With Lords and Commons were well-
known writers, among whom were Mrs. Humphrey
Ward and Mr. James Bryce, who has made our part
of the English race known to our kinsmen across the
sea by his "American Commonwealth." But the chief
charm of all was Mr. Gladstone himself, moving about
among his guests, enlivening all by the animated con-
versation of one of the greatest of living men.
From the Prime Minister who had ruled England
for so many years, it was but a step to the present
Prime Minister, Lord Salisbury, and the members of
his cabinet, whom Mr. Field met at St. James's Palace,
where the Prince of Wales received in place of the
Queen, with his brothers, the Duke of Edinburgh and
the Duke of Connaught.
310 FROM PALACE TO PARLIAMENT.
From Palace to Parliament was an easy transition.
That very evening he had an appointment at the House
of Commons, where he heard an animated debate on
the Irish question between Mr. Balfour, Mr. Gladstone,
Sir George Trevelyan and others, after which he dined
with Sir Richard Webster in the crypt below, where
may be seen every evening when Parliament is in ses-
sion some of the most famous men of England. With
Sir Richard were two of his sisters, and Sir William
Hart Dyke and his wife, with the Solicitor-General and
Mr. Henry Moskelyne.
Turning from Parliament, which has centuries of
history behind it, Mr. Field found that England was
not so old as to be above trying new experiments in
government, the most notable of which was the Lon-
don County Council, that had been introduced to take
the place of the old ' ' vestries, " which, antiquated and
cumbrous as they were, were yet so rooted in the very
soil of England, like the oaks which had stood the
storms of a thousand years, that it seemed that they
could not be removed. Yet the Reformers did achieve
the impossible in framing an ideal city government,
which is almost as difficult as to frame that of a king-
dom. To govern Paris is to govern France. It would
be too much to say that to govern London is to govern
England : but certainly a wise and just government of
the greatest city in the world would be an "object
lesson " to all cities and all countries.
LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL. 311
Mr. Field was curious to see this new departure in
city government, and Mr. Frederic Harrison, who was
a member of the Council, took him to it, and introduced
him to the President, Sir John Lubbock, who had suc-
ceeded Lord Rosebery. He found it to be composed of
men of all ranks and conditions, from the Duke of
Norfolk, the first Duke of the realm, to John Burns,
the representative of the working classes. In one point
it extended its membership further than any American
body, as it had at least one member of the other sex,
Miss Cobden, a daughter of the famous Richard Cob-
den. Whether it was that her gentle presence imposed
a restraint upon the other members, the proceedings
were as quiet and orderly as if they had been in a
church. There was none of the hurly burly and con-
fusion that one sees in the Chamber of Deputies in
Paris or in our House of Representatives in Washing-
ton. Everything was conducted so purely with a single
eye to business, that, if Mr. Field had been asked his
opinion, and his pride as an American had not forbid-
den, I am afraid that he would have answered that
London had the best municipal government in the
world ; while New York, vnih its Board of Aldermen,
largely composed of Irish bar keepers, had the worst !
Whether it wiU be better under the constitution of
the Greater New York remains to be seen.
It was full midsummer when the Peace Congress
opened. It had been organized only the year before in
312 THE PEACE CONGRESS.
Paris, where it had its first meeting, and now crossed
the Channel, carrying out what in war might be called
a strategic movement, recognizing the principle that to
reach the people of a country, the most direct way is to
advance on the capital, the centre of population. As
became a country in which the Christian religion is
recognized as the most potent influence for peace
among men, its sessions were prefaced by a special
service on the preceding Sunday in St, Paul's Cathe-
dral, where seats were reserved for the delegates, and
Canon H, Scott Holland preached a sermon on the
text, ' ' They shall beat their swords into ploughshares
and their spears into pruning hooks,"
On Monday morning the delegates assembled at the
Westminster Town Hall, where they were met by the
Organizing Committee, of which Mr, Hodgson Pratt
was chairman and Mr. W. Evans Darby secretary.
Nothing could be more grateful than the hearty English
welcome. If they could only have had the presence of
two of their old leaders ! But Lord Shaftesbury, who
had been the friend of Mr. Field for many years, and
was foremost in every good cause, had gone to the
grave ; and the mighty voice of John Bright was
forever silent. But the love of liberty, of justice, and
of peace, which they had kindled in the hearts of their
countrymen, remained behind them. It was also an
inspiration to those who came from the Continent.
France was represented by a Member of the Institute,
REPRESENTATIVES FROM MANY COUNTRIES. 313
M. Frederic Passy, who took a very active part in the
discussions, as did also Dr. Charles Richet, of the
University of Paris, M. I'Abbe Defourny, and others,
who read papers and made speeches in French.
Whether it was the presence of the Gauls that kept
away the Germans or not, there were but three repre-
sentatives from Germany, one of whom was a resident
of London, and another a lady, the widow of a Ger-
man pastor, who had lived there ; while the third, Mr.
Gustav Meier, was a prominent citizen of Frankfort-
on-the-Main, but too progressive and radical in opinion
for the German authorities. He removed later to
Switzerland. There were representatives from Italy
and Spain ; Belgium and Holland ; Denmark and
Sweden ; Austria and Servia ; and even from Asia
Minor and India.
In his welcome the Chairman had said : ' ' We have
desired to mark our international character by appoint-
ing a president who is not an Englishman, but a citizen
of a friendly nation, on the other side of the Atlantic,"
and in the afternoon the Congress was formally opened
by Mr. Field, who as he rose to speak, looked round on
an audience such as is rarely assembled in London, or
in any European capital. Of course, it was largely one
of Englishmen, with a strong element of Americans,
but with them were many of other countries who, if
they spoke in different tongues, recognized one another
as kindred in a common humanity.
314 MK. field's address.
Mr. Field began by disclaiming for the Congress
any official character. "We are here," he said, "to do
our part in influencing public opinion to promote the
peace of nations. We have no authority from any
government. We appeal — as we only can appeal — to
the reason and the conscience of our fellow men."
Then advancing immediately to his subject : the two
great conditions of peace were Disarmament and Arbi-
tration, The first was more of an European than an
American question, as our army was so small that it
would hardly serve for the smallest European State.
Though our country spread across a continent, and
our population was over sixty-four millions, yet our
"standing army" numbered but twenty-five thousand
soldiers ! But it should be said in explanation that we
really had no enemies : that our vast dominion was
bounded, not by rival kingdoms, but by two oceans ;
so that we needed but two or three dozen regiments,
which were distributed from the Atlantic to the Pacific ;
a regiment here and there holding a fort that guarded
one of our great commercial cities, and that might, on
occasion, serve as an aid to the police in case of mobs
or riots ; while other regiments were distributed on the
border to protect the settlers against the Indians. As
to the cost of our army, it was utterly insignificant
for a nation so rich as ours.
But the moment we crossed the ocean all was
changed. Here were great empires crowding one an-
THE COST OF WAR. 315
other, whose armies had swelled to hundreds of thou-
sands, till the whole continent trembled under their
mighty tread. The mere existence of such countless
hosts, drawn up in battle array, was itself a provoca-
tion to war. And then the fearful cost ! Even Eng-
land, the richest nation in the world, felt the drain
upon her vast resources. Said Mr. Field :
"The btirdens of the warlike establishments of the Conti-
nental States are already grievous to be borne. Yet the German
Emperor has just called for more batteries of artillery to be
added to his vast army, that he may be able to cope with the
ever-increasing armaments of France ; and even in England —
impregnable England — it seems to be a political maxim that her
navy must always be kept on a level with any two navies in the
world. In the admirable address of Mr. Charles Roundell, on
the progress of the working classes of England during the pres-
ent reign, it is stated that a calculation has been made for the
purpose of showing how each pound of the national taxes has
been spent during the present century. The calculation is, that
there has been spent out of each pound :
s. d.
