aassJL545.
Book 133. _
THE
Life and Public Services
RICHARD YATES
THE WAR GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS.
A LECTURE
Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Springfield,
Illinois, Tuesday Evening, March 1st, 1881.
33 Y
HON. L. U. REAVIS.
You have earned the title of the '-Soldier's Friend," and it is a title of nobility
of which you may well be satisfied. Your children will call it to mind with pleasure
when your earthly career shall have ended. — Prof. Sturtevant.
ST. LOUIS, MO.:
Published by J. H. Chambers & Co.
1881.
z3i
THE
Life and Public Services
OF
RICHARD YATES
THE WAR GOVERNOR OF ILLINOIS,
A LECTURE
Delivered in the Hall of the House of Representatives, Springfield,
Illinois, Tuesday Evening, March 1st, 1881.
BY
HON. L. U. REAVIS.
You have earned the title of the '-Soldier's Friend," and it is a title of nobility
of which you may well be satisfied. Your children will call it to mind with pleasure
when your earthly career shall have ended. — Prof. Sturtevant.
ST. LOUIS, MO.:
Published by J. H. Chambers & Co.
1881.
3G %■? 7
'0 3 .
Hon. Enos Clarke,
A MEMBER OK THE ST. LOUIS BAR, ONE WHO HAS BEEN FROM TIME
TO TIME CALLED TO OFFICIAL STATION, AND WHO HAS BY HIS
LEARNING, FIDELITY AND KINDNESS BECOME WIDELY
ESTEEMED — ONE WHOSE EARLY MANHOOD
WAS DEVOTED TO THE GREAT PRIN-
CIPLES SO NOBLY SUSTAINED
BY THE SUBJECT OF
THIS ADDRESS,
THESE PAGES
ARl7. MOST RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED BY
THE AUTHOR.
CORRESPONDENCE.
Springfield, III., Jan. 24, 1881.
Hon. L. U. Reavis, St. Lonis, Mo:
Dear Sir— Having learned that yon have prepared a lecture upon the " Life,
Character and Public Services of the Late ex-Governor and Senator Richard
Yates," we take pleasure in requesting that you will deliver the same in
Springfield at an early day, to be named by you.
Very respectfully yours,
S. M. Cullom, O. H. Wright,
John M. Palmer, Ornan Pierson,
John Williams, James G. Wright,
John M. Hamilton, J. M. Garland,
H. H. Thomas, Jacob Wheeler,
H. D. Dement, John Moses,
Chas. P. Swigert, J. Henry Shaw,
H. Hilliard, T. F. Mitchell,
Frank W. Tracy Ed. Rutz,
John W. Pierson, Paul Selby,
W. H. Allen, W. M. Smith,;
L. C. Colljns, Jr.
St. Louis, Mo., Jan. 25, 1881.
Gentlemen: I am in receipt of your communication of the 24th inst. in-
viting me to lecture on The Life and Public Services of the late Gov. Richard
Yates. With many thanks I accept your invitation, and will, in the discharge
of the engagement, meet you on the evening of Tuesday, March 1st, at Rep-
resentatives' Hall.
In the hope that I may prove worthy the task you call me to perform, and
that what I may say concerning the dead statesman will meet with the hearty
approval of the people of Illinois, I am, with great respect, your obedient
servant.
L. U. Reavis.
His Excellency S. M. Cullom, Gen'l John M. Palmer, Hon. Jas. G. Wright
and others.
The following resolution was unanimously adopted by the Illinois House
of Representatives :
Whereas, The Hon. L. U. Reavis has been invited by the Governor and
Lieutenant-Governor, the Speaker of the House, all the State officers and
many other leading citizens, to deliver a lecture in this city on " The Life and
Public Services of the late Governor and Senator Richard Yates," be it
Resolved, That the use of this hall be granted to Mr. Reavis, for next Tues-
day evening, March 1, for the purpose of delivering said lectur::.
At the conclusion of the lecture the following resolution, offered by Hon.
Chas. T. Stratton, of Jefferson county, was adopted :
Resolved, That the thanks of this audience are hereby extended to Hon.
L. U. Reavis, of St. Louis, Mo., for his eloquent review of the character, prin-
ciples and life of the illustrious War Governor of our great Stale.
The Life and Political Principles
-OF-
RICHARD YATES.
Ladies and Gentlemen :
As a native of the State of Illinois,, I am proud of her history.
I delight to speak of the character and valorous deeds of her
distinguished citizens, and to note her material, political and
intellectual progress. This commonwealth has given more than
its share of patriotism and greatness to the Eepublic. It pos-
sesses the population, wealth and material power of an empire,
and it has within itself the undeveloped capacity of a great na-
tion. Its rapid growth has no parallel in any of the States of
the Union, and no man can set bounds to its future greatness.
The traditional and secular history of Illinois is enriched by
the legends of the aborigines and the civic deeds of the adven-
turous Anglo-Saxon. A domain so distinctive in its physical
character, so rich in productive power, and at once the primeval
home and theater of mighty families of wild beasts and of no-
madic savage tribes, long ago proclaimed its fitness to become
the future home of civilized men having fixed habitations, gov-
ernment, learning, and of religion ; the fixed energies of nature,
the stupendous scenes of primeval activity, and the constantly
accelerated growth of lifefrom a condition of sensation up to
conscious thought, were a perpetual prophecy of the future
reign of law over this and conterminous territories, over which
once ruled the good Hiawatha. The warm-hearted and zealous
chieftain, who once led his band of savages to feasts and victo-
ries, has been succeeded by the intellectual and patriotic states-
man ; the wigwam has been changed to a palace, and the Indian
village has been supplanted by the city of civilization, and to-day
a new heaven and a new earth, is the inheritance of the Ameri-
can people.
— 2 —
As a physical section of our country, and as a political or-
ganism, the State of Illinois will ever remain one of the leading
States in the Americau Union, and, as in the past, so in the fu-
ture will her influence be great in the councils of the nation.
Already the history of Illinois is made illustrious by the fame
and patriotism of her distinguished citizens, inventors, manu-
facturers, teachers and statesmen. Such names as Williams,
Strawn, Deere, McCormack, Funk, Sturtevant, Douglas, Lincoln,
Grant, Yates and others, will forever stand as great land-marks
in the history of this commonwealth.
Of these illustrious names I turn with solemn thoughts to that
of Richard Yates, and in the warmth of my heart and the
strength of my mind, speak concerning this gifted man of Illi-
nois— this patriot of the Republic. At the name of Richard
Yates, the people of Illinois love, adore and weep; they love
the friend of their youth, of their children and their sacred
homes; they adore the man who gave the full measure of his
life to promote the happiness and well-being of his people, and
to vindicate the supremacy of the federal constitution over all
the States of the Republic. No children ever loved a fond pa-
rent better than the people of Illinois loved Richard Yates.
His name was in every household, in every work-shop, and in
every field of duty. It was but yesterday that he lived and
moved among the living, a warm-hearted patriot, a devoted
friend, and a great political teacher. To-day the grave of the
dead statesman is still fresh in the necropolis. His deeds are
all numbered, and, henceforth, he is to be judged with the same
judgment wherewith we shall be judged. Since the close of
the bloody scenes of the civil war, and since Richard Yates
surrendered the physical to the spiritual and awoke into im-
mortality, silence has reigned over his name. No storms of
envy, no words of praise have disturbed his name since he was
taken to his silent home. At the close of his earthly career,
friends and opponents wept over the dead statesman, and turned
from his burial place to the active scenes of life, almost forget-
ting that he ever lived. But his name remains a heritage for
the living, and the history of his labors still endures with the
freshness of an oriental tradition, like an eastern romance.
I come to this great State of Illinois, the home of Richard
Yates, where he achieved so many victories of his ambition, to
break the solemn silence of the tomb and call him forth, to be
— 3 —
re-judged by living men and women, and to fix his name in his-
tory according to the measure of his labors and the influence of
his earthly power. I enter upon the task with gratitude and
emotions of warm filial love. I am a believer in hero worship
as taught by Horace Greeley and Thomas Carlyle; and of the
illustrious men whom I have known and admired in the days of
their earthly glory, none did I ever admire more than Richard
Yates.
The life of a nation is analogous to that of au individual ; each
has different and distinctive corresponding periods of develop-
ment which succeed each other in the process of growth from
youth to old age. The pioneer movement of the people of a
nation is a period of national youth analogous to the life of the
boy from childhood to the beginning of manhood. During the
period of youth, the energies and individuality of the boy and
the young nation are stimulated and strengthened for future
usefulness and power according to the opportunities afforded.
Not only is national life analogous to individual life, in the dis-
tinctive expression of each, but there is also an interblending
of the life of the individual with the life of a nation — a psycho-
logical relation between the two which is expressed in the public
life of each. The nation is wrought out of the habits and char-
acter of the people who create and administer it from genera-
tion to generation ; so also do the inhabitants of a country de-
rive many of their peculiarities of life, as individuals and com-
munities, from the character of the country which they inhabit,
and accordingly as nature expresses herself in the people, so do
the people express themselves in the national life. If the coun-
try is full of the energies of nature, rich in productive power
vast in territorial extent, varied in its physical characteristics,
and all nature is great and energetic, so will the inhabitants of
the country be, and so will be the nation in its manifestations
of life and its expressions of power. High altitudes bespeak
an independent and liberty-loving people; vast plains tell of the
abodes of honest and out-spoken people; rocks, mountains,
rivers and forests generate great energy, individuality, strength
of character, ambition, and aspiration. Our own country illus-
trates these truths: nature is great ; our people are great and
the Republic is great.
Thus far in our national career we have had little else but
pioneer life. The blood of three generations flows in the veins
— 4 —
of our people across the continent, from the Atlantic to the
Pacific. The grand-parent upon the Atlantic seaboard greets
the graud-child upon the Pacific shore, and each has lived in
the wilderness of America, and contended with wild beasts and
savages for the supremacy over nature. Soon after the organ-
ization of the government, the pioneer movement for the civil
conquest of this continent began. From the home in the east,
upon the Atlantic seashore, the hardy pioneer went forth to the
western wilderness. The movement was conducted from Maine
to Georgia with the precision of movement of a mighty army.
