iills^^wx^^-
LIBRARY
OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
GIFT OF
MRS. MARY WOLFSOHN
IN MEMORY OF
HENRY WOLFSOHN
a
IDDEN TREASURE
OR,
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL
BY H. A. LEWIS.
FINELY ILLUSTRATED.
"IfTot failure, "but low ainq is cpin]e. n
B-3r
CLEVELAND, OHIO:
MOSES, LEWIS & CO
1888.
COPYKIGHT, 1887.
BY WRIGHT, MOSES & LEWIS.
All rights reserved.
PREFACE.
succeed while others fail. This is a recognized
fact ; yet history tells us that seven-tenths of our most
successful men began life poor. As our title indicates, we
shall endeavor to show "why some succeed while others
fail." Knowing that everybody desires success, and recog
nizing the old adage, "Example is the best of teachers," we
have selected representative characters from the multitude
of successful men who have climbed the ladder of success,
beginning at the bottom round. These we have folio wee
from childhood to manhood, dwelling at length on the traits
of character that have made them so rich and successful, be
lieving that a careful study will convince all that the pro
verbial "luck" had little to do with it. On the contrary,
one is taught those lessons of self-helpfulness and self-reliance
which are so essential to success in life s struggles. It is fear
ful to think how many of our young people are drifting with
out an aim in life, and do not comprehend that they owe
mankind their best efforts. We are all familiar with the
parable of the slothful servant who buried his talent all
may profit by his example. To those who would succeed,
we respectfully present this volume.
Ill
Every young man is now a sower of seed on the field of
life. The bright days of youth are the seed-time. Every
thought of your intellect, every emotion of your heart, every
word of your tongue, every principle you adopt, every act you
perform, is a seed, whose good or evil fruit will prove bliss
or bane of your after life. WISE.
IV
INTRODUCTION.
~^\EAR reader, it is a grave undertaking to write a book,
^~^^ especially is it so in writing a treatise on success and
failure, as we have attempted to do in the work we hereby
present you. It is a solemn thing to give advice. Experi
ence teaches that no one thing will please everybody ; that
men s censures are as various as their palates; that some are
as deeply in love with vice as others are with virtue. Shall
I then make myself the subject of every opinion, wise or
weak ? Yes, I would rather hazard the censure of some than
hinder the good of others.
There need neither reasons to be given nor apologies to be
made where the benefit of our fellow-men is our aim. Henry
Clay Trumbull says: "At no time in the world s history,
probably, has there been so general an interest in biography
as that which has been shown of late. Just here lies a
weighty obligation upon these who write, and those who
read, of the lives of men who have done something in the
world. It is not enough for us to know WHAT they have
done; it belongs to us to discover the WHY of their works and
ways, and to gain some personal benefit from the analysis
of thoir successes and failures. Why was this man great?
What general intentions what special traits led him to sue*
cess ? What ideal stood before him, and by what means did
he seek to attain it ? Or, on the other hand, what unworthy
purpose, what lack of conscience and religious sense, what
unsettled method and feeble endeavor stood in the way of
the man of genius and his possible achievements ?" In this
volume one sees the barefoot boy rise to the eminent states
man, the great millionaire, the honored inventor. How was
this accomplished ? We believe that a careful study of the
different characters, by the light of the author s opinion of
the characteristics essential to success, as shown in Depart
ment Fifth, will show why they succeeded.
Let the reader follow each character separately, from
childhood to manhood, noting carefully the different changes
in the career of each and the motives which actuated and
brought them about. If this book shall serve to awaken
dormant energies in ONE PERSON who might otherwise have
failed, we shall feel abundantly repaid. Doubtless, there are
others who are better qualified to write a treatise on such
a subject; nevertheless, we have done our best, and this
done, we have attained success.
VI
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
ADAMS, JOHN. - - - -129
ARTHUR, CHESTER A., ..... -352
ASTOR, JOHN JACOB, ... - - 85
BARNUM, PHINEAS T., - - - - - 81
BEECHER, HENRY WARD, - 404
BENNETT, JAMES GORDON ... -77
BENTON, THOMAS HART, - - 248
BLAINE, JAMES G., - - 362
BONNER, ROBERT, ... 45
CALHOUN, JOHN C., - 209
CABS, LEWIS, ... -207
CHILDS, GEORGE W., - - 72
CLAFLIN, HORACE B., 26
CLAY, HENRY, - - - 256
COOPER, PETER, ..... 95
CORCORAN, WILLIAM W., - - - - 119
DISSTON, HENRY, .... 93
DODGE, WILLIAM E., - - - * 27
DOUGLASS, STEPHEN A., - - - 267
DREW, DANIEL, ... 11
EDISON, THOMAS A., - 476
EVERETT, EDWARD, ...... 328
FAIR, JAMES G., - - - - - - 54
FARGO, WILLIAM G., - - - - - 48
FIELD, CYRUS W., - ... . 467
FlLLMORE, MlLLARD, -.--- 281
FLOOD, JAMES C. ----- 49
VII
PAGE.
FRANKLIN, BENJAMIN, . . 429
FULTON, ROBERT, . . 436
GARFIELD, JAMES A., .... 342
GIRARD, STEPHEN, - - . - 106
GOODYEAR, CHARLES, ..... 457
GOULD, JAY, .... - 30
GRANT, ULYSSES S., - - - - . 299
GREELEY, HORACE, - - . . . 61
HAMILTON, ALEXANDER, - . . - 179
HANCOCK, WINFIELD S., - - - . - - 293
HARPER, JAMES, 90
HAYNE, ROBERT Y., . 216
HOE, RICHARD M., - - - - . 454
HOWE, JR., ELIAS, --... 444
JACKSON, ANDREW, - - 237
JACKSON, STONEWALL, - ... 303
JEFFERSON, THOMAS, - - - - 168
JOHNSON, ANDREW, .... 333
LAW, GEORGE, - ... 101
LAWRENCE, ABBOTT, ...... 271
LAWRENCE, AMOS, - - - 21
LEE, ROBERT E., - ... 306
LINCOLN, ABRAHAM, ..... 312
LOGAN, JOHN A., - ... 357
LONGWORTH, NICHOLAS, - 43
MACKAY, JOHN W., - - - 52
MADISON, JAMES, - - . . - - 184
MARSHALL, JOHN, - - - 175
MCCLELLAN, GEORGE B., - - 297
MILLS, DARIUS O., - - . - 103
MONROE, JAMES, - .... 200
MORSE, PROFESSOR S. F. B., - . . . 462
PALMER, POTTER, - - - - . - 88
PEABODY, GEORGE, - - - - . - 116
VIII
PAGE.
PULLMAN, GEORGE, . ... 473
RALSTON, WILLIAM G., . . . . 1^2
ROTHSCHILD, NATHAN MAYER, - . . . - 122
SAGE, RUSSELL, . . . , - - 14
SEWARD, WILLIAM H., ....... 2 04
SEYMOUR, HORATIO, ..... 289
SINGER, ISAAC M., ..... 45^
STANTON, EDWIN M., . . . . . 332
STEPHENS, ALEXANDER H., - - ... 272
STEPHENSON, GEORGE, . 42^
STEWART, ALEXANDER T., - . . . - 39
TAYLOR, MOSES, . . . w . -QQ
TILDEN, SAMUEL J., ....... 395
VAN BUREN, MARTIN, - - ... 263
VANDERBILT, CORNELIUS, - . . . - 16
YASSAR, MATHEW, - - - - 84
WANNAMAKER, JOHN, - . . . . - 37
WATT, JAMES, . . . 415
WEBSTER, DANIEL, - . . . . - 218
WEED, THURLOW, --._.. gg
WILSON, HENRY, - - . . _ -310
WHITNEY, ELI, . 435
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL.
SUCCESS AND FAILURE, - . . . . 4 81
CONCENTRATION OF EFFORT, - .... 43$
SELF-RELIANCE, - - ... 490
ECONOMY OF TIME, . . . . 495
CAUSES OF FAILURE, ... 400
IX
QUOTATIONS,
A man, to succeed, must possess the necessary equanimity
of temperament to conceive an idea, the capacity to form it
into some tangible shape, the ingenuity to put it into practi
cal operation, the ability to favorably impress others with its
merits, and the POWER of WILL that is absolutely necessary
to force it to success.
THOMAS A. SCOTT.
Labor rids us of three evils. Tediousness, Vice and
Poverty.
CARLYLE.
"Never start upon an undertaking until you are sure
it is practicable and ought to be done, and then let nothing
stand long in the way of accomplishing that undertaking.
It is better to deserve success than to have it ; few deserve it
who do not attain it."
11 There is no failure in this country for those whose per
sonal habits are good, and who follow some honest calling
industriously, unselfishly, and purely. If one desires to
succeed, he must pay the price WORK ! "
In order to succeed, a man must have a purpose fixed,
then let his motto be VICTORY OR DEATH.
HENRY CLAY.
"Be liberal but cautious ; enterprising but careful"
" Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising
every time we fall"
Fail! Fail?
In the lexicon of youth, which Fate reserves
for a bright manhood, there is no such word
As fail ! " RICHELIEU."
Benjamin Franklin has truly said: The road to wealth
is as plain as the road to mill.
x
11
TTERE is a great financier. A man of unusual ability;
JLI but who is no exception to the rule, born poor.
His success came by hard work and a thorough mastery
of his business. It is surprising how many Wall Street
operators began life on the farm. In the case of Daniel
Drew, at the age of only fifteen, matters were made worse
by the death of his father.
At eighteen, he concluded to go to New York; but,
after a discouraging time of it, his money giving out,
he was obliged to return to his home. However, his trip
did not prove a total failure, as subsequent events show.
While in the metropolis he heard that fat cattle could
be sold there at a profit over what he knew they could
be bought for? at his country home. He therefore re
solved to go into the cattle business. True, he had no
money, he was a poor country lad, but this made little
difference with Drew s determination. As he had no
money with which to buy a drove for himself, he did
the next best thing ; this was to induce the neighboring
farmers to allow him to drive their cattle to market on
a commission plan. By this one act the reader can
understand the difference between Daniel Drew and the
neighboring farm boys, many of whom were better situ
ated, doubtless, than was he.
Another characteristic he developed was economy ;
his money was saved and with these small savings he
added cattle to his drove which were his own, hence, in-
12 HIDDEN TREASURES.
creased his profits ; first one at a time, then two, when
at last he abandoned the commission business, becoming
a drover on his own account. Later, he took a partner
and the firm of Drew & Co. became the cattle kings of
America. This was the first firm that ever drove cattle
from the West, and Drew, ever watchful for opportunities
to add to his already increasing income, bought a
tavern which became, as Drew knew it would under
good management, the centre of the cattle business in
the city on market days.
As time passed, as a matter of course, following such
a line of procedure, he became a very rich man, and his
disposition being of an enterprising nature, he began to
cast about him for new investments, seeking new fields
to conquer. The explosion of a boat on the Hudson,
discommoding for a time the existing line, offered to
Drew the favorable opportunity for which he was look
ing, and as was characteristic he at once improved his
chance. He immediately placed on the river the " Water
Witch " ; the old line resumed business ; the fares were
reduced until the profits of both companies were eaten
up. The opposition tried to intimidate, they tried to buy
out, and then tried to negotiate some other deals, but
all in vain. On the contrary Drew put on the " West-
Chester/ and instead of stopping at Peekskill,he extended
to Albany. He next bought the "Bright Emerald/ and
started an evening line. This was a new feature in
those days and as it enabled the business men to travel
without loss of time, it became eminently popular.
Drew was a man with a fertile mind ; he made a
study of whatever he undertook ; he was a hard man to
beat. He bought the "Rochester," and next bought out
the old line. For a long time he had things pretty
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH AND WHO POSSESS IT. 13
much his own way ; then came a new opposition. This
time, through negotiations, he won the opposition over
and established the celebrated "People s Line," naming
their first boat after his new partner, " St. John." Mr.
Drew, in connection with others, formed the "Stonington
Line" between New York and Boston, and still later he
opened the "Champlain Transportation Company" from
White Hall, New York, to Rouses Point, Vermont. He
next placed his shoulder under Erie, endorsing its paper
to the amount of ten millions. Later still he was
elected President of this company, and as Erie and
Central are natural enemies, Vanderbilt and Drew hence
forth became hostile toward each other. Mr. Drew wanted
to extend Erie west. To do this he must get a special
act of the Legislature. Of course? he had Vanderbilt
and Central, with all their patronage, with which to
contend, and a bitter fight it proved to be ; but in those
days Daniel Drew seemed invincible in court, and the
bill passed, Erie re-issuing stock and extending its lines.
He was a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
and to him is that religious body indebted for that grand
institution, " Drew Theological Seminary." Many men
would have made a worse use of vast wealth than did
Daniel Drew. He was a man who was quiet ; he kept
his " points," and was a pleasing conversationalist. In
1879 he died? leaving two children.
X
14 HIDDEN TREASURES.
RUSSELL SAGE.
rRHIS wonderful man was born at Verona, Oneida
J^ County, New York, over sixty years ago. In early
life? he determined to earn all that he could, and spend
less than he earned. When he arrived at the age of fif-
teen,he removed to Troy, and entered the grocery store
of one of his brothers. Until eighteen years of age he
remained here as a clerk when he had saved money enough
to buy an interest in another store of which another
brother was proprietor. Here he remained several years
in successful trade, when the partnership was dissolved.
He next turned his attention to the wholesale trade,
dealing in grain, flour, pork, beef, etc., the most of these
ventures proving successful.
His towns people , recognizing his business ability
elected him alderman for seven years, and later, treas
urer of Rensselaer county. His fidelity in these trusts
won for him a seat in Congress, and he was re-electee
by an increased majority, serving both terms with greai
credit to himself and party.
In l$60 ? he had succeeded so well that he could shov
$200,000 on the credit side of his bank account. Seeking
new fields to conquer, he naturally gravitated to the
money centre, New York. Since that time Eussell Sag
has been as favorably known in Wall street as any brokei
in the country. He occupies an office in the same build
ing with Gould, and scores of the leading spirits, witb
whom he mingles daily. He attends strictly to business,
and never even smokes. Mr. Sage deals in everything
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 15
which he deems " an investment," banks, railroad stock,
real estate, all receive his attention. He is a very cau
tious operator, and cannot, by any possible means, be
induced into a " blind pool." He has, however, been
very successful in the " street," and it is said has built
over three thousand miles of railroad. Russell Sage
might easily be mistaken for a church deacon, instead of
the keen operator that he is. However, no one in the
"street" will give away "points" to his friends sooner
than he. The Troy Times once mentioned several
people who said that Mr. Sage had pointed out to them
investments, of which they could never have known but
for him, each investment having yielded them thousands
of dollars. He often gives friends the benefit of his
splendid opportunities, which makes him a general
favorite among all brokers. Mr. Sage enjoys the confi
dence and friendship of some of the leading operators,
among whom are Jay Gould.
He is a man of marked ability, and honesty. He
never fails to meet any of his obligations, nor will
he allow others to neglect theirs. Of course, he is care
ful what he agrees to do, but always does just as he
agrees, regardless of cost. For this reason he is known
in Wall street as "Old Integrity." Russell Sage is a
shrewd, close calculator, and is worth many millions,
the result of improving his opportunities. He is a con
sistent member of the Evangelical Church, and is very
charitable. Long may such men live, for we have many
worse.
16 HIDDEN TREASURES.
CORNELIUS VANDERBILT.
T TANDEBBILT, a synonym for wealth and luxury. Who
][ indeed has not wished that he could have at least a
small part of the vast wealth possessed by the Yander-
bilts ? Yet, when Cornelius Yanderbilt was a boy, he-
enjoyed far less privileges to make money than the ma
jority who now look on and wish ; but Cornelius Yander
bilt differed from other boys of his age. One difference
was his strong determination.
It was then, much as it it is now, boys liked to spend
their money and have a good time.
It was a common saying in the neighborhood where
he lived, i that when Corneel. Yanderbilt concludes to
do anything it will certainly be done/ A ship stranded
off the shore; young Cornelius father took the contract
to transfer the cargo to New York city. This was a job
requiring many teams and a force of men to carry the
produce to a different part of the island where they
were to be taken by water to New York. Although but
twelve years old, young Yanderbilt was given control of
this part of the work. His father, by accident, neg
lected to furnish him the money with which to pay his
ferriage. Here he was, a lad twelve years old, with no
money, in charge of a lot of horses which must be fer
ried over at a cost of over five dollars. He hesitated
but a moment; walking boldly up to the hotel proprietor
he said: " Sir, I am here without money, by accident; if
you will kindly advance me the money to pay the fer
riage, I will leave a horse as your security." The pro
1
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH AND WHO POSSESS IT. 17
prietor was a perfect stranger to Vanderbilt, but he was
struck with such enterprise. The money was advanced
and the horse redeemed within forty-eight hours.
Vanderbilt wanted a small boat. On the tenth day o(
May, 1810, he went to his mother and asked for the
money with which to buy it. There was a very rough
piece of land on the parental farm which had never been
plowed. His mother told him that if he would plow,
drag and plant that field to corn within seventeen
days, she would buy the boat for him. It was a hard
job, doubtless, the mother considered it an impossi
ble one. Vanderbilt, however, seemed never to rec
ognize such a word, as can t. He set about the work
at once, and hard as it seemed to be, the task was accom
plished, the boat was bought, and Vanderbilt was a happy
boy. He had earned it. Now, as Vanderbilt did not
want this boat for pleasure, he at once began business
carrying produce from Staten Island to New York city.
When the wind was unfavorable he used oars or a pole
to aid his sails, thus, his produce was always on time.
People said, "Send your stuff by Vanderbilt and you can
depend on its being in season." Now Vanderbilt had to
give all of his earnings during the day time to his
parents, so he worked nights, but his father also required
one-half of what he earned nights, thus his opportunities
were not as great as one might think. He worked very
hard and at the end of three years, it was found that
Corneel. Vanerbilt had saved for himself over, or about
$3,000 and the best of all, had earned the reputation of
being the best boatman on the river. While others were
smoking and drinking, having fun while they were
young, for when would they if not then?" Vanderbilt
was either earning more money working over time, or
18 HIDDEN TREASURES.
at least saving what he had earned, home asleep recruit
ing for the next day s labor.
He wished to marry a Miss Johnson, but could not un
less his parents would release him from all parental
restrictions. He was only nineteen, yet luckily for the
young people the lady was a favorite of the father; the
desired permission was obtained and henceforth Vander-
bilt had the exclusive benefit of his labor. As he had
begun, so he continued, and at the age of twenty-three he
was worth about $9,000. In 1817 he became captain of
the first steam boat that ever run between New York
and New Brunswick, New Jersey, at a salary of $1,000
per year. His wife proved to be a helpmeet in the truest
sense of the word, she at this time keeping hotel at New
Brunswick and making no small amount herself. Seven
years passed and Yanderbilt was made superintendent of
the company of which he had been an employe. If a
man has ability and applies it, his talent will not remain
hid under a bushel/ His ability and indomitable
energy brought the "Gibbons Line" up to paying $40,000
a year. Seeing a chance, for which he was ever on the
alert, he leased the ferry between New York and Eliza
beth, New Jersey, for fourteen years, put on new boats
and it became a very profitable venture. In 1829 he left
the "Gibbons Line," and began to operate on the Hudson
and between New York and Boston; also on the Dela
ware river. He would start an opposition line, and either
drive off the old line or effect a compromise. In 1849 he
obtained from the Nicaraguan Government a charter for
a steamship company. He next went to England and
raised the extra funds needed. He then went personally
and inspected the whole route that was used, and by a
system of cables fastened to trees, shortened the same
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 19
about seven hundred miles over all existing lines. He
placed steamers on each ocean and cut the fare from
New York to San Francisco one-half. Soon he had
destroyed all opposition and then made immense profits.
Afterward he sold out for two millions.
Mr. Vanderbilt, like all successful men, made finance
a study ; he foresaw that there were great profits to be
realized in the near future in the undeveloped railway sys
tems in the country. To see a chance was to at once set
about planning to improve it. He at once began to with
draw his money from the water and invest in railroads,
which were then coming rapidly to the front. The wis
dom of Yanderbilt can be seen, for at the beginning of the
war, which he had been long expecting, his money was all
transferred from the water, and thus his interests were
not jeopardised by the war made upon our commerce.
He, however, had owned so many vessels, that he had
long since been known as Commodore Yanderbilt, in fact
few people to-day know him by any other name. He, at
the beginning of hostilities, presented the government
with a magnificent steamship, the "Vanderbilt," worth
$800,000. When he entered the railroad business he was
estimated at from thirty-five to forty millions. He had
dealt somewhat in New York and New Haven, and no\^
began to buy Harlem when it was in a most helpless anc
depressed condition. He advanced a large sum to the
company when it was in need, and for this, among other
things, he was made its President in 1863. By judicious
management and influences common in The street/ he
successfully run Harlem from thirty to two hundred and
eighty-five. Such a man was just what the New York
Central railroad desired, and after this great bulling
movement he became President of that road. All that
20 HIDDEN TREASURES.
was needed now was the Hudson River road and this he
bought outright, becoming President of the New York
Central and Hudson River Rail Road, extending from
New York to Buffalo.
At one time there was a bill to be voted on at
Albany ; the bill was in the interest of Harlem ;
Mr. Yanderbilt was sure it would pass, but Daniel
Drew, his antagonist, who ever fought Harlem or
Central as they were against Erie, caused a counter
movement to be made which defeated the bill. Vander-
bilt heard of it, and of course was disappointed but
made no foolish protests with the treacherous friends
at the capitol. In the meantime these people were sell
ing Harlem short for future delivery, expecting that the
stock would " take a tumble " when it became known
that the bill was defeated. As before said Vanderbilt
said nothing, but quietly bought up every scrap of stock
there was to be found loose. The fatal day came but
Harlem stood firm. The derelict Assemblymen were
thunderstruck when they had to buy at a greatly en
hanced price, and many of the would-be victors were
ruined. In 1873 the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern
railroad was operated in connection with the Vanderbilt
system, making a Palace Car route from New York city
to Chicago. From New York to Buffalo a quadruple
track, thence a double track.
Among the charities of Mr. Yanderbilt is a gift of
three-quarters of a million to the University in Nash
ville, Tennessee, which bears his name. He died in
1877 worth about eighty millions.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT.
AMOS LAWRENCE,
ft MOS LAWRENCE was born April 22nd, 1786. He
jf"l was a weak child, consequently could not attend
school, but his mother did not neglect him. When only
thirteen years old he became a clerk in a country store.
In this store was kept everything in the hardware line,
from a plow to a needle ; in the textile line, from a horse-
blanket to a pocket handkerchief ; then you could buy
the productions usually found in a vegetable garden,
everything was kept, even to Jamaica rum and drugs for
the sick ; a good place, indeed, for a bright, active boy
to gain new ideas. Each country store, in those days,
had its bar, and the clerks were as likely to be called on
to mix drinks, as they were to be, asked to measure off
dry goods, and it was considered as honorable. Not only
this, but it was customary for clerks to take a drink
themselves, but young Lawrence determined to neither
drink nor smoke. True, he liked the. taste of liquor, and
enjoyed a quiet smoke, but he argued that such pleas*
ures, not only eat up profits already earned, but left the 1 -
system in a poor condition to earn more. When we con
sider that he was a mere lad of thirteen, or at best four
teen, when he had decided upon this honorable course,
and when we think that at least, for the time being, these
luxuries would have cost nothing, we are constrained to
say, no wonder he became a rich man.
If our young men would only save the money they
yearly smoke up and spend for other needless things,
we would have clearer headed and much wealthier
22
HIDDEN TREASURES.
men. Our young men all desire to gain wealth and the
highest enjoyments possible in this world, but are not
willing to pay for them. If they would examine the
lives of a great many of our most wealthy and influential
men of to-day, they would be surprised to learn how few
even smoke.
If you see a man with a high hat, gaudily dressed,
smoking and seemingly inviting your attention at some
horse trot, where he is making a great display of wealth
in the way of bets, you can set it down as pretty certain
that that man is a clerk working for $10 or $15 per
week, or at best, a mere curb-stone broker who will
never rise to anything higher. Keal wealth and distinc
tion never invite your attention. One would hardly take
that plain old gentleman, walking along the street yon
der, for other than a country deacon, yet the check of
Russell Sage will be recognized and honored to the
amount of millions. Jay Gould never enjoys himself
more than when at home.
We spend as a nation now, every year, NINE HUNDRED
MILLIONS FOR LIQUOR and THREE HUNDRED and FIFTY MIL
LIONS for TOBACCO. Total, ONE BILLION, TWO HUNDRED and
FIFTY MILLIONS. One billion, two hundred and fifty mil
lions thrown away. More than twice what we use for
bread and meat. Then look at that vast waste of un
earned wages. Man can t do two things well at one
time. In our large cities we have, of late, seen drunken
men, with pipes in their mouths, carrying about the
streets a banner inscribed, " bread or blood." They pro
pose to make those who have worked intelligently for
money, now divide. Would it not look far more sensi
ble if the banner bore the inscription, henceforth, I
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 23
will boycott the tobacconist, and will vote for no man
who is not pledged to suppress the saloon oligarchy ?
Amos Lawrence had not the benefit of the philanthrop
ic teaching of our age, but he had a common sense, and a
sense of taste and judgment far in advance of his time.
These were the principles with which he laid the founda
tion to that great fortune and enviable reputation which
he lived to enjoy, and which his name will ever recall.
We have seen that goodhabits were the foundation of his
success. He also improved his opportunities. He became
perfectly familiar with the drug department of the store.
He determined early in life to become a wealthy and in
fluential man. To determine to do anything is half the
battle. " Doubt indulged becomes doubt realized." "To
think a thing impossible is to make it so." "Courage is
victory, timidity is defeat." Men who understand these
maxims are men who invariably succeed. I say invaria
bly a man may think he understands when he is grop
ing in midnight darkness. A young man who really is
destined to succeed, not only INTENDS to become a rich
man, or whatever he aspires to be, but lays plans to that
end, and is not discouraged if they are blasted. He only
recognizes that he is foiled, for the time being, and never
doubts his ability to succeed ultimately. There is a
difference between a blustering braggadocio and a quiet,
unassuming confidence in one s self. One leads to cer
tain victory, the other, to as certain defeat.
Young Lawrence had served his seven long years of
apprenticeship, and had no better opportunity presented
itself , he would have succeeded, for he had his plans
carefully laid to remain in Groton, and if he had, he
would have succeeded . But a merchant who had seen
him at the store of his employer, no sooner learned of
24 HIDDEN TREASURES.
his release than he immediately hired him to come to
Boston to enter his store there. "Seestthouaman diligent
in his business, he shall stand before kings, he shall not
stand before mean men." Thither he went part of the way
on foot ; the rest of the way with an accommodating neigh
bor who was driving in that direction. He determined
to make for himself here a record for honesty, and so
well did he succeed, that the next year he started busi
ness for himself, his principal capital being his reputa
tion and acknowledged ability. He developed a system
in his business ; he paid every bill on the spot ; if he
could not pay cash, instead of the regular custom of book
accounts, he gave his note, thus no complications could
arise to embarrass him. He knew when the money was
expected on every bill, and made his calculation, and
Was never known to be taken by surprise. He was rea
sonably cautious he never would promise to do what
he might possibly be unable to accomplish. He pros
pered of course he would. Such business principles,
pushed by system as Lawrence pushed them, must bring
success to any young man.
Another thing, to any one who may now imagine he,
perhaps, entered business on the tide of prosperity, we
desire simply to say, on the contrary, from 1808 to 1815
was one of the dullest periods our mercantile history can
recount. No, "luck" did not favor him, but " pluck" did.