On war and preparations for war 16 Z)^
On all expenses of civil government 3 8)^
For all these wastes and woes there was but one
remedy, an agreement between nations that, in case of
difference, instead of rushing into war, the questions
in dispute should be submitted to the impartial judg-
ment of outside parties, that were not enemies to
either, but friends to both ! This was not a new thing
316 ARBITRATION AS OLD AS CIVILIZATION.
under the sun. "Arbitration between States," said
Mr. Field, "is as old as civilization."
"Two of the Grecian States, when Greece was in her glory,
had a long-standing dispute about an island off their coast.
They finally agreed to submit the dispute to arbiters, and the
award was religiously kept. Since then the world has been
deluged in blood, but now and then during the tempest a voice
has been heard crying for the arbitrament of reason to replace
the arbitrament of the sword. Henry of Navarre was one of
those who cried for it, and the Papacy has more than once offered
its mediation. Finally, when the Temple of Janus was closed in
1815, men turned their thoughts more than before to the means
of preventing the reopening of the gates. If the means adopted
have not been altogeth-er successful, they have prevented some
wars, and even one prevented is worth all the trouble that the
friends of peace have ever taken.
Of this arbitration our two English-speaking coun-
tries had given a noble illustration. After our Civil
War we were in anything but a friendly mood. A
sense of wrong kept up a constant irritation, a feeling
of bitterness, that might have continued to this day,
if we had not agreed to submit our differences to an
outside, and therefore an impartial, tribunal.
The Alabama arbitration was a lesson to the whole
world. But the Americans had bettered tiio instruc-
tion by going one step further still in what we may
call preventive arbitration, as it anticipates danger in
case of any incident that excites the public, and pre-
vents an explosion by the assurance that the matter
TWO CONTINENTS DEDICATED TO PEACE. 317
will be fairly met, and fully explained, if not directly
between the parties themselves, yet by reference to
other countries that are friends of both. Only the
year before the Congress in London, there had been an
' ' International Conference " in Washington, composed
of representatives of all the Republics of North, Cen-
tral, and South America, which, after some weeks of
deliberation, adopted arbitration as the principle of
American International Law for the settlement of
differences, disputes, or controversies that might arise
between them ! At the close of this conference Mr.
Blaine, Secretary of State, bidding adieu to the dele-
gates, said : "If in this closing hour the Conference
had but one deed to celebrate, we should call the world's
attention to the deliberate, confident, and solemn dedi-
cation of two great continents to peace. We hold up
this new Magna Charta, which abolishes war, and
substitutes arbitration between the American Repub-
lics, as the first and great fruit of the International
American Conference."
The summer of 1890 may well be called a golden
summer, as the very air seemed to be filled with peace :
No war nor battle's sound
Was heard the world around."
The whole earth was at rest and quiet. Hardly had
the Peace Congress adjourned before it was followed
by another assemblage, kindred but not the same, an
318 IS IT ALL A DREAM?
"Inter- Parliamentary Conference," composed of mem-
bers of the Parliaments of different countries, who in
meeting face to face came to that full understanding,
which is the best assurance of peace. When their
deliberations were over, they all sat down together at
a feast of good will, at which Mr. Field was a guest,
and when called upon for his word of cheer, answered
briefly :
"My Lords and Gentlemen, I am going to preach you a very
short sermon upon the text projDOsed by Mr. Shaw-Lefevi-e — an
International Parliamentary movement. Last week I had the
honor of being present at an unofficial Congress, composed of pri-
vate individuals of many nations, earnestly bent on doing what
they might to further the cause of international arbitration.
To-night I am proud to address a body of ParUamentary repre-
sentatives inspired by the same lofty ideal.
"I hear people declare us enthusiasts, dreamers, unpractical
folk chasing a phantom. But stop a moment I Think a moment !
Is it true that we are unpractical ? What is that prayer we hear
Sunday after Sunday, 'Give peace in our time, O Lord.' What
does that mean ? It means that we have the consciences of the
world with us. Things change as time rolls on. Suppose the
common people in the time of the Plantagenets and Tudors had
claimed the right to manage the aflPairs of the nation. What
would the nobles have said ? But what do the nobles say now ?
■•' We are called unpractical, but when the German Emperor
demands more battalions for his armies, and a representative of
the groaning German people rises in the Reichstag and asks %vith
whose blood and whose money those battalions are to be paid
for — is that unpractical ? And when the statistician tells you
Englishmen that during the whole of this century, for every
GOING TO THE CONTINENT. 319
pound of public money raised, 16s. Z}4d. have been spent for
war — is that unpractical ? And when you learn that to-day out
of six hundred and seventy members of the House of Commons
there are two hundred and thirty -four ready to vote for an arbi-
tration treaty, and that if only one hundred more members will
join us, the problem is solved — is that unpractical ?
No ! we are not visionaries in fighting the battle of civiliza-
tion. The contest may be long, but the victory is sure. We
may not see it in our day, but our children will, when the church
bells shall ring all over the world for the coming of universal
peace. "
And was this gathering of the nations merely pomp
and show, signifjang nothing ? On the contrary it was
more sacred and binding than any treaty. From the
hour when the Americans were taken into the hearts
and homes of England, they could not help feeKng
that they were no more "aliens from the common-
wealth of Israel," but fellow-heirs in the great inherit-
ance of learning, of liberty, and of religion.
After the strain of this continued excitement Mr.
Field felt the need of rest, and with his daughter and
her two younger cadets (the eldest was on board his
ship in the Mediterranean), took flight to the Continent.
They had engaged rooms at Heidelburg, which had
especial attractions to young students in its ancient
university, as well as in its beautiful scenery on the
Neckar. Leaving them in these picturesque surround-
ings Mr. Field went to Homburg, to which Americans
flock not only for its waters, but for the great number
320 SIR CHARLES RUSSELL.
of visitors from all parts of Europe, among whom are
always some notable personalities.
A striking figure this summer was the old Duke of
Cambridge, so long the commander in Chief of the
English army, in which he succeeded the Duke of Wel-
lington, to whom Mr. Field was introduced, and al-
though watering-place acquaintances do not ordinarily
amount to much, there seems to have been an attrac-
tion between these two old veterans. Again, a stranger
of such commanding presence that he might have been
a soldier, introduced himself as Sir Charles Russell.
The two men were at once drawn to each other by the
common interests of professional life, and by the rela-
tions of their two countries, and were soon plunged in a
long conversation about the English bar and English
politics. This first interview gave Mr. Field a very
high opinion of his new acquaintance, so that it was
no surprise, on the death of Lord Coleridge, to see Sir
Charles Russell named at once for the succession as
the Lord Chief Justice of England.
From these restful days Mr. Field was recalled to
England to take part in another "Association" of
which he was a member, and might almost be called
the founder — that "for the Reform and Codification of
the Law of Nations," which met this year at Liverpool.
Returning to London, he joined some American
friends, with whom he had been invited to pay a visit
to Winst^d Abbey, the home of Byron, an invitation
VISIT TO NEWSTEAD ABBEY. 321
which appealed to one who could well remember when
Byron was the idol of the youth of America, not only
for his poetry, that will live as long as the English
tongue, but for his romantic career, dying in Greece,
where he had gone to join in the struggle for liberty.
Accepting the invitation, they left London for New-
stead Station, where the carriage of Mr. Webb, the
proprietor of the estate, was waiting for them. The
Abbey is a mile and a half distant, to which they were
driven between rows of trees to where a turn brought
them in sight of the Abbey, the arch of the chapel
standing in the gloaming naked against the sky. The
rest of the old pile remains or has been restored.
They were welcomed with true English hospitality
and introduced to whatever there was that had any
association with the poet. Here was Byron's own
room, with the bed on which he slept, and the old hall,
where he had his revels with his friends. The room
assigned to Mr. Field was the one occupied by Wash-
ington Irving when he visited the Abbey, to take in
its features for the description in his Sketch Book.
From the Abbey they were driven to Hocknall church,
where the poet sleeps after his stormy life : and the
evening was spent in looking over his manuscripts.