Brave and hardy men and women, born in poverty and schooled
in adversity, encouraged by tales told of the wilds of the west,
went forth, pilgrims of empire, and in the simplicity of their
modes of life, lived and loved in the wilderness of nature, and,
as of old, begat sons and daughters. They moved in columns
like armies to the field of battle — one column crossing the Sus-
quehanna, another the Blue Ridge, and still other columns
moving at other points, but all passing the defiles of the Appa-
lachian Mountains and entering the States and Territories of the
Valley of the Mississippi. The pioneer movement, once begun,
continued to advance the outpost frontier line at an annual dis-
tance of twenty-two miles, until the Pacific ocean was reached.
With the completion of the New York and Erie Canal, the cen-
tral column, moving forward to the Mississippi River, was sup-
ported by a second column of pioneers moving to the northwest
along the line of the great lakes and to the head waters of the
Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. A third column moved and
entered by the Gulf of Mexico, and occupied the region of the
Southern States. Still another army of pioneers went around
Cape Horn and across the Isthmus of Darien, and disembarked
on the Pacific coast, and with all the lines closed in, the frontier
armies completed the pioneer movement of the American people
and accomplished the work of establishing an empire across the
continent; and now we behold an empire of States, extending
from ocean to ocean.
When this pioneer movement of the American people is fully
and truly presented in history, it will stand forth as one of the
most interesting and deeply significant events in all the annals
of the world. It was the mightiest movement ever made by any
people on this earth. This march of empire across the conti-
nent infinitely transcended the flight of the children of Israel
— 5 —
from bondage. The exploration made by the Bedouin Arab,
Abraham, pales before the exploration of Lewis and Clark.
Individual enterprise : the interests of communities : the as-
pirations of father and mother : the dictates of learning and law :
the daring enterprise of Jesuit Fathers and the demonstrative
spirit of religion, all united on the field of destiny and contrib-
uted to the onward movement of the great family of man, west-
ward along the belt of empire. And the Star of Bethlehem,
which arose in the East, on
" A gray morning by the sea,"
went down in Judea, and the star of empire arose in the West
and became the pillar of fire by night, and the pillar of cloud
by day, to direct the American pioneer in his westward career
and herald to the world the coming of a new political dispensa-
tion destined to wrap the globe with its divine ordinances. This
mighty pioneer movement of the American people — this move-
ment that rocked the cradle for the future civilization of the
world's people — gave to this country a race of western states-
men full of energy, originality and power. They were the off-
spring of a vigorous, sturdy and brave manhood and woman-
hood, that dared to confront the dangers and vicissitudes of the
wilderness. Such men as Boone, Clark and Harney, were
legitimate sons of the American pioneers. They were strong in
native energies, courageous and enduring, and nature afforded
no obstacle which they could not overcome. If the forests
were to be felled, the mountains to be scaled, the rivers to be
crossed, and savages and wild beasts to be subdued, such men
as these with their native strength and inventive genius were
always equal to the emergency.
Following in the footsteps of the earlier pioneers — the hunters,
the Indian-fighters and explorers — came a race of robust states-
men, who, inspired with the spirit of liberty and progress*
erected government over the wild domains of the great West,
and laid the foundations of communities destined to bound for-
ward in population, wealth and power. Business became organ-
ized, roads constructed, rivers bridged, manufactories estab-
lished, farms improved, and education and religion were planted
in the wilderness and fostered as higher exponents of the use-
fulness and mission of the human soul. And the boy, bom in
the wilderness in the log cabin, soon arose to distinction in
— 0 —
society and State. With but a breath of time, and as if by the
magician's wand, the wilderness of America has been trans-
formed into fruitful fields and cities of civilization.
With the growth of population west of the Allegheny moun-
tains, political power was organized, and Nashville, Tennessee,
became tbe first great center of political power in the West. A
bright constellation of fearless men clustered around the capital
of Tennessee ; men, whose eloquence, abilities and statesman-
ship exerted a powerful influence in all parts of the country,
and especially in the federal metropolis. Conspicuous in this
constellation of representative men were Jackson, Polk, Grundy,
Bell, Jones, Houston and Payton.
At the time these men were in active public life there was no
other association of men, west of the Allegheny mountains, equal
to them in ability, and in the strong and demonstrative charac-
ter of their lives. They were giants in the land, the scope of
whose labors were national, and they laid deep and broad the
foundations of Western Empire. Decades passed away, and
immigration from the States south of the Ohio River and from
New England began to move to the north-western country, and
with the growth of that region, political power passed from
Tennessee; Springfield, Illinois, became the successor of Nash-
ville, and the center of a more brilliant, a more illustrious con-
stellation of distinguished statesmen. They were the sons of
hardy pioneers, most of them seeking the freedom of the State
of Illinois as a refuge from a land of bondage. Some were young
men from the East seeking homes in the 'great West. Those
most distinguished in this constellation of giant statesmen were
Lincoln, Douglas, Trumbull, Dillon, Breese, Hardin, Baker, Gil-
lespie, Browning, Shields, Richardson, Yates, Logan and Palmer.
Most of these men were born in the log-cabins of the wilderness,
and from that humble birthplace arose to the highest stations in
our political society. Some of them have distinguished them-
selves on battle fields; some on the judge's bench ; some in the
legislative halls and the executive chair of this State; and still
others in the legislative halls and the executive chair of the
nation. But all were patriotic and illustrious men — all great
landmarks in State and National history — and all have impressed
their principles on the institutions of our common country.
You will observe that in this constellation of distinguished
men is the name of the patriotic war-governor of Illinois. His
brilliancy in this galaxy of statesmen is like that of a star in the
heavens, that evolves its own light. He, too, evolved his own
light from his own brilliaut mind.
Richard Yates was horn in the little village of Warsaw, in
Gallatin county, Kentucky, January 18th, 1815. His ancestors
were of English origin. The family name is very common at
this time in many parts of England, and especially are the
Yateses very numerous in Liverpool and Manchester, where
they rank high in English society. Several generations ago the
ancestors of Richard Yates migrated from England to Virginia,
where they settled and became engrafted into the American
stock. His parents moved from Virginia to Kentucky, and
there at a very early time the transplanted stock germinated in
a new and broader held of human activity and human destiny.
At the time of the birth of Richard Yates, the population, of
Kentucky was but little more than 500,000, and the population
of the entire country was but little mere than 9,000,000. Then
there were but twenty-one States in the Federal Union. But
the child was born under the aegis of liberty — born in a land
foreseen by the inspired Seneca, long before Columbus sailed
through the gates of the sea to discover the New World. The
stock from whence Richard Yates sprang, was of superior
blood ; a family vigorous, healthy, industrious, and ambitious.
His father and mother were gifted and noble by nature. They
were generous in a high degree, and broad in the executive du-
ties and administration of their family affairs. Richard was
born in a log cabin. He was cradled in the wilderness ; and his
mother wispered in his infant ears, tales of the Indian war-
whoop, which was common to her early settlement in Kentucky.
His mother taught him royal lessons of fidelity and loyalty,
and awakened in his young mind aspirations for greatness,
which took deep root in the young mind, and blossomed and
fruited in manhood's prime.
Born in the log cabin. Let me stop at this word— this birth-
place, this palace of a stalwart army of the great men of Amer-
ica. The log-cabin ! I turn back through a period of only sixty
years, and look across the Ohio River. There, in the days gone
• by, stood, upon the other shore of that river, the log cabin, the
birth-place of Richard Yates, the future Governor of Illinois,
and one of the nation's great patriots and statesmen. I go fur-
ther back in the years gone by, and in Hardin county, Kentucky,
I see another log cabin standing alone in the wilderness, with
narrow limits and without adornment, and this is the birth-place
of Abraham Lincoln, the weird child of the forest, the future
law-giver and the future President of the Republic. He came
forth from the log cabin like the man from Bozrah whose gar-
ments were dyed in blood. Never did mortal man walk the
earth with such grandeur. He was the giant of the forest home
— the cyclopean head of the Republic. He became the political
teacher of the people and the Moses and law-giver of the nation.
I go still further back in the years gone by, and in the wilds of
Virginia I see another log cabin, the birth-place and home of
Henry Clay, the great commoner of the American people — the
inspired statesman, the great political leader. Coeval with Clay
was Jackson, also born in a log cabin in North Carolina, and a
typical American. As a friend, loving and magnanimous ; as an
enemy, brave and terrible ; without learning and without genius,
but with an enormous amount of that uncommon thing called
common sense, which enabled him to do the right thing at the
right time. Successful alike as the leader of an army, or of a
nation, Jackson began in a log cabin and ended in the White
House. I sweep the history of my country and I find in the
generations gone by, children born in the log cabin, and reared
in orphanage and in the most trying adversity, rising to the
highest stations in life ; some engaging in the profession of arms,
others in the professions of law, medicine and divinity, and still
others leading in the great commercial and industrial pursuits
of the country. The log cabin is the birth-place of heroic life,
of sovereign manhood and womanhood. It is the citadel of vir-
tue, the high- walled fortress of public motherhood and parental
devotion. It has done for America that which the palace could
not do. It has produced the most wouderful galaxy of legisla-
tors, jurists, soldiers and rulers that ever enriched history.
None of the poisonous influences of rank and cancerous society
ever besieged the log cabin to lead astray the children of the
forest and plain. Schooled in the simple habits of the wilder-
ness, and constantly drawing fresh life from nature, the child of
the log cabin is fated to be strong iu physical and mental power
and self-reliant in the conflicts of life.