He pushed his mercantile business for years, amassing
an immense fortune. Our country was then new, and he
had to import most of his merchandise from England,
but as he ever made a study of his business, concluded
that he would start manufacturing industries here, which
would prove not only profitable to himself, but of inesti
mable value to us as a nation. In accordance with these
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 25
motives, he was largely instrumental in connection
with the Lowells in building up the nourishing cities of
Lowell and Lawrence.
He never speculated in stocks. Young men, there is
no money in stocks to the average man. Not even in
legitimate stock dealing, to say nothing of the numer
ous watered concerns. We were looking over a paper
recently when our attention was attracted to a para
graph which explained that in a transaction which in
volved 8,000 bushels of wheat,it was found that the odds
against the buyer was over 22 per cent. While wheat
is not stocks, still a good rule would be never to go into
anything unless the chances are at least equal.
Amos Lawrence once said: "Young man, base all
your actions upon a sense of right, and in doing so,
never reckon the cost." What a glorious principle for
any young man a principle he would find hard to
follow in many stock speculations. " Even exchange is
no robbery." It is not even exchange to bet and take a
man s money ; and it makes little difference whether
you bet on a horse s gait or the grain he will eat next
month. At another time he said : " Good principles,
good temper, and good manners will carry a young man
through the world much better than he can get along
with the absence of either." His sayings are numerous,
yet every one is worthy of attention ; all of them have
a golden thought for old and young.
Mr. Lawrence did not give away in large amounts to
institutions of learning, but he kept two rooms in his
house wholly for the storage of articles designed to
relieve poor people. One contained clothing of every
description; the other, food and other necessaries of life.
He gave away during his life, over $700,000, and when
26 HIDDEN TREASURES.
he died people mourned that he had gone, for there were
none left that could take his place. Ah ! this is success.
He died December 31st, 1852.
HORACE B, CLAFLIN,
7TIHIS great dry-goods prince was born at Milford,
JL Massachusetts, in 1811, and his education was at
tained in the public schools of that place. When he
became of age he bought out the store in which he was
clerk, and in company with another young man began
business for himself. But this place was too small for
the already expanding vision of both Claflin & Daniels ;
they accordingly moved to Worcester. The latter place
proving yet too small for Claflin, we soon see him located
in Cedar street, New York, where he finds himself some
what satisfied for a time. After a period of successful
trade extending over six years time, the young men
were compelled to find more commodious quarters,
which they found at No. 57 Broadway, and two years
later they moved once more, locating in the Trinity
Building. 1860 came, their business was found to
amount to about $12,000,000 annually, and the firm re
solved to build a store, for themselves. The result was
an immense dry-goods palace. The retail business was
entirely abandoned, and Claflin at once sprung to the
front as the leading wholesale dry-goods merchant of
America.
One day, about five o clock, Mr. Claflin sat in his
private office when a young man, pale and and careworn
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 27
timidly knocked and was asked in. " Mr. Claflin," said
he, " I am in need of help. I have been unable to meet
certain payments because certain parties have not done
by me as they agreed. I would like to have $10,000. I
come to you because I knew that you were a friend of
my father, and I thought possibly you might be a friend
to me." " Come in and have a glass of wine," said
Claflin. "No," said the young man, "I never drink."
"Have a cigar?" "No, I never smoke." "Well," re
plied Claflin, " I am sorry but I don t feel that I can let
you have the money." "Very well," replied the young
man, "I thought perhaps you might ; hence I came. Good
day, sir." " Hold on," said Claflin. " You don t drink?"
" No." " Nor smoke ? " " No sir/ " Nor gamble ?" "No
sir ; I am superintendent of a Sunday-school, in
street." " Well," said Claflin, " you shall have it." This
was characteristic of the man. This anecdote well illus
trates his character. He was an everyday Christian.
On November 14, 1885, he passed away, leaving one
more gap in the commercial world, and in the member
ship Plymouth Church, of which he had been a member
many years. Probably no one man missed him more at the
time of his death than did Henry Ward Beecher, of
whom he had long been a devoted admirer.
WLLIAM E, DODGE,
T ~K THEN one finishes the perusal of the life of William
V V E. Dodge, he feels a thrill of unbounded admira
tion. A man who would resign his membership in the
28 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Union League Club, because it sold wine to its members;
who disposed of valuable investments in three different
railroads, when a majority of the stockholders voted to
run Sunday trains ; who, while carrying on a large mer
cantile business, and managing an extensive stock and
real estate business, yet found time to preside at the
Chamber of Commerce and serve on numerous commit
tees, and held a directorship in various banking insti
tutions, is surely to be admired.
His religious life was never weakened by his pros
perity, and the more money God blessed him with, the
more religious societies he became connected with.
William E. Dodge was born in the year 1805, near
Hartford, Connecticut. He began at the foot of the
ladder, taking down shutters and sweeping out the store
in which he was employed. When twenty-one, he went
into business in a small way, doing a retail business,
which prospered, and at the end of three years Mr. Dodge
felt able to support a wife.
In 1834 he was invited to become a partner in the firm
with his father-in-law, Mr. Anson Phelps, and a brother-
in-law, under the firm-style of Phelps, Dodge and Com
pany. This connection proved a most profitable busi
ness venture, and at the end of twenty years Mr. Dodge
was accounted a wealthy man. Looking about for in
vestments, his keen perception espied a vast fortune in
lumber, and then followed those vast accumulations of
timber lands, by buying thousands of acres in West Vir
ginia, Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia and Canada.
He also became greatly interested in coal lands, and
as he must find a conveyance to bring his coal to mar
ket, he was naturally drawn into railroad schemes. His
ability and enterprise soon placed him on the board of
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 29
directors for such roads as the Delaware, Lack wanna
and Western, and New Jersey Central, being at one time
President of the Houston and Texas.
He helped found several of the most noted Insurance
Companies in the country, and was a director until his
death, of the Greenwich Saving Bank, City Bank, The
American Exchange National Bank, the United States
Trust Company, the Bowery Fire Insurance Company,
and the Mutual Life Insurance Company. He was Pres
ident of the Chamber of Commerce, and owned a very
large number of saw-mills, besides carrying on the reg
ular business of the firm. What will those people, who
would do this or that if they only had time, say to all
this work done by one man who then found time to serve
on the board of management of religious organizations
innumerable ?
He was a great temperance advocate, giving thous
ands of dollars annually toward the support of various
societies. There were others who had wealth, and gave
possibly as much to the betterment of mankind as did
Dodge, but we cannot now recall any man of great
Wealth who would deny himself as much personally, be
side giving, as he did. In fact he seemed to be crowded
to death with work, yet he never refused to aid all who
Were worthy applicants. For years he gave away annu
ally over $200,000, yet it was found at his death, Febru
ary, 1883, that his wealth amounted to something like
$5,000,000, a large share of which was also given to
charitable purposes.
30 HIDDEN TREASURES.
JAY GOULD.
WE have written the lives of journalists, of eminent
statesmen, but we are now going to write the life of;
one of the most powerful men in America. A man who has
far greater influence over his fellow-men than many a
king or emperor, and a man who has played a most
prominent part in the development of our Republic.
Such a man is Jay Gould to-day who has risen to this
dizzy height, from a penniless boy on his father s farm,
which he left at the age of only fourteen to seek his
fortune. He asked his father s permission first, which
was readily given, he thinking it would cure the boy of
his restlessness, and when young Gould left, his father
fully expected to see him again within a few days, but
even the father was mistaken in calculating the stick-to-
it-iveness of the son. He at last found employment in a
store where he remained two years when his health
compelled outdoor work. He therefore obtained em
ployment carrying chains for some surveyors at $10 a
month. These men were making surveys from which
an Albany publishing firm expected to issue maps for
an atlas they were getting out. Not only did Gould
carry the chains but he improved every opportunity for
picking up points in surveying. We see one character
istic of the man plainly showing itself at this early age,
for when the firm failed, Gould had the maps published
himself, and then personally sold enough of them to
clear $1,000. With this start he went to Pennsylvania,
and was employed in a tannery. As one sees, nearly
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 31
every successful man owes that success largely to the
cultivation of pleasing manners, so it was with Gould.
So apparent was his ability, and so well did he please
his employer, that the man set Gould up in business at
Gouldsborough, where he cleared $6,000 within the next
two years. Gould was not satisfied with this moderate
success, fine as it seemed to be ; he only regarded these
enterprises as stepping-stones to something higher. He
next enters the metropolis where he buys and sells hides
in a small office at No. 49 Gold street.
About this time Gould met a young lady at the
Everett House, where he lived, whose acquaintance was
destined to have a marked influence over his subsequent
career. This bright, handsome girl attracted his atten
tion so unmistakably that Miss Miller noticed it. A
little flirtation took place which ripened into a mutual
affection, and they were married without waiting for the
parents approval, probably Gould knew better, as the
young lady, at the time was far above his station in life
as society would say, hence acted in this matter as he
would in any business transaction he entered.
Of course, this aroused Mr. Miller s righteous indig
nation, but he soon realized that Mr. Gould was a man
of no ordinary calibre and wisely changed his course to
ward him. Mr. Miller owned a large interest in the
Rensselaer & Saratoga Railroad, and young Gould, after
visiting the same, concluded that it could be made to
pay. He accordingly bought the entire stock his father-
in-law owned, notwithstanding the stock was considered
all but worthless. He immediately disposed of all other
business, and assumed the management of the road by
buying up as much of the remaining stock as seemed
necessary to give him supreme control. He at once
HIDDEN TREASURES.
became Manager, Superintendent and Treasurer. When
the stock had multiplied upon itself many times, he sold
out, receiving in all $750,000, for his interest. This first
scheme illustrates his line of procedure in most of those
seemingly mysterious movements which have marked
his uniform success ; namely, to find some road which
was almost worthless and, if he thought good manage
ment would bring it up, secretly buy the controlling
interest in the line, and when it reached a fair figure,
sell. The Rutland & Washington was offering stock at
ten cents on the dollar ; he at once bought it up and
managed it so well that he soon was enabled to sell at
120, making, as most people would think, a fortune.
Cleveland & Pittsburg was for a long time in a pre
carious condition, perceiving which, Mr. Gould bought
up all the stock he could find, and threw his whole
ability and experience into the development of the
same. The stock soon took an upward move, and when
it reached 120 he sold his twenty-five thousand shares,
We next see him buying Union Pacific at fifteen. This
stock kept falling, but while others sold continually at a
sacrifice, and seemed glad to unload at any figure, the
lower it went the more Gould bought. After securing a
controlling interest as desired, he began to develop the
iron industries along the line, which of course soon gave
the road business. This and other causes soon set Union
Pacific " booming," and the stock began to rise. No
sooner, however, did the disappointed capitalists see
their mistake in selling than the cry was raised: " That
is Gould s road and if you touch it you will surely be
burnt." But despite all this the stock gradually rose,
and in 1879 Mr. Gould sold the whole hundred thousand
shares that he owned to a syndicate. It must not be sup-
2
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 38
posed, however, that Mr. Gould sold to satisfy public
clamor Mr. Gould is not that kind of a man.
How much he was worth when he went into Erie no
one knows, but it was no inconsiderable amount. After
Mr. Drew s suit with Vanderbilt, whereby the latter lost
seven millions, Mr. Gould was made President of Erie,
and the capital stock was increased to two hundred and
thirty-five thousand shares, which stood about fifty-
seven and one-half million. This brought the price
down to 44. It was determined to sink Erie still lower,
so Gould, Fisk and Drew locked up greenbacks to the
amount of one million four hundred thousand. By a
false movement on Drew s part, which his partners con
sidered treacherous, they accordingly lost, and at once
unlocked greenbacks, thereby stock advanced and Drew,
instead of gaining, lost one million five hundred thous
and, as he was seven thousand shares short. The price
of the shares continued upward and Gould was obliged
to get it down by some means in order to save himself.
He therefore inaugurated a " bull " movement on gold.
A. R. Corbin, brother-in-law of the President, Mr. Grant,
was selected to sound the government, who reported
that it was not intended to put any gold on the market
for the present, at least. The clique at once bought
millions more of gold than was to be had in the city out
side of the Sub-Treasury. Up, up, went gold ; 130 is
reached, and next 133, then 134; still the order is buy;
buy all that is for sale. The price reaches 144, but
nothing daunted, the clique still buy in order to force
the shorts to cover ; yet on up it goes. Black Friday
week is upon them, but Jay Gould is now selling while
others are still buying right and left. Of course, he still
pretends to buy, but is secretly selling at 165. At last
34 HIDDEN TREASUEES.
the crash came, when the Secretary of the Treasury sold
four millions on the street, and Gould is nearly the only
one who is safe. This may look crooked it certainly is
not Puritan, but there are features of Jay Gould s suc
cess which are not praiseworthy ; however, we claim
there are many things that are worthy of imitation,
hence it is here given in detail. He next bought Kansas
& Texas at 8 and run it to 48. He purchased Wabash at
5, and this, under his management, rose to 80 preferred.
Where Mr. Gould has shown the greatest skill in his
line, is his connection with the transactions with the
Western Union. Desiring to secure control of that
company, he went into American Union, and within one
year it was a formidable rival, which he substituted for
the Western Union wires on his roads, and that
company s stock fell from 116 to 88. If it is true, as
stated, that Gould was short 30,000, he must have cleared
on this one transaction $840,000. This method is so un
like his usual tactics that we are inclined to disbelieve
it ; however, his dealings all through, it is claimed, seem
to prove it. He next caused a war of rates to be an
nounced between his company and Western Union, and
of course, the stock of the latter dropped still lower.
The story was then circulated that he was to become a
director of Western Union, and no war would take place;
up that stock went to 104. But when the day came for
the election, no Gould was to be seen, and back down it
tumbled. It is reasonably supposable that Gould profited
by each of these fluctuations. American Union became
a fixed thing, and Western Union becoming alarmed at
renewed rumors of war, at once caused Mr. Gould to be
seen, and he to-day owns twenty millions of Western
Union. His Missouri, Pacific and other lines, together
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 35
with his elevated railroad schemes, are somewhat
familar topics with our readers.
The career of such a man is a type and a proof of the
progress of our land and the boundless opportunities
that are open to energy and ability. Jay Gould has at
tained this dizzy height from poverty and obscurity.
Unlike many rich men he is not a " fast " man. He is
an excellent husband and father ; he is never so happy,
seemingly, as when at home sharing the family hearth,
while others, who are more widely respected, are at
their clubs. Jay Gould has been the subject of much
abuse ; indeed, what great men have not been ? He is
often described as a heartless oppressor of the poor and
an enemy of his country. These accusations can often
be traced to jealous rivals. While he has made millions
in the new systems he has opened in the West, our ter
ritories and new States have been wonderfully developed
and enriched billions of dollars. We honestly believe
that the wonderful growth of the Western country would
have been utterly impossible but for such men as Gould.
If there had not been money in it their energy would
have been lacking, and without that energy they must
have lain dormant until other capitalists had opened
the way to progress. That it takes a vast capital to
develop the resources in a new country must be plain to
every one. Show me a town which is blessed with men
of capital and enterprise, and I will show you a town
that is prosperous. Show me a town which has little
of either, and I will show you a town in which you
would hate to live.
Mr. Gould appears to be a man whom nothing would
excite; and one of his brokers says of him : " You never
can tell from his expression when he reads a telegram
36 HIDDEN TREASURES.
whether he has made five millions or lost ten." Reti
cence is one secret of Mr. Gould s success. He absolutely
cannot be induced to say anything which he desires
kept. He is on the whole the most incomprehensible of
New Yorkers. He is an embodiment of the money-mak
ing faculty. It would be a hard question to tell what
Gould is worth. I know men who believe that he is to
day the richest citizen in New York. I know others
who are confident that he is not worth over one million,
and others who are certain that he is on the eve of
bankruptcy, but this last is preposterous.
His wealth is, of course, subject to fluctuation, and
possibly Mr. Gould himself could not tell its exact mag
nitude ; certainly no one knows, unless he does, what
the precise amount is ; but the writer would say at least
seventy-five millions. Indeed, if the truth was known,
we would not be surprised if it would amount to
nearly one hundred millions.
He is incessantly engaged in great operations, and
these cannot be managed without vast sums. He is
determined that no one shall be acquainted with his
affairs. Despite this outward immobility, the strain of
these colossal operations upon his brain and nerves can
not be otherwise than very wearing. It [is said that he
is troubled with sleeplessness, and that many of his gi
gantic schemes are worked out while he is lying in bed
awake. Occasionally he gets up at night, lights the gas,
walks the floor and tears paper into bits. It may be re
membered that Fisk testified on his investigation by the
Congressional Committee respecting the transactions of
Black Friday, that he observed Jay Gould tearing up
paper and throwing the pieces into the waste-basket,
and thus he knew that his partner had some work on
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 37
hand. He scarcely ever smiles and never lifts his voice
above a conversational tone. He has no friends so far
as known, but a host of enemies.
His life is in great speculations. His greatest crime
in the eyes of his fellow-speculators is, that he succeeds
so well in doing to Wall Street, what Wall Street is per-
petually,but vainly trying to do to him.
JOHN WANNAMAKER,
IN the summer of 1838, John Wannamaker was born in
Philadelphia. His father was a brick-maker, and
while out of school mornings, nights and Saturdays, the
boy John was engaged in turning bricks which were laid
in the sun to dry. Thus early those habits of industry
were instilled into the lad who, by his own diligence,
was destined to one day become the merchant prince of
Philadelphia.
A few years later, school was abandoned for steadj
employment which was found in a store four miles from
his home, where he boarded, for he had not the means
to do otherwise, thereby walking eight miles per day,
aside from his duties at the store, receiving $1.25 each
Saturday evening. Think of it, working hard all the
week, walking four miles night and morning in all
forty-eight miles perweek, and receiving only $1.25 salary
for the entire week s work. Afterward he was em
ployed in a law office, and still later we find him in a
clothing store at a salary of $1.50 per week. Here he
38 HIDDEN TREASURES.
seemed to find the calling which suited his taste, and lie
cultivated a pleasing disposition ; people liked to trade
with the young clerk. Of course this faculty, coupled
with energy, would soon bring recognition, and it was
not long before he was called to responsible positions.
Another strong feature of the success of John Wanna -
maker was, he lived on less than he earned, and saved
the balance.
In 1861 he had saved several hundred dollars, and as
he had earned a reputation for honesty and ability, he
was enabled to start in business on his own account.
This firm of Wannamaker & Brown was situated at the
corner of Sixth and Market streets. Mr. Wannamaker
kept the books the firm hired no superfluous help
everything that they could do personally they hired no
one to do. A firm which possesses ability, and follows
such business rules, will succeed. Notwithstanding that
the times were unusually " shaky," they prospered.
As the business increased other stores were opened,
and John Wannamaker, the poor clerk after a period
of twenty years of enterprise, pushed by energy, con
trolled a force of 6,000 employees. Not only does the
firm handle clothing, but every conceivable article gen
erally found in retail trade, the establishment being the
largest in the great city of brotherly love.
How pleasant it is to see men to whom God has boun
tifully supplied money using that means for the good of
their fellow-creatures. Among the liberal, whole-souled
millionaires of our country, John Wannamaker is to be
found. Although carrying on an immense business he
has found time to establish Sunday-Schools, solicit money
for the Young Men s Christian Association, and has
tributed to these personally, over $100,000.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 39
John Wannamaker is a philanthropist. One of his
favorite schemes has been to go into the vilest neighbor
hoods, establish a Sunday-School, build nice houses, and
thus bring the locality up to the plane of respectability.
He was looked to for aid when the Centennial was pro
jected, and it is needless to say that it was not found
wanting. The secret of his great success is his indefati
gable industry, and a thorough mastery of his business.
He is one of the most enterprising merchants in history.
ALEXANDER T, STEWART -
7TIHE dry-goods prince of the world. A marble palace
i. for a store, which is entered daily by an average of
twenty-five thousand people who buy $75,000 worth of
merchandise a business with daily import duties to the
Government of $25,000 in gold. When we look at all
this, and then remember that he was proprietor, not only
of the palace store of America, but had branches in Phil
adelphia, Boston, Lyons, Paris, Belfast, Glasgow, Berlin,
Bradford, Manchester, Nottingham, and other cities
throughout the world. When we behold this great suc
cess, and then think how he landed in this country a poor
Irish lad of sixteen, friendless, homeless, and almost
penniless, alone in a strange land, we involuntarily ex
claim, " How was such a change in his position brought
about ? " Why did he succeed, while others all about him
who were far better situated, failed ? Let us follow him :
He was born at Belfast, Ireland, October 21st, 1802,
and in 1818 came to America. He was a mere lad of
40 HIDDEN TREASURES.
sixteen. The first work that he obtained was as assist
ant in a college ; here he worked hard, saved his money,
and at last he was able to open a small store in the city
where he sold dry-goods. When he became twenty-one
he was called to his native country to claim a small
legacy left him by a relative who had died. He had made
a study of his business, hence invested the entire sum in
Irish products, and returning to America rented another
store on Broadway, and thus began that great importing
business. At this time he was his own buyer, salesman,
book-keeper and errand boy. Ah ! there is the secret of
the success of nine-tenths of our great men. They be
gan at the bottom never hiring help for the mere ap
pearance or convenience of their assistance. They never
hired done what they themselves could do. And then
there is another thing to remember beginning thus at
the bottom they, of necessity, became thoroughly famil
iar with the details of their business, hence were never
obliged to leave anything to the confidential clerk who
has ruined so many business men. Stewart soon felt the
need of more room, and was compelled to seek more
commodious quarters. After making another move to a
larger store-room he made his first purchase of real es
tate, which was his "down-town" store. After this his
"up-town" store was built.
He was a splendid salesman, a perfect gentleman to
ward customers, and people preferred trading with him
rather than any clerk in his employ. His tastes were
very simple, and he was always plainly dressed. It has
been stated that Mr. Stewart never posed for a photo
graph, which is a significant fact of itself. His motto
was, "Never spend a dollar unless there is a prospect of
legitimate gain." He arose early in the morning, went
OUK COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 41
to his " up-town " store, and thoroughly inspected every
thing ; then to his "down-town "store where he attended
to his business at that end of the line.
At the breaking out of the Civil War he aided the
Union cause very much. Being in sympathy with the
principles of the Eepublican party, and holding a power
ful influence over the commercial world, the President,
Mr. Grant, nominated him Secretary of the Treasury,
and he was at once confirmed by the Senate ; but as there
is a law prohibiting any merchant in the importing busi
ness from holding this position, he was objected to by
opposing politicians ; and, although he offered to donate
the entire profits of his business to the poor of the city
of New York, they still objected, and he was obliged to
resign. By this,the country was undoubtedly robbed of
the services of a man capable of making one of the best
officers for. that position our country has ever known.
However, it was right that it should be so ; it would
have been very unwise to have established such a
precedent.
In some respects, Mr. Stewart was a very liberal man,
although it has been stated otherwise. In his will is his
desire t^d^ogocTdfespecially manifested. Arrangements
were made for the ^building "of ~a~churclTand parsonage,
and a school for the benefit of poor boys who desired to
fit themselves for a professional life.
Some people may be fortunate in one instance in their
life . We do not wholly disregard the idea of circum
stances, but we do claim and try to prove that it is not
the one instance in the life after all. When we consider
a whole life s history, we are convinced every time that
generally where one is seemingly very fortunate, it is
the result of careful calculation and downright hard
42 HIDDEN TREASURES.
work. Bad luck is the natural result of carelessness in
business matters. Had A. T. Stewart waited for a lucky
chance to come to him, he might probably never would
have realized that splendid success that did attend his
efforts. Here he came to this country at the age of six
teen . He did not wait for his grandfather to die and
leave him that legacy but went right at some work. It
may be possible that the grandfather gave him that
money because he felt that young Stewart would make
good use of it. Certain it is he did not wait but went
right to work, saved his money, and was well prepared
to use the legacy skillfully when he did receive it. How
ever, if Stewart had never had that money given him,
he would have succeeded. His whole life was a series of
maturing plans, which had been carefully laid, and then
pushed to completion. A man must have ability to plan
well, and the courage and backbone to push those plans
to success. A. T. Stewart possessed these qualities to a
marked degree. He began as his moderate circumstan
ces would warrant, and best of all he never allowed his
energies to slacken. He never became a lazy business
man. He never allowed himself to rest content with
the laurels already his. He was a man of enterprise ;
while competitors followed the footsteps of their fathers,
A. T. Stewart was progressing he was original in
nearly every undertaking.
On the 10th day of April, 1876, this great magnate
died. His business was carried on, for a time, by others,
but the mainspring was gone, and in 1882 the great
clock stopped. Here is an instance that should convince
us of the result of courage, energy, and self-reliance.
A. T. Stewart began without a dollar, and succeeded,
while they who had the benefit of his experience, the
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 48
use of his vast wealth, and a marble palace, could not
succeed.
The history of the stealing of Mr. Stewart s body is
well-known, and as the papers have succeeded so well in
keeping the subject before the people, we will not speak
further of that here, our object being rather to instruct
than to narrate sensational episodes.
NICHOLAS LONGWORTH,
IN the year 1782 there was born a child of parents who
had once been somewhat wealthy, but who were
then living in poverty at Newark, New Jersey. This
child was Nicholas Longworth, the father of grape cul
ture in the United States.
He attempted to learn various trades, at one time
being bound to a shoemaker, but finally settled upon the
law and began its study, as his circumstances would
allow, in his native city. Young Longworth saw that
he would have far more chance to rise in the new
country west of the Alleghanies than in the over-crowded
East. Therefore, when he was of age he emigrated " out
west," stopping at the outskirts of civilization, locating
in a small place of 1000 inhabitants called Cincinnati.
Here he entered the law office of Judge Burnett, and
soon was capable of passing the necessary examination,
and was admitted to the bar. His first case was in
defense of a certain man who had been arrested for
horse-stealing, a very grave offense in that wilderness.
44 HIDDEN TREASURES.
This man had no money and about all he possessed in the
world that he could call his own was two copper stills.
As much as young Longworth needed money he was
obliged to accept these as his fee for clearing the man.
He tried to turn the stills into money but finally traded
them for thirty-three acres of land, which was a barren
waste. He had kept his eyes open and felt sure that the
possibilities for Cincinnati were very great. He therefore
bought land at ten dollars per lot, as fast a& his means
would allow, and all through the early portion of his life
bought real estate until he became recognized as the
heaviest real estate owner in Cincinnati.
Years afterward he saw the wisdom of his course,
living to see his ten dollar lots rise to ten thousand
dollars each, and the land which he received as his first
fee, that was thought to be all but worthless, rise to the
value of two million dollars. After following the law
for about twenty years he was forced to give up his
practice in order to take care of his extensive land
interest. He went into the grape growing business, and
for some time his efforts were attended with only dis
couragement, but he had relied on the clippings from for
eign vines. He firmly believed that the Ohio valley was
naturally adapted to the growth of the grape, and in
this enterprise he allowed himself to harbor no thoughts
other than of success.
This is a characteristic of any man calculated to
succeed. After experimenting with many different
varieties, he at last hit upon the Catawba. To encour
age the industry he laid out a very large vineyard, gave
away great numbers of cuttings, offered a prize for
any improvement in the Catawba grape, and proclaimed
that he would buy all the wine that could be brought to
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 45
him from the valley, whether in large or small quanti
ties. The result was that grape growing figured as no
small factor in the development of Ohio. He had a wine
cellar capable of holding 300,000 bottles, and was worth
at his death $15,000,000.
Nicholas Longworth was exceedingly liberal in his
own way selling his lots on easy installments, thereby
aiding many to a home. His motto was, " Help those
who help themselves," however,he gave much to those
whom no one else would aid. He was personally of in
ferior appearance ; not only this, but nothing pleased
him more than a shabby dress, being often mistaken for
a beggar. As a benefactor and horticulturist he made
his influence to be felt in succeeding generations.