From this old Abbey Mr. Field and his friends flew
away to Scotland to visit American friends on Loch
Lomond, and then, returning to Liverpool, embarked
for their home beyond the sea.
CHAPTER XXII.
VISIT FROM HIS DAUGHTER AND HER SONS — THE
DEATH OF HIS BROTHER CYRUS.
To spend a season in London, in a constant round of
public meetings and social engagements, may be very
delightful, but would hardly be prescribed by a physi-
cian to a man in his eighty-sixth year. Mr. Field had
an iron frame that could bear any amount of fatigue,
but when he had crossed the sea he felt the reaction,
and found it wise to reserve his remaining strength by
going into winter quarters.
But to a man who never wanted for occupation the
months were not long nor lonely, and he celebrated his
eighty-sixth birthday with his brothers and nephews
and nieces around him. In the evening General Sher-
man came in to offer his congratulations. They were
warm friends, and found great pleasure in recalling
their memories of former years. But the warrior's
work was done. The next week he was taken ill and
died in a few days. The funeral pageant was such as
had not been seen in New York since that of General
Grant, and was a warning to many of the veterans
who followed him to the grave, among whom was Mr.
A FAMILY MEETING OX THE HUDSON. 323
Field. The warning came none too soon, for in another
week he, too, was in the hands of the doctor, who, after
a careful examination, told him that his stout old heart
did not beat quite so firm and strong as when he was
in the full swing of lusty life. Its irregular beating
was a danger signal. As he could not go abroad to see
his dear ones, they must come to him. He took a
house at Dobbs Ferry, where he was soon joined by his
daughter and her two youngest sons, as the oldest was
on board his ship. Thus the family that had been at
Harrow the jeav before was established on the banks
of the Hudson and passed a happy summer together.
It was not till the beginning of September that they
took their leave. As Mr. Field's brother Cyrus had a
yacht, which was always at the service of coming and
departing guests, they all went on board for their last
sail. It was a perfect day. The woods were beginning
to be touched with their autumn hues, while light
clouds were floating in the deep blue sky. In an hour
or two the boat drew up at the Cunard dock, from
which the voyagers waved their adieus to those on
board the yacht as it turned and steamed up the river.
Mr. Field lingered in the country for some weeks to
enjoy the beauty of the autumn, coming into town on
the 12th of October. He was still under the doctor's
care, but went out on the 3d of November to cast his
vote for the first time under the new ballot, formed
after the Australian model.
324 A WINTER AMONG HIS BOOKS.
The next day saw him in a novel court. Though he
had been all his life arguing cases at the bar, he had
never been present at an ecclesiastical tribunal ! Pro-
fessor Briggs, of the Union Theological Seminary, was
accused of heresy before the Presbytery of which I
was a member, and I invited my brother to accompany
me to hear his defence. It was written out in full, and
the reading took two hours and a half. But Mr. Field,
who was always interested in a subtle argument, sat to
the end, though I am afraid that he did not go away
with increased respect for our church courts, when he
saw an eminent scholar arraigned because of his inter-
pretation of some passages in the Old Testament. But
he was not much concerned about the issue, for he was
sure that, sooner or later, truth would make its way.
He was content to say with Galileo, "The world does
move
The winter was a very quiet one, as the rigors of
the season kept him within doors, but even then there
was an exhilaration in looking out through the frosted
panes at the fljnng snow. Though shut up among his
books, he was not without company in the great minds
that spoke to him from the printed page, while he was
still an interested observer of the events of the passing
time. His friends, too, felt it to be a pri%alege to spend
an hour in conversation with him, so that he was never
lonely, and when he completed his eighty-seventh year,
looking backward on the life that was nearly ended,
WHAT IS IT NOW TO LIVE ? 325
and forward to the longer life that was soon to begin,
he thus moralized with himself :
What is it noiv to live ? It is to breathe
The air of heaven, behold the pleasant earth.
The shining rivers, the inconstant sea,
Sublimity of mountains, wealth of clouds,
And radiance o'er all of countless stars.
It is to sit before the cheerful hearth
Witli groups of friends and kindred, store of booTiS,
Rich heritage from ages past ;
Hold sweet communion soul with soul,
On things now past, or present or to come.
Or muse alone upon my earlier days.
Unbind the scroll whereon is writ
The story of my busy life.
Mistakes too often, but successes more,
And consciousness of duty done.
It is to see with laughing eyes the j)lay
Of children sporting on the lawn.
Or mark the eager strifes of men
And nations, seeking each and all.
Belike advantage to obtain
Above their fellows ; such is man !
It is to feel the pulses quicken, as I hear
Of great achievements near or far
Whereon may turn x)erchance
The fate of generations ages hence.
It is to rest with folded arms betimes.
And so surrounded, so sustained.
Ponder on what may yet befall
In that unknown mysterious realm
326 A SHADOW ON THE HOUSEHOLD.
Which lies beyond the range of mortal ken,
Where souls immortal do forever dwell,
Think of the loved ones who aw^ait me there,
And without murmuring or inward grief,
With mind unbroken and no fear,
Calmly await the coming of the Lord.
With such serenity he contemplated the future.
But he could not be insensible to the sorrow of one so
dear to him as his brother Cyrus, whose life had been
not only one of great activity and distinction, but of
complete domestic happiness. Married at the age of
twenty-one, he had lived with the wife of his youth for
half a century. Only a few months before they had
celebrated their golden wedding, with congratulations
from both sides of the ocean. But the next summer,
when they had removed to their beautiful home on the
Hudson, she was taken ill, and died at the close of
autumn, to be followed in a few months by their eldest
daughter, which, with other sorrows, quite broke his
heart.
From that moment he lost his interest in life. He
had no heart to go anywhere, but once came with
Dudley to us on my birthday. It seemed to comfort
him to be with his brothers, and we tried all our gentle
arts to cheer him. He brightened a little and once or
twice a smile passed over his sad face. But his heart
was in the grave, and we could not repress the forebod-
ing that this family meeting might be our last, and so
DEATH OF HIS BROTHER CYRUS. 327
it proved. In June he went to the countrj^, and there in
midsummer the end came. In the diary which Dudley
kept, he recalls the final scene :
"July 12th. Our dear brother Cyrus breathed his
last this morning. He had been ailing and mourning
all the while since our dinner at Henry's, but in June
he was moved to his country seat at Dobbs Ferry,
where he hoped he might revive, and he did a little,
but it was only a flush of life from the country air,
and so he lingered, sometimes better, sometimes worse.
Stephen arrived from "Washington a week before, and
Henry from Stockbridge, and both remained at the
house and were with him constantly. I went two or
three times a day from Hastings, where Laura [the
wife of Dudley, Jr.] was occupying her old home.
This morning Stephen and Henry sent for me to hasten
to Cyrus's bedside. I knew what the message meant,
and went at once. I found him unconscious, but
breathing still ; we watched him closely, sitting by
his bedside, the three brothers, Mrs. Judson and
her two sons. Hemorrhage from the lungs set in,
and at 9 :50 his Hps ceased to move. His busy life was
ended.
"A simple religious service was held at his house
on Thursday afternoon, and the next morning we went
in a funeral train to Stockbridge, where we rode slowly
through the village street, so beautiful with its long
avenue of maples and elms, to the old Congregational
328 AT REST BY HIS KINDRED.
Church, in which our father had preached for so many
years, and the beloved form was laid in the aisle before
the pulpit. The service was very simple : only a
prayer, with reading of the Scriptures and the singing
of one or two favorite hymns ; and the procession
formed again, and moved across the green to the
burying ground where our father and mother lay, and
where his wife had been laid but a few weeks before.
There, in the sweet summer afternoon, we laid him to
rest in a bed of ferns and pine boughs and covered
with flowers. Peacefully now he sleeps where he so
often said he wished to sleep, by the side of his wife
and close to his father and mother, his sister and his
oldest son. Long as any of us survive, shall we
cherish the memory of our beloved brother."
CHAPTER XXIII.
THE LAST SUMMER AMONG THE HILLS.