In the vicinity of the log cabin stood the school house, in
which the boy of the log cabin drank into his soul more inspir-
ing lessons of divine life tfcau ever came from Grecian oracle
— 9 —
or Pierian spring. I would not say aught against our great in
stitutions-of learning, aud the refining influences of our civiliza-
tion, but there is something wrong in our social order — in the
present tendency of our society. Survey the institutions of the
country; look to the three learned professions; look to the
birth-place of the children of the Kepublic — where do you find
in the parental home of to-day the vigorous, industrious, brave
and high-spirited mothers, such as of yore ? Where can you
find the sons,
"Such as the Doric mothers bore,"
— sons into whose manly capabilities the government of the
Republic can be committed with safety aud honor ? Traverse the
country from centre to circumference and where can you find
a nobler American manhood than of yore? Where are they who
are waiting to teach and lead the age in which we live ? Where
are to be found the scholars, students and teachers equal to
those of one, two and three generations ago? Where shall we
go to find political leaders, teachers and law-givers equal to
those born in the log cabin ? I assert that there is a flagrant
weakness pervading our entire people and our social condition.
Nowhere exists that strong and embracing self-hood — that
bravery, energy, will-power and determination — among our
people, for which they were noted in the generations past. If
you ask, What is the matter? I answer: That the energies, the
industry, the moral strength, the manhood and womanhood and
virtue of the people, have gone out through the base-ball clubs,
through fashionable watering places, through the theatres and
novel reading, through rum shops aud woman-suffrage agita
tions, aud other modern creations and mercenary tendencies of
our people. Not under such influences, but under far different
influences were produced our Websters and Calhouns ; our
Gaineses and Scotts ; our Richeys and Greeleys.
Henry Yates, the father of Richard, though limited in educa-
tion, was a man endowed with superior excellencies of mental-
ity, character aud manhood, and wherever he was known he
was noted for his broad and generous expressions of wisdom in
all the affairs of life. He was at once a teacher and a leader in
the community in which he lived. Endowed by nature with the
principles of true humanity, he recognized the rights of all and
— 10 —
the freedom of all. He hated human slavery, and from the
slave State of Kentucky he looked across the Ohio to the prom-
ised laud of Illinois, in the hope of better years. With his fam-
ily he moved iu 1831 to Spriugfield, Illinois, where he located
and engaged in the mercantile business. In this and in a neigh-
boring locality be remained until his death. Richard was sent
to school to Illinois College, and graduated in 1837. He was one
of the first graduates of that institutiou, and gave bright prom-
ise of future usefulness and distinction. He immediately en-
tered the law office of Col. John J. Hardin, one of the most
brilliant and highly esteemed men of the West, with whom he
acquired the profession of law; but his ambition urged him to
wider fields of duty in other fields of distinction. In early
life, in very boyhood, the soul of Richard Yates was fired with
an ardent ambition — an ambition for fame and greatness which
unconsciously knocks at the door of the understanding of the
child of destiny, and tells of a shining future ; an ambition
which, like the Amruta cup of Indian fable, gives to the cor-
rupt and the bad a life of misery; but to the virtuous and the
good, a life of everlasting glory. The child of destiny feels in
early youth a yearning for greatness, and that repressed
yearning cannot be satisfied by the sneers of ignorant nor by
the embarrassments of poverty. And although the child of
destiny dare not, for fear of scorn, reveal to his associates the
aspirations of his soul, he walks forth, encouraged by the con
scious strength of his own selfhood, and communes with
nature ; learns lessons from running brooks, from hill and plain,
and drinks inspiration from the breezes; and confiding in his
own destiny, he looks to the stars, and his mind illuminated by
the influxes of wisdom from above, reads his own royal future
in the riper years of life.
Edgeworth tells us that fame sometimes gives her votaries
visions of their future destiny while yet in early life. There is
then a sort of sympathy created between their youthful aspira-
tions and coming deeds— a reflection of the future upon the
present.
In his very boyhood he walked a distance of twelve miles to
hear a speech from Henry Clay, and with self-conscious majesty
he walked into the reception-parlor where Mr. Clay was receiv-
ing his friends, and presented himself as one of them. The
great statesman took young Yates by the hand and spoke a few
— 11 —
kind words, and told him to be seated. Mr. Clay knew the
father of young Yates, and in the greatness of his nature ex-
tended his friendship and sympathies to the boy whose ambi-
tion it was to link himself to the great man in whose footsteps
he aspired to walk, and whose greatness he desired to emulate.
Mr. Clay exteuded to young Yates the friendship of a sage, and
took him to dinner, and to the speaker's stand, and in thus
doing impressed upon the young mind of Richard the first great
lesson of ambition. From thenceforth Richard Yates went for-
ward to the duties of life with an unconquerable determination
to achieve honor and distinction among his fellows, and to write
his name high upon the scroll of fame. No allurements in the
path of life, no temptations of wealth, diverted his attention
from this single aim — this tixed purpose to achieve political
greatness ; and thus directing his efforts, he became a member
of the Illinois Legislature in 1842, being then twenty four years
of age. He was elected successively for six years. He distin-
guished himself as a member by his marked ability, and his
efforts to procure legislation for the promotion of the general
good of the State; to aid in the building of asylums, institutions
of learning and public improvements essential to the material
advancement of the commonwealth of Illinois. In this field of
duty he early demonstrated himself to be a magnanimous and
public-spirited man.
It was in the Legislature of Illinois that Richard Yates first
attacked slavery. He was by nature a believer in human rights
and human liberty, and a determined opponent of slavery.
In party politics he was a Whig, and in 1850 he was nomina-
ted and elected to Congress by the Whigs. On entering the
national legislature he found himself to be the youngest mem-
ber in the House of Representatives. But with that same self-
conscious majesty which was a part of his nature, he entered
the field of national politics, undaunted by a consciousness of
youth, and unhesitating for the want of experience. In Con-
gress he rapidly grew into favor with public men. His courteous
and amiable demeanor won universal esteem. When he was
re elected to Congress in 1852, party leaders and distin-
guished men in all ranks of life universally and instinctively
foresaw the coming of a great political crisis. The Whig party
exhausted all its power in the presidential contest of 1852, to
wrest the country from the hands of the Democratic party.
— 12 —
Failing to elect General Scott, and seeing the growing obstin-
acy of the pro-slavery party on one side, and the growing deter-
mination of the anti-slavery party on the other side, the Whig
party dissolved its organization. It had always been devoted
to the maintenance of the law, though opposed to the exten-
sion of slavery. The presidential contest of 1852 demonstrated
a growing tendency toward two extreme conditions of political
society, a growing tendency in the pro-slavery wing of the Dem-
ocratic party to extend slavery and make it national instead of
sectional ; on the other hand a growing tendency on the part of
the anti-slavery men to resist the further spread of slavery,
even to the trampling down of national law. The Whig party
was powerless to arrest the extreme and sectional tendencies.
A great political contest was precipitated upon the country.
In the inauguration of that contest Eichard Yates was a par-
ticipant. He was the only member of Congress from Illinois,
down to 1854, who raised his voice in favor of freedom in Kan-
sas. His speech against the passage of the Nebraska bill was
one of the best efforts of his life, and fully demonstrated the
higher conviction of his mind, the real man that he was. He
entered the great contest in the vigor of manhood, and with the
ardor of an enthusiast. His birth, and that of his parents, in a
slave State, contributed to strengthen his opposition to human
slavery, and stimulate him to vindicate the cause of human
freedom. Born and educated iu the principles of the Whig
party, he was the friend and supporter of law and order, the
defender and promoter of dignified and honorable party con-
tests.
At the death of the Whig party the Eepublicau party was
organized with the avowed purpose of resisting the spread of
slavery. It was essentially an anti-slavery party. It embodied
in its organization the great mass of active thinking and progres-
sive people of the country. It was a progressive and aggressive
party. And with a far-reaching and comprehensive spirit of
progress the Eepublicau party encouraged education and gave
its support to the material improvement of the country. The
Democratic party, loaded with incrusted institutionalism, and
trusting in boundless confidence, on the dictation and authority
of its precedents, angrily insisted that its political right to power
should not be questioned and that its rule should not be sub-
verted. The parties being thus arrayed in thought and conven-
— 13 —
tionality against each other, the great conflict between slavery
and freedom was waged. The State of Illinois was under the
control of the Democratic party, and was re-districted for the
purpose of securing a Democratic member of Congress in the
place of Yates. This end was accomplished and he was defeated
for Congress in 1854. But as true as the needle to the pole, was
he to his faith in political freedom. When his defeat was ascer-
tained in 1854, he fearlessly and distinctively announced to the
public that by the very principles on which he went down, he
would in the future rise more glorious and triumphant.
On his return to private life he engaged in business in the
construction of a railway through the central portion of the
State of Illinois. As president of the company he demonstrated
unusual ability in the prosecution of the work.
But not content with the honors and emoluments of business in
private life, and not satisfied with being a simple looker-on amid
the threatening and bitter contests of a gigantic political strug-
gle, Richard Yates entered the Presidential campaign of 1856.
His heart, soul, mind and strength were with the Republican
party. The struggle in Kansas had gone on ; freedom and
slavery had met face to face on the plains of that virgin territory.
On the one side was progressive thought; on the other side,
audacious and bigoted institutionalism, that scorned at the ques-
tionings of political and intellectual progress. The contest went
on ; it had assumed a sectional aspect, and the best thought of
the North and the South was brought into fierce conflict.