ROBERT BONNER,
OF all the newspaper editors we have ever read, possibly
Robert] Bonner is the most enterprising. He was
born in Ireland in the year 1824, and at the age of six
teen canie to Hartford, Connecticut. He had an uncle
here who was a farmer, but Robert aspired to own a pa
per, and drifted into the office of the Hartford Courant.
Robert Bonner determined to own a paper ; he, there
fore, set about it, working faithfully every day, and over
time, saving his money. He mastered his business, be
coming an expert compositor. In 1844 he went to New
York and obtained employment on the Mirror. He was
intrusted with the oversight of the advertising depart
ment, and it was soon seen that he had a decidedly fine
46 HIDDEN TREASURES.
taste in the arrangement of this line, a feature which has
undoubtedly had much to do with his wonderful success
later. He was also at this time a correspondent of the
Hartford Courant, also newspapers in Boston, Albany and
Worcester. About 1851 he bought out the Merchants Led
ger, a paper devoted to the commercial interests of the
country. This he transformed into a family story paper,
and christened it the New York Ledger. Fanny Fern
was just appearing in the columns of literature. Bon-
ner offered her $1,000 to write a story for the Ledger, en
closing his check for the amount. As this was a very
high price in those days, of course she accepted. Then
the papers throughout the country were full of adver
tisements -"Read the Thousand Dollar Story in the
Ledger" "Read The New York Ledger"- Some people
said, "Well, first-class journals don t use such flashy ways
of inducing people to subscribe ; they rely on the merits
of their paper." Bonner heard this and began to study
how to overcome this tide of sentiment. There was
Harpers Weekly no one] questioned its respecta
bility. The Harpers never indulged in any flashy adver
tising, but soon the people were surprised to see in all
the leading papers, Buy Harpers Weekly] as no one
imagined that Bonner had paid for the advertising; they
attributed the advertisements to the necessity Harpers
felt through the rivalry of the Ledger. This sort of en
terprise cost, but it convinced people that respectable
journals advertised as did the Ledger. People said it was
6 cheap, trashy literature, etc.
Mr. Bonner at once hunted up Edward Everett who
was recognized as the representative of New England
refinement. This was a most opportune time for Mr.
Bonner, as Mr. Everett was trying to raise a large sum
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 47
with which to aid in beautifying the home and tomb of
Washington. Mr. Bonner engaged Mr. Everett to write
a series of articles on Mount Vernon, giving in return
his check for $10,000 to be applied toward the Everett
Fund for the aid of the Association. Probably Mr. Ev
erett would have refused to write at any other time, but
Bonner took advantage of circumstances ALWAYS.
He next secured George Bancroft, the eminent histo
rian. Then followed Horace Greely, James Gordon Ben
nett, and Henry J. Raymond. When such lights of
journalism would write for the Ledger, what could lesser
country editors say ? Next came a story by Henry Ward
Beecher, who was followed by Dr. John Hall the great
Presbyterian Divine, Bishop Clark, Dr. English, Longfel
low, Tennyson, and others, including a series of articles
from the presidents of the leading colleges throughout
the country.
Mr. Bonner is a Presbyterian, being a member of the
church presided over by Dr. John Hall, on Fifth Avenue.
He has given many thousands of dollars to various insti
tutions and charities. He owns the finest stable of
horses in the Union, among which are such as Maud S.
his first great trotter was Dexter. He never allows one of
his horses to trot for money.
Mr. Bonner is getting along in years but still attends
to business. His paper has at times attained a circula
tion of 400,000 copies, each issue.
46 HIDDEN TREASURES.
WILLIAM G. FARGO,
WHO, indeed, has not heard of the American Express
Company ? Yet, how few there are who know to
whom we are indebted for its existence.
William Gr. Fargo was born May 20, 1818, at Pompey,
New York, and at the age of twelve he was mail-carrier
over a route that covered forty miles. The inference
must be at once formed that William G. Fargo was no
ordinary child. He must have been industrious and
trustworthy, for the mail must be delivered on time.
No holiday could be observed, nor could any circus be
allowed to come between him and his work. Seeking a
more remunerative calling he went to Waterville, where
he clerked in a small store and tavern, improving his
spare moments in learning to keep accounts. When
seventeen he went to Syracuse and entered a grocery
house. He continued in the grocery line in one
capacity or another for five years, when he accepted the
freight agency of the Auburn and Syracuse Eailroad,
in which capacity he had found his calling. Two years
later he became associated with Pomeroy & Co., and was
given the express agency for that company at Buffalo,
and in 1844 he became a member of the firm of Wells &
Co., who established an express line from Buffalo, west
to Detroit, via Cleveland. This firm, in time, became
Livingston & Fargo, and finally the several express
companies: Wells & Co., Butterfield, Wasson & Co. and
Livingston & Co., became merged into the since famous
3
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 49
American Express Co. In 1868 Mr. Fargo was elected
President of this Company, and remained at its head
until his death. He was also connected with various
other enterprises, being Vice-President of the New York
Central & Hudson River railroad, and was also largely
interested in Northern Pacific and other railroad stock.
In 1861 he was elected Mayor of Buffalo on the Demo
cratic ticket, but so impartial was he in the administra
tion of the city affairs, and so patent was his business
ability, that he was re-elected, being supported by all
parties.
Such is the reward for earnestness. And will any
one say that William GL Fargo was not deserving of this
splendid success ? If we will have success we must earn
it. Let no man envy another in no matter what station
of life he may be situated. Rest assured that we will
fill the place that we are capable of filling; no more, no
less.
JAMES C, FLOOD,
JAMES C. FLOOD was born in New York city. He re-
received only a plain common school education, but
has succeeded, not from a lack of education but in spite
of that lack. He passed through the usual routine of boys
placed in moderate circumstances, until the year 1849,
being past his majority, he sailed in the good ship
" Elizabeth," around the " Horn," arriving in a strange
land without money or friends, but he had brains, and
50 HIDDEN TREASURES.
they were reinforced by a surprising allowance of will
power.
He drifted from one thing to another, kept a restau
rant, and finally in 1854 loomed up as senior partner in
the firm of Flood & O Brien, who were soon deep in " Old
Kentuck," seeking the treasures which they found in
great quantities, and finally when they took hold of the
" Hale & Norcross " mine,it made them the first bonanza
kings America ever knew.
He next projects the Nevada Bank and makes the
call for over five millions of dollars which leads to the
suspension of the Bank of California, as the indiscrete
placing of its resources leaves that bank in a weak posi
tion to withstand so sudden a drain, and was therefore
indirectly the cause, as most people think, of its beloved
President s death. Mr. Flood desired to place this
Nevada Bank upon so firm a foundation that neither the
indiscretion of speculators or the ebb and flow of
mercantile life could overthrow it. How well this has
been accomplished can be seen from the fact, that it has
a capital of nearly fifteen million dollars, and numbers
among its directors, such bonanza kings as James C.
Flood, John W. MacKay and James G. Fair, whose
private fortunes combined represent over $100,000,000, to
say nothing of other wealthy directors. This bank asserts
that it has special facilities for handling bullion, and we
should think quite likely it has. Something of the con
dition of the private finances of Mr. Flood can be as
certained. If one takes the trouble to look over the
assessment roll he will find the following : " James C.
Flood, 6,000 shares, Nevada Bank stock, $1,200,000 ; 12,-
000 shares, Pacific Mill & Mining Co., $4,000,000 ; 250
shares, Pacific Wood, Lumber & Flume Co., $30,000 ;
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 51
1,000 shares, San Francisco Gaslight stock, $90,000 ; 937
shares of Golden City Chemical Works, $20,000 ; 3,000
shares of Virginia & Gold-Hill Water Co., $300,000 ; 47
shares of Giant Powder Co., $60,000; 649J shares
Atlantic Giant Powder Co., $30,000 ; 35,000 shares Ophir
Mine stock, $1,000,000," and he is assessed for $250,000
in money. Then comes J. C. Flood & Co. " Controlling
interest in stock of Yellow Jacket, Union Consolidated,
Scorpion, Savage, Ophir, Occidental, Hale & Norcross,
Gould & Curry, Consolidated Virginia, Best & Belcher
and other mining compaies, $10,000,000 ; money $500,-
000." In all it is quite a fortune for a poor boy to find,
but it must be rememberedthat Mr. Flood had much with
which to contend, and that nine men out of ten might
have passed over the same ground and found nothing.
Industry is what wins, and J. C. Flood is no exception
to the rule. In a recent law suit Mr. Flood displayed a
most peculiar memory, or rather a most remarkable
lack of memory. We take the following facts from an
editorial on the subject :
"A certain man sued Mr. Flood to recover about
$26,000,000, the alleged value of certain tailings on
some of the mines. Mr. Flood did not know whal
company milled the ore of the Consolidated Virginia
did not remember who was President of the company a1
the time ; he might have been, could not say for certain
however ; did not know where the crude bullion from
his own mines was sent to be melted into bars ; could
not tell how much was worked, nor anything about it.
He did not remember who was treasurer of the mill
company ; he might have been, might now be, but could
not tell for certain."
Mr. Flood owns one of the finest mansions, for a
52 HIDDEN TREASURES.
private residence, in the whole world. It cost one
million, and is a magnificent building in any sense.
Few men surpass him in either getting or keeping
money.
JOHN W, MACKAY,
JOHN W. MACKAT is not only the youngest and the
XJ richest of that bonanza trio -Flood, Fair and MacKay
but immense wealth has not spoiled him. He is of Irish
birth, but came to this country before he was of age.
When the gold fever broke out he was one of the first to
seek his fortune in that auriferous country bordering on
the Pacific, in California. Contrary to the general sup
position that his great wealth came through good luck/
let me say, it was only by constant toil and slowly ac
quired experience that he learned how to tell a non-pay
ing lead from a bonanza. Several times he seemed about
to strike the long-looked for success only to find his
brightest hopes dashed to the earth. But these failures
tempered him for the greater hardships that followed.
The famous "Comstock Lode "is situated among a
vast accumulation of rocks and deep canyons the re
sult of terrible volcanic eruptions at some remote period.
This mining district was discovered by two Germans in
about 1852-3. Contrary to the opinion expressed by other
prospectors, these Germans saw silver in the rejected ore.
Both brothers suddenly dying, the claim fell to a store-
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 53
keeper named Comstock who sold out for a few thousand.
Mr. MacKay s investment in the one mine, the " Consoli
dated Virginia and California," has paid him unheard of
dividends. This mine produced in a period covering six
years, from 1873, gold and silver to the amount of over
sixty-three millions of dollars. The combined profits of
the two mines were over seventy-three and one-half mil
lions of dollars. Mr. MacKay drifted to this lode, mak
ing his first hit in 1863, and in this section the bulk of
his vast fortune was accumulated.
On the 25th of November, 1867, he concluded that he
was able to support a wife, and accordingly married the
widow of an old friend (Dr. Thompson) who had shared
his varying fortune of former years when he little
dreamed of the vast wealth that awaited him. This lady
is one of the best hands to help a man spend a fabulous
income, of which we are aware. She lives in Paris, where
she gives the most expensive of entertainments. When
General Grant was in France he was her guest. She
supports a private railway carriage to use at her pleas^
ure, and it would almost exceed belief to describe the
cost of her table service ; in fact, she lives in oriental
splendor. On the other hand Mr. MacKay is decidedly
pronounced, personally, in favor of little show. He is
far more at home in Virginia City, where he may often
be seen in a genuine mining costume, than at his pala^
tial home in Paris.
The ground had been known for years wherein his
greath wealth was found, but it was pronounced worth
less. Everything seemingly had to be contested ; confi
dence was lacking, and what confidence remained was
daily agitated by parties who were jealous rivals. The
stock became almost worthless, and great discontent was
54 HIDDEN TREASURES.
manifest when, to make matters worse, a fire broke out
which burned the company s property and valuable ma
chinery. Twelve hundred feet of ground had to be
slowly gone over in search for the right vein, at a cost
of $500,000. Amid great discouragement John W. Mac-
Kay led this apparently forlorn hope to at last be
crowned with the success he so richly deserved. He
now is estimated to be worth in the vicinity of $55,000,-
000, and although it may seem a somewhat extravagant
reward, it cannot be denied that this vast sum could have
been placed in far worse hands.
Both Mr. and Mrs. MacKay are very liberal toward
charitable purposes. They were especially complimented
by Pope Leo XIII for their charitable deeds. As Mr. Mac-
Kay is but about fifty years of age, it is hard to conjec
ture his possible future. While many features in his
career seem to justify the belief in "luck," still, to the
close observer, it is manifest that had he not possessed
great endurance, and known no such thing as fail, the
world would never have known of John W. MacKay.
Surely, great effort is the price of great success, ALWAYS.
JAMES C, FAIR,
name of James C. Fair will be recognized at
once as one of the bonanza kings, and like the
others he enjoyed only a fair education, starting for
California at about the same time as the rest ; he taking
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 55
the overland route while they went by water. His only
capital consisting of a miner s outfit, and with those
simple implements he began his hard fought battle for
wealth. He made mining a scientific study and after
about six years of variable success, he became known as
an expert. Soon after this he accepted the superintend-
ency of the Ophir mine, and later, the Hale & Norcross ;
since which time he has gone on, until now, he can count
his worldly possessions by the million. He is a most
thorough miner, and his long continued life at the bot
tom of the mines has had a telling effect on his health.
That he has successfully managed such wild and wicked
men, as 4 many miners are, without becoming the victim
of some " accident," indicates something of his ability.
Finally his impaired health necessitated his withdrawal
from active work, and he made an extended voyage, re
turning in a much improved condition.
In 1881 he was elected to the United States Senate,
where he acquitted himself with credit. He charged
nothing for his services, an event without parallel in
our history, however, he received all for which he went
to* Washington honor. He is assessed for over forty
millions, and can well afford to donate his salary to the
Government.
Like the other bonanza kings he seems to have been
specially favored by fortune, but the old saying, " Birds
of a feather will flock together," is true in this case, for
these men are all practical miners and changed partners
often until the firm of Flood, Fair & MacKay was formed,
since which time they all seem perfectly satisfied each
with the other., All had been sorely tried during their
earlier life and were not found wanting either in ability
56 HIDDEN TREASURES.
or stick-to-it-iveness astheypassedthrough the crucible
of Dame Fortune.
As we have just been reading the lives of the three
bonanza kings, J. C. Flood, J. C. Fair and J. W. MacKay,
possibly a description of one of their enterprises in the
shape of a flume will be interesting as described by a
New York Tribune correspondent :
A fifteen-mile ride in a flume down the Sierra Nevada
Mountains in thirty minutes was not one of the things
contemplated in my visit to Virginia City, and it is en
tirely within reason to say that even if I should make
this my permanent place of residence which fortune for
bid I shall never make the trip again. The flume cost,
with its appurtenances, between $200,000 and $300,000
if it had cost a million it would be the same in my esti
mation. It was built by a company interested in the
mines here, principally the owners of the Consolidated
Virginia, California, Hale & Norcross, Gould & Curry,
Best & Belcher and Utah mines. The largest stock
holders in these mines are J. C. Flood, James C. Fair,
John W. MacKay and W. S. O Brien, who compose with
out doubt the wealthiest firm in the United States.
Taking the stock of their companies at the price quoted
in the board, the amount they own is more than $100,-
000,000, and each has a large private fortune in addition.
The mines named use 1,000,000 feet of lumber per month
under ground, and burn 40,000 cords of wood per year.
Wood is here worth from $10 to $12 per cord, and at
market prices Messrs. Flood & Co. would have to pay
nearly $500,000 a year for wood alone. Going into the
mine the other day, and seeing the immense amount of
timber used, and knowing the incalculable amount of
wood burned in the several mines and mills, I asked Mr.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 57
MacKay, who accompanied me, where all the wood and
timber came from. " It comes," said he, " from our lands
in tne Sierras, forty or fifty miles from here. We own
over twelve thousand acres in the vicinity of Washoe
Lake, all of which is heavily timbered." " How do you
get it here ? " I asked. " It comes," said he, " in our
flume down the mountains, fifteen miles, and from our
dumping grounds is brought by the Virginia & Truckee
Railroad to this city, about sixteen miles. You ought
to see the flume before you go back ; it is really a
wonderful thing. " The flume is a wonderful piece
of engineering work. It is built wholly on trestle-
work and stringers; there is not a cut in the
whole distance, and the grade is so heavy that there is
little danger of a f jam. The trestle-work is very sub
stantial, and undoubtedly strong enough to support a
narrow-gauge railway. It runs over foot-hills, through
valleys, around mountains, and across canyons. In one
place it is seventy feet high. The highest point of the
flume from the plain is 3,700 feet, and on an air-line,
from beginning to end the distance is eight miles, the
course thus taking up seven miles in twists and turns.
The trestle-work is thoroughly braced longitudinally
and across, so that no break can extend further than a
single box, which is 16 feet. All the main supports,
which are five feet apart, are firmly set in mudsills, and
the boxes or troughs rest in brackets four feet apart.
These again rest upon substantial stringers. The grade
of the flume is from 1,600 to 2,000 feet from top to bot
tom a distance, as previously stated, of fifteen miles.
The sharpest fall is three feet in six. There are two
reservoirs from which the flume is fed. One is 1,100 feet
long and the other is 600 feet. A ditch, nearly two miles
58 HIDDEN TREASURES.
long, takes the water to the first reservoir, whence it is
conveyed 3J miles to the flume through a feeder capable
of carrying 450 inches of water. The whole flume was
built in ten weeks. In that time all the trestle-work,
stringers and boxes were put in place. About 200 men
were employed on it at one time, being divided into
four gangs. It required 2,000,000 feet of lumber, but the
item which astonished me most was that there were 28
tons, or 56,000 pounds of nails used in the construction
of this flume.
Mr. Flood and Mr. Fair had arranged for a ride in
the flume, and I was challenged to go with them. In
deed the proposition was put in this way they dared me
to go. I thought that if men worth twenty-five or thirty
million dollars apiece could afford to risk their lives, I
could afford to risk mine, which isn t worth half as
much. So I accepted the challenge, and two boats
were ordered. These were nothing more than pig
troughs, with one end knocked out. The t boat is
built like the flume, V shaped, and fits into the flume.
The grade of the flume at the mill is very heavy, and
the water rushes through it at railroad speed. The
terrors of that ride can never be blotted from the memory
of one of the party. I cannot give the reader a better
idea of a flume ride than to compare it to sliding down
an old-fashioned eve-trough at an angle of 45 degrees,
hanging in mid-air without support of roof or house, and
extending a distance of fifteen miles. At the start we
went at the rate of twenty miles an hour, which is a
little less than the average speed of a railroad train.
The red-faced carpenter sat in front of our boat on the
bottom as best he could. Mr. Fair sat on a seat behind
him, and I sat behind Mr. Fair in the stern and was of great
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 59
service to him in keeping the water which broke over the
end-board, from his back. There was also a great deal
of water shipped in the bows of the hog- trough, and I
know Mr. Fair s broad shoulders kept me from more
than one ducking in that memorable trip. At the heavi
est grades the water came in so furiously in front that it
was impossible to see where we were going, or what
was ahead of us ; but when the grade was light, and we
were going at a three or four minute pace, the view was
very delightful, although it was terrible. When the
water would enable me to look ahead, I could see the
trestle here and there for miles; so small and so narrow
and apparently so fragile that I could only compare it
to a chalk-mark upon which, high in the air, I was run
ning at a rate unknown to railroads. One circumstance
during the trip did more to show me the terrible rapidity
with which we dashed through the flume than anything
else. We had been rushing down at a pretty lively rate
of speed when the boat suddenly struck something in the
bow,a nail, a lodged stick of wood or some secure substance
which ought not to have been there. What was the effect ?
The red-faced carpenter was sent whirling into the flume
ten feet ahead. Fair was precipitated on his face, and
I found a soft lodgment on Fair s back. It seems to me
that in a second s time Fair himself a powerful man
had the carpenter by the scruff of the neck, and had
pulled him into the boat. I did not know at this time
that Fair had his fingers crushed between the flume and
the boat. But we sped along ; minutes seemed hours.
It seemed an hour before we arrived at the worst place in
the flume, and yet Hereford tells me that it was less than
ten minutes. Tho flume at the point alluded to must
have been very nearly forty-five degrees inclination. In
60 HIDDEN TREASURES.
looking out, before we reached it, I thought the only way
to get to the bottom was to fall. How our boat kept in
the track is more than I know.
The wind, the steamboat, the railroad, never went so
fast. In this particularly bad place I allude to, my de
sire was to form some judgment as to the speed we were
making. If the truth must be spoken, I was really scared
almost out of my reason, but if I were on my way to eter
nity I wanted to know exactly how fast I went, so I hud
dled close to Fair, and turned my eyes toward the
hills. Every object I placed my eyes upon was gone
before I could plainly see what it was. Mountains
passed like visions and shadows. It was with difficulty
that I could get my breath. I felt that I did not weigh
a hundred pounds, although I knew in the sharpness of
intellect that I tipped the scales at two hundred. Mr.
Flood and Mr. Hereford, although they started several
minutes later than we, were close upon us. They were
not so heavily loaded, and they had the full sweep of the
water, while we had it rather at second-hand. Their
boat finally struck ours with a terrible crash. Mr. Flood
was thrown upon his face, and the waters flowed over
him. What became of Hereford I do not know, except
that when we reached the terminus of the flume he was
as wet as any of us. This only remains to be said :
We made the entire distance in less time than a railway
train would ordinarily make, and a portion of the dis
tance we went faster than a railway train ever went.
Fair said we went at least a mile a minute. Flood said
that we went at the rate of a hundred miles an hour,
and my deliberate belief is that we went at a rate that
annihilated time and space. We were a wet lot when
We reached the terminus of the flume.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 61
Flood said that he would not make the trip again for
the whole Consolidated Virginia mine. Fair said that
he should never again place himself upon an equality
with timber and wood, and Hereford said he was sorry
that he ever built the flume. As for myself, I told the
millionaires that I had accepted my last challenge. When
we left our boats we were more dead than alive. The
next day neither Flood nor Fair were able to leave their
beds. For myself, I have only the strength to say that
I have had enough of flumes.
HORACE GREELEY.
IN the history of journalism, Horace Greeley must, for
all time, hold a position in the front rank. As it is
well-known he is a self-made man, being born of poor
parents at Amherst, Ne w Hampshire, on the 3rd day of
February, 1811. His father was a farmer. The Greeley
ancestors enjoyed a reputation for tenacity/ which was
clearly shown in the pale-faced, flaxen-haired but pre
cocious lad of fifteen, who presented himself and was-
employed at the office of the Northern Spectator, at Poult-
ney, Vermont, in 1826 ; having walked from West Haven,
his home, eleven miles distant. He was to remain an
apprentice until twenty, and received in money the
princely sum of forty dollars a year with which to buy
clothes and what was left he might use for spending
money/ Why he lived to found a great paper the
the reader can easily guess, when it is learned that
62 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Greeley used the greater part of said forty dollars each
year for buying books.
He joined a local debating club where he became the
; giant member, a tribute paid to his intellect. Most
of the members were older than Greeley, but knowledge
proved a power in that society and he was invariably
listened to with marked attention despite his shabby
appearance. Especially was he fond of political data ;
he followed the exchanges in the Spectator office with
increasing interest. His parents removed to Pennsyl
vania, where he visited them during his apprenticeship
as " printers devil/ and general assistant at Poultney ,
walking the most of the way, a distance of about 600
miles. The Spectator having collapsed, young Greeley,
with his entire wardrobe done up in a handkerchief,
once more visits Pennsylvania, but not to remain idle ;
he soon obtained a place in a printing office near his
home, at eleven dollars per month, and later still he
obtains employment at Erie where he receives fifteen
dollars per month. Soon after this, not yet content, he
is enroute for New York, where he arrived August
17, 1831.
His appearance in the metropolis was ludicrous in
the extreme. One can imagine from accounts given of
him how prepossessing he must have looked ; flaxen
locks, blue eyes, his hat on the back of his head as if
accustomed to star gazing, must have given him
the appearance of one decidedly green/ to say the least.
As is a noted fact he was, to his death, exceedingly
indifferent as to his dress and what are known as tha
social demands of society. Indeed he could be seen on
the street almost any day with his pockets stuffed full
of papers, his hat pushed back on his head like a sailor
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 68
about to ascend the rigging, his spectacles seemingly
about to slip off his nose, his boot heels running over,
and we doubt not that he was as likely to have one leg
of his pantaloons tucked into his boot top while the
other was condescendingly allowed to retain its proper
place. In fact it is hardly probable that he would have
impressed any one with the idea that he was indeed a
great editor of that city. But we return to his first visit ;
office after office was visited without avail but that he
reditary tenacity did not forsake him, and at last he
met an old friend, a Mr. Jones whom he had first met
in Poultney. This friend, although not a boss, printer
fashion set him at work on his own case. When the
proprietor came in he was dumbfounded at the speci
men of a printer he beheld, and declared to the fore
man that he could not keep him. Fortunately, how
ever, for young Greeley, the job that he was on was
setting small type, a most undesirable one. The fore
man shrewdly suggested that as Jones, who was a good
workman, knew him it would be a good policy to wait
and see the result. As it was a very difficult job no
wonder that Greeley s proof looked as though it had the
measles, but as he was retained he must have done as
well if not better than was expected. When the job
was finished he was thrown out of employment, and he
shifted about for some time doing odd jobs ; in fact
it must have been very discouraging, but finally he ob
tained employment on the Spirit of the Times, and after
ward formed a business partnership with Mr. Story who,
with Mr. Greeley, invested about $240. They established
a penny paper, and were moderately successful, but Mr.
Story was drowned and his place was filled by another.
His connection with the New Yorker was his next busi-
64 HIDDEN TREASURES.
ness venture. While on this paper he was also editor of
a paper in Albany, and a regular contributor to th
Daily Whig. When we think that he gave himself only
four hours sleep out of the twenty-four, we can realize
how he could find time to edit two papers and write for
the third, but despite this assiduousness his enterprise
failed and he thereby lost $10,000.
Greeley s opinion on economy was clearly defined
when he said : " For my own part, and I speak from
sad experience, I would rather be a convict in States
Prison or a slave in a rice swamp, than to pass through
life under the harrow of debt. If you have but fifty
cents and can get no more for the week, buy a peck of
corn, parch it, and live on it rather than owe any man a,
dollar." He next started the Log Cabin. It was started
in the beginning of 1840, designed to be run six months
and then discontinued. Into this undertaking Horace
Greeley threw all his energy and ability, guided by his
experience. In those days a journal with a circulation
of ten thousand was a big concern. When an edition of
nearly fifty thous and of its first issue was called for, the
publishers were beside themselves, and later when the
Log Cabin ran up a circulation of eighty and even ninety
thousand, the proprietors were frantic as to how they
should get them printed. It is needless to say that the
Log Cabin outlived its original expectations.
Ultimately the Log Cabin and the New Yorker were
merged into the New York Tribune. As is a recognized
fact, Greeley was stronger in a fight than in peace, and
the attacks which this new enterprise received soon run
its circulation from the hundreds into the thousands.
Of course new presses had to be bought and Greeley,
who by the way preferred to discuss the financial policy
4
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 65
of a great nation than that of his own office, soon
found himself obliged to get a business man as a part
ner. He was excedingly fortunate in securing Mr.
Thomas McElrath, who soon brought order from chaos,
and the Tribune became not only an ably conducted
paper but a paying one as well.
Mr. Greeley next became a lecturer, and in this field
he was also fairly successful. He traveled in Europe
and wrote such books as "Hints About Reform,"
"Glances at Europe," "History of the Slavery;Extension,"
"Overland Journey from New York to San Francisco,"
"The American Conflict," "Recollections of a Busy Life,"
"Essays on Political Economy," and just before his
death, "What I Know About Farming."