The summer of 1893 Mr. Field did not spend abroad.
One year before we had laid our dear Cyrus to rest
beside his kindred, among the hills where he was born,
and his eldest brother could not but choose to pass
the following summer — the last, as it proved, that he
was to spend on earth — in the quiet valley so dear to us
all from its associations with the living and the dead.
As Mr. Field's house on the hill top in Stockbridge
was much too large for his diminished household, he
took up his home for the summer in the village, in
"Laurel Cottage," that was full of pleasant memories
as it had belonged to his second wife. *
It is in a quiet nook, embowered among the trees,
*Mr. Field was three times married, first to Jane Lucinda
Hopkins, of Stockbridge, who was the mother of his children,
who died in 1836 : second to Mrs. Harriet Davidson, the widow
of James Davidson, who died in 1864 : and third to Mrs. Mary-
Elizabeth Carr, the widow of Dr. Samuel J. Carr, a physician of
Baltimore, who died in 1876. "Laurel Cottage" has since been
made familiar to the public by the delightful letters of Matthew
Arnold, who occupied it in the summer of 1886.
330 SUNSHINE WITHOUT AND WITHIN.
with a background on one side of the rocky knoll of
Laurel Hill, at the foot of which the Housatonic flows
gently under the willows. Mr. Field's room was on
the second floor, in the rear, looking South, so that it
was full of sunshine, while from the window he looked
down the green slope to the river, beyond which rose
the wooded side of Bear Mountain, so named from the
bears that were once as numerous among the rocks and
trees as were the Indians who built their wigwams in
the valley below.*
And if there was sunshine without there was sun-
shine within. He was always sitting at his table,
reading or writing, but ready to lay down book or pen
to talk on the topics of the day, on which he gave his
* Possibly his interest was increased because of a feeling
almost of reverence for the primeval forest. The sound of the
woodman's axe had no music to his ears, and he was almost
indignant at the farmers, who swept acres upon acres, leaving
the earth naked and bare. This he looked upon as a kind of
desecration, and from time to time bought large tracts to save
the forests, so that at last he found himself the owner of a whole
mountain side. Of this he gave to the town fifty -eight acres,
including the Ice Glen, a deep gorge in the mountain (which
had apparently been rent asunder by an earthquake), that for
its wildness is a favorite resort of the young people, who come
at night, when the darkness is lighted up by flaming torches,
which but magnify the surrounding gloom and perchance give
a creeping chill to the young men and maidens, that is only
removed as they emerge by a dance on the green I
IS THERE ANOTHER LIFE? 331
opinions freely, and was no less ready to listen to mine,
however little they might be worth, from which we
wandered off to graver subjects, for his mind was so
active that he was ready to talk on the law or the
Gospel, on politics or religion.
It may surprise some who did not know the man to
be told that our conversations were often on the gravest
subjects — of the supernatural and the life to come. He
did not talk of these things with everj'^body. As he did
not intrude into the opinions of others, no stranger
would presume to catechise him as to his belief or
unbelief. But, like every thoughtful man, he was not
without his questionings about the great mysteries of
life, and when he was with an old friend, like Mark
Hopkins, he talked freely. But now that friend was
gone, and he had his own silent, solitary thoughts. As
he rode over the hills, and saw the sun going down in
the west, he could but reflect how soon he would sink
below the horizon. And then what? Was it all a
blank ? or was there another life that was to begin ?
Man's breath goeth forth from his nostrils. But is the
soul only a breath ? Is thought only the vibration of
particles of the brain, as the strings of an instrument
give forth sound ? When the instrument is broken
the music is gone. Why may not the last sigh of
the departing soul be the utter going out of life,
growing fainter and fainter till it is lost in the eternal
silence ?
332 SCIENCE AND RELIGION — OPINION OP AGASSIZ.
All these questions hung on the greater one of the
existence of God. Mr. Field had in his college days
studied Butler's Analogy and Paley's Natural Theol-
ogy, and accepted their conclusions. But with his
logical mind he was always open to argument, and
was not afraid to look any proofs squarely in the face,
even if they led him to annihilation ! Such a man
could not be indifferent to the scientific speculations of
the day, supported as they were by new discoveries.
Darwin had made a great stir in the scientific world by
his work entitled "Origin of Species by Means of Nat-
ural Selection," followed up by "The Descent of Man,"
in which he attempts to trace it to a development from
a lower order of animal life. Indeed he did not hesi-
tate to picture the ancestor of the human race, saying
that "Man is descended from a hairy quadruped, fur-
nished with a tail and pointed ears, probably arboreal
in its habits ! " This was an ancestry that was not very
flattering to our pride, but the theory was caught up
by the atheists of the Continent as doing away with
the need of an Author of all things. But in America
there was at least one man of science, Louis Agassiz,
who was not carried away by this assumption of supe-
rior knowledge : as I once heard him declare in the
ringing voice that bespoke a conviction which nothing
could shake, that the adaptation of means to an end,
which runs through nature, is the infallible token of
mindy the proof of an intelligent Creator.
TYNDALL AND LORD KELVIN. 333
Another great authority was equally positive. In
the year 1884 the British Association for the Promotion
of Science met for the first time on this side of the
Atlantic, in Montreal, and among the distinguished
men who came to it was Sir William Thomson, now
Lord Kelvin. As he had been closely associated with
our brother Cyrus in the laying of the Atlantic cable,
the latter claimed him as his guest as soon as he landed
in America. On his way to Montreal, he came to us in
our country home, and spent a few days in the Berk-
shire Hills. Of course I could not lose the opportunity
of questioning such an authority on the relation of
science and religion — questions which he met with the
coolness of a philosopher, to whom nothing was sacred
but truth. He thought that the much vaunted theory
of natural selection had had its day. Cold and cheer-
less as it was, he would not shrink from it, if it was
supported by evidence. But it was, to use the form of
a Scotch verdict, "unproven." "But what," I asked,
' ' do you say to the bold prediction of Tyndall that ' in
matter will yet be found the promise and the potency
of all life?'" to which he answered with a smile, "I
do not think Tyndall would say that now;" and then ho
told me how Pasteur had exploded the theory of spon-
taneous generation ; and gave me his own opinion that
the argument from design in the material world, a8
wrought out in what he called ' ' that excellent old book,
Paley's Natural Theology," was unansiverable !
334 GOING ABROAD FOR THE LAST TIME.
All these points I talked over with my brother for
hours, and he assented to the conclusions, but never
argued about it, for the questions were too awful to be
discussed like a point of law. Sometimes he sat silent,
leaning his head upon his hand, with a far-away look,
as if he was peering into the distant and unknown. A
photograph taken, I know not where, perhaps on the
other side of the globe, shows him in these thoughtful
moods, as I have seen him a thousand times.
But happy as he was this last summer in riding about
the Berkshire Hills, yet as the season drew on, and the
autumn leaves began to fall, I perceived a yearning for
the dear ones beyond the sea, and he said, ' ' I want to
see my daughter once more, and my boys," as he
always called his grandsons, even when they were
nearly grown to manhood. Indeed the eldest, who bore
his grandfather's name of Dudley, had just reached his
majority, and it was partly to celebrate this event that
he wished to spend the coming Christmas in England.
If he could but once more be with that beloved
group, he could die happy. The doctors shook their
heads, for he had not yet fully recovered from the
illness of three years before. But love carried it over
prudence and that last satisfaction was given him.
Leaving home late in the autumn, in two weeks he
was sitting before the open fire at the home of his
daughter in East Grinstead, in Sussex, about thirty
miles from London, to which Lady Musgrave had
STRONG PATERNAL AFFECTION. 335
removed after her sons had finished their studies at
Harrow. Here they were all gathered round him.
Dudley was already a midshipman in the navy, but
fortunately his ship was now in an English port, so
that he was able almost every Sunday to visit his
mother and grandfather. Arthur was in the military
school at Woolwich, while the youngest, Herbert, had
made his studies for the same profession, and had gone
through his examinations, but had not yet heard the
result, for which he was waiting with no small anxiety,
as there were four hundred candidates, and only fifty
appointments. But one morning The Times brought
the full report, from which it aj^peared that he was,
not only one of the fifty, but the second on the list !