The Presidential contest of 1856 was a contest between slavery
and freedom. The result demonstrated that the capital invested
in slave property and the political convictions of more than two
generations could not be hastily overthrown, and the Democratic
party secured another lease of political power under James
Buchauan, and the bitterness of the contest stimulated that
party to the execution of measures still more aggressive in
favor of the spread of slavery. The Dred Scott decision came
declaring the privilege of the use of negro property universal
under the Constitution. This decision was soon followed by
President Buchanan's letter to Prof. Silliman, of Yale College,
declaring that the right to take slave property into the territo-
ries was unquestioned by the Constitution. The pro-slavery
party, acting wholly through the Democratic party, having
announced their principles and politics as being justified and
— 14 —
guaranteed by precedents and law, barricaded itself under the
feudal forms of institutionalism. On the other hand, the expo-
nents of the anti-slavery party — the leaders of the new Repub-
lican party — sought to enthrone themselves upon the doctrines
of the higher law. At this time the issue between freedom
and slavery was clearly defined. The Democratic party rested
the cause of slavery upon precedent, law, institutionalism, and
an extraordinary interpretation of the Constitution. The Re-
publican party held that slavery was wrong — a social cancer,
and a tyrant, which deprived human beings of their inalienable
rights and retarded the advancement of civilization. The issues
were made broad, and were deeply rooted in the convictions of
those who assumed to defend on either side. On one side was
intrenched the infamous and audacious authority of so-called
institutional infallibility ; on the other side, was rapidly being
developed and consecrated, the conscience of enlightened man-
kind. The great Channing had given the strength of his mind
against slavery and class legislation. Charles Sumner, in 1854,
and in the spirit of moderation, warned the South of the coming
contest. Said Sumner: " As long as my actions or utterances
are inspired by the obligation of an oath under the law, I will
never do aught, or counsel to disturb or iuterfere with the rights
of your peculiar institution ; but I tell you now, and I offer no
apology for telling you, that ere long the very great wrongs
suffered by the millions jou control, will be suppressed by the
voice of an enlightened public sentiment, not, I hope, the voice
of a section, but the harmonious response to the dictation of
our Creator. "
Victor Hugo, the most divinely gifted man of our planet, de-
clared American slavery to be the greatest moral deformity of
the nineteenth century. Theodore Parker enunciated a new
Golden Ride, defining the law of right between the freeman and
the slave. It was not so broad in its scope and expression of
human conduct as the dual Golden Rule enunciated by Confu-
cius, or so fresh in its expression of the principle of humanity,
as the rule enunciated by Jesus of Nazareth, but it taught that
what a mau had the right to do for himself, his neighbor had
the right to aid him to do.
North and South the battle raged; the sharp conflicts of
mind on fundamental principles of human rights, produced more
mobs in Boston than elsewhere in the country. Southern aris-
— 15 —
tocracy arrayed itself against the Democratic spirit of the peo-
ple, and the laborers of the North were denominated mud-sills,
greasy mechanics, and small-fisted farmers. Crimination was
answered on both sides by re-crimination, without reason or
wisdom. Kansas became a political battle-ground. On that
Western territory, the North and the South in their representa-
tives and constituents, submitted their issues to the will of the
people. The struggle in Kansas formed an epoch in the politi-
cal history of the Republic, and the result of the struggle herald-
ed a new dispensation of civil liberty to mankind.
Party contests were bitter in Kansas : the denunciation of
party leaders was outspoken. At the Republican State Con-
vention of Illinois, held at Bloomington, 1856, in a speech made
by Richard Yates, he said : " At the names of Atchison and
Stringfellow the mothers of Kansas press their babes to their
bosoms ! " In the contest in Kansas, one party known as
" Border Ruffians," and another as " Carpet-baggers, sent
out by the New England Emigrant Aid Society." On both
sides partisau strife overshadowed all conception of inter-state
citizenship, and stimulated bitter contention between the slave
and free States — between the North and the South. This con-
tention constantly intensified until the Presidential contest of
1860, when another appeal was -made to the people to deter-
mine upon the principles of the two parties. The leaders of
the Republican party were able and united. In the main, they
were the best and most distinguished men from the Whig and
Democratic parties. They entered the political struggle of
1860 with earnestness and determination, and, as a sectional
party, representing the sentiment of the North^ they controlled
a majority of the voters of the North. The Democratic party
was divided from the beginning. The division which took place
at the Charleston convention was never healed, and the repub-
lican party entered the contest against three other tickets, and
with Yancy and others bitterly opposing the election of either
ticket.
The Republican party of Illinois met in convention at Decatur
in May, 1860, and nominated Richard Yates for Governor. His
nomination was regarded the best that could have been made,
because he embodied the golden mean of the Republicans of Illi-
nois. With Abraham Lincoln at the head of the national ticket,
and Richard Yates at the head of the State ticket, Illinois be
-16-
came the theater of intense and exasperated political strife. The
candidacy of Douglas virtually contributed to the election of Lin-
coln to the presidency, and the political faith of Illinois being
founded upon the ordinance of 1787, stimulated her people to
cast their majority vote for the Republican ticket. The candi-
dacy of Bell and Everett was not founded upon a single living-
political principle, and only served as an obsolete, effete politi-
cal altar, on which aged and expiring politicians could sacrifice
themselves for the pretended good of their country. The cam-
paign of 1860 brought into recognition the intellectual and moral
power of the North ; for, with the people of the North, the vital
issue was founded upon a great question of human rights. In
fact, the contest was a struggle between two antagonistic forms
of political society — between slavery and freedom. Slavery
had constantly menaced the permanency of the government since
the enunciation of the Declaration of Independence, and, from
time to time, freedom yielded to its requests, until the intellec-
tual and moral growth of the American people became so strong
and determined as to demand that slavery be checked in its ca-
reer, and, like other crimes, be hedged in by the law of the na-
tion. This demand of freedom was granted by the American
people, according to the forms of law, in 1860, by the election of
Abraham Lincoln to the presidency of the United States. The
central idea and aim running through all the political teachings
of Mr. Lincoln was in favor of the extension and application to
political society of freedom and the doctrines of the Declaration
of Independence. Nevertheless, he was by nature a conserva-
tive man, and, by education, a rigid adherent and supporter of
the law. But his election was made a pretext for secession by
those to whom defeat threatened change, and to whom change
threatened injury; and embittered by prejudices and the party
strife of many years, and maddened by defeat, the people of the
Cotton States declined to acquiesce in the election of Abraham
Lincoln, and planting themselves upon the doctrine of State
Rights, entered upon the work of secession — a calamity which
the founders of the Republic and all succeeding patriots earnestly
sought to avert. Before the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln, the
work of secession was far under way. The inefficiency and in-
difference of President Buchanan, about enforcing the authority
of the Constitution over the domain of the South, caused his
«
cabinet to be dismembered, and the old Ship of State was left to
-17-
the mercy of the wind aud waves of rebellion. In after years,
when the Republic has passed into the hands of other genera-
tions soon to follow, the administration of James Buchanan will
be inscribed in our country's history as a confirmation of a great
poetic truth :
" Wrong forever on the throne ;
Right forever on the scaffold ;
But that scaffold sways the future,
And behind the dim unknown
Standeth God, within the shadow,
Keeping watch above his own."
On assuming the office of Chief Executive of the' nation, Pres-
ident Lincoln was called upon, at once, to confront a gigantic
war between the States of the North and the South. Siege was
levied against Fort Sumter, and hostile armies were being or-
ganized to resist the authority of the supreme law of the Gov-
ernment. By the obligations of the oath of office, Lincoln was
compelled to use all the power of the nation to put down this
wanton and criminal defiance of law, this treasonable assault on
the life of the nation. Before his inauguration, nearly every
State of the North was provided with a new and patriotic Gov-
ernor, ready to bring into requisition the full power of their re-
spective States to subordinate the insurgents to the will of the
Union. One of the most conspicuous, patriotic and brave of the
loyal Governors of the North was Richard Yates. He had
already taken the oath of office and assumed the executive
chair of Illinois. He fully comprehended the threatening contest
before Lincoln had reached the executive mansion of the na-
tion. In this approaching revolution, the home of Lincoln and
the stronghold of Republicanism, Illinois, was looked upon as
the great and growing central State of the West, and all eyes
were turned to the Governor of the great commonwealth. Loyal
men in Missouri, Kentucky and other neighboring States looked
to Illinois aud to Governor Yates as the boon and center of pa-
triotism and power in the Valley of the Mississippi. They looked
to it to rally first to the support of Abraham Lincoln in the de-
fense and maintenance of the government. Richard Yates had
already won for himself a national reputation as an able expon-
ent of the principles of the Republican party, and, as the Chief
Executive of Illinois, his position before the people of the West
and the country, was regarded as being pre-eminent. On the
-18-
assembling of the legislature, in January, 1861, and some months
before fire opened on Fort Sumter, in his inaugural message,
Governor Yates anuouuced himself firm, clear and patriotic in
the expression of his views concerning the cause of the Union,
and the determination of Illinois to vindicate the supremacy of
the Constitution in the coming contest.
" Referring to the national affairs," said Governor Yates : " whatever
may have been the divisions of parties hitherto, the people of Illinois will,
with one accord, give their assent and firm support to two propositions.
First. That obedience to the Constitution and the laws must be insisted upon
and enforced, as necessary to the existence of the Government. Second. That
an election of Chief Magistrate of the nation, in strict conformity with the
Constitution, is no sufficient cause for the release of any State from any of its
obligations to the Union."
A minority of the people may be persuaded that a great error has been
committed by such election, but for relief in such a contingency, the Consti-
tution looks to the efficacy of frequent elections, and has placed it in the
power of the people to remove their agents and servants at will. The work-
ing of our government is based upon the principles of the indisputable
rights of majorities. To deny the right of th >se, who have constitutionally
succeeded by ballot to stations only to be occupied, is not merely unfair and
unjust, but revolutionary; and for a party which has constitutionally tri-
umphed, to surrender the powers it has won, would be an ignoble submission,
a degradation of manhood, a base desertion of the people's service, which
should inevitably consign it to the scorn of Christendom and the infamy of
history.
To give shape and form to their purpose of resistance, the dissatisfied
leaders of the South Carolina movement have revived the doctrine long since
exploded, that a State may nullify a law of Congress and secede from the
Union at pleasure. Such a doctrine can never for a moment be permitted.
Its admission would be fatal to the existence of government, would dissolve
all the relations which bind the people together, and reduce to anarchy the
order of the Republic.
This is a government entered into by the people of the whole country in
their sovereign capacity, and although it have the sanction also, of a compact
between sovereign States, does not receive its chief support from that cir-
cumstance, but from the original and higher action of the people them-
selves.
This Union cannot be dissolved by one State, nor by the people of one
State 01 of a dozen States. This sfovernment was designed to be perpetual
and can be dissolved only by revolution.