While Mr. Greeley must ever be regarded among
journalists as one of their brightest stars ; he was one of
the most peculiar writers it has ever been our pleasure
to read. In fact he must be regarded as a kind of liter-
rary gymnast. While conducting a political paper he at
one time devoted page after page to the theory of reor
ganizing society after the plan of Fourier ; that is to
divide society up into small communities to live in com
mon. After wearying the readers on this and numer
ous other isms/ it was discontinued. He went into a
political frenzy over Clay and protection ; next his
paper was full of the Irish Repeal/ Advocacy of the
Water Cure/ 4 Phrenology/ Mesmerism/ Opposition to
Capital Punishment," Trinitarianism and the Drama.
He was finally elected to Congress to fill an unexpired
term. While here he caused some amusement by his
eccentricities. He refused to sit up at night sessions,
abruptly leaving when his hour for retiring arrived.
Possibly his letter addressed to the managers of his
66 HIDDEN TREASURES.
party in his State was one of the greatest surprises that
he ever sprung upon the country. It was addressed to
Mr. Seward personally, but upon mention being made of
it by that gentlemen s friends, it was made public by
Greeley s demand. It ran something as follows : " The
election is over, and its results sufficiently ascertained.
It seems to me a fitting time to announce to you the dis
solution of the political firm of Seward, Weed and Gree-
ley by the withdrawal of the junior partner, said with
drawal to take effect on the morning after the first Tues
day in February next. I was a poor young printer, and
editor of a literary journal a very active and bitter Whig
in a small way, but not seeking to be known outside of
my own ward committee. I was one day called to the City
Hotel where two strangers introduced themselves as
Thurlow Weed and Lewis Benedict, of Albany. They
told me that a cheap campaign paper of peculiar stamp
at Albany had been resolved on, and that I had been se
lected to edit it. I did the work required to the best of
my ability. It was work that made no figure and created
no sensation ; but I loved it and I did it well.
When it was done you were Governor ; dispensing
offices worth three to twenty thousand to your friends
and compatriots, and I returned to my garret and my
crust and my desperate battle with pecuniary obliga
tions heaped upon me by bad partners in business and
the disastrious events of 1837. I believe it did not occur
to me then that some one of these abundant places
might have been offered to me without injustice. I now
think it should have occurred to you. In the Harrison
campaign of 1840 I was again designated to edit a cam
paign paper. I published it as well and hence ought to
have made something out of it despite its low price.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 67
My extreme povery was the main reason why I did not.
Now came the great scramble of the swell mob of
coon minstrels and cider suckers at Washington, I not
being counted in. I asked nothing, expected nothing,
bnt you Governor Seward ought to have asked that I be
Post Master at New York."
When the Republicans met at Chicago he paid Mr.
Seward off by checkmating his chances of the nomina
tion, and placing Lincoln at the head of the ticket. Mr.
Greeley had always been an uncompromising opponent of
slavery, and once had all but asked for the impeachment
of Buchanan, hence the South expected little sympathy
from him; yet, this great editor dismays his friends
while his enemies are dumbfounded when they
read, "Let the South go," but no sooner do the erring
sisters act upon his suggestion than this political ranch
man is out with his literary lasso vainly trying to keep
them in. He next raises the war-whoop of "On to Rich
mond," and thereby aids in precipitating the terrible
disaster of Bull Run. Time goes on the Union cause
looks gloomy enough all seems lost ; yet, when once
more the nation needs his powerful support he rushes off
to Canada unauthorized, to negotiate a treaty with South
ern Envoys which, to say the least, would have been dis
graceful to the Union Government. When the cause i
won he flees to Washington to sign the bail-bond of the
arch traitor, and is thus instrumental in his release from
justice. Yet, for all this the Tribu ne prospered.
He was regarded by many of his readers as a kind of
moral law-giver, and if ,per chance,one person journeyed
to New York and returned to state that their beau ideal
had used undue profanity in his common conversation,
the indiscrete individual was ostracised.
68 HIDDEN TREASURES.
If Mr. Greeley s previous career had surprised the
country and disappointed some of his friends, it re
mained for the last political act of his life to com
pletely paralyze the country at large, and plunge some
of his most ardent supporters into the deepest gloom.
This was when they beheld him the nominee of Repub
licans, who were anything to elect Greeley, and en
dorsed by Free Traders and Democrats whom he had so
bitterly denounced all his life. Had he been nominated
by the straight Republican party it might have been
considered as a somewhat extravagant reward for party
service for this position could not have been regarded
otherwise than consistent ; but the position he now as
sumed was inconsistent, not to say ludicrous. The result
was he carried only six States against the successful Grant.
He was a Universalist in belief, but educated his
daughters at a Catholic school. He refused to get his
brother, who actually needed assistance, a position worth
perhaps $1,000 a year ; yet, he could lend Corneel. Van-
derbilt about eight hundred thousand dollars without
security. His early friend, Mr. Jones, once sent a friend
to him bearing a note requesting Greeley s aid to a sub
ordinate position in the custom-house. No sooner had
Greeley glanced it over than he astonished the gentle
man, who was aware of Mr. Greeley s early obligation to
Mr. Jones, by the volley of oaths and vituperation which
he heaped upon him because he did not go West instead
of hanging around there seeking office. No wonder the
gentleman, who was a reputable middle-aged man, fled
from the presence of this famous expounder of i Moral
Ideas/ However, when all this has been said we cannot
help but admit that a great and good man died on De
cember 29th, 1872. Certain it is that Journalism lost
one of its brightest and most successful stars.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 69
THURLOW WEED,
WHO indeed has not heard of Thurlow Weed, " The
king maker," born at Cairo, Greene County, New
York, November 15, 1797. His father was a teamster
and farmer. The reader can get some insight into the
seemingly mysterious power he held for so many years,
when it was known that so great was his thirst for
knowledge that he was glad to wrap bits of a rag carpet
about his feet and thus shod walk through the snow two
miles to borrow a history of the French Revolution,
which he mastered at night, stretched before the sap
bush fire.
The more one investigates the character and lives of
those men whom we so often envy, the more we are
forced to see that it was will-power rightly directed that
overcame all obstacles. Certain it is to this that Thur
low Weed owes his everlasting fame as the American
Warwick ; for knowledge is power. He first left the
farm work as a cabin boy on a Hudson river steam
boat bound for New York, but being born a journalist
he soon drifted into a printing office where he became
a good journeyman.
When the second war with Great Britain broke out
he enlisted, and served on the Northern frontier, where
by faithfulness he became Quartermaster Sergeant.
When the war was over he returned to the printing
office, being at one time in the same establishment with
the late James Harper. Finally he started a paper at
Oxford, New York, in 1818. He afterward became con-
70 HIDDEN TREASURES.
nected with the Onondaga Times, which he finally
changed to the Republican. For the next few years he
is connected with several different papers until we find
him in Rochester at the head of the Anti-Masonic
Enquirer.
About this time the body of a man who had drowned
in Lake Ontario was found, and it was claimed that his
name was Morgan ; if so, he was a renegade mason. A
question of identity was raised, but as his murder was
boldly asserted to have been the work of Masonry, it
caused a great excitement for the time being. This ex
citement divided the political parties into Mason and
Anti-Mason factions. Anti-Masonry was the political
fertilizer which produced the astonishing growth of the
assiduous Weed, he being sent to the Assembly twice,,,
mainly on that issue. While at Albany his ability as a
party leader becoming so apparent he was decided upon
as the proper person to assume the party leadership
against the obnoxious Albany Regency, the great Demo
cratic power in New York State at the time. He according
ly moved to Albany and assumed the editorship of the
Albany Evening Journal. Weed was one of the men
who consolidated the Anti-Jackson, Anti-Mason and old
Federal factions into the Whig party. The Regency y
with which he had to deal consisted of such men a&
Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, Willian L. Marcy and
others of equal ability. Such were the men with whom
he was pitted, but they soon found him in every way
worthy of their steel. No one, when speaking of this
great political warrior ever thought or spoke of him as
a millionaire. Seemingly no one cared how much he
was worth ; but what did worry them was, what will
be the outcome of this secret conclave which we now
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 71
suspect to be in progress at the headquarters of the op
position of the Albany Regency.
He went to battle fearlessly, and his terse pen dealt
stinging blows straight in the face of the opponent. In
deed, as an editor he has been rarely equaled. While
Greeley would devote a column to an article, he
would take the same subject and in a few words put the
argument in such shape as to carry far more conviction.
His two terms in the State Assembly wound up his
career as a legislator, although he could have had any
place within the gift of his party from 1830 to 1860.
His ambition was not to hold office but to rule men, and
it is well-known that his desires were accomplished. He
was a great dictator, being largely instrumental as an
independent advisor in the selection of Harrison, Taylor
and Scott. His first trial of personal strength in this
line was when he secured the nomination and election
of his personal friend, William H. Seward, as the first
Whig Governor of New York. Mr. Seward, who was an
unobtrusive man, was one time riding with the driver
on a stage when that dignitary asked the stranger his
name and business, as was customary when people did
not volunteer the information. The answer was, "Why,
I m William H. Seward, Governor of the State." This
was too good for the driver, whose answer was a loud
laugh, plainly implying that he considered that the
gentleman had given a most cute but evasive answer.
" Don t you believe me " ? asked Seward. " Of course
not," replied the driver. Mr. Seward, who was ac
quainted with the proprietor of the next hotel they
came to, agreed to leave it to him. In time they arrived
and the driver, calling out the landlord, immediately
said, "This man says he is Governor of New York State
72 HIDDEN TREASURES.
and we have left the matter to you." "Yes," broke in
Seward, " am I not Governor of this State ? " The an
swer came quick and sharp; "No, but Thurlow Weed is."
There," exclaimed the ignorant driver, who could not
see the point at once ; "I knew you weren t Governor of
New York State."
In 1864 Mr. Weed sold the Journal, but never entirely
suspended literary work. He afterward^assumed the
editorship of the New York Commercial Advertiser, and
often sent letters to the Tribune. In 1882, shortly before
his death, the country was set in a flutter by his publish
ing the whole details relating to the Morgan matter,
which he had kept all this time claiming it would injure
certain parties, but as the last had died, it was now made
public. On November 23rd of the same year one more
great journalist passed away. He left a large estate, but
a larger host of friends.
GEORGE W, CHILDS.
NO one can read the life of George W. Childs without
a feeling slowly coming over him that the possibili
ties of our country are indeed very great. Certain it is
that when we see so many examples showing what has
been done by poor boys from the farm, we* are forced to
exclaim that we live in a free country ; despite what
some say we reiterate, our country is free.
George W. Childs, at the age of ten, became an
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 73
errand boy in a book-store in Baltimore, and after a
period of over a year in the Navy which he served later,
he removed to Philadelphia and once more entered a
iDOok-store his natural calling. After four years ap
prenticeship, when less than twenty, with his savings he
opened a small book-store on his own account.
"Where there s a will there s a way," so believed
young Childs. He determined to one day be proprietor of
the Philadelphia Public Ledger. "Aim high that you
may not strike low," how true that adage is. When you
see a boy make up his mind to do something ; if he makes
his actions correspond with his words, you can rest as
sured that it will be done. Sickness may come ; disap
pointments will follow, but all must be overcome.
Jerome B. Rice determined to succeed in the seed
business, but just as success seemed about to crown his
efforts that terrible disease, rheumatism, came and de
formed him. He lost the entire use of his lower limbs,
but his brain was spared, and his determination was un
shaken. An invalid chair was bought, a colored man
wheels him every morning to his office door where
loving hands gently lift him, chair and all, up the steps
of the beautiful building now occupied and owned by
Jerome B. Rice & Co. Nearly thirty years have passed
and Jerome B. Rice has not taken a step, but during that
time, despite all obstacles, the firm of Jerome B. Rice &
o. has become one of the leading seed-growing concerns
of America. Young men with the same chance he had
are apt to say, "It s no use." We answer, "Where there s
a will there s a way." "To think a thing impossible is
to make it so."
George W. Childs determined to own the Public Led
ger. He determined to own the leading paper of the
74 HIDDEN TREASURES.
great city of Philadelphia, and he was a poor boy. Was
this presumption ? If it was he has proved its practica
bility. If he was building an air-castle he has since
placed a firm foundation under it. He labored hard in
this little store of his ; he built his own fires ; he did his
own sweeping, it was the same old story; he hired
done nothing that he could himself do. He made some
money not very fast but a good average profit, and
he saved what he did earn. He mastered the publishing
business, and he developed a marked business capacity
in that line. A man usually fills the notch for which he
is fitted : I was about to say I will say that he fits him
self to the notch which he does fill. Sometime we
see men in subordinate positions who apparently are
capable of the best, but a careful study reveals a screw
loose somewhere ; there is a weak point, and invariably
that point is the one thing which stands between them
and victory. "Neither do men light a candle and put it
under a bushel, but on a candle stick, and it giveth light
to all that are in the house." So said Christ eighteen
hundred years ago ; is it not so to-day ? As young Childs
had ability, and it was apparent, what matter it how old
he was or where he came from ? All the world asks is>
" What can he do"?
The publishing firm of R. E. Peterson & Co. sought
his alliance, and the firm of Childs and Peterson became
known far and near. Do our readers call this luck ? He
now became a successful publisher, and seemingly his
cup was running over, so far as this world was concerned,
but it will be remembered that years ago he determined
to own the Public Ledger, provided he lived. He was
alive and his purpose still remained. He was waiting
and watching. The Ledger was a penny paper the war
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 75
broke out stock went up the management was weak
ened by death and other complications, the Public Ledger
was losing nearly $500 every time it went to press. The
paper, great as it was, was losing $3,000 a week at the
rate of $150,000 a year. Now was Mr. Child s chance.
In vain did friends entreat ; in vain did wise business
men shake their heads ; Mr. Childs felt that his time had
come, and he bought the paper, paying for it nearly
$150,000. The new proprietor changed things; the pa
per was made a two cent issue, and into the Pttblic Led
ger he now threw his whole soul. " There is a tide in the
affairs of men, which taken at the flood leads on to
fortune." It is even so ; he had purchased the Ledger at
the right time.
Not one man in a hundred can successfully edit a
newspaper ; not one editor in twenty could edit the Pub
lic Ledger with success. Yet, Mr. Childs is one man out
of the hundreds he, is the one editor out of that twenty.
He determined to publish only the truth ; all claim to do
that, but Mr. Childs does it. The paper grew, and on the
20th of June, 1867, the Public Ledger took possession of
its new building. This new building cost half a million
of dollars, and is one of the finest in the city. At its
formal opening many of the most distinguished men in
the country were present.
Mr. Childs has been largely instrumental in establish
ing a small city at Wayne Station. He owns a large
tract of land which he has divided into building lots of
about an acre each. Any one desiring a home can get
one by paying one-third down, and he is also furnished
plans from which to select his ideal of a home. The
houses built from these plans cost from $2,000 to $8,000
each. Mr. Childs and his partner, Mr. Drexel, have ex-
76 HIDDEN TREASURES.
pended about $2,000,000 exclusively for beautifying the
city.
Years ago Mr. Childs told a gentleman that he meant
to prove that a man could be at once liberal and success
ful as a man of business, and the princely hospitality of
this good man has demonstrated, beyond doubt or con
tradiction, its practicability. Dinners to newsboys and
life insurance policies given to the wives of his em
ployes; such acts make up the history of his life. The
late Chief Justice of Pennsylvania once said in a speech:
" Some men pursue military glory, and spend their time
and energies in the subjugation of nations. Caesar and
Napoleon may be named as types of this character. But
the tears and blood which follow violence and wrong
maculate the pages of history on which their glory is
recorded. Others erect splendid palaces for kingly resi
dences, and costly temples and edifices for the promo
tion of education and religion in accordance with their
particular views. But views of education and religion
change, buildings waste away, and whole cities, like
Herculaneum and Pompeii, are buried in the earth.
Others again win public regard by the construction of
means of communication for the furtherance of com
merce. The canals, railroads, and telegraph are glorious
specimens of their useful exertion for the public good.
But the marts of commerce change. Tyre and Sidon,
and Venice are no longer commercial centres. The shores
of the Pacific are even now starting in a race against the
great commercial emporium of our continent. But Mr.
Childs has planted himself in the human heart, and he
will have his habitation there while man shall dwell
upon earth. He has laid the foundation of his monu
ment upon universal benevolence. Its superstructure is
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 77
composed of good and noble deeds. Its spire is the love
of God which ascends to Heaven." Such a monument
is, indeed,
1 A Pyramid so wide and high
That Cheops stand in envy by."
Is not that glorious success ? But if the name of
George W. Childs was not a synonym for charity and
philanthropy, the fact that he has demonstrated beyond
doubt the possibility of making a newspaper not only
pure and clean, but also proving that people will buy
wholesome news, as well as trash, and thus refuting the
opinion that the people are wholly responsible for the
vile matter that is circulated, ought alone to commend
him to the world as a great benefactor. Worldly rea-
soners and great financiers, wiseacres and successful
editors prophesied its failure, but what mattered this to
George W. Childs ? When a boy he determined to one
day own the Public Ledger ; he accomplished that. When
a man he determined to elevate the tone of a newspa
per, and thus prove the fallacy of the opinion that "A
newspaper must print all the news, no matter what, or
else fail " ; he has here also fulfilled his desires. Surely r
"Where there s a will there s a way."
JAMES GORDON BENNETT,
WHEN Horace Greeley was starting the Tribune the
Herald was five or six years old, and its success as
sured. Mr. Greeley started his as an uncompromising
78 HIDDEN TREASURES.
party paper ; Mr. Bennett presented the Herald to the peo-
as an independent paper, the first ever published that
was simply an indicator of public opinion bound and
gagged by no party.
To Scotland shall we as a nation ever be indebted for
one of the greatest journalists of the nineteenth century.
When about fifteen years old he entered a Catholic school
at Aberdeen expecting to enter the clergy, but after an
academic life of two or three years he abandoned the
idea. This sudden change was in no small degree influ
enced by an edition of "Benjamin Franklin s Autobiog
raphy" which was published in Edinburgh about this
time. He was greatly taken with the spirit of this
volume which found sympathy in his thrifty Scotch na
ture. From the moment he finished this life of Frank
lin he determined to come to America, and after a short
stay in Halifax, and Boston, his stay in each place being
attended with great privation, we find him in the year
1822 in the city of New York, and still later he is em
ployed on the Charleston Courier, of Charleston, South
Carolina. There his knowledge of Spanish was a benefit,
enabling him to translate the Cuban exchanges, and to
decipher the advertisements which were sent in that
language.
After a few months he returned to New York where
he attempted to open a Commercial School. This
scheme came to naught, however, and he then tried
lecturing on political economy with but moderate suc
cess to say the least. He soon saw that these undertak
ings were not in his sphere, and once more he returned to
journalism. He first connected himself with the New York
Courier and when that journal became merged into the
Enquirer he was chosen associate editor. After this the
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 79
senior editor, J.Watson Webb, turned square around and
began to support the United States Bank which he had
so bitterly opposed and fought so vehemently. Young
Bennett now withdrew and started a small paper, The
Globe, but it was short-lived. He next went to Phila
delphia and assumed the principal editorship of the
Pennsylvanian. At that time all papers allied them
selves to one party or the other.
Mr. Bennett conceived the idea of an independent
paper ; one which would be bound to no party or ring.
He accordingly returned to New York for this purpose.
He was very short of funds, and this fact alone would
have discouraged most young men; not so with this
man. He hired a cellar; two barrels with a board
across served as desk on which was an ink-stand and
goose quill. The proprietor of these apartments was
not only editor and manager, but reporter, cashier,
book-keeper, salesman, messenger and office boy. One
hour he was writing biting editorials or spicy paragraphs;
the next rushing out to report a fire or some other catas
trophe, working sixteen to twenty hours per day. He per
suaded a young firm to print his paper, and he was thus
tided over that difficulty. Most young men would never
have undertaken such a task, but what would they have
done had they, after embarking in it, been twice burned
out and once robbed within the first fifteen months ?
Such was the experience of Bennett, but as expressed by
himself, he raked the Herald from the fire by almost
superhuman efforts, and a few months later, when the
great fire occurred in Wall street, he went to the scene
himself and picked up all kinds of information about the
firms burnt out, the daring deeds of the firemen, and
anything sensational he did not fail to print. He also
80 HIDDEN TREASURES.
went to the unheard of expense of printing a map of
the burnt district and a picture of the Produce Exchange
on fire. This enterprise cost, but it gave the Herald a
boom over all competitors, which it well maintains. It
was the first paper that published a daily money article
and stock list, and as soon as possible Bennett set up a
Ship News establishment consisting of a row-boat
manned by three men to intercept all incoming vessels
and ascertain their list of passengers and the particulars
of the voyage.
Mr. Calhoun s speech on the Mexican war, the first
ever sent to any paper by telegraph, was published in
the Herald. At one time when his paper wished to pre
cede all rivals in publishing a speech delivered at Wash
ington, for the purpose of holding the wire, Mr. Bennett
ordered the telegraph operator to begin and transmit
the whole Bible if necessary, but not to take any other
message until the speech came. Such enterprise cost,
but it paid ; and so it has ever been. Seemingly regard
less of expense, bureaus of information for the Herald
were established in every clime. i Always ahead
seemed to be the motto of James Gordon Bennett, and
surely enterprise was no small factor in the phenomenal
success of the Herald. The tone, it has been said, was
not always so edifying as that of its contemporaries, the
Post and Commercial, still every article was piercing as a
Damascus blade. To buy one paper meant to become
afterwards one of its customers. It was indeed aston
ishing what a variety of reading was contained in one of
those penny sheets ; every thing was fresh and piquant,
so different from the old party papers. As originally in
tended, the Herald has always been independent in
politics, although inclined to be Democratic. It sup-
5
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 81
ported Fremont and the Republican party, and was one
of the staunch war papers.
Mr. Bennett has been described as being stern and
disagreeable in his manners. In this we do not fully
concur, and in view of the large number of employes
who have grown old in his service, we cannot but feel
justified in this belief. Horace Greeley and James Gordon
Bennett, the two leading New York journalists, but how
different. Mr. Greeley had a larger personal following
than the Tribune; the Herald had a larger friendship
than did Bennett who was the power behind the throne.
Journalism lost no lesser light when the great Herald
editor passed away June 1st, 1872, than it did six months
later when Horace Greeley passed from darkness into
light. As Mr. Bennett was a life-long Catholic, he re
ceived the last sacrament from the hands of the re
nowned Cardinal McClosky.
PHINEAS T, BARNUM,
WE would not pass by so remarkable a character as
that presented to us in the life of P. T. Barnum.
a man born of poor parents at Bethel, Connecticut,
Like many boys, he picked up pennies driving oxen for
his father, but unlike many other boys he would invest
these earnings in nick-nacks which he would sell to joy
ful picknickers on every holiday, thus his pennies in
creased to dollars. At an early age he was deprived of
82 HIDDEN TREASURES.
his father, and began work for himself at six dollars per
month. He here saved his money, and afterwards
Opened a store which proved a successful business ven
ture, especially after he added a lottery scheme. It is
interesting to read of the many of our successful men
Who have drifted from one thing to another until they
settled upon some life-work, then there was a hard strug
gle for victory, which was sure to come, provided they
persevered.
In 1835 Barnum heard of a negress in Philadelphia
who was reputed to have been the nurse of George
"Washington, and who it was claimed was 162 years old.
Barnum immediately set out for Philadelphia, and suc
ceeded in buying her for $1,000. This was more money
than he already had ; he, therefore, risked more than he
owned, but by judicious advertising he was enabled to
draw large houses, bringing the show up to paying $1,-
500 per week. The next year the negress died, and a
post mortem examination proved her to be possibly
eighty years old, but Barnum had secured a good start.
From this time on, for fifteen years, he was connected
with traveling shows, and his museum proved a most
profitable enterprise.
In 1842 Mr. Barnum first heard of Mr. Charles Strat-
ton, whom he presented to the world as General Tom
Thumb exhibiting him in both America and Europe.
In 1849, after much correspondence, he secured the
sweet singer, Jenny Lind, for one hundred nights, at one
thousand dollars per night. His profits on these concerts
were simply immense, and he retired from business.
In 1857 it was heralded all over the land that Barnum
had failed. It was so ; unfortunate speculations had
swamped him, and he returned to New York a bankrupt.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 83
Without a dollar he bought the Museum again, and in
less than a year he succeeded in paying for it. His life
henceforth has been full of its ups and downs ; twice was
he burned out, but as often he came forth in some new
role or rather an improvement on the old.
General Tom Thumb was again taken to Europe. This
venture, and his lecture on Money Making, in England,
succeeded beyond his most sanguine expectations. Every
note was taken up, and he is to-day once more a million
aire. He has been for years the central figure in The
Greatest Show on Earth, the expense of which is from
four to five thousand dollars a day. But not alone is he
great as a showman ; his lectures must have made him
noted, and he is connected with different other enter
prises.
He is averyshrewed man, and is also honest. Think of
it ! at fifty a ruined man, owing thousands more than he
possessed, yet resolutely resuming business life once
more fairly wringing success from adverse fortune, and
paying his notes at the same time.
When solicited for money with which to carry on his
campaign for Congress, he answered, " God grant that I
be defeated, sooner than one grain of gold be so basely
used." Such principles are glorious, and upon their per
petuation depends the rise or fall of a Republican form
of government. Mr. Barnum s latest sensation, in order
to draw crowds, is the consolidation of his great show
with that mammoth show formerly belonging to Adam
Forepaugh. This caps the climax, the two "Greatest
Shows on Earth" united.
84 HIDDEN TREASURES.
MATHEW VASSAR,
T T ASSAR COLLEGE, five hundred feet long and five
V stories high, is a momument of which any man
might be proud. The founder, Mathew Vassar, was born
in England in 1792, and four years later landed in
America, settling in Poughkeepsie, on a farm with his
parents.
In those days the English people thought that they
could n t live without a yearly supply of home-brewed
ale ; such a thing being unknown in the quiet commu
nity to which they had come. As there was no barley to
be had, seed was imported from the mother-country and
the family once more enjoyed their favorite beverage.
When neighbors called they were, of course, invited to
partake, and the fame of Vassar s ale steadily increased,
until finally the father concluded to manufacture the
ale to sell. Mathew, for some reason, disliked to go into
the brewery to work, and the irate father bound him
out to a neighboring tanner. However, when the time
came for young Vassar to go, lo, he was nowhere to be
found.
He fled to Newburg, where he remained four years,
learning to keep books, and saving his money. He then
returned to his home and, having demonstrated that he
could both earn and keep money, was duly installed
in his father s establishment as book-keeper. All
went well for some time, till at last a fire came, destroy
ing all the property, ruining his father, and worst of all
causing his brother s death. The father now returned
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 85
to a farm, but Mathew determined to retrieve the busi
ness. He began business in an old shed. The supply
was of necessity small, but it was an A 1. article,
and its fame increased, making the ale of Yassar known
far and near, From such a beginning the business de
veloped into an immense establishment, with a profita
ble business, which he carried on for over thirty years,
when he retired.
In company with his wife he made an European tour,
and on his return resolved to do something with his
money for the betterment of society. On the 28th of
February, 1861, twenty-eight gentlemen received from
Mathew Vassar, a box containing $408,000, in trust, for
the establishment of a college for the education of
young ladies. The result of their efforts was Vassar Fe
male College, afterwards changed to Vassar College.
His entire donations for the establishment and mainte
nance of this institution of learning amounted to about
$800,000. It was the first Female College ever estab
lished. His influence will be felt by the numerous gen
erations which will follow him.