This was, of course, immensely gratifying to the young
soldier, and to his mother and brothers, but perhaps
most of all to his grandfather, in whom the paternal
instinct was very strong. It did one's heart good to
see the mixture of pride and affection that glowed in
his face as he looked round the little circle of those
who had his blood in their veins. If he was ambitious
for his grandsons, it was only that as they grew in
years they should develop a manliness that gave promise
of an honorable career. In a pamphlet of "Personal
Recollections" which he had prepared for his grand-
children, he closes with this tender farewell to those
who should come after him :
"Here, in the middle of my eighty-eighth year, I
336 LEGACY TO THOSE WHO COME AFTER HIM.
close what are hardly worthy to be called 'Reminis-
cences,' since they are little more than a succession of
dates, with names of persons and places. But even
these have their use. The dates of the years as they
pass are so many milestones to mark the successive
stages of our life's journey : while the names of places
far apart on the face of the globe, tell of the goings to
and fro : and as a background for the personalities
that appear as actors on the stage, they recall the
varied scenes and occupations of a long and laborious
life. These guide posts will be of service at least to
my grandchildren, who from these 'Notes' may turn
back to the 'Diaries,' where all is detailed with greater
fullness, from which they may know what manner of
man their grandfather was. To them he leaves this
brief story of his life, only reminding them that, on
whichever side of the ocean their lot may be cast, the
elements of true manhood are the same ; and bequeath-
ing to them, as their best inheritance, the love of free-
dom, the spirit of independence ; fidelity in every posi-
tion, private or public ; and the traditions of truth,
justice and honor."
CHAPTER XXIV.
HOMEWARD BOUND — THE GOING DOWN OF THE SUN.
Delightful as are the homes of England, the coun-
try is not quite the same in December as in May.
It is now as when Keats wrote the exquisite lines :
"St. Agnes' eve ! ah, bitter chill it was ;
The owl with all his feathers was a' cold."
Although Sussex is in the south, and its chalk hills rise
up like the cliffs of Dover, as if to protect the land
from the sea, yet the winds sweep over the South
Downs, and howl round castle and cottage. Mr. Field,
accustomed to the blazing fires of America, had to wrap
himself up very warmly, and still felt that the climate
of England in winter was not quite suited to one of his
age ; and after the Christmas holidays were over, and
the grandfather's heart was filled with joy and pride,
he bade adieu to the household so dear to him, and
accompanied only by his faithful valet, Watson, who
had been with him for years, he crossed the Channel
to Paris, where he found his "nice and warm apart-
ment waiting for him " at his old quarters in the Hotel
Bristol. Though it was mid- winter Paris was as gay
338 A WEEK AT NICE.
as ever. But he was so eager to get into a warmer
climate that he left the same night for Cannes, though
he missed the luxury of travel to which he had been
accustomed in America. "The train de luxe,^^ he
said, " is a misnomer : there is no luxury in it ! " But
any feeling of discomfort vanished as he reached Mar-
seilles, and looked out on the glittering Mediterranean.
Nice was bathed in sunshine. His hotel was on the
quay, and even in mid- winter, January 15th, he re-
ports : "The sun is shining all glorious this morning."
His letters seem to breathe the warmth of the atmos-
phere. He writes to his daughter :
"Of course I greatlj^ miss your companionship, and
that of my dear boys, but I am better off in this
climate. The sun has shone brightly the five days
that I have been on the Riviera, and I am perfectly
comfortable. My faithful Watson guards me. I took
a walk with him before lunch along the boulevard,
which skirts the bay for a mile or so. The scene was
a gay one, such as only France can exhibit : all sorts
of people and all sorts of vehicles, and I might add all
sorts of amusements. The French are an amiable and
volatile people, with a streak of the tiger in them ! "
And now the sea itself took on a new interest, when
a letter from England informed him that his oldest
grandson, who was a midshipman in the navy, and
had been waiting orders, had been ordered to the East
India squadron. He answered at once :
HIS GRANDSON ORDERED TO INDIA. 339
"This is good news if the station is healthy. I sup-
pose that on board the ship one is protected from
disease more than on land. God i:)rosper the dear
fellow ! How fortunate it is that I came over as I
did, and could see all my brave boys and you together.
Give Dudley my warmest love and wish him every
good fortune. Keep up your heart, my darling ! "
Writing again, he asked about the ship and her
commander, and was gratified to get the best reports,
not only of the superior officers, but of his fellow
midshipmen. A few days later he writes : ' ' Before
this my dear Dudley is off on his way to his duty in
the service to which he has devoted himself for life.
What a dear brave fellow he is ! He will yet do us
all credit, I firmly believe."
Happy dreams of a proud grandfather, which
warmed his heart every time he thought of "his
boy " on his way to India to the brilliant career which
had been pictured for him. Happy in his anticipa-
tions, he was happy also that he did not live to
suffer the bitterness of disappointment. But only a
few months after his own death in America, came the
tidings that the grandson who bore his name and had
given such promise for the future, had died on the
other side of the globe, in the harbor of Bombay.
From Nice Mr. Field took his journey by easy
stages : resting a couple of days at Monte Carlo ; and
340 SIX WEEKS IN ITALY.
again at Mentone, where a daughter of his brother
Cyrus, Mrs. Andrews, had Kved for many years.
When he reached Genoa, he laid out his plan for
the rest of the winter. He had six weeks to spend in
Italy, and dividing the time so as to get the most out
of it, he thought it wiser, instead of going direct to
Florence and Rome and Naples, to reverse the order
and sail from Genoa to Naples, so as to be at once in
the warmest climate, where he might spend a couple
of weeks, and then come north slowly, so as to be in
Rome for the Holy Week, and "wind up with Florence,
from which it would be an easy day's journey back to*
Genoa, from which he was to sail for America.
This was an excellent division of time, which he
carried out with a military precision, and with a success
beyond his anticipations. He wrote from Naples, "The
weather is so mild that I do not need a fire. I have no
sensation of cold ; and being careful to keep out of the
night air, I feel as safe as if I were in Stockbridge or
Gramercy Park." And then, looking out upon the
Mediterranean, he adds : ' ' Dudley is by this time far
on his way to Port Said. I can imagine the dear fellow
sailing past Naples in this 'great and wide sea.' God
bless him and you all ! " One day he spent in an ex-
cursion to Pompeii, and found the excavations greatly
extended since his visit fifty-seven years before ! Look-
ing back through all those years it was like recalling a
past existence to sit in the Grand Hotel du Vesuve,
IN ROME. 341
and look out upon the bay that never loses its beauty,
and see the smoke of Vesuvius ascending as he had
seen it in the long ago of more than half a century.
Yet with all the attractions of Naples those of
Rome were greater. The very next morning after his
arrival he was in St. Peter's, and "To-morrow," he
writes, "J. intend to visit the Coliseum, and other
monuments of old Rome. But I restrain myself to
two or three hours a day." He had reason to be on his
guard, for nothing is more wearying than sight-seeing. '
In his younger days he had explored them all, going
day after day to the Forum and the Capitol ; seeking
out the spot where "great Caesar fell;" and riding
along the Appian Way, where he could almost hear the
tramp of the Roman legions, returning from the wars,
" Bringing many captives home to Rome,
Whose ransom did the public coffers fill."
If he had not now the strength for such fatiguing
excursions, it was something still "to breathe that
haunted air."
But modern Rome, if it be not quite so imposing to
the imagination as ancient Rome, is still the Capital,
and combines more to attract the stranger than any
other ItaHan city. He found the climate but little
changed from that of Naples. There it had been
almost too warm for an overcoat ; while in Rome the
air was a httle crisp, but all the more bracing. He
342 THE AMEKICAN COLONY.
writes to his daughter : "If you could see me basking
in the full light of an Italian sun, you would think me
well off. All is cheerful about me. Our hotel (the
Quirinal) is excellent, the city is clean, the streets are
full of people, all seeming interested in something ; life
is in its best estate as far as outward appearances go."