Secession is disunion. Concede to S >uth Carolina the right to release her
people from the d ities and obligations belonging to their citizenship, and
you annihilate the sovereignty of the Union by prostrasting its ability to
secure allegiance. Could a government which could not vindicate itself, and
which had exhibited such a sign of weakness, command respect or long
maintain itself? If that State secede, why may not California and Oregon,
- 19 -
and with better reason, because they are remote from the Capital, and sep-
arated by uninhabited wildernesses and vast mountain ranges, and may have
an independent commerce with the shores and islands ot the Pacific and the
marts of the Indies'? Why may not Pennsylvania secede and dispute our
passage to the seaboard through her territory? Why may not Louisiana
constitute herself an independent nation, and dictate to the people of the
great Northwest the onerous terms upon which their millions of agricul-
tural and industrial products might find a transit through the Mississippi and
be delivered to the commerce of the world.
It will be admitted that the territory of Louisiana, acquired in 1S03, for the
purpose ot securing to the people of the United States the free navigation of
the Mississippi, could never had seceded ; yet it is pretended, that when that
territory has so perfected its municipal organization as to be admitted into
the Union as a State, with the powers and privileges equal to the other
States, she may at pleasure repudiate the union, and forbid to the other
States the free navigation which was purchased at the cost of all, not for
Louisiana, but for all the people of the United States. A claim so presump-
tuous and absurd could never be acquiesced in. The blood of the gallant sons
of Kentucky and Tennessee was freely shed to defend New Orleans and the
Mississippi River from a foreign foe ; and it is memorable that the chieftain
who rescued that city t>om sack and siege, was the same, who at a later date
by his stern and patriotic rebuke, dispersed the ranks of disunionists in the
borders ot South Carolina.
Can it be for a moment supposed that the people of the Valley of the
Mississippi, will ever consent that the great river shall flow for hundreds of
miles through a foreign jurisdiction, and they be compelled — if not to fight
their way in the face of the forts frowning upon its banks — to submit to the
imposition, annoyance of arbitrary taxes and exorbitant duties to be levied
upon their commerce? 1 believe that before that day shall come, either shore
of the " Father of Waters" will be a continuous sepulchre of the slain, and
witli all its cities in ruins, and the cultivated fields upon its sloping sides laid
waste, it shall roll its foaming tide in solitary grandeur, as at the dawn of
creation, i know I speak for Illinois, and I believe for the Northwest, when
I declare them as a unit in the unalterable determination of their millions
occupying the great basin drained by the Mississippi, to permit no portion of
that stream to be controlled by a foreign jurisdiction.
I believe and trust it is to be the mission of those to whom the people have
lately committed, for a period, the interests of this nation, to administer
public affairs upon the theory of the perpetuity of the constitution and
THE GOVERNMENT ORGANIZED UNDER IT.
No matter how vociferously South Carolina may declare that the Union is
dissolved, and that she and other States are out of the Confederacy, no
recognition whatever is due to her self-assumed independence in this regard.
It took seven years to establish our independence. The precious boon pur-
chased by patriot blood and treasure was committed to us for enjoyment, and
to be transmitted to our posterity, with the most solemn injunctions that
man has the power to lay on man. By the grace of God we will be faithful
to the trust. For seven years yet to come, at least, will we struggle to
- 20 -
maintain a perfect Union— a government of one people, in one nation, under
one Constitution.
It is, perhaps, impossible to tell what may be the exact result of this South
Carolina nullification, but do what she will, conspire with many or few, I am
confident that this Union of our fathers — a Union of intelligence, of freedom,
of justice, of industry, of religion, of science and art, will, in the end, be
stronger and rich°r and more glorious, renowned and free, than it has ever
been heretofore, by the necessary reaction of the crisis through which we are
passing.
In proclaiming these fundamental doctrines of constitutional
government, Gov. Yates demonstrated to the world that he
comprehended three great underlying truths of vital concern
to the people of this country and the government under which
they live.
First, that this is a nation, and not a league of states associ-
ated by common consent, with the right of withdrawing from
the compact at will.
The doctrine of Secession is the political infidelity of the
world. It resists all supreme authority, denies the existence of
an overruling law, and leaves petty communities at the mercy
of all political isms, and provides no restraint against treason.
All along the highway of time the governments of the world
have been prematurely destroyed by the same doctrine of
Secession which has threatened the destruction of this Eepub-
lic. The city states of the middle ages were founded and
destroyed by this same South Carolina heresy, and as long as it
has an advocate and a friend in this country it will menace the
permanency of this Union.
We are one people, made so by the war for national independ-
ence and the war for the Union; aud it is a monstrous blunder,
a gigantic heresy, to teach that secession is liberty, and that con-
stitutional law is centralization. If any man entertains the her-
esy of secession, let me tell him that there is no liberty but the
liberty of law, and there is no government but the government
of law. License is not liberty. It is the rule of action for the mob
and the savage. Territory'purchased by the people of the United
States and clothed with a State government aud admitted into
the Union, cannot, in the very nature of thiugs, become greater
than the Union, and, therefore, must be subject to the rule of
the Constitution. In no way does the new State retain the law-
ful right in itself to withdraw from the Union at will ; hence the
-21 -
absurdity of a State assuming authority in violation of the Con-
stitution.
Our emblems of government point to the sovereignty of the
Constitution over all the States. The flag is a national emblem.
The great seal of the government is a national emblem. So, too,
is the stamp upon the money of the government.
If we turn to behold the benefits growing out of the influence
of sovereign political convictions, on the one hand, and the con-
victions of secession, on the other hand, how sad is the contrast !
On one side we see the national expression in favor of a general
system of education, of loyalty, population, wealth and power.
On the other side, where the doctrine of secession prevails, we
And education and enterprise languishing, and the children of
great States that ought to be prosperous and powerful, growing
up without culture and without hope.
A second fundamental truth comprehended and enunciated by
Gov. Yates in his inaugural message is, that the Mississippi val-
ley must forever remain the political home of one people, of one
nation ; and that as long as the mighty Mississippi river extends
through this valley, from zone to zone and from climate to cli-
mate, but one people will drink of its waters from north to south.
That river, in itself, is a stronger bond of political union than
the Constitution, and with a grasp of mind like that of Scott and
Benton, Gov. Yates boldly announced this great fundamental
truth.
This grand valley is to be the perpetual home of industry, of
wealth and political power. Here will be enacted the great con-
tests in labor and civilization, in law and social order, for here
will grow the dense masses of population who will be compelled
to engage in the industrial pursuits. On the slopes of the con-
tinent will grow a less dense population, with a higher civiliza-
tion and a superior aesthetic life.
Perhaps in no way did the American people present a stronger
expression of the value of hardy manhood during the civil
war than that marked demonstration of power in the valley of
the Mississippi. When the struggle commenced, Gen. Scott
commanded the army ; Gen. Dix, of New York, commanded that
department ; Gen. Butler, of Massachusetts, commanded in Bal-
timore; Gen. MoClellan, of New York, commanded the depart-
ment of Ohio, and Gen. Lyon, of Connecticut, the department of
Missouri — all Eastern men. When the war closed, Gen. Grant,
-22-
of Illinois, was at tbe head of the Army ; General Sherman, of
Missouri, had brought his Western army into North Carolina ;
General Thomas, of Ohio, had command in Tennessee, and
General Sheridan, of Ohio, was Grant's favorite subordinate in
the army before Richmond — all Western men.
A third fundamental truth enunciated by Gov. Yates in his
inaugural message, was, that the great struggle which was then
impending would redeem the nation from the blight of slavery,
and make her stronger, richer and more glorious by the
necessary reaction of the crisis through which she was des-
tined to pass.
Already we have unlimited evidence of the truth of this
conception, and this truth is confirmed by the boundless confi-
dence which the people have in the future. In the language of
Horace Greeley, " When fire opened upon Fort Sumter, notice
was given to the world that the era of diplomacy and com-
promise had ended." The long- threatened contest between the
North and South had at last come, and the appeal was made,
through the forms of law to the loyal people of the country
to rally in the defense of the Constitution and the Union. At
tbe call of tbe Washington Government hundreds of thousands
rushed to the rescue of the national life, and to the subordina-
tion of the slave States to the will of the Uniou. At this criti-
cal period, when no man could tell to what magnitude the
rebellion would grow, or to what end it would lead, Gov. Yates
was found equal to the task entrusted to him by the people of
Illinois. He rose in full official power and personal grandeur
to a full comprehension of the great crisis, and demonstrated
his equal ability to discharge his whole duty, as executive of
the great State of Illinois. His devotiou to free government,
his aspirations for national greatness, and his undying devotion
to the Union of these States, contributed to make him the
most fit man of all the political leaders in Illinois, for chief
executive, at the time of the great crisis of the rebellion. He
entered upon the discharge of his official duties at a time when
to be conservative was to be wrong, when to be right was to be
revolutionary. He sent forth, to make battle against the
enemy, a loyal army more powerful than was ever led by Ses-
ostris, Alexander, Cresar or Charlemagne. The loyal men of
Illinois went not to fight for Pagan or Imperial conquests; they
went to compel insurgents to stand by the contract entered
into for the establishment of the Government of the United
States, by " we, the people." The sequel proved the contract
to be valid, and its binding force unalterable by any part of
the contractors.
Gov. Yates grew with the contest in all its gigantic propor-
tions and its tierce conflicts, uutil he became the personal em-
bodiment of the great State of Illinois. Emerson tells us that
Plato is philosophy and philosophy is Plato. In the magni-
tude of his great and beneficent personality, and in the fullness
of official power as Governor, Yates was Illinois and Illinois
was Yates. He was earnest, decisive, courageous and persis-
tent in his efforts to put down the rebellion, and withal, he was
gifted and guided in his efforts by a superabundance of practi-
cal wisdom. Stupendous preparations for war were hastily
executed on either side, and public men, and those in the pri-
vate walks of life, were rapidly taking sides in the contest. In
this crisis of the nation's life, Douglas lost no time in announc-
ing to the country on which side he stood; and after thorough
consultations in Washington with President Lincoln and other
leaders, hev returned to the Capital of Illinois to exert his iuflu-
ence on the side of his country, and one of the last of his
admonitions to his old political friends, was, that "no man can
be a true Democrat unless he is a loyal patriot." After calling
upon his people to stand by the Constitution and the Union,
Douglas went home and laid down to die.