JOHN JACOB ASTOR,
NOT far from the lovely Hiedelberg on the Rhine, is the
picturesque village of Walldorf, which is the birth
place of John Jacob Astor, who was born in 176$. His
father was a peasant, thus it is seen that he had not the
86 HIDDEN TREASURES.
advantages of family influence or assistance. He saved
what little money he could earn, and at sixteen set out
on foot for the sea coast, where he took passage in a
vessel for London. He had a brother in that city who
was, in a small way, a manufacturer of musical instru
ments. Here he remained until 1783, when he em
barked for America, taking some flutes with him. On the
voyage he made the acquaintance of a furrier. This in
dividual he plied with numerous questions, until he was
quite familiar with the business, and when he reached
America he at once exchanged his flutes for furs,
and hastening back to England succeeded in selling them
at a fair profit over all expenses.
Having disposed of his business in London, he en
gaged passage in a ship which did not return for some
weeks. In the meantime he purchased a lot of goods
which he thought would prove salable in America. He
also improved the time in visiting the Governor of the
then great East India Company. The Governor was
from his native town in Germany, and Astor, making
the most of this fact, secured from him a permit to
trade at any port subject to the East India Company.
When he arrived in New York once more he at once
closed a bargain with a West India trader, that gentle
man furnishing a ship and cargo, Astor the permit, which
was very valuable, as it gained them access to Canton,
China, which was closed to all foreigners save the vessels
of the East India Company. The terms of this bargain
was that each should participate equally in the profits
of the voyage, and Astor s share was several barrels of
milled dollars, the total profit being about $110,000.
He after this bought ships of his own, and shipped
his own merchandise to the East, bringing back cargoes
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 87
to be sold in the new world. The Government at Wash
ington approved of Astor s proposition to get possession
of the fur business of the Interior, controlled at that
time by British companies. He succeeded in raising a
corporation with $1,000,000 capital, and within a few
years Mr. Astor controlled the fur interests of the
country. This was back in Jefferson s time when the
city of New York was a small village. Astor, with that
keen foresight which marked his life s history, had been
buying land on Staten Island, and the marvelous growth
of the city brought the price of his possessions up to
fabulous amounts, and the latter part of his life his
whole attention was occupied in taking care of his great
blocks of real estate.
While other merchants went to their desks at nine,
Astor could always be seen there at prompt seven. He
early in life, before leaving his old home on the Rhine,
resolved to be honest, to be industrious, and to avoid
gambling. Upon this solid moral basis he built .the
superstructure of his fame and secured his great wealth.
The one great act of John Jacob Astor s life, which
must forever keep the name of Astor before the people,
is the establishment of the Astor Library by donating
for that purpose $400,000, to which have been added
large contributions by his son William B., to whom the
elder Astor left about $20,000,000. The library contains
about two hundred thousand volumes, the catalogue alone
contains two thousand five hundred pages alphabetically
arrranged. The Astors are the principal real estate
owners of America.
HIDDEN TREASURES.
POTTER PALMER,
^ HOTEL that has averaged five hundred and fifty
2F1 daily arrivals for a dozen years. This naturally
awakens interest ; where is it ? Who built it ? How does
it look ? In answer, we speak of the Palmer House, of
Chicago, the Palace Hotel of America/ built by Potter
Palmer. The building is as nearly fire-proof as any
building can be made, and is swarming with servants.
You are accommodated with a room which satisfies
your desires financially ; and upon entering the dining-
room you can choose between the American and Euro
pean plans. This hotel is, indeed, first-class in every
respect. It certainly enjoys the widest reputation as
such of any on the continent, and is undoubtedly the finest
hotel in America, save possibly the Palace Hotel, in San-
Francisco, which is a rival in magnificence.
Mr. Palmer was born near Albany, New York, where
he worked summers among the farmers as a day-laborer,
and attended the district school winters. This kind of
life was maintained until he was nearly nineteen years
of age when he entered a store at Durham, New York,
as a clerk. Here he allowed nothing to escape his at
tention and, by industry, coupled with frugality, he was
enabled to enter a business on his own account when
twenty-one. Mr. Palmer, like all other young men who
have risen from poverty to affluence, was constantly alive
to the problems of the day ; especially did the subject of
this narrative watch the indications of progress in his
native country.
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 89
Being filled with the idea that Chicago was to be the
city of America, he in 1852 moved West to that city.
Here he opened a dry-goods business which grew to mam
moth proportions for those days. After fourteen years
of successful trade he retired, investing heavily in real
estate. When the great fire came much of his vast gains
were swept away, but with that indomitable will and
courage which has always characterized his efforts, he
succeeded in forming a company which successfully
brought to completion the magificent hotel before men
tioned. Probably no man has been more closely identi
fied with the project of improving the streets of Chicago.
When Palmer first entered the city he found it situ
ated in a slough. It was generally supposed that the
ground upon which the city was built was a natural
swamp, and when Palmer, among others, advocated the
idea of raising the streets they were ridiculed. But sub
sequent tests proved that beneath the surface there was
a solid rock bottom, therefore it was impossible for the
water to leach through. When this was an established
fact, and therefore the grumblers were deprived of this
excuse, the cry was raised that the city could not af
ford it. Against all obstacles the measure was carried,
however, and State Street was widened, making it one of
the grandest and most stately streets among any that
can be found in any city on the entire globe. Indeed, it
is difficult to estimate the possible benefit Chicago may
have derived, directly or indirectly, through the influence
of Potter Palmer.
90 HIDDEN TREASURES.
JAMES HARPER.
In a treatise on the Harpers, their life and character,
the history of James is the history of the firm. This
firm consisted of James, John, Joseph, Wesley and
Fletcher ; James, as the eldest, laying the foundation of
that powerful concern, Harper Brothers, which is the
largest and wealthiest publishing house in America.
James Harper was born April 11. 1795. Like many
other poor boys who have become wealthy he was the
son of a farmer. He early determined to become a.
printer and, in 1810, was apprenticed to Messrs. Paul &
Thomas of the city of New York. He left home to as
sume this position, the prayers of his parents following
him. The last words of his mother bade him remember
that there was good blood in him. The printer boy in
those days was made a sort of lackey to be ordered about
by all hands. Among other duties he had to clean the
rollers when they became clogged with ink. The ink
would get on his hands and apron, and thence it would
reach his face thus the printer boy with his blackened
face earned the sobriquet of i printer s devil/ James
Harper became the t devil in this office. There is little
doubt but that he often felt discouraged and disposed to
give up, but he regarded this position as only a step
ping stone to something higher and pleasanter. It was
soon observed that such was the case ; that James Harper
fully expected to one day rise to be himself proprietor ;
even the street Arabs recognizing that he aspired to
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 91
higher things. One day as he was passing along the
street an audacious news-boy came up to him and gave-
him a push, while another sneeringly asked him for his
card. Seizing the latter by the shoulder he fairly kicked
the astonished ruffian half across the square. " There,"
said he, "is my card, keep it and when you want work
come to me, present that card, and I will give you work."
This ended all further molestation from this source.
His brother John came to New York in the course of
a little more than a year and entered another office, ar
ranging his apprenticeship so that it might end about
the same time as did that of his brother James. In time-
James became one of the leading pressmen in the city,
and John was one of the best compositors and proof
readers in the country. All through their long appren
ticeship they had worked evenings; the surplus thus ac
quired and not one cent of their day earnings ever went
for drink, as was so common in those days. To be temper
ate in Harper s day required far more exertion than it
would at present, as nearly everyone drank then. So
while others spent their evenings in saloons drinking,
playing pool and billiards, and i having fun, these
young Harpers were either hard at work putting in extra,
time, or at home, thus if they did not earn more they
saved what they had already earned.
When their time was out they each had a few
hundred dollars, and they began business for themselves-
under the firm-style of J. & J. Harper. They felt their
way, at first publishing books only for others. They
were industrious, no hand in their employ working
harder than the proprietors. Not only were they~
workers, but they were enterprising. When it was found
that the stereotyping consumed much of their profit,,
they resolved to learn that art and add it to their busi-
HIDDEN TREASURES.
ness. This was no small undertaking ; those already in
the business were not anxious to set up a rival, as they
felt these young men sure to become, but after much
trial and vexation the Harpers learned the art, and were
therefore better able to carry on their rapidly increasing
business. "When they had fully become established they
ventured out upon a publication of their own. They
put out but five hundred for the first edition, taking
orders in advance from the booksellers about town. The
two other brothers were apprenticed to the firm of J. &
J. Harper and, as soon as their time was out, were taken
into the firm.
In 1825 the firm-style was changed to Harper &>
Brothers. One of their business maxims was, " Mutual
confidence, industry and application to business." This
made the four one man. They ranked as equals in all
things, and the history of James Harper is the history of
Harper & Brothers. James being the eldest was once
asked, "Which is Harper and which the brothers ?" He
answered, " Either is Harper, the others are the brothers."
This was precisely the relation they bore toward each
other. In 1853 a workman threw a lighted paper into a
tank of benzine which he mistook for water, and prop
erty valued at $1,000,000 was destroyed; as their insur
ance amounted to only about $250,000 their loss was
great. This was a terrible blow, but the next day they
hired temporary quarters, and the debris was hardly
cleared away ere they had bought the ground on which
to erect the splendid building they have since occupied.
It is a most imposing structure, and is probably the
most commodious, and finest building in which to carry
on a general book business, in all its branches, in the
world ; every operation required to produce and publish
OUR COUNTRY" s WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. U3
a book being carried on under one roof. The building
is absolutely fire-proof, and is seven stories high. Un
derneath are long vaults in which their plates are stored.
In 1844 James was elected Mayor of the great city of
New York. Mr. Harper was a man of unusual ability,
this was recognized by his friends and towns people, but
he was at the head of the largest publishing business in
the country, and was loth to leave it, therefore he re-
. fused to be a candidate for Governor. He was always
full of mirth and running over with good humor, but he
was business, morning, noon and night. He remained
actively engaged in business until he was nearly seventy-
five years of age, in fact he was still in business and enjoy
ing good health when he met an untimely death, caused
by his horses running away in Central Park, throwing
him to the ground and injuring him so badly that he
died within forty-eight hours.
He was a devout Methodist, and a class-leader, but
used some of the Episcopal forms. He was a worthy
example for our youth to imitate in business or religious
matters.
HENRY DISSTON,
IN Tewksbury, England, May 24th, 1819, was born a
little boy who was destined to become one of the lead
ing manufacturers of the nineteenth century. At four
teen he came to America with his father, who died three
94 HIDDEN TREASURES.
days after their arrival here. A poor, homeless orphan,
in a strange land ah ! it takes courage to rise from such
a beginning. There is little* luck in the life of such
boys who become wealthy. The poet says :
"The fading flowers of pleasures
Spring spontaneous from the soil,
But the real harvest s treasure
Yields alone to patient toil."
Whether these lines ever caught the eye of Henry
Disston or no, we are not able to say ; certain it is, how
ever, that he concurred in that belief, for so hard did he
work, and so closely did he study the business, that he
was made foreman when he was but eighteen.
When his seven long years of apprenticeship was up
he arranged with his employer to take his wages in tools.
With scarcely any money, he wheeled a barrow load of
coal to his cellar where he began to make saws. Saws
of American manufacture, were at that time held in
poor esteem, and he had a great public prejudice to over
come. But Henry Disston determined to show people
that he could compete with foreign goods, and to do this
he sometimes sold goods at an advance of only one per
cent. He moved to a small room twenty feet square, at
the corner of Front and Laurel streets ; this was in 1846.
In 1849 he was burned out, and before he rebuilt he ob
tained control of additional land adjoining that which he
had occupied, and here built a new factory. Now he be
gan to reap the reward of his early toil and study. He
was enterprising, like all successful men, and his invent
ive genius soon enabled him to get up new designs for
teeth to do different kinds of work. He never allowed
a poor tool, or an imperfect one, to be shipped from his
factory. Consequently a market once gained was easily
kept. His enterprise induced him to add a tile works to
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 95
his already large business ; in fact, the Keystone Saw
Works made a splendid exhibit at the Centennial, show
ing all kinds of tools made from steel. His works cover
hundreds of acres of land, and employ over fifteen
hundred hands, while the business extends all over the
world.
In March, 1878, this great manufacturer died in Phil
adelphia. He was a very common man great wealth
did not spoil him, and he could perform with his own
hands any part of the work in his immense establish
ment. This ability to work thorough mastery of the
business, which had taken years of patient thought to
develop, brought about his splendid success.
PETER COOPER
WHO, indeed, is there who has not heard of Peter
Cooper ? He was born in the city of New York
in 1791. His father was a man who possessed some
ability, but was so inconstant that the poor boy received
only about six months schooling, and he received that
before he was eight years old.
Reader, think of it; can you make yourself believe
that his great riches came through good luck ? we will
see : His father, being a hatter, little Peter was early
employed pulling the hair off the rabbit skins to obtain
material with which to make the hats. In the course
of time his father moved to Peekskill, and at seventeen
96 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Peter resolved to strike out into the world for himself.
He returned to his native city and apprenticed himself
to the firm of Burtis & Woodward. Here he remained
four years where he acquired a thorough mastery of the
coach-making trade. In addition to his board he re
ceived during his apprenticeship the sum of twenty-five
dollars per year with which to clothe himself. Although
he had spent four long years learning the trade of coach-
making he, for some reason, determined not to make
that his calling for life. Accordingly he went to Hemp-
stead, Long Island, and there he met a party who was
manufacturing a patent shears for shearing cloth. To
this man he engaged himself at $1.50 per day, where he
remained until the business became unremunerative, a
period of three years. He next turned his attention to
the business of making and selling cabinet furniture ;
at the end of a year he sold out this business, and with
his family returned to New York city.
He now entered the grocery business and the next
year, seeing his opportunity, leased for a period of nine
teen years a piece of land containing a few buildings.
He now moved his grocery business into one of these
buildings, subletting the others at a profit. His eyes
were kept open, and he never let an opportunity slip by
to turn an honest penny. There was a glue factory situ
ated not far from his present location. True, it had
never paid, and that seemed to be reason enough for all
others, but Cooper made a study of the glue business.
He satisfied himself that he could make it pay ; he
thought he could see where the trouble was with the
present proprietor, and he bought it out, paying two
thousand dollars, cash down, for it. By a progressive
study of this new business he soon produced a better
6
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 97
article than was made by others, and so materially re
duced the price as to drive out foreign competition from
the American markets. Of course, he made money, and
when he saw that we paid Russia four dollars per pound
for isinglass, he studied up on the manufacture of the
same, and added that article to his business, and
soon was enabled to sell it at less than ONE DOLLAR
A POUND. It is needless to say that he succeeded m
completely monopolizing the isinglass industry for a
long time, and his profit on that one article would have
made him a very rich man.
Mr. Cooper was an observing man ; he saw and real
ized that our country was rich in mineral resources ; es
pecially was his attention drawn toward the iron deposits
in Pennsylvania and neighboring States. He felt that
there was big money in that business for the man who
early entered the field ; he felt that there would be
money in it for Peter Cooper. These feelings made him
an easy victim to two sharpers who one morning entered
his premises and succeeded in getting him to invest-
$150,000 in a large tract of land, in Maryland, of some
three thousand acres. He was told that this land was on
a boom/ as the Baltimore and Ohio Railway, it was ru
mored, would soon be completed. The steep grades,
however, and sharp curves, made it impossible for en
gines then known to make the road in safety. Indeed,
it seemed that his land speculation was destined to prove
a * White Elephant on his hands, and, with nine out of
ten men it would have so proved, as they would have given
up right here. Mr. Cooper set about this problem re
solved to solve it. He soon saw that the success of the
Baltimore and Ohio was the success of his speculation.
The only thing needed to bring this success was an en-
98 HIDDEN TEEA8UEES.
gine that could ascend the grades and turn the curves
in safety.
He set to work patiently, and succeeded in inventing
an engine that would do what was required of it, he,
himself acting as engineer on its trial trip. This and
other favorable influences which were brought about
through the success of the railroad, boomed his land in
dead earnest this time. He next established an iron
furnace on the site of his land and burned the wood for
charcoal. The land went on up, and when it reached
two hundred and thirty dollars per acre he sold out at
an immense profit. He still continued in the iron busi
ness, and as he was always studying his business, he was
the first man to roll out iron beams for fire-proof build
ings. His iron industries spread all over Pennsylvania,
and the business is to-day carried on by his successors.
As is well-known, he was one of the warm supporters of
Cyrus W. Field from first to last, extending his aid and
sympathy. When the Bank of New Foundland refused to
honor the Cable Company s paper Peter Cooper advanced
the much needed funds. While all this business was on
his mind his glue and isinglass industry was not in the
least neglected. He had removed the works to Long
Island, where it assumed mammoth proportions. The
profits of this giant combination of business poured the
money into his pockets in large streams.
One feature of the great success of Peter Cooper was
he always paid cash. But the great life-work of Peter
Cooper is embellished with one gem that is perpetually
bright. We speak of Cooper Union. In 1854 the ground
was cleared, the plans made and the work begun. This
institution cost Cooper about eight hundred thousand
dollars. It is deeded as a trust, with all its rents and
OUR COUNTRY S WEALTH, AND WHO POSSESS IT. 99
profits, to the instruction and profit of the poor working
people of New York city. Mr. Cooper himself thus de
scribes his motives: "The great object that I desire to
accomplish by the erection of this institution is to open
the avenues of scientific knowledge to the youth of our
city and country, and so unfold the volume of nature
that the youth may see the beauties of creation, enjoy
its blessings and learn to love the Author from whom
cometh every good and perfect gift." Could any senti
ment be more beautiful ? Could any motive be more
worthy of imitation than this ?
He was a Democrat and a member of Tammany Hall,
but toward the latter part of his life he became a leader
of the Greenback party, being a candidate for President
on that ticket. He had good habits and was always oc
cupied with business. Two children are living, Edward,
and a daughter who married Mr. A. S. Hewitt. The son
and son-in-law have each been mayor of their city.
There was great mourning in JSTevv York city on April
4th, 1883, when it was learned that Peter Cooper was
dead. But man liveth not to himself, his memory and
influence will be felt by the countless generations which
will follow after his death. Certain it is those who are
benefited by the aid of "Cooper Union" will not forget
their benefactor.
"There is a wide difference between men, but truly it lies
less in some special gift or opportunity vouchsafed to one and
withheld from another less in that than in the differing
degree in which these common elements of human potcer are
owned and used. Not how much talent have I, but hoiv much
will to use the talent that I have, is the main question. Not
how much do I know, but how much do I do with what 1
know?"
100
SUCCESSFUL
AND
H0 THEY EARNED SUCCESS
ON October 25th, 1806, in a an humble farmer s home,
was born a boy ; that boy was George Law. For
eighteen summers he lived contentedly on his father s
farm, but a stray volume, containing a story of a cer
tain farmer boy who left home to seek his fortune, and
after years of struggle returned rich, caught his eye, and
young Law determined to go and do likewise. His edu
cation was meager, but he had mastered Daboll s
Arithmetic.
Having decided that he could not follow the occupa
tion of his father, he set at work to raise the amount he
deemed necessary to carry him to success. By exercis
ing great frugality in his already simple mode of living,
he managed to save forty dollars, and at the age of
101
102 HIDDEN TREASURES.
eighteen he set out on foot for Troy, New York, thirty-
six miles distant. Putting up at the cheapest hotel he
could find, he immediately went out in search of employ
ment, which he soon found, beginning as a hod-carrier.
He next obtained employment as a helper, laying brick
and i picking up points/ soon obtained employment as a
mason at $1.75 per day.
But George Law did not mean to always be a day-
laborer, he observed everything closely, and books were
freely bought that would help him to a better under
standing of his business. Seven long years of day-labor
ing, then he became a sub-contractor, then a contractor.
His first efforts in this capacity was building bridges in va
rious parts of Pennsylvania and although it has been said
that he could not spell correctly any word in the English
language, of three syllables, yet, so carefully were his
plans laid that on every contract that he took he cleared
money. He put in a bid for three sections of the Cro-
ton Aqueduct, and succeeded in obtaining the work on two
of them. High Bridge was afterwards awarded to him,
among a host of competitors, and was completed in ten
years time from its beginning. These two contracts
alone had made him a millionaire, but his active mind
could not rest.
He first turned his attention to bank stocks. Next
h6 became interested in the horse railway system of New
York city. He bought the Staten Island Ferry, run it
five years, and sold out. He was also much interested in
steam ships. Nearly all these ventures proved profita
ble, and at his death his estate amounted to about $15,-
000,000. He was a giant in size, being over six feet tall,
and his mind compared favorably with his stature. His
whole energies were concentrated on money-getting and,
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 103
of course, he succeeded. It has been said that he walked
until he could ride, and lived humbly until his wealth
would more than warrant his living on Fifth Avenue.
He carried the hod until he found better work, and never
left one position until he had found a better one, no
matter what his real or supposed provocation might be.
He lived to return home, as did the boy of whom he
early read, and established his father comfortably on a
farm which he had bought for him.
DARIUS 0, MILLS.
IN Westchester county, New York, was born one
bright September day, in 1825, Darius 0. Mills.
True, it is, that his parents were somewhat well-to-do
people, but Darius 0. Mills would have become a
wealthy man had he been born in poverty.
If a man determines to succeed and has a perceptive
mind to see opportunities, if he relies on no one but him
self, and follows this up by hard, persistent work, he
will succeed. If he does not he is lacking in some other
vital point, but we have never yet read the life of any
man who possessed these qualities but that he was a
success. What one has done another can do under the
same conditions and circumstances. For some time he
was casting about to find his calling, and finally deter
mined to become a banker. In this sphere he has
proven himself a phenomenon. His talent for money-
104 HIDDEN TREASURES.
making was early apparent, and he was appointed
cashier of a bank in Buffalo when only twenty-one.
Now it must not be imagined that Darius 0. Mills was
picked up indiscriminately and placed in so responsible
a position. Things do not come by chance. It is evident
the case under consideration did not happen through
good luck. He was a young man of unusual ability, of
which he has always made the most. The bank flour
ished and at twenty-three he resigned and, taking what
money he had, he was soon on his way to California.
He did not go there to dig gold. Darius 0. Mills knew
that gold was the object of nearly every one who went ;
he also knew that the people must live ; he perceived
the chance to make a fortune as a merchant. Like any
man who will succeed, he acted at once. In 1849 he
settled in San Francisco, opening trade with the miners.
In the course of a few years he became immensely
rich through very successful trade and, as he was about
to retire from active business, the Bank of California
was projected. This he materially aided into existence,
and as he was recognized as one of the ablest financiers
in the city, he was chosen its first President. So well
did he manage its affairs that it soon became the leading
banking institution in the country, wielding an immense
power in the financial world. He remained at its head
for nine years when his private fortune had assumed
such mammoth proportions that it demanded his im
mediate attention, he therefore resigned in 1873.
In 1875 his successor, William G. Ralston, was asked
to resign and the bank suspended. Mr. Ralston was a
splendid man, but had been somewhat unwise in placing
the bank s money, and thus the failure was brought
about. At a meeting of the directors it was decided to
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 105
ask for the resignation of the President. Mr. Mills was
the person selected to convey the intelligence of the
result of the meeting to Mr. Ralston and this he did.
Mr. Mills, much against his personal desire, once more
assumed the presidency of the bank, and after three
years he once more resigned to attend to his private
affairs; leaving the bank in a nourishing condition.
Possibly no man in America is better capable of hand
ling large sums of money, to bring not only large returns,
but to handle the money safely.
In 1880 he turned his attention toward the East,
moving his family to Fifth Avenue, New York city.
His large business block, the Mills Building, ten stories
high, fitted up for offices containing three hundred in
all, is a magnificent structure. His wealth is very great,
being estimated at from fifteen to twenty millions of
dollars. He has established on the Pacific slope, at a
cost of about two hundred thousand dollars, a seminary
for young ladies.
He has also presented a beautiful piece of statuary to
the State of California. It is a magnificent gift, repre
senting Columbus at the court of Isabella. He has given
numerous costly presents to institutions and relatives.
Among the shrewd far-sighted men of the country few
are more distinguished than is Darius Ogdon Mills.
Hfc
106 HIDDEN TREASURES.
STEPHEN GIRARD,
STEPHEN GIRARD was born in Bordeaux, France,
May 24th, 1750. He lived in an age when avenues of
business were utilized by the rich. A poor boy had little
chance of being other than a poor man. Not only was
the subject of this sketch born to poverty, but he also
inherited a deformity which made him the butt of ridi
cule among his vulgar companions. His childhood was
made up of neglect which developed a cold, distant na
ture. He is generally described as a loveless old man,
but his biographers seem to forget the influences that
surrounded his childhood. Such were the opportunities
enjoyed by Grirard ; such the chance offered to him, but
he held that a man s best capital was " industry," and
this seemed to have been his main idea to the last; as he
willed but little property to his relatives, and but little
to any one individual.
He sailed as cabin boy at the age of twelve, and by
following a line of fidelity, industry and temperance,
gained the esteem and confidence of the captain who
gradually learned to call him " My Stephen," and at his
death placed him in command of a small vessel. He
became a resident of Philadelphia, and owned a farm a
short distance out of the city. When he visited this
farm he rode in an old gig drawn by a scrawny horse ;
when he arrived he fell to work like any common hand,
and labored as though his very subsistence depended on
it. This is an illustration showing the secret of his sue-
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 107
cess in life. He was familiar with every detail, in every
department of his business; no matter what part of hia
business he went to oversee he was no novice.
With Stephen Girard nothing came by chance. He
was a self-taught man, having but little education so far
as books go; but in the great school of actual business
he received a diploma, and to this was afterwards added
several complimentary degrees earned after his gradua
tion. He never ceased to be a progressive man. A large
range of stores were for sale in the city of Philadelphia
at a great sacrifice; these Girard would have been glad
to buy but he lacked sufficient funds; seeing it beyond
his means to buy safely, he leased them for a term of
years and then sublet them at an immense profit.
How few young men have the necessary enterprise
to gain for themselves success. Girard had both enter
prise and energy; it is not at all surprising that he suc
ceeded. And this was not all; of whatever he undertook
he had thoroughly mastered the details, hence was pre
pared for success and made money; that money
he saved. Ah! that is three-fourths of the secret.
Most young men earn enough but foolishly throw it
away on unnecessaries.
If Girard owed a man a cent he could rest assured
that he would get it; if a man owed him there was much
trouble in the way for that man if he attempted to evade
the payment. He was just to all men and just to him
self and family. There is another feature in the history
of Girard that is worthy of imitation; that is he kept
abreast, yea,ahead of the times, he made a study of the
various problems of his day.
He saw that the United States Bank was daily grow
ing less popular, and he saw that it must go down in the
108 HIDDEN TREASURES.
near future. He had prospered in his shipping business,
and seeing here a grand opportunity he began to study
up on banking preparatory to taking the bank. Reader,
think of this kind of enterprise. His friends might
think such a thing visionary ; the best financier might
pass the opportunity by, but this man knew that the
United States Bank had a vast patronage, and he also
knew that the man who stepped into its business would
have every reason to expect success. He at once set
about to buy a controlling interest in the stock. When
the bank was discontinued it was found that he had not
only secured a controlling interest in the stock, but had
gained possession of the bank building itself. While his
friends were predicting his ruin he had bought $1,200,-
000 worth of stock and, by so doing, had stepped into
the largest banking business of the Republic.
Does one of my readers for one moment allow him
self to believe that Stephen Girard was a lucky man ?
Was it good luck that placed Girard at one move at
the head of American financiers ? As is well known a
great panic followed Jackson s administration, and, of a
whole nation, Stephen Girard seems to have been the
only prosperous man. His capital stock soon became
$4,000,000. In this capacity he was enabled to aid his
Government much, in fact to save it from ruin in the
terrible crash of 1837.