With so many attractions, it is not surprising that
Rome should bring together, more than any other city
in Europe except Paris, a very miscellaneous society,
as it is from many countries ; and a very charming
one, as it includes artists and authors and scholars
studying ancient history ; and notable public men :
French deputies or English Members of Parliament ;
who, to prolong the Christmas holidays, find no winter
resort so full of interest as the ' ' Eternal City. "
Rome has also a large American colony. The hotel
was fuU of Americans, who appeared at a reception
given by Mrs. John Hay in numbers equal to the
weekly reception of the American Minister. In this
goodly company no one was more welcome than Mr.
Field himself. Wherever he went he was surrounded
by friends and admirers, who were all delighted with
the youthfulness of one who seemed to belong to an-
other generation. Those who had known him in former
years said they had never seen him more full of life ;
at once enjoying more and contributing more to the
enjoyment of others.
Those whom he had known in his earlier visits were
A BIRTHDAY WITH OLD FRIENDS. 343
few, but it was good to look into their faces again.
The oldest of these was the American artist Terry,
who had lived in Rome half a century, and his charm-
ing wife, whose first husband was the famous sculptor
Crawford, and who was the mother of the popular
author, Marion Crawford. As Mr. Field's birthday
(February 13th) was at hand, they would have him to
dine with them. He felt it to be hardly prudent to be
out in the evening, but could not deny himself the
pleasure of sitting down at luncheon with such dear
old friends. The same day he wrote to his daughter in
a tone of grateful satisfaction with the past and calm
contemplation of the future : "I am stronger than I
was a year ago, when I passed my birthday with the
Judge in Washington. The voyage and the sea and
the journey since have done me good, and above all
the visit to you and the sight of my boys has created a
soul under the ribs of death." But in his last words
there is a tone of sadness that is almost prophetic :
' ' What may be in store for us in the year now entered
upon God only knows. I only know that we must
keep brave hearts, prepared for any event, and seeking
to do our duty whatever may befall."
Next to Rome in its attraction to those who come
over the sea, is Florence, where every winter brings
together a large foreign population, in which are hun-
dreds of Enghsli and American visitors : and here, as
at Rome, Mr. Field's countrymen gave him a hearty
344 IN FLORENCE.
welcome. Among the resident Americans no one is
better known than Professor Fiske, of Cornell Univer-
sity, who has lived here for years, which he has devoted
to collecting rare books. His early editions of Petrarch
are of such value that he keeps them locked up in
cases as he would precious jewels. Another treasure
is a collection of Icelandic literature ! Most of us
hardly know that Iceland ever had a literature. It
would seem as if the intense cold would freeze the
very blood and brains of the inhabitants. But the long
evenings have been favorable to reading and to writing
also. Here is a Bible centuries older than Luther's,
and a collection of other volumes which show that
there was a dawn of letters in this far away island,
almost in the Arctic circle, long before the Renaissance
came in Central and Southern Europe.
Among the well-known virtues of our American
professor is that of hospitality to his countrymen,
which he shows in the most delightful way. He would
come in his carriage to take Mr. Field to a drive to the
Tower of Galileo, or to some other of the beautiful
points of view around Florence ; and next bring the
codifier of America face to face at his table with one
of the most distinguished of jurists and statesmen of
Italy ; and again give him a reception at which he
could meet the best representatives of Italian society
as well as the English and American residents. These
A STORMY VOYAGE. 345
courtesies made his visit so pleasant that he could say
truly, ' ' My days are passing serenely in Florence. "
But such days always come to an end, and he took
his way to Genoa, from which on the 28th of March
he writes to his daughter :
"It is now eleven o'clock and we go on board at
four. So these are my last words before reaching my
own beloved land. We leave Genoa at ten to-morrow,
and go first to Naples, touch at Gibraltar, and through
the Azores direct to New York, where our arrival is
promised for the 9th of April.
"Ever lovingly
"Your father,
"David Dudley Field."
With this last message of affection to the one he
loved most on earth, he embarked the next morning
from the birthplace of Columbus, for the new world
that Columbus discovered, and on a ship that bore the
name of Columbia !
Looking, as we were somewhat anxiously, for his
safe return, we counted the days from the time that
the good ship passed the Straits of Gibraltar. Al-
though it was April, the voyage was so tempestuous
that most of the passengers kept snugly in their berths.
But no storm could drive him below. He was so supe-
rior to the weakness of others that he hardly showed
the proper degree of sympathy. I always told him
that such indifference was from the absence of the
346 SAFE AT HOME,
sensibilities which belong to our poor human nature,
which only provoked his amusement, for nothing in
nature thrilled him in every nerve like a storm at sea. *
The rough weather did not abate till they were in sight
of our coast, and indeed the Columbia entered our
harbor in what Americans would call a blizzard ! As
soon as she was reported to be coming up the bay, I set
off for the pier of the Hamburg American Line, in
Hoboken. The ship was at the dock, and Mr. Field
had just driven away. Following to Gramercy Park,
I found him not at all the worse for his voyage. As
soon as he heard my voice he called to me, and as I
entered the room, he was standing with his back to a
blazing fire, and threw his arms around me, saying, ' ' I
was never better in my life ! " That brotherly embrace
I shall never forget :
" A.h, little thought we 'twas ovir last I"
Even now, as I think of him those arms are round
me still.
Going up to his library, we spent an hour in ex-
* The Eev. Dr. Van Dyke, of New York, who was his fellow
passenger, wrote afterwards that "on the voyage he was so
happy, so energetic, and such an inspiring companion, that in
spite of his great age he seemed young. Those days on the sea
were pleasant to him ; and he increased the pleasure of others.
I shall always be glad to think that I was his fellow-traveller
and privileged to listen to his wise and cheerful conversation."
HE NEVER GREW OLD. 347
changing the experiences of the winter. He had much
to tell of England, France and Italy, while I could
only supplj" the domestic incidents of which he wished
to hear. But no matter what was the subject, he
entered into it and gave his opinion with all his old-
time freedom. Recalling it since, I have asked myself
if there was any trace of feebleness or mental decrepi-
tude, and I cannot recall the slightest. Although he
was in his ninetieth year, there was no confusion of
thought or language. He was within a few hours of
the end of life, and yet his mind was as clear, and his
conversation as fresh and vigorous, as if he were but
seventy or fifty. Whatever weakness might touch his
stalwart frame, his intellect never grew old !
I came again in the afternoon, but a reporter was
with him, and our conversation was deferred till the
next daj". We never looked into each other's eyes
again. That very night, about three o'clock, he awoke
with a chill and rang for his valet, who was so well
trained and experienced that he was competent to act
as nurse and almost as doctor, who did everything to
relieve him. But as soon as his physician could be
called, he found that the chill was the forerunner of
pneumonia. Watson said that there had been some
delay at the pier after the ship reached it, and that Mr.
Field went suddenly from the warm cabin into the cold
air on the dock. His old heart trouble, from which the
doctor said he had probably not been entirely free any
348 SUDDEN DEATH.
time during the last twenty or twenty-five years, reap-
peared, and he sank from hour to hour. I saw him
that afternoon, and calhng his name, there was a faint
sign of recognition, but he did not speak. After a con-
sultation, the physicians thought he still might rally,
and that I could safely go home. But at three o'clock
in the morning the nurse called the doctor, who saw at
a glance that, as one expressed it, "the great lawyer
was going before the greatest Judge," and in half an
hour, without a tremor, a motion or a sigh, the heart
stood still.
Coming so suddenly, the shock to us was terrible.
But when we recovered our self-possession, we could
not but reflect on what might have been : that he
might have died on the other side of the ocean, in a
foreign country, surrounded by strangers ; or on the
voyage, in which case we should have had sorrow
upon sorrow. But he had reached his country, and
died under his own roof, among his kindred. Nor
could the summons have come more gently. The foot-
steps of death had been as soft as the footsteps of
angels. As long as he was conscious of anything, it
was of home, and of the love and the tenderness here
and beyond the sea.