"So the struck eagle stretched upon the plaiu.
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
Viewed his own feather on the fatal dart,
And winged the shaft that quivered in his heart."
In the death of Douglas the nation lost one of its greatest
and most patriotic men. It is, however, a general law of revo-
lutions, that those who bring them on rarely survive them. But
there is, iu the providence of God, a law of compensation that
works a boon to the just and destruction to the vicious. And
in the administration of this compensating law, which works
alike to individuals and to nations, the death of Douglas was
compensated by the gift of Grant to the nation. And in the
providence of God, Gov. Yates was made the commissioner by
whose hands this compensating law was administered, and
Grant, meek and humble, like Jeptha of old, was commissioned
to lead strong men to battle, and soon he proved to be the bold-
-24-
est captaiu in Israel. He moved forward to make battle against
the enemies of his country, and no man could do it so well. He
smote the enemy hip and thigh. His career was onward and
upward, and as the crowning work he led the armies of the
Eepublic to the achievement of the mightiest victory ever won
by a military chieftain in the tide of time. In all his services he
was the same stern, invincible and original self. He went amid
dauger and danger tied from his presence. He escaped the
assassin's knife when other illustrious men were assaulted and
slain. And when the duties of the camp and the cabinet were
all discharged, and the Eepublic redeemed and fixed in history,
this silent man, this great captain of our age, unfettered from
duty, went forth to make the circuit of nations. He was hailed
and honored by the titled dignitaries and the great of all lauds.
He carried the honor of the young Eepublic amid the ruins of
mighty empires and where kings laid down in state. He wrap-
ped the glory of the Eepublic around the globe and added new
honors to the national life and character, and called the people
of all lands to speak the praise of this great republican nation
of the world; and this man was the gift of Governor Yates to
the nation. Wonderful gift! transcendant man! the world's
greatest captain of our age is Ulysses S. Grant.
In the prosecution of the war for the Union, Gov. Yates was
in constant requisition, and was almost unceasing in the dis-
charge of his duties. Everywhere that duty called him he
hasteued. He was earnest and impatient in urging, by tongue
or pen, not only his own people, but Uiose of the whole country,
to greater deeds of valor and to the achievement of greater
victories and more shiuiug honors, and there was no man who
surpassed him in earnest and patriotic calls to the people. So
well did he discharge his personal and official duties that his
name and fame became so deeply rooted in the hearts of the
people that his services were solicited in every section of the
loyal North, from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. When the
duties of the executive office were discharged he repaired to
the camp, and from the camp to the hospital, and from the hos-
pital to the political council, and from the political council to
the battle field; and thus continued in one constant succession
of duties, iu which he enlisted his whole soul, mind and strength.
His labors were made greater because his great, warm and pat-
riotic heart was enlisted in the cause of his country and iu the
welfare of the soldiers whom he had urged to peril their lives
on the battle field. Every official paper issued by Yates, every
letter he wrote and every speech he made contained an earnest
plea for the Union, and as chief executive of the great State of
Illinois Gov. Yates soon became the central figure around which
the loyal people of the great Northwest rallied in defense of the
Union, and thus made strong and great as the chosen leader,
the chief executive of this mighty people, his influence in de-
fense of the Union grew to be invincible and he was called to
labor in every part of the loyal North, from sea to sea.
The unfortunate reverses which followed the Union army in
1862, stimulated those in the North who were opposed to the
war to greater efforts of opposition to the cause of the Union,
and in the hour of greatest peril to the supremacy of the Con-
stitution, the leaders of those in sympathy with secession in-
augurated a movement to re-construct the Union and leave New
England out. In his message to the General Assembl}7 of Illi-
nois, January 5th, 1863, Gov. Yates boldly met this new propo-
sition as another treasonable invasion of the Union of these
States. Said he "'I shall always glory in the fact that I belong \
to a Kepublicin the galaxy of whose stars New England is among
the brightest and the best. Palsied be the hand that would
sever the ties which bind the East and the West."
Patriotic and loyal alike to every part of the Union, Gov.
Yates confronted and braved all opposition to the rule of the
Constitution. And well may a defense of New England be re-
corded as one of the greatest contributions to American patri-
otism. For to turn against that region of our common country,
would be to blow out the great intellectual and moral lights of
the nation aud to shut the door of progress against mankind.
New England gave us the spelling book and the dictionary, the
common school system, and inventions in art. No, no ! New
England is ours ! The continent is ours. It is all ours from
the rising to the setting sun, and from the polar snows to the
warm Gulf that bounds the South and —
" A million hearts shall be riven
Before one golden link is lost."
In all the affairs of life he was the same warm-hearted and
magnanimous man, and from his great sympathetic nature the
love and aspirations of his soul went out to his countrymen, as
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virtue went out from that pure, desponding, but celestial man
of Nazareth to the wan woman, weak and sick. And with an
unbroken record of life, he may well have said with Sir Robert
Peel : " It may be that I shall leave a name sometimes to be
remembered with expressions of good will in the abodes of those
whose lot it is to earn their daily bread by the sweat of their
brows, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with
abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is not leav-
ened by a sense of injustice."
Perhaps the boldest official act of Governor Yates was the
prorogation of the Illinois Legislature. The war had been In
progress nearly two years. The strength and energy of the
loyal people of the nation were brought into requisition by the
Washington Government, and still the succession of death and
disaster which folio wed the armies of the Union, spread gloom
and doubt over the country. Seeing this terrible condition of
things, Abraham Lincoln said, that without the help of the
Negro the Union must perish. The Emancipation Proclamation
was issued January 1st, 1863. This national edict, this new law
from the nation's Sinai, intensified the contest, and made des-
peration the rule of action for the Confederates. At this time
the Legislature of Illinois was in the hands of the Democratic
party, and the bitter partisan strife engendered by the war was
intensifying political differences between the Democrats and
Republicans. The Legislature met January 5th, 1863 ; and en-
couraged by the proclamation of emancipation, Governor Yates
declared in his annual message, with unusual vigor of speech,
his unalterable devotion to the Union and renewed confidence
in the success of the armies of the Government. But the dom-
inant party in the Legislature was already well grounded in
other views on national affairs than those of Governor Yates,
and the session was regarded more as an impediment to the
cause of the Union than a support to the loyal soldiers of the
State. Thus actuated and thus acting, the Legislature of Illi-
nois became notorious all over the country, and after having
extended the session into June, and the two houses failing to
agree on a resolution to adjourn, Governor Yates seized his
right under the Constitution, and disolved the Legislature by a
message of prorogation. Anticipating a disagreement of the
Legislature on the subject of adjourning, the Governor pre-
pared his message, and prompt to the time of disagreement, he
with his private secretary entered the Representatives' Hall.
The Governor took his place, and, with an earnest air of author-
ity, awaited the reading- of the message. His private secretary
stepped to the Speaker's desk, and promptly announced "a
message from the Governor." Anticipating a legal thunder-
bolt from the Executive, an effort was made to suppress and shut
off the reading of the message, but to no avail ; an opportunity
so important to the cause of the Union was not to be lost by
the loyal Governor of Illinois, who stood so high and so near
the life of the nation, and in whose charge so great a trust had
been committed by the people of this great State.
The message reads as follows :
To the General Assembly of the State of Illinois:
Whereas, On the Sth day of June, A. D., 1863, the Senate adopted a joint
resolution to adjourn, sine die on said day at 7 o'clock p. m., which resolution,
>ipon being submitted, on the same day, to the House of Representatives, was
by them amended, by substituting the 22d day of June, and the hour of 12
o'clock, in which amendment, the Senate thereupon refused to concur; and,
whereas, the Constitution of this State contains the following provision
to-wit:
Sec. 13, Art. 4. In case of a disagrement between the two Houses, with
respect to the time of adjournment, the Governor shall have power to adjourn
the General Assembly to such a time as he thinks proper, provided it be not
to a period beyond the next constitutional meeting of the same.'
And, Whereas, I fully believe that the interests of the people of the State
will be best subserved by ft speedy adjournment, the past history of the
Assembly holding out no reasonable hope of beneficial results to the citizens
of the State, or the army in the field, from its further continuance ;
Now, therefore, in consideration of the existing disagreement between the
two Houses, with respect to the time of adjournment, and by virtue of the
power vested in me by the Constitution, as aforesaid, I, Richard Yates, Gov-
ernor of the State of Illinois, do hereby adjourn the General Assembly, now
in session, to the Saturday next preceding the first Monday in January,
A. D., 1865.
Given at Springfield, this the 10th day of June, A. D. 1S63.
(Signed,) Richard Yatf.s, Governor.
While the message was being read in the House, it was also
being read in the Senate, and with the quick and daring skill of
a determined surgeon, the work was soon done, and the Legis-
lature adjourned. This act of Governor Yates was heralded
over the nation with lightning speed, and every heart was thrilled
and strengthened with renewed patriotism.
Yates was justly called the War Governor of Illinois, but
equally truly was he the war statesman of Illinois; and whether
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in proroguing a disloyal Legislature or moving the President
to more vehement measures of war, he was never deemed rash,
and was never accounted unwise. He was always self-poised
and always correct and watchful' in the execution of his labors.
Anthropologically considered, Richard Yates was of nervous-
sanguine temperament; his organic quality was first rate, but
too heavily laden with unfavorable conditions of consanguinity.
He was of symmetrical form and superior mold of structure.
His head measured 23 TV inches, which size, combined with
the temperament and organic quality, was amply large to gov-
ern a nation. The coronal region of his brain was largely
developed, which, united with a warm, active temperament,
added to him large powers of inspiration and moral greatness.