Stephen Girard was bent upon getting rich and yet,
while he is generally regarded as a cold money-getter,
still he had a heart, a tender heart, locked up within
that cold exterior. While the terrible plague, yellow
fever, raged in Philadelphia with a violence never before
known in American history, and while many others fled
the city, Stephen Girard remained and nursed the dying,
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS.
performing with his own hands the most loathesome
duties, and giving most liberally of his wealth toward the
fund for the suppression of the disease.
A young man, who was a protege of Girard, was one
day called to the private office of that gentleman, when
the following dialogue took place : " Well, you are now
twenty-one, and should begin to think of a life-work."
The young man who thought perhaps Girard was going
to set him up in some business, said, " What would you
do if in my place, Mr. Girard ? " Imagine his astonish
ment when Mr. Girard replied, "I should learn some
trade." The young man, who was built of the right
material, said, "Very well, I will learn the cooper s
trade." In the course of a few years he received a letter
from Mr. Girard ordering the best barrel that he could
make with his own hands. When done it was delivered.
The young man was thunderstruck when, after a
thorough inspection by Girard, he received a check for
$20,000; the reader can draw the moral.
Time fled, the 26th of December, 1831, came, and with
it the death of this man. At his death he possessed
about $9,000,000, not a large fortune compared with those
of the rich men of our day, but a colossal sum for his
day. For all practical purposes it is just as great and
useful as one hundred millions.
When his will was read it was found that he had left
to the Pennsylvania institute for deaf and dumb, $20,000 ;
to the Orphan Asylum of Philadelphia, $10,000 ; for fuel
for the poor of Philadelphia, $10,000; to the Philadel
phia Public Schools, $10,000 ; to the Society for the Re
lief of the Distressed Masters of Ships, $10,000; to
the Masonic Loan, $20,000 ; to the city of Philadelphia,
$500,000; and to the State of Pennsylvania, $300,000.
110 HIDDEN TREASURES.
There were other bequests, the largest of which was
$2,000,000, with which to found a college for orphan boys
who were to be taken between the ages of fourteen and
eighteen. He left minute directions pertaining to the
construction and other details, showing even at this time
that carefulness, which characterized his life s history.
The main building is said to be the finest specimen of
Grecian architecture in the world, it surely is the finest
in Amerca. "Contemplating the humility of his origin,
and contrasting therewith the variety and extent of his
works and wealth, the mind is filled with admiration of
the man."
MOSES TAYLOR.
WHAT a pleasure it is to read the lives of such men
as Moses Taylor. He began life as a clerk and
died worth $50,000,000; but it is not alone for his wealth
that we take such an interest in Moses Taylor, but the
good he did with it, and the example he set moneyed
men.
Born in New York, January llth, 1808, he served a
clerkship of ten long years, when he started business on his
own account. The cholera raged that year in that city ;
consequently all business suffered, many fled from their
homes but young Taylor stood by his new enterprise,
and even the first year cleared some money. Three
years later he was burned out, but while the smoulder-
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. Ill
ing brands lay at his feet he arranged to erect a new
building to stand on the same spot, and the next day
opened a store in his dwelling house. Of course such
enterprise would win in the end; when he was called to
the presidency of the city bank no one seemed supprised,
for when a man has ability it is not necessary for him to
tell it he becomes a marked personage. The success
that attended his efforts in this new capacity is shown
from the following :
In the great panic of 1857 a meeting of the various
bank presidents was called. When asked what percentage
of specie had been drawn during the day some replied
fifty per cent., some even as high as seventy five per
cent, but Moses Taylor replied, (C We had in the bank this
morning, $400,000 ; this evening, $470,000. "While other
banks were badly run, the confidence in the City Bank
under his management was such that evidently people had
drawn from other banks and deposited in the City Bank.
He was Treasurer of the Transatlantic Cable, being one of
its most ardent supporters from 1854 until long after it
had became established.
He was a most conspicuous War Democrat/ taking
an early stand as to the duty of all bankers. Probably
no one man, save possibly JayCook, did more to sustain
the credit of the North in those trying times than did
Moses Taylor. He became interested in the Dela
ware, Lackawanna & Western railway, and the mines
in the coal regions of Pennsylvania. In 1873 he
became President of the Lackawanna Iron and Coal
Co. He also became largely interested in the
Manhatten Gas Co., out of which alone he made a
respectable fortune. When he died he left a very large
sum of money for the purpose of building a hospital at
112 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Scranton. The need of this hospital was very urgent, as
accidents were continually happening to the miners in
their dangerous work. The building is not only a splen
did edifice but it fills a long-felt want.
Such a man was Moses Taylor who died May 23rd,
1882. Few such men have we, would that there were
more. Moses Taylor was a practical man, he cared more
for business than for any amusement. Art was of far
less account with him than were the suffering miners who
had no place to stretch their bleeding forms until he
came to their aid.
WILLIAM C, RALSTON.
WILLIAM C. KALSTON, a synonym for goodness,
was born at Wellsville, Ohio, January 15th, 1820.
He drifted to California, being one of the first to pass
through the Golden Gate. Here he remained for twenty-
five years, becoming the most noted man in the State,
having prospered wonderfully.
It has been truly said of him that he did more than
any other one man to secure a good municipal govern
ment for San Francisco. Aiding with his money weak
industries, he did much to elevate the tone of a class of
people consisting of almost every nationality the miners.
The struggling young man had nothing but sympathy
extended him from this great philanthropist ; indeed,
his great desire seemed to be, what can I do for my less
7
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 113
fortunate fellow-man. He was elected President of the
Bank of California, to succeed Mr. Mills. This bank had
a credit all over the globe. It was the greatest financial
power in the Eepublic. Such w r as its standing in the
financial world when Mr. Mills delivered the bank
over to Mr. Ralston. Mr. Ralston was a great and good
man, but his desire to benefit and aid others led him to
place out the bank s money too freely ; hence, when Mr.
Flood made his sudden and unlocked for call for over
$5,000,000, the amount of his deposit, it was useless for
the bank to try to raise it at once, as it could not be done,
notwithstanding the bank had ample resources, if they
had only been available. Mr. Flood, it seemed to us,
need not have pressed his claim when he knew that the
bank could pay him soon. It is claimed by some that he
chose this method to cripple the Bank of California to
the advantage of his Nevada Bank. Be this as it may,
Mr. Ralston unwisely allowed his tender heart to be
touched too deeply, and thus placed the bank in a weak
position to meet such a crisis. A meeting of the direct
ors was immediately called, and it was decided to ask
the President for his resignation which, together with
his household effects, he promptly tendered. This was
a terrible blow to him, and it may be the officials were
somewhat hasty. On the 27th of August he went down
to the beach, put on his bathing suit, drank something
from a bottle (it is alleged), dived into the waves, was
carried far out and was never again seen alive.
As the people gazed on his lifeless body they began
to realize what a loss they had sustained. Threats of
vengeance were heard on every hand, which made it
seem best for the founders of the rival Nevada Bank to
abstain from being seen in their usual haunts. A pub-
114 HIDDEN TREASURES.
lie meeting was called, and long before the appointed
time to begin the business of the meeting the public
hall where it was held was packed, and thousands were
unable to get in. One orator addressed those in the hall
while the dense mass outside, who were unable to get in,
were divided and addressed by two speakers. The sev
eral charges against him were in turn taken up, and ei
ther proven false or shown to be justified by the excited
populace. The following resolution expressive of the
irreparable loss the city had sustained, was presented.
Besolved, "That in reviewing the life of the deceased,
William C. Ralston, we recognize one of the first citi
zens of San Francisco, the master spirit of her industries,
the most bounteous giver to her charities, the founder of
her financial credit, and the warm supporter of every
public and private effort to augment her prosperity and
welfare. That to his sagacity, activity, and enterprise,
San Francisco owes much of her present material pros
perity, and in his death has sustained an irreparable loss.
That in his business conceptions he was a giant, in social
life an unswerving friend, and in all the attributes of his
character he was a man worthy of love and trust." When
"All those in favor of this say aye/ was called, the
answer came like the sound of heavy artillery, and not
a solitary No was heard in that vast crowd.
Rev. T. K. Noble said, " The aim of his life was not to
pull down but to build up. What enterprise can you
mention looking to the betterment of material interests
in which he did not have part ? In the building of rail
roads, in the establishment of lines of steamships to
Australia, to China, to Japan ; in the manufacture of
silk; in the Pacific Woolen Mills, the Bay Sugar Re
finery, the West Coast Furniture Manufactory; and in
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS. AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 115
those superb buildings, the Grand and Palace hotels; and
in many other enterprises I have not time to mention.
Into each and all of these he put his money and his
brains." This was expressive of much, and it very
clearly represented the general impression of the people
throughout his State. He gave not only his money, but
his sympathy.
People of the East who know of him principally as a
man of great wealth cannot conceive an idea of such a
man, indeed they have none such among them. He
was the moral phenomenon of modern times. The peo
ple of his State all love him, and there are those to-day
who are struggling in various enterprises who can look
to no one now for help, who like to tell of the time
when they could have gone to Frisco and seen Ralston
about it. What a tribute is this; when we think of a
man who regarded money only as a means to do good,
and who seemed a special Providence to all in need.
"We look upon this picture and we see him happy only
in giving ; but we turn and our hearts bleed in sympathy
when we behold him torn from his position, the victim
of avariciousness and envy, which to all appearance is
the immediate cause of his untimely death. But there
is another thought here; he should have been very
cautious in placing money where it could not be brought
into immediate use in such an emergency.
Great was the feeling at his burial. Three regiments,
cavalry, artillery, and the National Guard, escorted his
remains to their last resting place. After several years
Mrs. Ralston received back over $100,000, and is there
fore comfortable. We shall forever mourn the death
of such men, and ever regard and cherish their memory
as among the dearest in American history.
116 HIDDEN TREASURES.
GEORGE PEABODY,
ALONG time ago a little boy who was poorly dressed,
but had an honest face, was passing a country tavern
in Vermont; night was fast approaching, and he looked
tired and hungry; seeing which, the landlord, who had a
kind heart, generously offered him supper and a nights
lodging free. This he refused to accept, but said, "If
you please, I will cut wood enough to pay my way."
This was accepted by the landlord, and thus the affair
passed. Fifty years later he passed the same tavern as
George Peabody, the great London banker.
The above self-reliant nature was illustrative of the
man. It is always interesting to learn how great fortunes
were made. Nothing is so fascinating as success, and
the momentous question relative to every great man is :
" How did he begin ? " George Peabody began life in
Danvers, Massachusetts, February 18th, 1795. He was
born of humble parents and the public schools of his
native town furnished him his education. At the age of
eleven he became a clerk in a grocery store where he re
mained four years, when he went to Newburyport to be
come a dry-goods salesman. By cultivating a loving dispo
sition he gained friends wherever he went, and, of course,
thus gained a confidence which he otherwise never
would have known. For this reason he gained his first
letter of credit which enabled him to buy his first con
signment of goods without advancing the money for
them.
If
.m-
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 117
As we review the various great and influential men
we cannot but notice how many, out of the total number,
cultivated a pleasing manner. Certain it is, to pleasing
manners and ability owed he his success; without either
he could not have succeeded. Without the generous
heart he possessed he could never have won the great
honor that he enjoyed, for great wealth alone could not
bring such honor. He was a notable moral phenomenon.
Of all the great and rich men of whom we are aware,
none gave as liberally as did he. Reader, think of it ; a
poor boy who became one of the greatest bankers of his
time, and who, during his life, gave over eight millions of
dollars to charity. Many of our rich men have willed
much to charity, but he gave while living.
He went to Georgetown, District of Columbia, and
entered into a partnership with an uncle, the firm-style
being Riggs & Peabody. They were wonderfully suc
cessful, and soon established branches in Philadelphia
and New York. In 1829 Mr. Riggs retired from actual
work, the firm-style becoming Peabody, Riggs & Co.
Time passed on, the business grew, and in 1837 he went
to London, soon after establishing the banking house of
George Peabody & Co. He made banking his study and
kept thoroughly posted on financial matters. At about
this time the great panic occurred in America, and at a
great risk of losing his fortune he bought Maryland
securities. But George Peabody knew what he was about;
he was thoroughly posted and was capable of managing
a banking business. By his influence with the Bank of
England, he soon became recognized as the man who
had saved Maryland from bankruptcy.
He now began to dispense the great fortune with
which God had so bountifully blessed him. In 1851 he
118 HIDDEN TREASURES.
supplied a large sum, so much needed, to make a success
of the great Worlds Fair in London. In 1851 he gave
$10,000 toward the second Grennell expedition, and the
same year the people of his native town, Danvers, in
vited his presence at an anniversary. He could not
personally attend, but sent them $20,000 to be applied
toward education. In 1857 he gave the city of Balti
more $300,000 to found a college, and afterward added
to this magnificent sum $200,000 more. In 1866 he
added still $500,000 more, and later yet $400,000 more,
making $1,400,000 in all he gave to this one institution,
which is called Peabody Institute. He gave nearly $3,-
500,000 toward the fund to educate the poor of the South.
He gave Yale and Harvard college each $150,000; to
Phillips Academy $25,000; to Peabody Academy $140,-
000; to the Memorial Church in Georgetown $100,000; to
Peabody Academy $250,000 ; and numerous other con
tributions in America.
In London he established a fund of $3,000,000 with
which to build homes for the poor of that great city.
The Queen acknowledged this in a private letter, and
presented him with her portrait painted on ivory and set
in jewels, valued at $255,000. She also offered to make
him a Baron, but this he respectfully declined.
He resembled the late A. T. Stewart in some respects.
]STo gold chain ever hung from his watch, and when he
wore studs or other ornaments they were never more
costly than pearl. He detested show. Altogether dur
ing his life he gave away over eight millions of dol
lars, and at his death left a fortune of over four millions.
Had he saved his money and manipulated it like many,
of our great millionaires have done, we doubt not he
would have died worth perhaps twenty or thirty millions.
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 119
He, however, had gained not only worldly success,
but true success, for when he died in 1869, both of the
great English speaking nations united to do him honor.
He was at first laid in Westminister Abbey among the
dead kings and queens. After this her Majesty s ship
Monarch bore his remains to America to be buried in
Danvers. The respect in which he is held by the people
of that town is shown when we know that they have
since changed the name of their town to Peabody. He
left an imperishable crown containing pearls which can
not be stolen. They are set in homes for the poor,
libraries for every one, schools for the young, and other
securities which are safely stored in the hearts of a
grateful people. Ah ! we are thoughtful after reading
the life of such a man.
WILLIAM W, CORCORAN,
veteran philanthropist, William W. Corcoran,
was born in 1798. He began his business career in
Georgetown, but for many years he has been a resident
of Washington. At twenty he went into business for
himself, beginning as an auctioneer. After several years
of successful business he was obliged to suspend, during
the depressed times of 1838.
After this he was married to the beautiful daughter
of Commodore Morris, of the United States Navy, much
to the disgust of that gentleman, who little dreamed
120 HIDDEN TREASURES.
what an illustrious son-in-law Mr. Corcoran was destined
to become. Some years of hard struggle followed, but
at last it was found that he had won for himself a some
what extended reputation as a financier, which gained
for him a partnership with the successful banker, Riggs.
This firm began to deal in United States Government
securities, which were then at a low ebb abroad. Being
a boy friend of George Peabody, the great London
banker, his firm was enabled to materially aid the Gov
ernment in its financial straits during the Mexican war.
As the firm prospered, Mr. Corcoran became wealthy,
and this money he laid out in Washington real estate,
the rapid rise of which made him a millionaire. As Mr.
Corcoran prospered he began to think of those old debts.
When he had failed he secured favorable terms with his
creditors, and legally was not bound for one cent, but he
recognized a higher obligation than law made by man :
hunting up all those old customers, creditors of his, he
paid them not only the principal, but the interest that
had been accumulating all these years. By this one act
we gain a glimpse of the inner heart and impulses of
this great and good man.
Thousands of dollars found their way into the hands
of charity, but then his desire to aid and gratify humanity
was not satisfied.
On May 10th, 1869, the grounds and institution for
the Corcoran Art Gallery was deeded to trustees, and
later was incorporated by Congress, being exempted for
ever from taxation. The gallery is situated directly op
posite the State, War, and Navy buildings. It has a
frontage of one hundred and six feet ; is built of fine,
pressed brick; and is one of the most attractive buildings
in the whole City of Washington. The whole building
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS.
cost $250,000, and the donor placed therein his own
private collection of paintings and statuary, valued at
$100,000. Not satisfied with this he has added an en
dowment fund of $500,000. Many rare and beautiful
works of art have been purchased abroad, as well as
American works of rare value. Tuesdays, Thursdays,
and Saturdays the gallery is free ; on alternate days an
admission of twenty-five cents is charged. When it is
considered how many there are who would naturally
take advantage of the free days, and then that the annual
income is over $75,000, one can form some idea of the
attractiveness of this institution. Mr. Corcoran s desire
was to elevate the American taste in the finer arts, and
the thousands of visitors which the institution attracts,
indicates to what an extent he has succeeded. The lower
floor is devoted to statues and to the exhibition of sculp
ture. The second floor is occupied by several hundred rare
and costly paintings, representing the advance of art
during the past centuries. The gallery is, probably, all
things considered, the finest of the kind in the country.
Another institution of wide celebrity is the Louisa
Home, founded by Mr. Corcoran in 1871. It is a magnifi
cent building, conspicuously situated in the most fash
ionable part of the city, the West End. This is a most
worthy institution, designed for ladies who have been
reduced from affluence to poverty, affording them a home
where they can mingle with a class of people congenial
to their refined natures. This building is a beautiful
brick structure, four stories high, erected at a cost of
$200,000. Visitors are welcome every afternoon.
These are only two of the many gifts and enterprises
which originated with the venerable banker. George
Peabody and William. Corcoran were boys together ; how
122 HIDDEN TREASURES.
similar their lives have been. Would that there were
more Corcorans, more Peabodys. Mr. Corcoran has given
several millions to charity and art ; how we envy him
not for his wealth, but his reputation or better, would
that we could do as much good in the world as did these
two great men.
NATHAN MAYER ROTHSCHILD,
WHO indeed is there who has not heard of the
Rothschilds ? But how few there are who know
much of them save that they are the richest bankers in
the whole world. The subject of this sketch was the
richest and most noted of five brothers. The father,
Mayer Anselm Rothschild, sprung from a poor Jewish
family, and was a clerk in Hanover before establishing
himself at Frankfort. At Hanover it is claimed that his
integrity and ability became so marked in every position
to which he was called that the attention of the Govern
ment was called thereto.
After the great French victory of Jena, Napoleon
decreed that the Governor of Hesse-Cassel should have
his lands and property confiscated. The order was no
sooner given than a French army was on its way to carry
the edict into effect. The Elector William, before his
flight from Hesse-Cassel, deposited with the father of the
subject of this sketch $5,000,000, without interest, for
safe keeping. There was no luck about this ; it was a
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS.
most difficult undertaking at that time. Any one who
had been found with this money would have lost his life.
For Rothschild to invest it so that he could make money
from its uso was his object ; to do so safely and se
cretly required a good business tact. The Elector, it is
said, studied sometime before he decided to whom he
could intrust this vast sum during his absence. Thus it
is seen that as Rothschild came of poor parents, and
was simply a clerk. It was not so much luck in his case
as strict integrity and the determination he manifested
to master everything he undertook. This Rothschilds
had five sons, and by the aid of these, through different
bankers, he succeeded by good management to lay a
foundation upon which has been built that colossal for
tune which the sons have accumulated. This money,
belonging to the Elector, they had the benefit of until
1828, when the whole was paid over to the heirs of the
original owner with two per cent, interest for a portion of
the time. Of the five brothers, Anselm was situated at
Frankfort, Solomon at Vienna, Charles at Naples, James
at Paris, and Nathan at London. The two ablest finan
ciers were James and Nathan, and of these two Nathan
was the superior. His son was the first Jew that ever
sat in the English Parliament. It has been said that the
fundamental rule of this great banking-house was "To
sell when people desired to buy, and buy when people
wished to sell." It is related of Nathan Mayer Roths
child that, all day long, at the battle of Waterloo,
he hung about the skirts of the two armies, waiting to
see how the battle turned. Toward night of that mem
orable day, the clouds of smoke lifting, revealed the
French army in full and disastrous retreat. Rothschild
took in the situation at once. True to his instincts, he
124 HIDDEN TREASURES.
saw in that awful carnage only the shimmer of his gold.
Chance had overcome the most heroic valor, the most
stubborn resistance, the best laid plans, and once more
declared in the Hebrew s favor. He dashed into Brus
sels, whence a carriage in waiting whirled him into Os-
tend. At dawn he stood on the Belgian coast, against
which the sea was madly breaking. He offered five, six,
eight, ten hundred francs to be carried over to England.
The mariners feared the storm ; but a bolder fisherman,
upon promise of twenty-five hundred francs, undertook the
hazardous voyage. Before sunset Rothschild landed at
Dover ; and engaging the swiftest horses, rode with the
wind to London. What a supurb special correspondent
he would have made ! The merchants and bankers were
dejected ; the funds were depressed ; a dense fog hung
over the city ; English spirits had sunk to their lowest
ebb. On the morning of the 20th, the cunning and grasp
ing Nathan appeared at the Stock Exchange, an embodi
ment of gloom. He mentioned, confidentially, of course,
to his familiar that Blucher, at the head of his vast
army of veterans, had been defeated by Napoleon, at
Ligny, on the 16th and 17th, and there could be no hope
for Wellington, with his comparatively small and undis
ciplined force. This was half true, and like all half-
truths, was particularly calculated to deceive. Roths
child was a leader among trading reynards. His dole
ful whisper spread as the plague poisoning faith every
where. The funds tumbled like an aerolite. Public and
private opinion wilted before the simoon of calamitous
report. It was Black Friday anticipated in Lombard
Street. The crafty Israelite bought, through his secret
agents, all the consols, bills, and notes, for which he
could raise money.
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EABNED SUCCESS. 125
Not before the afternoon of the 21st nearly forty
eight hours after the battle did the news of Welling
ton s victory reach London through the regular channels.
Eothschild was at the Exchange half an hour before the
glad tidings were made public, and imparted them to a
crowd of greedy listeners. The Bourse was buoyant.
Everything went up more rapidly than it had gone
down. England was happy as well she might be for
she had stumbled into the greatest triumph in her his
tory. When bankers and merchants shook hands with the
Hebrew speculator, they noticed though they did not
understand an unusual warmth of pressure. It was not
rejoicing with the nation; it was the imaginary clutch
of six millions more of gold. Thus it is seen that the
great wealth of the Rothschild was not always used to
the best advantage of mankind as a Christian would,
argue; but a promise given by a Rothschild was as good
as his note.
Their immense wealth has greatly aided, at
different times, all and singular, the various European
countries. A favorite investment with them has been
loans to the different Governments throughout the
world.
During twelve years of their business experience
they loaned to different European Monarchies over
$400,000,000. When it is considered that this was but
one division of their business, something of an idea of
its magnitude can be imagined. An amusing story is
told of Nathan which will be of interest to some of our
readers, and enable them to see how fertile was his mind
in emergencies.
Anselm, the brother at Frankfort, drew on Nathan,
of London, for a large amount, and the bill was presented
126 HIDDEN TREASURES.
to the Bank of England to be discounted. The bank
officials refused, saying, "We do not discount bills
drawn on private persons; we recognize only our own
paper." "Private persons!" exclaimed Nathan Roths
child when the interview was reported to him, "I will
show them what kind of private persons we are." Three
weeks afterwards, Nathan Rothschid, who had em
ployed the interval in collecting all the five-pound notes
he could buy on the continent, or in England presented
himself at the bank on the opening of the office. He
drew from his pocket-book a five-pound note, and they
counted him out in exchange five gold sovereigns, at the
same time looking quite astonished that the Baron
Rothschild should have personally troubled himself for
such a trifle. The Baron examined the pieces one by
one, and having put them in a little canvas bag, pro
ceeded to draw out another five-pound note, then an
other, and another and so on. He never put the pieces
of gold into the bag without scrupulously examing them,
in some instances weighing in his balance, as, he said,
"the law gave him the right to do." The first pocket-
book being emptied and the first bag full of coins, he
passed them to his clerk, and received a second, and thus
continued to the closing of the bank. The Baron had
employed seven hours to exchange twenty-one thousand
pounds. But as he also had nine employes of his house
engaged in the same manner, it resulted that the house
of Rothschild had drawn over $1,000,000 from the bank.
He had drawn gold exclusively, and so occupied the
bank employes that no one else could do any business.
The bankers the first day were very much amused at
"This display of eccentricity." They, however, laughed
less the next day when they beheld Rothschild on hand
early, flanked by his nine clerks.
SUCCESSFUL BANKERS, AND HOW THEY EARNED SUCCESS. 127
They laughed no longer when they heard the irate
banker say, " These gentlemen refused to pay my bills ;
I have sworn not to keep theirs. They can pay at their
leisure; only I hereby notify them that I have enough to
employ them two months ! " Two months ! Fifty -five
million dollars in gold drawn from the Bank of England
which was more gold than they had to pay ! The bank
was now thoroughly alarmed. Something must be done,
and the next morning notice appeared in all the papers
that henceforth the Bank of England would pay Eoths-
child s bills as well as its own.
From anecdotes one can often learn much of the in
ner life and thoughts of people, and much can be seen
of the real character of the subject of this sketch from
the above story. This Napoleon of Finance died in 1836.
" The man who seeks one thing in life, and but one,
May hope to achieve it before life be done ;
But he tvho seeks all things, wherever he goes,
Only reaps from the hopes which around him he sows
A harvest of barren regrets"
128
7TIHE subject of this narrative was a great-grandson of
JL Henry Adams, who emigrated from England about
1640, with a family of eight sons, being one of the earli
est settlers in the town of Braintree, Massachusetts,
where he had a grant of a small tract of forty acres of
land. The father of John Adams, a deacon of the church,
was a farmer by occupation, to which was added the bus
iness of shoemaking. He was a man of limited means,
however, was enabled by hard pinching to give his son a
fairly good education.
The old French and Indian war was then at its
height; and in a remarkable letter to a friend, which
contains some curious prognostications as to the relative
population and commerce of England and her colonies
a hundred years hence, young Adams describes himself
130 HIDDEN TREASURES.
as having turned politician. He succeeded in gaining
charge of the grammar school in Worcester, Massachu
setts, but, instead of finding this duty agreeable, he
found it a school of affliction, and turned his attention
to the study of law. Determined to become a first-class
lawyer, he placed himself under the especial tuition of
the only lawyer of whom Worcester, though the county
seat, could boast.
He had thought seriously of the clerical profession,
but, according to his own expressions, "The frightful en
gines of ecclesiastical councils, of diabolical malice, and
Calvinistic good nature," the operation of which he had
witnessed in some church controversies in his native
town, terrified him out of it. Adams was a very ambi
tious man; already he had longings for distinction. Could
he have obtained a troop of horse, or a company of in
fantry, he would undoubtedly have entered the army.
Nothing but want of patronage prevented his becoming
a soldier.
After a two years course of study, he returned to his
native town, Braintree, and in 1758 commenced practice
in Suffolk county, of which Boston was the shire town.
By hard study and hard work he gradually introduced
himself into practice, and in 1764 married a young lady
far above his station in life. In our perusal and study of
eminent men who have risen by their own exertions to a
higher sphere in life, we are not at all surprised to find
that they have invariably married noble women ladies,
who have always maintained a restraining influence
when the desire for honor and public attention would
appeal to their baser self, and whose guiding influence
tended to strengthen their efforts when their energies
seemed to slacken. So it was with John Adams ; his
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 131
wife was a lady of rare abilities and good sense, admira
bly adapted to make him happy. Boys, be careful whom
you marry !