And, after all, the work to which he had devoted
his life was done. He had but one remaining ambition
(to be sure it was a pretty large one), that his codes
should be adopted all over the world 1 He said :
HIS LIFE WORK WAS DONE. 349
*'Tliey are written and published. It is only a ques-
tion of time when they will be accepted." He was
going up into the Berkshire Hills (for which he waited
only till the apple blossoms should appear), where he
would spend the summer, not only in the scenes most
dear to him, but in an occupation to which he had
looked forward with eager interest. It was to put on
record the story of his long and somewhat stormy life,
that would be a history of the great battle for Law
Reform, in which he had been foremost for more than
half a century. Thus he was twice happy in the past
and the future ; in his memories and his anticipations ;
when he closed his eyes for the last time and sank to
his rest.
As only the day before the city papers had announced
his arrival from Europe in robust health, few knew
even of his illness, so that the announcement of his
death was a surprise. One of the first to whom word
was sent was Mr. Choate, who had been for years his
neighbor in Stockbridge. He came immediately, and,
as he looked upon the marble brow of one who was but
a few hours before so fuU of life, he said that he had
never seen anything so majestic in death ; that
"He lay like a warrior taking his rest,
With his martial cloak around him."
As soon as the bulletins announced the sad event,
there was a general feeling among the people to whom
350 DUST TO DUST.
his form and figure had been famihar for half a cen-
tury, that a great personality had disappeared, whose
like they should not see again. Every public tribute was
paid to his memory. The flag upon the City Hall was
hung at half-mast. The courts adjourned, with appro-
priate words from the bench. The Legislature was
then in session and, to quote the report from Albany,
"the news of the death of this great man wakened a
feehng of profound regret," The speaker, who an-
nounced it in the Senate, said : ' ' He died crowned with
honor. Hislife was a lesson and an inspiration." Both
houses adjourned in respect to his memory, and ap-
pointed committees to attend his funeral.
The last service was on Sunday afternoon in Cal-
vary church, where he had attended for forty years,
which was crowded by representatives of the old fami-
lies of New York, and a large deputation from Wil-
liams College, with the President at their head. The
pall-bearers were : Chief Justice Fuller, of the Supreme
Court of the United States ; Charles Butler, who was
over ninety years of age ; William M, Evarts, Joseph
H. Choate, John Bigelow and Abram S. Hewitt ;
Judges Charles Andrews and A. R. Lawrence and ex-
Judge Charles A. Peabody ; Chancellor MacCracken,
Robert E. Deyo, H. H. Anderson and Robert M.
Gallaway.
The services were, as he would have wished, very
simple, with no eulogy. It was enough to hear in the
TRIBUTES TO HIS MEMORY. 351
arches above the echo of the voice that has sounded
through all the centuries, ' ' I am the Resurrection and
the Life, saith the Lord : he that believeth in Me,
though he were dead, yet shall he live ! "
The next morning we bore him away to the Hills, to
which his eyes had been turned, and laid him down
under a weeping willow, whose long tresses drooped
over his place of rest, beside the graves of those he
loved.
When we came back from that visit to the house
prepared for all the living, a great element had gone
out of our lives, and the world seemed emptier than
before. But if public applause could make up for the
loneliness of grief, we had it in an abundance that was
quite overwhelming. The tributes from the press were
such as I have never seen at the death of an}- one
except our martyred Presidents, or the heroes of the
war. This took me by surprise, for with all my love
for him, I could not but remember that he had been a
man of war from his youth, and I looked for some
sharp criticisms, but every voice was hushed, and all
recognized the immense service which he had rendered
to his country. One editor indeed, who is second to
none of his brethren in America, placed him high
among the lawgivers of history, and as such among
the benefactors of mankind.
When a man who has been so long in the public eye
passes away, the first question that -sviU arise in some
352 HIS UNKNOWN GENEROSITY.
minds is as to the benefactions that he left behind him.
These were things which Mr. Field never spoke of.
His codes were his best legacies. But, as to the minor
point, although it is something which does not concern
the public, I may dismiss it in a few words which will
be quite sufficient. As some thought of Mr. Field as
of a cold temperament, absorbed in his own affairs, now
that he is gone, we may lift the veil of privacy, and
show him as he was.
Certainly he was not of the number of those who
throw away money right and left, where it might do
as much harm as good. His gifts were prompted by
personal attachments. He had the feeling of a child
towards the place where he was born. Our parents, to
whom we owed everything, were married in 1803, so
that 1878 measured off three-quarters of a century,
and on the very wedding day, the last day of October,
the four brothers who were living, went up to the old
home in Haddam, Conn., to dedicate two small parks
which they gave for the recreation of the inhabitants,
one on the site of the old meeting-house, where our
father preached for years, and the other on "Isinglass
Hill," a bold, rocky eminence rising behind the village,
where the older brothers used to play. There was a
large gathering of the people, who seemed much pleased
with this remembrance of the old town. Some years
after, when our eldest brother died, it was found that
in his will he had given $5,000 to Haddam, that the
DOING GOOD IN SECRET 353
parks might be laid out with taste by the planting of
trees, with open lawns between, that they should be an
inheritance to the people forever. The same home
feeling had led him to give $10,000 for the tower in
Stockbridge, to which he added in his will $5,000 for
the ringing of the chimes at sunset. Of public objects
the first in his eye was AVilliams College, to which he
gave first and last $40,000.
But there was one act of beneficence, done in secret,
that was still more characteristic. When Chief Justice
Taney died he left two daughters who w^ere literally
penniless, and had to support themselves b}^ writing in
the departments. When this came to be known, there
was a general feeling that it was not quite to the honor
of the profession that the daughters of the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States
should be left to want. At a meeting in Washington
the case was stated delicately, and it was assumed that
the bar would deem it not onl}^ its duty but its pleasure
to look after the family. But the sympathy did not go
beyond the stage of oratory. Chagrined at this failure
to pay what he regarded as a debt of honor, Mr. Field
gave to the clerk of the Supreme Court his bond to
remit to one of the daughters $500 a year during her
life, which he paid from 1873 till her death in 1891,
thus contributing $9,000 to save the credit of the bar.
This he did when he had never seen the daughters, nor
the Chief Justice himself, except on the bench, and
354 GOOD LAWS BETTER THAN GIFTS OF MONEY.
though his decision in the Dred Scott case was very
repulsive to him. The incident is enough to show that,
if he was careful as to whom he gave, when his heart
was touched he was a very generous man.
But the gift of money is the least of all gifts, for if
given unwisely, it will only make the poor poorer, and
more dependent than before. It is not charity that
men want, but justice. If it be a good deed to step
forward to defend a poor man in the courts, it is better
still to give him a law by which he can protect himself.
Teach him his rights, and he can stand on his feet,
calling no man master. When he is on the same level
as the rich man he is lifted up with a feeling of self-
respect. He is as good as anybody. There is one law
for all men. No man is so high as to be above its
power : and none so low as not to be under its pro-
tection.
But how far have the reforms of the law introduced
by Mr. Field extended ? Are they not limited to a few
States, so that in point of fact but a small portion of
the American people share in these benefits, real or
imagined? This is not a question for argument, but
for statistics, for which I do not trust to any knowledge
of my own, but to the authority of one who is as well
informed as any man in the country. To my inquiry
how far the new codes have been adopted in the United
States he replies as follows :
THE CODES IN STATES AND TERRITORIES. 355
"New York, January 12, 1898.
"Dear Dr. Field :
"Your brother's codes, with such modifications as
were deemed necessaiy to accommodate them to each
locaHty, were adopted in whole or in part in Twenty-
seven States and Territories.