At the close of his gubernatorial term Richard Yates was
elected to the United States Senate as the successor of Doug-
las. When he entered the Senate he was given the chairman-
ship of the Committee on Territories.
He had already made himself illustrious while Governor, but
as as Senator of the United States he found a great field for
the display of his abilities and for the illustration of the
soundness of his political views. The sharp contests between
rivals of distinguished ability and culture afford greater oppor-
tunities for the exhibition and development of principles and
powers in men than is afforded in the gubernatorial office.
The functions of the executive being chiefly administration, it
is only under extraordinary circumstances that the executive
of the State or nation is afforded an opportunity to demon-
strate superior statesmanship in the discharge of his official
duties. On the other hand the Senate afford sample opportunity
for most gifted and comprehensive statesmanship, and espe-
cially at the time of revolution in the affairs of government
and civilization.
And the Senate proved to be no field of labor in which Mr.
Yates shrank from duty, or in which he did not readily enter
himself as a ready and able debater. The issue of arms made
between contesting powers is always plain and direct, and is
settled by the contest in battle. The issues in legislation are
quite different, and far more difficult to settle. The reconstruc-
tion measures, together with contentions with a President not
in harmony with the dominant party, made the labors of the
United States Senate quite difficult to dispose of. But on all
- 29-
the great questions touching the fundamental principles of our
government Senator Yates proved himself to be equal to any
occasion, and even to lead in debate. His speeches on nation-
al sovereignty and State rights; on the homestead question, on
the subject of equality of human rights before the law, and on
building n railway to the Pacific, as well as other leading ques-
tions of the day, all demonstrated him to be a man of wide
grasp and superior abilities.
If any man hesitates to accord to Richard Yates superior
abilities and transcendant eloquence, let me refer such an one
to his speech in favor of the conviction of President Johnson.
In that speech I will point to eloquence equal to that of Burke
in the impeachment of Warren Hastings. I will point to plead-
ing equal to that of William Wirt.
I appeal to a single passage in his senatorial address :
I would do justice and justice requires conviction ; justice to the people
whom he has so cruelly wronged. 1 would be merciful, merciful to the mil-
lions whose rights he treacherously asssails by his contempt for law. I
would have peace ; therefore I vote to remove from office this most pestilent
disturber of public peace. I would have prosperity among the people, and
confidence restored to capital ; therefore I vote to punish him whose turbul-
ance makes capital timid and paralyzes our national industries. I would have
economy in the administration of public affairs ; therefore I vote to depose
the promoter and cause of unheard-of official extravagance. I would have
honesty in the collection of the public revenues; therefore I vote to remove
this patron of the corruptionists. I would have my Government respected
abroad ; therefore I vote to punish him who subjects us to dishonor by treat
ing law with contempt. 1 would inspire respect for law in the youth of the
land ; I therefore impose its penalties upon the most exalted criminal. I
would secure and perpetuate liberty, and [ therefore vote to purge the citadel
of liberty of him who, through murder succeeded to the chief command and
seeks to betray us to the enemy.
I fervently pray that this nation may avoid a repetition of that history, of
which apostates and usurpers have desolated nations and enslaved mankind.
Let our announcement this day to the President, and all future Presidents
and all conspirators against the liberties of this country, be what is already
the edict ot our land, '• You shall not tear this temple of liberty down." Let
our warning go down the ages, that every usurper and bold violator of law
who thrusts himself in the path of this Republic to honor and renown, who-
ever he mt?y be, however high his title or proud his name, that, Arnold-like,
he shall be gibbetted upon every hill-top throughout the land as a monument
of his crime and punishment, and of the shame and grief of his country.
We are not alone in this cause. Out on the Pacidc shore a deep murmur" is
heard from thousands of patriot voices; it swells over the western plain,
peopled by millions more; with every increasing volume it advances; on by
the lakes, and through the busy marts of the great north, and re-echoed by
-30-
other millions on the Atlantic strand, it thunders upon us a mighty nation's
verdict, guilty. While from out of the smoke and gloom of this desolated
South, from the rice fields, and along the great rivers, from hundreds of
thousands of persecuted and basely betrayed Unionists, comes also the sol-
emn judgment, guilty.
In review, in a single word, the life of Eicliard Yates ; he was
a child of the wilderness. He was gifted with a bright and
shining genius. From boyhood to ripe manhood his career was
constantly upward, in the affairs of state and nation. He was
a lofty patriot, a hero and benefactor of his age, and his whole
life crowned him as a transcendaut true man, and as such will
he be fixed in history. He was brave aud demonstrative in the
expression of his own views upon all questions of public con-
cern, and with a marked individuality he proclaimed his own
convictions, aud determined for himself what path of duty he
would walk. So decided was he in his own convictions and his
own superior selfhood, that when charged in the Senate of fol-
lowing the leadership of Charles Sumner he promptly replied:
"It has been said sarcastically that, upon this question, the Senator from
Massachusetts is radical. It is said to me that I follow in the wake of the
Senator from Massachusetts. Sir, I do not follow in any man's wake; but I
do not object to this accusation. I do not deem it a reproach to be a disciple
of that distinguished Senator, the worthy representative of that grand old
Commonwealth " where American liberty raised its first voice." For a quar-
ter of a century that Senator has been the fearless champion of human rights,
lie has occupied the advance guard, the outpost in the army of progress.
Triumphant over calumny and unawed by personal violence, with a keen,
prophetic eye upon the great result to be attained, with the seimeter of truth
and justice in his hand, and the banner of the Union over his head, he has
pressed onward to the goal of linal victory. Although yet in the vigor of his
manhood he has lived to ,-~ee the small band of pioneers who stood by him
swollen to mighty millions. His views have already been embraced and lauded
as the wisest statesmanship. They have been written upon the very frontis-
picce of the age in which he lives; written in the history of the mighty events
which are transpiring around us ; written in the constitutions and the laws,
both national and .State, of his country. Where he stood yesterday other
statesmen stand to-day. Where he stands in 1868 other statesmen will stand
in \S7'2. Say what we may, there are none in this country who can contest
the right ol his tall plume to wave at the head of freedom's all-conquering
hosts.''
Like many other gifted men of our race, he sometimes wandered
from the shining path of righteousness, but, as Castelar says of
Byron, he was the echo of an uncertain age. His mind was
sometimes crossed with sunbeams and shadows, but his life was
-31-
great and the history of his labors will forever remain a glitter-
ing jewel in the aureole of Illinois. And say what you may —
"In men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still ;
In men whom men pronounce divine
I find so much of sin and blot,
I hesitate to draw the line
Between the two, where God has not."
The accumulated penalty of a violated law of consanguinity
for three generations were transmitted to him. He entered
into the conflicts of public life with men, "fierce aud vengeful,"
in struggles of ambition for the ascendancy, aud everywhere he
was a chosen leader of his people, in proclaiming new political
principles and promoting party ascendancy. No man in Illinois
was loved so well by his people, and no man loved his people so
well as did Richard Yates. He was the embodiment of political
progress, and an able exponent of the divine rights of man. I
knew him well. I knew his inner life, aud there were far greater
depths of thought in his soul than belong to the popular and
successful politician. But our arbitrary society and civilization
hedged him about, and weary to give utterance to the riper and
greater thoughts of his mind, he felt disappointed in the great
contest and official triumphs in life.
When I behold the innate greatness of this man's soul, and
the struggle of his unsatisfied ambition to leap the narrow
boundaries of his own intellectual Eden, to pluck and eat new
fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, whereby to
enter upon higher missions of life and thought and to achieve
higher intellectual conquests— I rejoice in his transcendent
majesty of mind. The higher thoughts of our race are gleams
of intellectual light Hashing from the far-off millennium upon
the loftiest intellects of our way-wandering age. The flash not
rarely is disastrous to the favored mind. While it illuminates,
so it sometimes consumes. Such was the mournful fate of
Kirk White, of Keats, of Pollock. Such was the fate of Yates—
of whom we may say:
" 'T was thine own genius gave the fatal blow,
And helped to plant the dart that laid thee low."
Although a political reformer, Richard Yates was highly
endowed with a wise conservatism, which gives revolutionary
thought the semblance of moderation. He was keenly sensible
-32-
♦
of the influence of new political thought on the public mind, and
in entering upon a great contest he fully comprehended the
obstacles of ignorance, prejudice and institutionalism to be
encountered.
In public life, no man was more free from mistakes than
Richard Yates. So well and wisely were all his acts and move-
ments directed in party politics and in the discharge of official
duties, that it almost seemed as though he could not commit a
blunder against his party and against the public interest. And
no man throughout this vast country was ever more endeared
to his people than was Kichard Yates. Gen. Jackson had ar-
dent admirers and bitter enemies ;, Henry Clay was idolized by
political friends and personal admirers ; strong attachments
existed between William H. Seward and his constituents; and
in like manner was Senator Douglas endeared to his friends.
But there never existed that warm, pliant, filial love between
either of these eminent men and the people such as existed
between Yates and the people of Illinois. He was the adored
and loving patriot of this Commonwealth, He was the em-
bodiment of high, manly qualities with an individuality en-
dowed of divine gifts. He possessed the heroism of the war-
rior, and the delicately attuned nature of the babe Christabel.
The following beautiful tribute tto the American Volunteer,
fully attests his refined sensibilities :
The name or title of the " American Volunteer " is illustrious with all that
is good, and noble, and great. Around that simple name clusters all that is
glorious in devotion to country, all that is precious or dear in liberty, all
that is grand in lofty prowess, and all that is sublime in brilliant achieve-
ments. No hero of antiquity, no soldier in modern warfare, ever scaled such
a shining summit of human fame as the " American Volunteer." He made
the name of the Republic a triumph and a joy at home and in foreign lands.