Shortly after his entrance into the practice of the
law, the attempt at parliamentary taxation diverted his
attention from his profession to politics. He was a most
active oppositionist. He promoted the call of the town
of Braintree to instruct the representatives of the town
on the subject of the Stamp Act. The resolutions which
he presented at this meeting were not only voted by the
town, but attracted great attention throughout the
province, and were adopted verbatim by more than forty
different towns. Thus it is seen that Adams had not
studied hard all these years for nothing ; the price of
success is honest, faithful WORK.
Of course his towns-people would reward him. Men
who have ability, unless some bolt is loose, will invari
ably gain success. Soon after this Mr. Adams was ap
pointed on the part of the town of Boston to be one of
their counsel, along with the King s attorney, and head
of the bar, and James Otis, the celebrated orator, to sup
port a memorial addressed to the Governor and Council,
that the courts might proceed with business though no
stamps were to be had. Although junior counsel, it fell
to Adams to open the case for the petitioners, as his
seniors could not join; the one owing to his position as
King s attorney, the other could not as he had recently
published a book entitled the Eights of the Colonies/
This was a grand opportunity for Adams and he made
the most of it, boldly taking the ground that the stamp
act was null and void, Parliment having no right to tax
the colonies. Nothing, however, came of this applica
tion; the Governor and Council declining to act, on the
132 HIDDEN TREASURES.
ground that it belonged to the Judges, not to them, to
decide.
But Adams had put himself on record, and this record
established his reputation. "There is a tide in the
affairs of men, which, taken at the flood, leads on to for
tune." The time came to Adams to distinguish himself,
and he was not found wanting. It was at this same
period that Mr. Adams first appeared as a writer in the
Boston Gazette. He never allowed his opportunities to
pass unheeded; in fact, he made his opportunities.,
Among other papers which appeared at this time from
his pen, was a series of four articles which were repub-
lished in a London newspaper, and subsequently pub
lished in a collection of documents relating to the
taxation controversy, printed in a large volume. At
first the papers had no title in the printed volume, being
known as "Essays on the Canon and Feudal Law." Well
they might have been called so, but, it seems to us, that
it would have been much more consistent to have en
titled them "Essays on the Government and Rights of
New England." His style was formed from the first, as
is evident from the articles.
His law business continued to increase and in 1768 he
removed to Boston where he would have a larger field in
which to develop his intellect. He served on various
committees during the next two years, and in 1770 was
chosen a Representative to the general Court, notwith
standing he had just before accepted a retainer to defend
Captain Preston and his soldiers for their share in what
had passed into history as the Boston massacre. His
ability as a practitioner at the bar can be judged from
the successful result of their case, as managed by him,
against great public prejudice. Adams duties as a Rep-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 133
resentative interfered much with his business as a lawyer,
on which he depended for support, and which had grown
to be larger than that of any other practitioner at the
provincial bar.
He entered upon the duties of his new office with his
customary energy, becoming the chief legal advisor of
the Patriot party, and now for the first time an active
and conspicuous leader of the same. Mr. Adams keen
foresight enabled him to wisely judge that it would be a
good policy not to push too vigorously to the front as a
politician until his private wealth would justify his
necessarily great loss of time. Hence, he moved back
to Braintree, resigning his seat in the Legislature, but
still retaining his law office in Boston. A comparative
lull in politics made his presence in that body less
needed, but still he was consulted as to all the more
difficult points in the controversy with Governor Hutch-
inson, and freely gave his aid. Indeed, it was not long
before he moved back to Boston, but thoroughly resolved
to avoid politics, and to devote his undivided attention
to his professional work. Soon after his return to Boston
he wrote a series of letters on the then mooted question
of the independence of the judiciary, and the payment
by the Crown of the salaries of the Judges. Soon after
this he was elected by the general Court to the Provin
cial Council, but was rejected by Governor Hutchinson.
The destruction of tea, and the Boston port bill that fol
lowed, soon brought matters to a crisis. These events
produced the congress of 1774. Mr. Adams was one of
the five delegates sent from Massachusetts, and his visit
to Philadelphia at this time was the first occasion of his
going beyond the limits of New England. In the dis
cussions in the committee on the declaration of colonial
134 HIDDEN TREASUKES.
rights, he took an active part in resting those rights on
the law of nature as well as the law of England ; and
when the substance of those resolutions had been agreed
upon he was chosen to put the matter in shape. In his
diary the most trustworthy and graphic descriptions are
to be found of the members and doings of that famous
but little known body. The session concluded, Mr.
Adams left the city of brotherly love with little expecta
tion, at that time, of ever again seeing it.
Immediately after his return home he was chosen by
his native town a member of the provincial congress
then in session. That congress had already appointed a
committee of safety vested with general executive
powers ; had seized the provincial revenues ; had ap
pointed general officers, collected military stores, and
had taken steps toward organizing a volunteer army of
minute-men. The governor Gage had issued a procla
mation denouncing these proceedings, but no attention
was ever paid to it. Gage had no support except in the
five or six regiments that guarded Boston, a few tremb
ling officials and a small following from the people.
Shortly after the adjournment of this congress Adams
occupied himself in answering through the press a
champion of the mother-country s claim. This party,
under the head of Massachusettensis/ had commenced
a series of able and effective arguments in behalf of the
mother-country, which were being published in a Boston
journal. To these Adams replied over the signature of
Novanglus/ These were papers displaying unusual
ability on either part. They were afterwards published
as " A History of the Dispute with America," and later yet
in pamphlet form. Their value consists in the strong,
ontemporaneous views which they present of the origin
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 135
of the struggle between the colonies and the mother-
country, and the policy of Bernard and Hutchinson as
governors of Massachusetts, which did so much to bring
on the struggle. Like all the writings of Mr. Adams,
they are distinguished by a bold tone of investigation, a
resort to first principles, and a pointed style ; but, like
all his other writings, being produced by piecemeal, and
on the spur of the moment, they lack order, system,
polish and precision.
In the midst of the excitement produced by the battie
of Lexington which at once brought up the spirit of
even the most hesitating patriots to the fighting pitch,
and which was speedily followed by the seizure of Ticon-
deroga and Crown Point, and by other similar seizures
in other colonies throughout the fast uniting provinces
John Adams once more set out for Philadelphia to at
tend the Continental Congress of 1775, of which he had
been appointed a member. This congress, though made
up for the most part of the same men who constituted
that of the previous year, was a wholly different body
from its predecessor. The congress of 1774 was merely
a suggestive convention. The present congress speedily
assumed, or rather had thrust upon it by unanimous
consent of the patriots, the exercise of a comprehensive
authority in which supreme executive, legislative and,
in some cases, judicial functions, were united. In this
busy scene the active and untiring Adams, one of whose
distinguishing characteristics was his CAPACITY AND FOND
NESS FOR BUSINESS, found ample employment ; while his
bold and pugnacious spirit was not a little excited by
the hazards and dignity of the great game in which he
had come to hold so deep a stake. Unlike many of that
186 HIDDEN TREASURES.
body, Adams had made up his mind that any attempt
tending toward reconciliation was hopeless.
Under the lead of Dickinson, though against the
strenuous opposition of Adams and others, that body
voted still another and final petition to the king. How
ever, Adams succeeded in joining with this vote one to
put the colonies into a state of defence, though with pro
testations that the war on their part was for defence
only, and without revolutionary intent. Not long after
this congress was brought up to the point of assuming
the responsibility and control of the military operations
which New England had commenced by laying siege to
Boston, in which town General Gage and his troops were
caged, and before which lay animpromptuNew England
army of 15,000 men which the battle of Lexington had
immediately brought together. Urged by the New Eng
land delegates, congress agreed to assume the expense of
maintaining this army. John Adams was the first to pro
pose the name of George Washington for the chief com
mander ; his desire being to secure the good-will and co
operation of the southern colonies. The southern colo
nies also urged General Lee for the second place, but
Adams insisted on giving that to Artemas Ward, he,
however, supported Lee for the third place. Having
assumed the direction of this army, provided for its re
organization, and issued letters of credit for its mainte
nance, this congress took a recess. Adams returned home,
but was not allowed any rest.
People who really have ability are never allowed to
remain idle ; the fault is not in others, but in us. No
sooner had Mr. Adams arrived home than his Massachu
setts friends sent him as a member to the State coun
cil. This council had, under a clause of the provincial
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 137
charter intended to meet such cases, assumed the execu
tive authority, declaring the gubernatorial chair vacant.
On returning to Phildelphia in September, Adams found
himself in hot water. Two confidential letters of his,
written during the previous session, had been intercepted
IDV the British in crossing the Hudson river, and had
been published in the Boston papers. Not only did those
letters evince a zeal for decisive measure which made the
writer an object of suspicion to the more conservative of
his fellow-members of Congress, but his reference in one
of them to the whims, the caprice, the vanity, the su
perstition, and the irritability of some of his colleagues/
and particularly to John Dickinson as a certain great
fortune but trifling genius, made him personal enemies
by whom he was never forgiven.
But, though for a moment an object of distrust to
some of his colleagues, this did not save him from hard
work. About this time he wrote: "I am engaged in
constant work ; from seven to ten in the morning in com
mittee, from ten to four in Congress, and from six to ten
again in committee. Our assembly is scarcely numerous
enough for the business ; everybody is engaged all day
in Congress, and all the morning and evening in com
mittee." The committee, which chiefly engaged Mr.
Adams attention at this time, was one on the fitting out
of cruisers, and on naval affairs generally. This com
mittee laid the foundation of our first navy ; the basis
of our naval code being drawn up by Adams.
Governor Wentworth having fled from New Hamp
shire, the people of that province applied to congress for
advice as to how to manage their administrative affairs.
Adams, always ahead of his brother legislators, seized
the opportunity to urge the necessity of advising all of
138 HIDDEN TREASURES.
the provinces to proceed at once to institute governments
of their own. The news, soon arriving of the haughty-
treatment of their petition by the king, added strength
to his pleading, and the matter being referred to a com
mittee on which Adams was placed, a report in partial
conformity to his ideas was made and adopted. Adams-
was a worker ; this was a recognized fact ; and his State,
having offered him the post of Chief Justice of Massa
chusetts, Adams, toward the end of the year, returned
home to consult on that and other important matters.
He took his seat in the council, of which he had been
chosen a member, immediately on his arrival. He was
consulted by Washington, both as to sending General
Lee to New York, and as to the expedition against Can
ada. It was finally arranged that while Adams should
accept the appointment of Chief Justice, he should still
remain a delegate in Congress, and till more quiet times
should be excused as acting in the capacity of judge.
Under this arrangement he returned to Philadelphia.
However, he never took his seat as Chief Justice, resign
ing that office the next year.
Advice similar to that to New Hampshire on the sub
ject of assuming government, as it was called, had shortly
afterwards been given upon similar applications to Con
gress, to South Carolina and Virginia. Adams was much
consulted by members of the southern delegation concern
ing the form of government which they should adopt.
He was recognized as being better versed in the subject
of Eepublicanism, both by study and experience, coming
as he did from the most thoroughly Republican section
of the country. Of several letters which he wrote on
this subject, one more elaborate than the others, was
printed under the title of " Thoughts on Government
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 139
applicable to the present state of tlie American Colonies."
This paper being largely circulated in Virginia as a
preliminary to the adoption of a form of government by
that State, was to a certain extent a rejoinder to that
part of Paine s famous pamphlet of l Common Sense/
which advocated government by a single assembly. It
was also designed to controvert the aristocratic views,
somewhat prevalent in Virginia, of those who advocated
a governor and senate to be elected for life. Adams sys
tem of policy embraced the adoption of self-govern
ment by each of the colonies, a confederation, and treaties
with foreign powers. The adoption of this system he
continued to urge with zeal and increasing success, until
finally, on May 13th, he carried a resolution through Con
gress by which so much of his plan was endorsed by that
body as related to the assumption of self-government by
the several colonies. A resolution that the United States
Are and ought to be free and independent/ introduced
by R. H. Lee under instructions from the Virgina con
vention, was very warmly supported by Adams and car
ried, seven States to six. Three committees, one on a
Declaration of Independence; another on Confederation;
and third on Foreign Eelations, were shortly formed.
Of the first and third of these committees, Adams was a
member.
The Declaration of Independence was drawn up by
Jefferson, but on Adams devolved the task of battling it
through Congress in a three days debate, during which it
Underwent some curtailment. The plan of a treaty re
ported by the third committee, and adopted by Congress,
Was drawn up by Adams. His views did not extend be
yond merely commercial treaties. He was opposed to
seeking any political connection with France, or any mil-
140 HIDDEN TREASURES.
itary or even naval assistance from her or any foreign
power. On June 12th Congress had established a board
of war and ordinance, to consist of five members, with
a secretary, clerk, etc., in fact, a war department. As
originally constituted, the members of this board were
taken from Congress, and the subject of this narrative
was chosen its president or chairman. This position was
one of great labor and responsibility, as the chief burden
of the duties fell upon him, he continued to hold for the
next eighteen months, with the exception of a necessajy
absence at the close of the year 1776, to recruit his health.
The business of preparing articles of war for the
government of the army was deputed to a committee
composed of Adams and Jefferson; but Jefferson, accord
ing to Adams account, threw upon him the whole bur
den, not only of drawing up the articles, w T hich he bor
rowed mostly from Great Britain, but of arguing them
through Congress, which was no small task Adams
strongly opposed Lord Howe s invitation to a conference,
sent to Congress, through his prisoner, General Sullivan,
after the battle of Long Island. He was, however, ap
pointed one of the committee for that purpose, together
with Franklin and Rutledge, and his autobiography con
tains some curious anecdotes concerning the visit. Be
sides his presidency of the board of war, Adams was also
chairman of t ie committee upon which devolved the
decision of appeals in admiralty cases from the State
courts. Having thus occupied for nearly two years a
position which gained for him the reputation, among at
least a few of his colleagues, of having "the clearest
head and firmest heart of any man in Congress."
He was appointed near the end of 1777 a commis
sioner to France, to supercede Deane, whom Congress
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 141
had concluded to recall. He embarked at Boston, in the
Frigate Boston, on February 12th, 1878, reaching Bor
deaux after a stormy passage, and arrived on April 8th
at Paris. As the alliance with France had been com
pleted before his arrival, his stay was short. He found that
a great antagonism of views and feelings had arisen be
tween the three commissioners, Franklin, Deane, and
Arthur Lee, of whom the embassy to France had been
originally composed. As the recall of Deane had not
reconciled the other two, Adams devised, as the only
means of giving unity and energy to the mission, that it
should be intrusted to a single person. This suggestion
was adopted, and in consequence of it, Franklin having
been appointed sole embassador in France, Adams re
turned home.
He arrived at Boston just as a convention was about
to meet to form a State constitution for Massachusetts,
and, being at once chosen a member from Braintree,
he was enabled to take a leading part in the formation
of that important document. Before this convention
had finished its business he was appointed by congress
as minister to treat with Great Britain for peace, and
commerce, under which appointment he again sailed for
France in 1779, in the same French frigate in which he
previously returned to the United States.
Contrary to his own inclinations, Mr. Adams was pre
vented by Vergennes, the French minister of foreign
affairs, from making any communication of his powers
to Great Britain. In fact, Vergennes and Adams already
Were, and continued to be, objects of distrust to one an
other, in both cases quite unfounded. Yergennes feared
least advances toward treating with England might lead
to some sort of reconciliation with her, short of the in-
142 HIDDEN TREASURES.
dependence of the colonies, which was contrary to his
ideas of the interest of France. The communications
made to Vergennes by Gerard, the first French minister
in America, and Adams connection with the Lee s
whom Vergennes suspected, though unjustly, of a secret
communication through Arthur Lee with the British
ministry, led him to regard Mr. Adams as the representa
tive of a party in congress desirous of such a reconcilia
tion ; nor did he rest until he had obtained from con
gress, some two years after, the recall of Mr. Adams
powers to negotiate a treaty of commerce; and, in con
junction with him, of several colleagues to treat for
peace, of whom Franklin, who enjoyed his entire con
fidence, was one.
Adams, on the other hand, not entirely free from
hereditary English prejudices against the French, vehe
mently suspected Yergennes of a design to sacrifice the
interests of America, especially the fisheries and the
western lands, to the advancement of the Spanish house
of Bourbon. While lingering at Paris, with nothing to
do except to nurse these suspicions, Adams busied him
self in furnishing communications on American affairs
to a semi-official gazette conducted by M. Genet, chief
secretary in the foreign bureau, and father of the French
minister in America, who subsequently rendered that
name so notorious.
Finding his position at Paris uncomfortable, he pro
ceeded to Holland in July, 1780, his object being to form
an opinion as to the probability of borrowing money
there. Just about the same time he was appointed by
Congress to negotiate a French loan, the party who had
been selected for that purpose previously, Laurens, not
yet being ready to leave home. By way of enlightening
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 143
the Dutch in regard to American affairs, Adams pub
lished in the Gazette, of Leyden, a number of papers and
extracts, including several which, through a friend, he
first had published in a London journal to give to them
an English character. To these he added direct publica
tion of his own, afterward many times reprinted, and
now to be found in volume VII of his collected works
under the title of i Twenty-six Letters upon Interesting
Subjects Respecting the Revolution in America/ He
had commenced negotiations for a loan when his labors
in that direction were interrupted by the sudden breach
between England and Holland, consequent upon the
capture of Laurens and the discovery of the secret nego
tiation carried on between him and Van Berkel, of Am
sterdam, which, though it had been entered into without
authority of the Dutch States, was made an excuse by
the British for a speedy declaration of war.
Adams was soon after appointed minister to Holland
in place of the captured Laurens, and at the same time
was commissioned to sign the articles of armed neutrality
which had just made their appearance on the politi
cal scene. Adams presented memorials to the Dutch
government setting forth his powers in both respects ;
but before he could procure any recognition he was re
called in July, 1781, to Paris, by a notice that he was
needed there, in his character of minister, to treat for
peace.
Adams suspicion of Yergennes had, meanwhile, been
not a little increased by the neglect of France to second
his applications to Holland. With Yergennes the great
object was peace. The finances of France were sadly
embarrassed, and Yergennes wished no further compli
cations to the war. Provided the English colonies should
144 HIDDEN TREASURES.
be definitely separated from the mother-country, which
he considered indispensable to the interest of France, he
was not disposed to insist on anything else. It was for this
reason that he had urged upon, and just about this time
had succeeded in obtaining from Congress, through the
French Minister at Philadelphia though the informa
tion had not yet reached Paris not only the withdrawal
of Adams commission to treat of commerce, and the
enlargement to five of the number of commissioners to
treat for peace, but an absolute discretion intrusted to the
negotiators as to everything except independence and the
additional direction that in the last resort they were to
be governed by the advice of Yergennes. The cause for
sending for Adams, who still occupied, so far as was
known at Paris, the position of sole negotiator for peace ;
the offer of meditation on the part of Russia and the Ger
man empire ; but this offer led to nothing.
Great Britain haughtily rejected it on the ground that
she would not allow France to stand between her and
her colonies. Returning to Holland Mr. Adams, though
still unsupported by Yergennes, pushed with great energy
his reception as embassador by the States general, which,
at length, April 19th, 1782, he succeeded in accomplish
ing. Following up this success with his CUSTOMARY PER-
SEVERENCE, he succeeded before the end of the year in
negotiating a Dutch loan of nearly two millions of dol
lars, the first of a series which proved a chief financial
resource of the continental congress. He also succeeded
in negotating a treaty of amity and commerce. His suc
cess in these negotiations, considering the obstacles with
which he had to contend, and the want of support from
Vergennes, he was accustomed to regard as the greatest .
triumph of his life.
9
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 145
Before this business was completed, Mr. Adams re
ceived urgent calls to come to Paris where Jay and
Franklin, two of the new commissioners, were already
treating for peace, and where he arrived October 26th.
Though Mr. Jay had been put into the diplomatic service
by the procurement of the party in congress in the French
interest, his diplomatic experience in Spain had led him
also to entertain doubts as to the sincere good-will of
Vergennes. A confidential dispatch from the French
Secretary of Legation in America, intercepted by the
British, and which Oswald, the British negotiator at Paris
communicated to Franklin and Jay, with a view of mak
ing bad feeling between them and the French minister,
had, along with other circumstances, induced Franklin
and Jay to disregard their instructions, and to proceed to
treat with Oswald without communicating that fact to
Yergennes, or taking his advice as to terms of the treaty,
a procedure in which Adams, after his arrival, fully
concurred.
It was chiefly through his energy and persistence that
the participation of America in the fisheries was secured
by the treaty, not as a favor or a privilege, but as a right
a matter of much more importance then than now, the
fisheries then being a much more important branch than
now of American maritime industry.
Immediately upon the signature of the preliminary
articles of peace, Adams asked leave to resign all his com
missions and to return home, to which Congress responded
by appointing him a commissioner jointly with Franklin
and Jay, to negotiate a treaty of commerce with Great
Britain. His first visit to England was, however, in a
private character, to recruit his health, after a violent
fever with which he had been attacked, shortly after
146 HIDDEN TREASURES.
signing the treaty of peace. He spent some time, first
at London, and afterward at Bath ; but while still an in
valid he was recalled, in the dead of winter, to Holland,
which he reached after a stormy and most uncomfort
able voyage; there to negotiate a new loan as the means
of meeting government bills drawn in America, which
Were in danger of protest from want of funds a BUSI
NESS IN WHICH HE SUCCEEDED.
Adams was included along with Franklin and Jeffer
son, the latter sent out to take the place of Jay, in a new
commission to form treaties with foreign powers ; and
his being joined by Mrs. Adams and their only daughter
and youngest son, his other two sons being already with
him, reconciled him to the idea of remaining abroad.
With his family about him he fixed his residence at
Auteuil, near Paris, where he had an interval of com
parative leisure.
The chief business of the new commission was the
negotiation of a treaty with Prussia, advances toward
which had first been made to Adams while at the Hague
negotiating the Dutch loan, but before that treaty was
ready for signature Adams was appointed by congress as
Minister to the court of St. James, where he arrived in
May, 1785. The English government, the feelings of
which were well represented by those of the king, had
neither the magnanimity nor policy to treat the new
American States with respect, generosity, or justice.
Adams was received with civility, but no commercial
arrangements could be made. His chief employment
was in complaining of the non-execution of the treaty of
peace, especially in relation to the non-surrender of the
western posts, and in attempting to meet similar com
plaints urged, not without strong grounds, by the British.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 147
more particularly with regard to the obstacles thrown in
the way of the collection of British debts, which were
made an excuse for the detention of the western
posts. Made sensible in many ways of the aggravation
of British feelings toward the new republic, whose con
dition immediately after the peace was somewhat em
barrassing, and not so nattering as it might have been
to the advocates and promoters of the revolution, the
situation of Adams was rather mortifying than agreeable.
Meanwhile he was obliged to pay another visit to
Holland to negotiate a new loan as a means of paying
the interest on the Dutch debt. He was also engaged in
a corespondence with his fellow-commissioner, Mr.
Jefferson, then at Paris, on the subject of the Barbary
powers and the return of the Americans held captive by
them. But his most engrossing occupation at this time
was the preparation of his "Defence of the American
Constitution," the object of which was the justification
of balanced governments and a division of powers, es
pecially the legislative, against the idea of a single as
sembly and a pure democracy, which had begun to find
many advocates, especially on the continent. The greater
part, however, of this book the most voluminous of his
publications consists of summaries of the histories of
the Italian republics, which, by the way, was not essen
tial to the argument.
Although it afterward subjugated the author to
charges of monarchical and anti-republican tendencies,
this book was not without its influence on the adoption
of the federal constitution ; during the discussion of
which the first volume appeared. Great Britain not hav
ing reciprocated the compliment by sending a minister
to the United States, and there being no prospects of his
148 HIDDEN TREASURES.
accomplishing any of the objects of his mission, Adams
had requested a recall, which was sent to him in Febru
ary, 1788, accompanied by a resolution of Congress con
veying the thanks of that body for The patriotism, per
severance, integrity and dilligence which he had dis
played in his ten years 7 experience abroad.
Immediately upon his arrival at home, Mr. Adams
was RE-APPOINTED by Massachusetts as a delegate to the
continental congress; but he never resumed his seat in
that body, which was now just about to expire. When
the new government came to be organized under the
newly adopted constitution, as all were agreed to make
"Washington president, attention was turned to New
England for a vice-president. This office was then held
with much more regard than now. In fact, as the con
stitution originally stood, the candidates for the presi
dency and vice-presidency were voted for without any
distinct specification as to rank, the second office falling
to the person having the second highest vote. Out of
sixty-nine electors, John Adams received the votes of
thirty-four ; and this being the second highest number,
he was declared vice-president. The thirty-five votes
were scattered upon some ten different other candidates.
By virtue of his new office he became president of
the senate, a position not very agreeable to his active
and leading temperament, being better fitted for debate ;
but one in which the close division in the senate, often
resulting in a tie between the supporters and opponents
of the new system, many times gave him a controlling
voice. In the first congress, he gave no fewer than
twenty deciding votes, always upon important organic
laws, and always in support of Washington s policy.
Down to this time Adams had sympathized with
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 149
Jefferson politically, with whom he had served both in
congress and abroad. On the subject of the French
revolution, which now burst upon the world, a difference
of opinion arose between them. From the very begin
ning Adams, then almost alone, had argued that no good
could come from that movement, as the revolution
went on and began to break out in excesses, others began
to be of this opinion.
Adams then gave public expression to some of his ideas
by the publication of his Discourses on Davila, furnished
to a Philadelphia paper, and afterward collected and
published in one volume, taking the history of nations,
particularly Davilla s account of the French civil wars,
and the general aspects of human society as his texts.
Adams pointed out as the great springs of human
activity, at least in all that related to politics, the
love of superiority, the desire of distinction, admiration
and applause; nor, in his opinion could any government
be permanent or secure which did not provide as well
for the reasonable gratification, as for the due restraint
of this powerful passion. Repudiating that democracy,
pure and simple, then coming into vogue, and of which
Jefferson was the advocate; he insisted that a certain
mixture of aristocracy and monarchy was necessary to
that balance of interests and sentiments without which,
as he believed, free governments should not exist. This
work, which reproduced more at length and in a more
obnoxious form the fundamental ideas of his Defence
of the American Constitution/ made Adams a great bug
bear to the ultra-democratic supporters of the principles
and policy of the French revolutionists; and at the
second presidential election in 1792, they set up as a can-
150 HIDDEN TREASURES.
didate against him George Clinton, of New York, but
Mr. Adams was re-elected by a decided vote.
The wise policy of neutrality adopted by Washington
received the hearty concurrence of Adams. While Jeffer
son left the cabinet to become in nominal retirement the
leader of the opposition. Adams continued, as vice-presi
dent, to give Washington s adminstration the benefit of
his deciding vote. It was only by this means that a
neutrality act was carried through the senate, and that
the progress was stopped of certain resolutions which
had previously passed in the House of Representatives,
embodying restrictive measures against Great Britain r
intended, or at least calculated, to counterwork the mis
sion to England on which Mr. Jay had already been sent.
Washington being firmly resolved to retire at the
close of his second presidential term, the question of the
successorship now presented itself. Jefferson was the
leader of the opposition, who called themselves repub
licans, the name democrat being yet in bad odor, and
though often imposed as a term of reproach, not yet as
sumed except by a few of the more ultra-partisans.
Hamilton was the leader of the federal party, as the sup
porters of Washington s administration had styled them
selves.
Though Hamilton s zeal and energy had made him,
even while like Jefferson in nominal retirement, the
leader of his party, he could hardly be said to hold the
place with the Federalists that Jefferson did with the Re
publicans. Either Adams or Jay, from their age and long
diplomatic service, were more justly entitled to public
honor and were more conspicuously before the people.
Hamilton, though he had always spoken of Adams as a
man of unconquerable intrepidity and incorruptible in-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 151
tegrity, and as such had already twice supported him for
vice-president, would yet have much preferred Jay.