"But, in addition to this, the principles of your
brother's Code of Civil Procedure, and especially its
fundamental doctrine of fusion of law and equity,
have made their way in so many other States, that I
do not know of any, outside of New England, Dela-
ware, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, New Jersey,
Pennsylvania and Tennessee, which have not been
seriously affected by the influence of his codes. As
to these, Louisiana is still governed practically by the
French law ; Pennsylvania had united law and equity
long before the codes were framed ; and there was
really not so much occasion for reforms in that direc-
tion in New England as in other parts of the covmtry.
Even in the excepted States, the old common law
practice hardly exists, outside of New Jersey, Delaware
and Pennsylvania. In fact, the principal difference
between States which have adopted the codes and those
which have not is that in the latter the process of
reform has been carried out by cutting away useless
forms instead of by positive constructive work.
"Thomas G. Shearman."
This was an extraordinary statement, but it only
356 MAKING LAW FOR FORTY MILLIONS.
whetted my appetite for something still more exact.
States and territories are indefinite quantities, ranging
from forty thousand inhabitants in Nevada to six mil-
lions in the State of New York. The total result would
be more satisfactory if the separate statements could be
transmuted into the aggregate population, for which I
applied to the same high authority, and received the
following answer :
"New York, January 18, 1898.
My Dear Dr. Field :
"In reply to your inquiry I have made a hasty
calculation, from which I judge that, assuming our
population in 1890 to have been 03,000,000, 38,000,000
of those resided in States where your brother's codes of
practice have been in substance adopted. But the fun-
damental principle of those codes — that is, the fusion of
law and equity, and the administration of Justice in a
single court, instead of being divided between a court
of law and a court of chancery — have been adopted in
States containing much more than nine-tenths of all
the population. Of course, some of these, such as
Pennsylvania, had adopted this principle long before
the date of your brother's codes ; but for the most
part, this change is a result of the codes.
"Thomas G. Shearman."
This is simply astounding. It is a revolution. The
computation of thirty-eight milhons is made on the
basis of the census of 1890. But Mr. Field lived till
HOW LONG WILL THEY STAND? 357
1894, and the natural increase of these four years
would be at least two millions, making a total of forty
millions !
But can such sweeping changes be permanent ?
Those who were opposed to the codes from the begin-
ning, have explained their success as a craze for reform,
which had swept over the country as a tidal wave, but
which would be followed by a reaction, and pass away
as swiftly as it came. This is indeed possible, but is it
probable ? We can only judge of the future by the
past. So far we have yet to learn of a single State or
Territory that, having adopted these codes, has gone
back to the "beggarly elements" of the old, tedious
and roundabout way of obtaining justice. "Revolu-
tions do not go backward," at least peaceful revolutions
that are in the line of human progress. If the new
laws are better than the old why should the}' not stand
till they are superseded by codes that are better still ?
But this is a free country, and we are not responsible
for what may be done by a future generation. We
read in the Bible that once the sun went backward, but
we hardly expect to see the miracle repeated m our day.
Accustomed as we are to see our legislatures meet-
ing from year to year, and enacting new provisions of
law, we are apt to think of laws as transitory things,
which change with the ever-shifting popular a\411. But
they are the oldest creations of man — as old as civiliza-
tion, or as history itself. To trace the genealogy of
358 LAWS AS OLD AS HISTORY.
our laws, we should not stop at King Alfred, nor the
Code of Justmian, but go back to the laws of Moses,
which, though given three thousand years ago, have
been flowing on through all these centuries, like the
waters of the Nile. When our Pilgrim fathers crossed
the sea they formed in the cabin of the Mayflower a
constitution for their little State, which they tried to
frame after the pattern given in the Mount. Traces
of that code still remain. The setting apart of one
day in seven as a day of rest, dates from Mount Sinai,
while the sacredness of marriage received its sacrament
of baptism in the Garden of Eden.
As laws are the oldest of human institutions so are
they the most enduring. A good laAV does not weaken
by time, but grows stronger and stronger. Men do not
get tired of justice, but cling to it, and hand it down
as a sacred heritage to their children. The legislator
who has framed but one such law has planted in the
earth an acorn that may grow to be an oak, with trunk
so strong, and arms so wide, that many generations
shall sit under its shade. It may even grow to the
stature of the cedars of Lebanon, whose mighty trunks
have stood the storms of three thousand years ! The
sturdy growths of law become knarled and knotted by
time, till they become a part of the very constitution of
human society, to endure as long as society itself.
And well is it that it is so, for law is the only thing
that holds the world together ; and holds it not for
THE MORAL EFFECT OF GOOD LAWS. 359
evil, but for good : not to make men slaves, but to
make them free.
A thought that was never out of Mr. Field's mind
was the moral effect of laws that commend themselves
to the plain and sober sense of common people. He
believed that nothing was so demoralizing as injustice,
as it destroys the sense of right and wrong. On the
other hand a simple maxim of law, that was an echo
of common sense and common justice, was an educa-
tion in righteousness, and the constant pressure of a
code so framed was a powerful influence upon national
character — an influence that was not only perpetuated
but increased from generation to generation.
' ' Let me make the songs of a people, and I care not
who makes its laws," is a very pretty saying that lacks
nothing but truth. A song of home or country may
indeed send a thrill to the heart of an exile from the
land of his birth. But laws are not meant to thrill us
with transient sensations, but to rule our lives, grasp-
ing us like the forces of nature, surrounding us like the
atmosphere, and holding us fast like gravitation.
Does this put us in the remorseless gripe of nature ;
under the crushing weight of laws to which there is no
relief of sunshine or of song? I answer that in the
last analysis law is harmony. "Law has her seat in
the bosom of God, and her voice is the harmony of the
w^orld." Gentle manners are the offspring of an au-
thority that is firm but kindly. When there is one
360 GOING DOWN TO POSTERITY WITH HIS CODE.
law for all men, high aud low, rich and poor, then will
come the day of the great reconciliation. But it is in
the order of things that law should go before, and
songs and rejoicings should follow after.
If it be a question of the fame that shall live, as
between the lawgiver and the conqueror, we have the
final judgment of one who was both. When Napoleon
was in exile at St. Helena, he found that Europe was
not perpetuating his name by celebrating his victories,
and that they would give him but a poor hold on the
gratitude of the world that he was leaving behind.
But there was another and better title to the remem-
brance of future generations : "I shall go down to
posterity with the Code in my right hand ! " Was
there ever a nobler claim for immortality? Napoleon
is dead, but the Code Napoleon still lives and ma^^ live
as long as the nation for which it was made exists.
But is he the only one that has followed this path to
glory? On the morning when the flag was drooping
at half-mast over the City Hall, a judge sitting on the
bench adjourned his court, saying that the words of
Napoleon might have been spoken with far more truth
of an American jurist who had just breathed his last.*
May not the tribute of honor which we gladly pay to
the sovereign who served his country by his laws more
*If the benefit of laws be measured by the myriads they rule,
the population of the States and Territories which adopted the
codes, was greater than the whole population of France.
P
JAM oo.-
HIS NAME IN HISTORY. 361
than by his wars, be claimed also for one who devoted
his life to the laws of another country in another
hemisphere ?
Here, at the end of my story, I recur to my text on
the title page : "It was the boast of Augustus that he
found Rome of brick and left it of marble. But how
much nobler shall be the sovereign's boast, when he
shall have it to say that he found law dear and left it
cheap ; found it a sealed book, left it a living letter ;
found it the patrimony of the rich, left it the inherit-
ance of the poor ; found it the two-edged sword of
craft and oppression, left it the staff of honestj" and
the shield of innocence."
Our American reformer was no sovereign and had
no power to establish law by a decree, but standing
alone — with but one purpose before him, that inscribed
upon his tomb :
" To bring justice tuithin the reach of all men " —
he pursued it for half a century, against an opposition
that would have crushed most men, till before he closed
his eyes in death he had given law to forty millions
of his countrymen. Surely he who has left such a
record to those who come after him, will have a name
in history, as one who did as much as any man of his
generation, to bring in the better time — which prophets
have foretold — of the universal reign of righteousness
and peace.
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