He fought against secession, slavery, and barbarism for a higher civilization,
for progress, the Union of the States, for the life of the nation, and to estab-
lish upon solid and enduring loundations the equal rights, liberty, and happi-
ness of all the children of God. He placed the capstone upon the temple ot
liberty, which our fathers had built, and consecrated it to the freedom and
enfranchisement of all men, without regard to caste. The " American Vol-
unteer," though he may now sleep in the lowly tenements of clay, speaks
through history way down the coming centuries, and says to all succeeding
generations as the nation grows in power and grandeur with her institutions,
the noblest and freest, her civilization the highest and the purest, and her
flag, the most honored of the world, '-This nation, these institutions, this
civilization, and that flag are mine, for 1 fought and died to secure them to
me and you, and your and my posterity forever."
- 33 -
What pen could portray the disaster, the ruin, and the death which would
have covered this land, if our enemies had consummated the traitor schemes
of discord and disunion ? The answer to this question shows, in some
measure, the immense debt of gratitude we owe the 300,000 brave and gallant
spirits, who sealed their devotion to liberty and to the nation with their
precious blood.
Oh! what a sacrifice was there, my countrymen, on the altar of patriotic
duty. Three hundred thousand bloody shrouds pass in long ghastly proces-
sion before us. There rises up before us 500 battle fields strewn with the
dead, the wounded, and the dying, and a million of " bosoms bared to what-
ever of terror there may be in war and death." All these we have seen, but
thanks be to our dead and living soldiers, all now is peace, and we shall see
them no more. And here was also the sacrifice, not only of life, but of affec-
tion. The father willingly gave up his son to his country's service, though he
knew he might return lame, maimed or wounded— without a leg or an arm —
or never returning, s'eep the sleep of death, in an unknown grave, in a far
off land. The widowed mother, in many thousands of instances, gave up all
her sons, or her only son ; the farmer and mechanic sent their sons forth, and
vacant places have been made at the hearthstone of almost every Northern
loyal household, that the life of the Republic might be saved. It was the
sacrifice of affection, for if there is one tie stronger than another, it is the
tie that binds the devoted wife to the husband— how strong the tie "in the
hidden soul of sympathy," which binds the father to his boy, and who can
fathom the ocean depth of a mother's love ?
Go to that little cabin by the brook, or on the hillside, and see the fond
wife or fond mother, standing in the doorway, and, with blinding tears, bid-
ding adieu to all she has or loves on earth. We see the husband or son on
their winding way —
" Upon the hill they turn to take
A last fond look
Of the valley and the village church,
And the cottage by the brook."
Alas! when that wife and mother stood in the doorway watching the
return of the army, how her cheek turned pale. Alas! the face of that
bright-eyed boy lies pale in death, and that husband never more shall return.
" Alas! nor wife, nor children more shall he behold,
Nor friends, nor sacred home."
Far off on the banks of Southern rivers, on many a hillside, or in valleys
low, in many a sequestered nook, in narrow little tenements, repose the
bones of our noble dead No kind wife, mother or sister there to console the
spirit as it passed the boundary stream of life ; no friendly hand to strew
flowers on his grave.
" He sleeps his last sleep; he has fought his last battle,
No sound shall awake him to glory again. "
But he died for his country. He has gone but a little while before us; we
may not till as honorable graves.
iLcFC.
-34-
His name shall never be forgot
While fame her record keeps,
And Glory points the hallowed spot
Where Valor proudly sleeps."
In his nobler manhood he walked the royal way of life ; he
taught his fellows higher principles of political society and
more royal lessons of patriotism. He was true to the living,
and in his death, let it be the ambition and the duty of the
living to be true to him. Let the people of Illinois not forget
him who stood at the helm of State four long, weary and
eventful years, watching and pleading for the life of the
Republic. His name was a tower of strength in that awful
time of the nation's greatest tragedy and transition. His
name strengthened the weak and gave greater confidence to
the strong. At his pleadings mighty armies were encouraged
to do battle. At the cry of the widow and the wounded
soldier, his ear caught the sound, and the State of Illinois re-
sponded to the supplicant. He was a gifted patriot, a grand
man, and a great benefactor. Let not the people of Illinois
forget this man who gave the measure of his life to the cause
of his State and his country. Then, let me implore you, people
of Illinois to not forget the shining deeds of your dead states-
man.
" Then build for him the marble shrine,
Pure as his patriot soul is shriven ;
On it let treasures be bestowed
Freely as was his life-work given ;
That in the better coming time
Our country, joined by bands fraternal,
May not forget his deeds sublime,
But keep them ever fresh and vernal."
All the great periods, epochs, and events in the world's his-
tory, are inscribed with great endeavor to advance the intellec-
tual and moral progress of mankind, and the boldest in thought,
of the men and women of our race have learned with Castelar,
that inspired Spaniard, that " Life is full of complications, and
for the same reason, of insuperable difficulties. And as there
are great contrasts in nature, there are also in society opposing
forces. By the side of the prophet who announces the future,
arises the magistrate who believes his mission to be the con-
servation of the present system, and who as a result of this
conviction, persecutes the prophet. In the vicinity of every
new thinker, there exists an association which believes itself
infallible. Beside each reformer is placed the eternal cup of
hemlock. We can not aspire to be blessed by posterity, with-
out being cursed by our cotemporaries/'
The pressure and power of old institutions has often caused
many a good genius to fail and fall by the wayside of life, who
otherwise would have been a benefactor of mankind.
The greatest impediment to human progress existing in our
age, is the dogma of infallibility ; and in saying this, I do not
refer wholly to the infallibility of the Eomish Pontiff, for that
is of little concern to the enlightened, intellectual mass of man-
kind, but I refer in a broader sense to the doctrine of the
eternal finality of creeds and institutions ; to that high wall,
that fortress of incrusted institutionalism, that barricades all
our centers of learning against the dawning intellectual and
religious light of coming ages.
Intellectual and moral institutions established for the dissemi-
nation of knowledge among men, without the function of
inspiration to light the way of the human mind to other and
unknown fields of knowledge, are organized intellectual and
moral despotisms. In such institutions is enthrowned intel-
lectual and moral power, and that power shuts the door against
the onward progress of the human soul.
We build our highest and most sacred monuments to genius
and religion, on the hopes of the future, but we shut the
windows of our souls against the prophecies of the intellectual
light of the future. No wonder our age is not better. We have
built our cities of civilization on the ruins of the villages of
the aborigines, and our institutions of learning are, to a great
extent, founded on the thoughts of Pagan institutions. Our
civilization is founded upon individualism — a system of society
that requires locks on the doors of the houses in which we live,
and a strong police force, to make honesty the best policy. In-
dividualism is an incidental condition in the social order, and
not an enduring form of society. It is the doctrine of the big
fish eating up the little fish ; a system admirably adapted to the
present progressive condition of the human mind, and of the
civil rights of the people. In olden times, the rulers of the
people absorbed the earnings and happiness of their subjects.
The order is now changed, and the rulers and teachers have
constructed a system of society and government that allows
— 30 —
the strong and the crafty to absorb the earnings and happiness
of the people. Such a system of society builds palaces for
idiots, and in which they are fed on the fat of the land, while
philosophers and reformers are left to starve in hovels and
garrets, while the teachers of religion and science devote most
of their spare time to the reading of novels. And this condi-
tion of society exists under the Christian dispensation and
under the reign of the higher law. And if men " do these things
in the green tree what shall be dons in the dry? "
We have had amendments to the Constitution designed to
perfect our political society. I am in favor of an amendment
to the Declaration of Independence, and also to the Golden
Rule, to point the way to perfecting our social order, and pro-
moting human happiness. Let us henceforth learn that we
hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are entitled to
happiness in political society. Aye, more than this, let us
henceforth teach whatsoever the citizen owes to society, that,
also, does society owe unto the citizen. Let us strike for these
high achievements in social and political society and hence-
forth the fruits of our revolutions of arms and ideas will be far
more perfect, and human happiness become far more general
to the human race, to the end that a righteous proletarianism
will so unite the individual life with the public life, as to unfold
a law of universal attraction, for the government and guidance
of the great whole.
" Then peace on earth w ill hold her easy sway,
And man forget hi* brother man to slay.
And milder arts will martini arts succeed,
And both will march to gain the immortal meed."
There is a deeper lesson to be learned from the great con-
flict of the Civil War than the victories of mighty armies can
teach, than the defeat of brave men can suggest. It is the
lesson that grows out of our humanity and with the voice of
inspiration speaking back from more golden ages of the future,
and testified to by the risen patriots from their immortal homes
above, that we are entering an elevated plane of intellectual
and moral life, which will bind our common humanity together
in one fraternity, until peace and righteousness will so pervade
the whole that there will be no Lost Causes, no fallen foes, no
boasted victories over kindred slain, to mar the divine adminis-
tration of universal law alike to each member of our great
national family.
Like Daniel Manin, Richard Yates died away from home.
But, as iu the fulness of time the remains of Manin were taken
from the world's city of civilization, with an escort composed
of the gifted of the press, and transferred through the defiles
of the Alps, and through rich and gorgeous lands and national-
ities, to be restored to mother earth, in the bosom of his home,
amid the courtly grandeur of the fair metropolis of the Adri-
atic, so was the dead statesman of Illinois returned to his
final resting-place, in the bosom of his long-loved home. With
solemn obsequies, and the benedictions of friends and patriots,
he was transferred, with full rank and title, to the grand army
of the heroic dead. And thus another name of those
" Gone up from every land to people heaven."
was added; another star was placed in the pantheon of the
world's political progress ; and as I turn to behold the name
of Richard Yates fixed in history as one of the evangels of
human liberty, whose principles have been enacted into the
statutes of the nation, and whose deeds have added lustre to
its fame, I catch the inspiration of his great soul flashing down
from the eternal world. Looking down through the genera-
tions which are to follow. I see the political principles in defense
of which he gave the full measure of his services, rooted in the
national life, growing and fruiting in the hearts of the people,
until the divine idea is consummated in this new world by the
supremacy of the American Constitution over the entire conti-
nent; and I see the stars above vieing with the stars below,
to establish for the future millions of this people one home,
one language, one law, and one faith — to the end that it may
be one and supreme among nations in grandeur and in right-
eousness.
LBAp '05
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