The position of Adams was, however, such as to
render his election far more probable than that of Jay,
and to determine on his selection as candidate of the
Federalist party. Jay, by his negotiation of the famous
treaty which bears his name, had for the moment called
down upon himself the hostility of its numerous oppo
nents. Adams stood, moreover, as vice-president, in the
line of promotion, and was more sure of the New Eng
land vote, which was absolutely indispensible to the
success of either.
As one of the candidates was taken from the North,
it seemed best to select the other from the South, and
the selection of Thomas Pickney, of South Carolina, was
the result of this decision. Indeed, there were some,
Hamilton among the number, who secretly wished that
Pickney might receive the larger vote of the two, and so
be chosen president over Adams head. This result was
almost sure to happen, from the likelihood of Pick-
ney s receiving more votes at the South than Adams,
as he really did, could the nothern federal electors be
persuaded to vote equally for Adams and Pickney, which
Hamilton labored to effect.
The fear, however, that Pickney might be chosen over
Adams led to the withholding from Pickney of eighteen
New England votes, so that the result was not only to
make Jefferson Vice-President, as having more votes
than Pickney, but also to excite prejudices and sus
picions in the mind of Adams against Hamilton, which,
being reciprocated by him, led to the disruption and
final overthrow of the Federal party.
It had almost happened, such was the equal division
152 HIDDEN TREASUEES.
of parties, that Jefferson had this time been elected
President. The election of Adams, who had 71 votes to
Jefferson s 68, only being secured by two stray votes cast
for him, one in Virginia, and the other in North Caro
lina, tributes of revolutionary reminiscences and per
sonal esteem. Chosen by this slender majority, Mr.
Adams succeeded to office at a very dangerous and ex
citing crisis in affairs. The progress of the French
revolution had superinduced upon previous party divis
ions a new and vehement crisis.
Jefferson s supporters, who sympathized very warmly
with the French Kepublic, gave their moral, if not their
positive support, to the claim set up by its rulers, but
which Washington had refused to admit, that under the
provisions of the French treaty of alliance, the United
States were bound to support France against Great
Britain, at least in defense of her West India posses
sions. The other party, the supporters of Adams, upheld
the policy of neutrality adopted by Washington.
At the same time that Washington had sent Jay
to England, to arrange, if possible, the pending diffi
culties with that country; he had recalled Morris
who, as Minister to France, had made himself obnoxious
to the now predominent party there, and had appointed
Monroe in his place. This gentleman, instead of con
forming to his instructions, and attempting to reconcile
France to Jay s mission, had given them assurance on
the subject quite in contradiction of the treaty as made,
both the formation and ratification of which he had clone
his best to defeat. He, in consequence, had been re
called by Washington shortly before the close of his
term of office, and C. C. Pickney, a brother of Thomas
Pickney, had been appointed in his place. The French
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 153
authorities, offended at this change, and the ratification
of Jay s treaty in spite of their remonstrances, while
they dismissed Monroe with great ovations, refused to
receive the new embassador sent in his place, at the
same time issuing decrees and orders highly injurious to
American interests.
Almost the first act of Mr. Adams, as President, was
to call an extra session of Congress. Not only was a
war with France, greatly to be dreaded and deprecated on
account of her great military and naval power, but still
more on account of the very formidable party which,
among the ultra-Republicans, she could muster within
the States themselves. Under these circumstances, the
measure resolved upon by Adams and his cabinet was
the appointment of a new and more solemn commission
to France, composed of Pickney and two colleagues, for
which purpose the President appointed John Marshall
of Virginia, and Elbridge Gerry of Massachusetts,
Instead of receiving and openly treating with those
commissioners, Talleyrand, lately an exile in America,
but now Secretary of Foreign Affairs to the French Gov
ernment, entered into intrigue with them, through sev
eral unaccredited and unofficial agents, of which the
object was to induce them to promise a round bribe to
the directors and a large sum of money to fill the ex
hausted French treasury, by way of purchasing forbear
ance. As Pickney and Marshall appeared less pliable
than Gerry, Talleyrand finally obliged them to leave,
after which v he attempted, though still without success,
to extract money, or at least the promise of it, from
Gerry.
The publication of the dispatches in which these dis-
creditible intrigues were disclosed, an event on which
154 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Tallevrand had not calculated, produced a great excite
ment in both America and Europe. Talleyrand attempted
to escape by disavowing his agents, and pretending that
the American ministers had been imposed upon by ad
venturers. Gerry left France, and the violation of
American commercial and maritime rights was pushed
to new extremes. In America the effect of all of this
was to greatly strengthen the Federal party for the time
being.
The grand jury of the federal circuit court for Penn
sylvania set the example of an address to the president,
applauding his manly stand for the rights and dignity
of the nation. Philadelphia, which under the lead of Mifflin
and McKean, had gone over to the Republicans, was once
more suddenly converted as during Washington s first term
to the support of the federal government. That city was
then the seat of the national newspaper press. All the
newspapers, hitherto neutral, published there, as well as
several others which had leaned decidedly toward the
opposition, now came out in behalf of Adams.
Besides an address from five thousand citizens, the
young men got up an address of their own. This exam
ple was speedily imitated all over the country, and the
spirited replies of the president, who was now in his ele
ment, served in their turn to blow up and keep ablaze
the patriotic enthusiasm of his countrymen. These ad
dresses, circulated everywhere in the newspapers, w r ere
collected at the time in a volume, and they appeared in
Adams works, of which they form a characteristic por
tion. A navy was set on foot, the old continental navy
having become extinct. An army was voted and partly
levied, of which Washington accepted the chief com-
FROM OBSCURITY TO FREAT HONOR. 155
mand, and merchant ships were authorized to protect
themselves.
The treaty with France was declared at an end, and
a quasi war with France ensued. It was not, however,
the policy of France to drive the United States into the
arms of Great Britain. Even before Gerry s departure,
Talleyrand had made advances tending toward reconcil
iation, which were afterward renewed by communica
tions opened with Van Murray, the American minister to
Holland. The effect of the French outrages, and the
progress of the French revolution had been to create in
a part of the federal party, at least, a desire for an abso
lute breach with France a desire felt by Hamilton, and
by at least three out of the four cabinet officers whom
Adams had chosen and kept in office.
In his message to congress, announcing the expulsion
of Pickney and Marshall, Adams had declared that he
would never send another minister to France without as
surance that he would be received. This was on the 2 1st of
July, 1798. Therefore, when on the ISthof February follow
ing, without consulting his cabinet or giving them any
intimation of his intentions, he sent into the senate the
nomination of Van Murray as minister to France, the
act took the country by surprise, and thus hastened the
defeat of the federal party, his actions being so contrary
to his avowed intentions. Some previous acts of Adams,
such as the appointment of Gerry, which his cabinet offi
cers had striven to prevent, and his disinclination to
make Hamilton second in command, until vehemently
urged into it by Washington, had strengthened the dis
trust entertained of Adams by Hamilton.
Adams, in his attempt to reopen diplomatic inter
course with France, was accused of seeking to reconcile
156 HIDDEN TREASURES.
his political opponents of the Republican party, and thus
secure by unworthy and impolitic concessions, his own
re-election as president. The opposition to Yan Mur
ray s nomination prevailed so far that he received two
colleagues, Ellsworth of Connecticut and Davies of North
Carolina; but the president would not authorize the
departure of Ellsworth or Davies until he had received
explicit assurances from Talleyrand that they would be
duly received as ministers. On arriving in France they
found the Directory superseded by Napoleon Bonaparte
who was first counsel, with whom they managed to ar
range the difficulty.
But, however beneficial to the country, this mission
proved very disastrous to Adams personally, and to the
political party to which he belonged. He justified its
appointment on the ground of assurances conveyed to
him through a variety of channels that France desired
peace, and he excused himself for his not having con
sulted his cabinet by the fact that he knew their mind
without asking it to be decidedly hostile, that is, to any
such attempt as he had decided to make.
The masses of the federalists, fully confident of Adams
patriotism, were well enough disposed to acquiesce in his
judgment; but many of the leaders were implacable.
The quarrel was further aggravated by Adams dismissal
of his cabinet officers and the construction of a new
cabinet.
The pardon of Fries, who had been convicted of
treason for armed resistance to the levy of certain direct
taxes in Pennsylvania, was regarded by many at that
time as a piece of misplaced lenity on the part of Adams,
dictated, it was said, by a mean desire of popularity in a
case where the severest example was needed. But
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 157
Adams can hardly suffer with posterity from his unwill
ingness to be the first president to sign a death warrant
for treason, especially as there was room for grave doubts
whether the doings of this person amounted to treason
as defined by the constitution of the United States.
In this divided condition of the Federal party the
presidential election came on. Adams was still too
popular with the mass of the party to think of dropping
him altogether, and the malcontents reduced to the old
expedient of attempting, by secret understanding and
arrangements, to reduce his vote in the electoral college
below that of C. C. Pickney, the other candidate on the
federal ticket.
The Republicans, on the other hand, under the pros
pect of an arrangement with France, rapidly recovered
from the blow inflicted upon them by the violence and
mercenary rapacity lately charged upon their French
friends, but which they now insisted, was a charge with
out foundation. Taking advantage of the dissatisfaction
at the heavy taxes necessarily imposed to meet the ex
penses of warlike preparations, and especially of the un
popularity of the alien and sedition laws two acts of
congress to which the prospect of war had led they
pushed the canvass with great energy ; while in Thomas
Jefferson and Aaron Burr they had two leaders unsur
passed for skill in party tactics, and in Burr at least, one
little scrupulous as to the means to be used.
Not only was the whole blame of the alien and sedi
tion acts, to which he had merely assented without even
recommending, laid on Adams shoulders, but he was the
object of vehement and most bitter attacks for having
surrendered, under one of the provisions of Jay s treaty,
one Thomas Nash, an English sailor, charged with
158 HIDDEN TREASURES.
mutiny and murder. Nor was it against his public acts
alone, nor even to his political opponents, that these as
saults on Mr. Adams were confined. With strong feeling
and busy imagination, loving both to talk and write,
Adams had been betrayed into many confidences and in
to free expressions of feeling, opinions, and even conjec
tures and suspicions a weakness very unsuited to the
character of a statesman, and one which Adams had
during his life many times the occasion to rue.
DuringWashington s first term of office, Adams had thus
been led into a confidential correspondence with Tench
Coxe, who at that time held the position of assistant
secretary of the treasury and had afterward been ap
pointed supervisor of the internal revenue. Since Adam s
accession he had been dismissed from his place on the
charge of being a spy upon the treasury department in
the service of the Aurora, the principal newspaper organ
of the opposition, with which party Coxe sympathized,
and, since his recent dismissal from office, acted.
In this state of mind Coxe betrayed a confidential
letter to him from Adams; which, after being handed
around in manuscript for some time, to the great damage
of Adams with his own party, was finally printed in the
Aurora, of which Coxe had become one of the principal
contributors.
The purport of this letter, written as long ago as
May, 1792, was to give countenance to the charge of the
opposition that Washington s cabinet, and of course
Adams which followed the same policy, was under Brit
ish influence ; and that the Pickney brothers, candidates
with Adams on the presidential ticket, were especially
liable to this suspicion. The publication of this letter
was followed by a still more deadly blow in the shape of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GRJBAT HONOR. 159
a pamphlet, written, printed and signed by Hamilton,
probably intended by him for private distribution among
his friends, but which was made public by Aaron Burr,
who had succeed in obtaining some of the proof sheets.
This phamphlet had its origin in the same charge
against Hamilton of being under the influence of British
gold, thrown out by Adams in private conversation. To
this he had refused to give any explanation when written
to by Hamilton, though when a similar request was made
by C. C. Pickney in conseqence of the publication of the
letter to Coxe, Adams fully exonerated, in a published
letter, both Pickney and his brother from any suspicion
"which his letter to Coxe might seem calculated to convey.
Hamilton declared in the conclusion of his pamphlet
that, as things then stood, he did not recommend the
withholding of a single vote from Adams. Yet, it was
the leading object of his pamphlet to show, without deny
ing Adams patriotism or integrity, or even his talents,
that he had great defects of character which disqualified
him for the position of chief magistrate, and the effect
which he desired it to have must have been to give C. C.
Pickney the presidency, by causing a certain number of
Totes to be withheld from Adams.
The result of the election, however, was to throw out
both the federal candidates, while Adams receiving forty-
five votes and Pickney fifty-four ; Jefferson and Burr
each received seventy-three. In the ensuing struggle
between Jefferson and Burr, Adams took no part what
ever. Immediately on the expiration of his term of
office he left Washington, where shortly before the seat
of government had been moved, without even stopping
to be present at the inauguration of Jefferson, against
whom he felt a sense of personal wrong, probably think-
160 HIDDEN TREASURES.
ing he had been deluded by false professions as to Jeffer
son s views on the presidential chair.
Though both were much given to letter- writing, and
had to within a short time before been on terms of
friendly intercourse, this state of feelings, on the part of
Adams, led to strict non-intercourse for the next thir
teen years. The only acknowledgment which Adams
carried with him, in this unwelcome and mortifying re
tirement for his twenty-five years services was the priv
ilege, which had been granted to Washington on his
withdrawal from the presidency, and after his death to
his widow, and bestowed likewise upon all subsequent
ex-presidents and their widows, of receiving his letters
free of postage for the remainder of his life.
Fortunately for Adams, his thrifty habits and love of
independence, sustained during his absence from home
by the economical and managing talents of his wife, had
enabled him to add to what he had saved from his pro
fession before entering public life, savings from his sala
ries, enough to make up a sufficient property to support
him for the remainder of his life, in conformity with his
ideas of a decent style of propriety and solid comfort.
Almost all his savings he had invested in the farming
lands about him. In his vocabulary, property meant
land. With all the rapid wealth then being made through
trade and navigation, he had no confidence in the per
manency of any/property but land, views in which he was
confirmed by the commercial revulsions of which he
lived to be a witness.
Adams was the possessor, partly by inheritance and
partly by purchase, of his father s farm, including the
house in which he himself was born. He had, however,
transferred his own residence to a larger and handsomer
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 161
dwelling near by, which had been forfeited by one of the
refugee tories of the revolution and purchased by him,
where he spent the next quarter of a century.
In this comfortable home, acquired by himself, he
sought consolation for his troubled spirit in the cultiva
tion of his lands, in books and in the bosom of his family.
Mrs. Adams, to her capacities as a house-keeper, steward
and farm manager, added a brightness and activity of
mind and a range of reading, such as fully qualified her
to sympathize with her husband in his public as well as
his private career. She shared his tastes for books, and
as his letters to her are unsurpassed by any American
letters ever yet published, so hers to him, as well as to
others, from which a selection has also been published,
show her, though exhibiting less of nature and more
of formality than he, yet worthy of admiration and re
spect as well as of the tenderness with which he always
regarded her.
To affections strong enough to respond to his, a sym
pathy equal to his highest aspirations, a proud feeling
and an enjoyment of it equal to his own, she added what
is not always found in such company, a flexibility suffi
cient to yield to his stronger will without disturbance to
her serenity or his, and without the least compromise
of her own dignity or her husband s respect and deference
for her. While she was not ignorant of the foiables of his
character, and knew how to avail herself of them when
a good purpose was to be served by it, yet her admiration
of his abilities, her reliance upon his judgment, her con
fidence in his goodness, and her pride in his achieve
ments, made her always ready to yield and to conform.
His happiness and honor were always her leading object.
162 HIDDEN TREASURES.
This union was blessed with children well calculated to
add to this happiness.
Just at the moment of his retirement from office
private grief was added to political disappointment by
the death of his second son Charles, who had grown to
manhood, had been married and had settled in New
York with flattering prospects, but had died under pain
ful circumstances, which his father speaks of in a con
temporary letter as the deepest affliction of his life, leav
ing a wife and two infant children dependent on him.
Colonel Smith, an officer of the revolution, who had been
Adams secretary of legation at London and who had
married his only daughter, did not prove in all respects
such a son-in-law as he would have wished. Smith s
pecuniary affairs becoming embarrassed, his father-in-
law had provided for him by several public appoint
ments, the last of which was that of the surveyor of New
York, which position he was allowed to hold until 1807,
when he was removed from it in consequence of his im
plication in Miranda s expedition. Nor did Thomas, the
third son, though a person of accomplishments and
talents, fully answer the hopes of his parents.
But all these disappointments were more than made
good by the eldest son, John Quincy, who subsequently
to his recall from the diplomatic service abroad, into
which "Washington had introduced him and in which his
father, urged by Washington,had promoted him, was chosen
one of the senators in congress from Massachusetts.
All consolations, domestic or otherwise, at Mr. Adam s
command, were fully needed. Never did a statesman
sink more suddenly, at a time too when his powers of
action and inclinations for it seemed unimpaired from a
leading position to more absolute political insignificance.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 163
His grandson tells us that while the letters addressed to
him in the year prior to March 1st, 1801,may be counted
by the thousands, those of the next year scarcely num
bered a hundred, while he wrote even less than he re
ceived. Nor was mere neglect the worst of it. He sank,
loaded with the jibes, the sneers, the execrations even,
of both political parties into which the nation was
divided. In his correspondence, which appears to have
gradually increased and extended itself, Mr. Adams loved
to re-explain his theoretical ideas of government, on some
points of which he pushed Jefferson hard, and which the
result of the French revolution so far as then developed
seemed to confirm.
Another subject in which he continued to feel a great
interest was theology. He had begun as an Arminian,
and the more he had read and thought, and the older he
grew to be, the freer views he took. Though clinging
with tenacity to the religious institutions of ISTew Eng
land, it would seem from his correspondence that
he finally curtailed his theology to the ten command
ments and the sermon on the mount. Of his views on
this point, he gave evidence in his last public act, to
which we now approach.
Mrs. Adams had died in 1818, but even that shock,
severe as it was, did not loosen the firm grasp, of the
husband on life, its enjoyments and its duties. When,
in consequence of the erection of the district . rf Maine
into a State, a convention was to meet in 1820 to revise
the constitution of Massachusetts, in the framing of
which Mr. Adams had taken so leading a part, though in
his eighty-sixth year, he was chosen a delegate by his
townsmen. Upon his first appearance, with a form yet
erect, though tremulous with age, in this Convention,
164 HIDDEN TREASURES.
which was composed of the very cream of the great
minds with which the State abounded, Mr. Adams was
received by members standing, and with every demon
stration of affection and esteem ; and a series of resolu
tions were forthwith passed, containing an enumeration
and warm acknowledgememt of some of his principal
public services, and calling on him to preside. But this,
while duly acknowledging the compliment, he declined,
on the score of his age and infirmities. The same cause
also prevented his taking any active part in the proceed
ings. Yet he labored to secure a modification of the
third article of the bill of rights, on the subject of pub
lic worship and its support, an article which, when origin
ally drafting the rest of that instrument, he had passed
over to other hands.
But the time had not yet come for such changes as he
wished. The old puritan feeling was still too great to
acknowledge the equal rights, political and religious, of
other than Christians. Yet, however it might be with
his colleagues and fellow-citizens, Mr. Adams, in this
movement, expressed his own ideas. One of his latest
letters, written in 1825, and addressed to Jefferson, is a
remarkable protest against the blasphemy laws, so-called,
of Massachusetts, and the rest of the Union, as being
utterly inconsistent with the right of free inquiry and
private judgment. It is in the letters of Mr. Adams, of
which but few have ever been published, that his genius
as a writer and a thinker, and no less distinctly his
character as a man, is displayed. Down even to the last
year of his protracted life, his letters exhibit a wonder
ful degree of vitality, energy, playfulness, and command
of language.
As a writer of English and we may add as a specu-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 165
lative philosopher little as he ever troubled himself
with revision and correction, he must be placed first
among Americans of all the several generations to which
he belonged, excepting only Franklin ; and if Franklin
excelled him in humor and geniality, he far surpassed
Franklin in compass and vivacity. Indeed, it is only by
the recent publication of his letters that his gifts in
these respects are becoming well known. The first
installment of his private letters published during his
lifetime, though not deficient in these characteristics,
yet having been written under feelings of great aggrava
tion, and in a spirit of extreme bitterness against his
political opponents, was rather damaging to him than
otherwise. In the interval from 1804 to 1812, Mr. Cun
ningham, a maternal relative, had drawn him into a
private correspondence in which, still smarting under a
sense of injury, he had expressed himself with perfect
unreserve and entire freedom as to the chief events of
his presidential administration and the character and
motives of the parties concerned in them.
By a gross breach of confidence, of which Mr. Adams,
like other impulsive and confiding persons, often had
been the victim, those letters were sold by Cunningham s
heir in 1824, while the writer and many of the parties
referred to were still alive. They were published as a
part of the electioneering machinery against John
Quincy Adams. They called out a violent retort from
Colonel Pickering, who had been secretary of State to
Washington and Adams, till dismissed from office by the
latter; but though Mr. Jefferson was also severely
handled in them, they occasioned no interruption to the
friendly relation which had been re-established between
him and Mr. Adams.
166 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Those two leading actors in American politics, at first
so co-operative and afterward so hostile, again reunited
in friendly intercourse, having outlived almost all of their
fellow-actors, continued to descend hand in hand to the
grave. Adams lived to see his son president, and to re
ceive Jefferson s congratulations on the same. By a re
markable coincidence, they both expired on the fiftieth
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, in which.
they both had taken so active a part, Adams, however,
being the survivor by a few hours.
Of Adams personal appearance and domestic charac
ter in his old age, his grandson gives -the following ac
count : "In figure, John Adams was not tall, scarcely ex
ceeding middle height, but of a stout, well-knit frame,
denoting vigor and long life, yet as he grew old inclining
more and more to corpulence. His head was large and
round, with a wide forehead and expanded brows. His
eye was mild and benignant, perhaps even humorous
when he was free from emotion, but when excited it fully
expressed the vehemence of the spirit that stirred within.
His presence was grave and imposing on serious oc
casions, but not unbending. He delighted in social con
versation, in which he was sometimes tempted to what
he called rodomontade. But he seldom fatigued those
who heard him ; for he mixed so much of natural vigor
of fancy and illustration with the store of his acquired
knowledge, as to keep alive their interest for a long time.
His affections were warm, though not habitually
demonstrated toward his relatives. His anger, when
thoroughly aroused, was for a time extremely violent,
but when it subsided it left no trace of malevolence
behind. Nobody could see him intimately without
admiring the simplicity and truth which shone in his
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 167
actions, and standing in some awe of the power and en
ergy of his will. It was in these moments that he im
pressed those around him with a sense of his greatness.
Even the men employed on his farm were in the habit of
citing instances, some of which have been remembered
down to the present day.
At times his vehemence became so great as to make
him overbearing and unjust. This was apt to happen in
cases of pretension and any kind of wrong-doing. Mr.
Adams was very impatient of cant, or of opposition to
any of his deeply established convictions. Neither was
his indignation at all graduated to the character of the
individuals who might happen to excite it. He had lit
tle respect of persons, and would hold an illiterate man
or raw boy to as heavy a responsibilty for uttering a
crude heresy, as the strongest thinker or the most pro
found scholar.
The same writer makes the following remarks on his
general character : " His nature was too susceptible to
emotions of sympathy and kindness, for it tempted him
to trust more than was prudent in the professions of
some who proved unworthy of his confidence. Ambi
tious in one sense he certainly was, but it was not the
mere aspiration for place or power. It was a desire to
excel in the minds of men by the development of high
qualities, the love, in short, of an honorable fame, that
stirred him to exult in the rewards of popular favor. Yet
this passion never tempted him to change a course of
action or to suppress a serious conviction, to bend to a
prevailing error or to disavow one odious truth."
In these last assertions we do not fully concur. They
involve some controverted points of history; however,
168 HIDDEN TREASURES.
they may be made with far more plausibility of Mr.
Adams than of the greater portion of political men.
There is much in the life of John Adams worthy of
careful consideration. He rose from poverty to distinc
tion; he was a capable man, capable of filling the highest
place in the estimation of his posterity, yet his serious
faults led to his political ruin. The careful perusal of
his life will enable one to understand the principles of
the two great parties of to-day, modified though they be,
the fundamental principles remaining the same.
THOMAS JEFFERSON,
THE subject of this narrative was born in Virginia, in
the year 1743, on the 2nd day of April. As young
Jefferson was born to affluence and was bountifully
blessed with all the educational advantages which wealth
will bring, many of our young readers may say well, I
could succeed, perhaps, had I those advantages. We will
grant that you could provided you took means similar to
those used by Jefferson, for while we must admit that all
cannot be Jeff ersons, nor Lincolns, nor Garfields, still we
are constantly repeating in our mind the words of the
poet:
" Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time,"
it has been said that where twenty enter the dry-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 169
goods traae nineteen will fail and from their despair be
hold the odd one succeed utilizing the very weapons
within their own grasp to bring about his success. This
is true, not only of the dry-goods trade but of all trades,
of all professions, and to resume our subject Jefferson
had much with which to contend.
He finally attended school at William and Mary
College for two years. Here he strove to cultivate
friendly feelings with all whom he met, with excellent
success, becoming very popular with both companions
and teachers. It was while a student that he heard the
famous speech of Patrick Henry; and those immortal
words, "GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH,"seemed to
kindle within him a patriotic spirit which grew until it
l>urst forth in that noble statue to his memory, the
Declaration of Independence, which was the work of his
pen. He studied law for a time, after a two years college
course, when, in 1767 he began its practice.
As Mr. Jefferson is described as tall and spare with
gray eyes and red hair, surely his success is not due
to his personal appearance. At the beginning of his
practice he was not considered what might be termed
brilliant, but the fact that he was employed on over two
hundred cases within the first two years of his practice
proves the secret of his success to have been his unde-
fatigable energy. It is also stated that he rarely spoke
in public which shows his good sense in discovering
where his strength lay, then pushing on that line to
success.
He was elected by his countrymen to the house of
Burgesses where he at once took a decided stand against
parliamentary encroachment. It was in this first of his
legislative efforts that he brought forward a bill tending
170 HIDDEN TREASURES.
to the freedom of slaves, provided their masters felt so
disposed, but this measure was defeated. The house of
Burgesses appointed him a member of the committee of
correspondence. The duty of this committee was to
disseminate intelligence upon the issues of the day,
notably the system of taxation which the mother-country
was trying to impose upon the colonies.
His article entitled : "A Summary View of the Rights
of British America," was a masterly production, clearly
defining the right of the colonies to resist taxation, and
it was the principles here set forth that were afterwards
adopted as the Declaration of Independence. This-
paper was printed, not only in America, but in England,
where its author was placed on the roll of treason and
brought before parliament. This document also placed
Jefferson in America among the foremost writers of that
age; it also showed him to be a bold and uncompromis
ing opponent of oppression, and an eloquent advocate of
constitutional freedom.
He was sent to the Continental Congress. On the
floor he was silent but he had the reputation of a mas-,
terly pen/ says John Adams, and in committee was a
most influential member. He drafted the Declaration of
Independence, and on June 28th it was laid before
Congress and finally adopted, with but a few verbal
changes. This document probably has the greatest
celebrity of any paper of like nature in existence.
He now resigned his seat in Congress to push needed
reform in his State preparatory to the new order of
affairs. The first thing needed was a State constitution.
Jefferson aided much in the framing of this. He was
placed on the committee to reorganize the State laws,
and to Jefferson is due the abolition of Primogenture-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 171
ship the exclusive right of the first-born to all property
of the family. The measure establishing religious free
dom, whereby people were not to be taxed for the support
of a religion not their s, was also the work of his hand.
These measures were very democratic indeed and owing
to the aristocratic views of the people at that time, excited
great opposition, but they were finally passed and since
have been law.
Thus it will be seen that Jefferson was the author of
many of our dearest ideas of equality. In 1778 he procured
the passage of a bill forbidding future importation of slaves
and the next year he was elected governor of Virginia,
to succeed Patrick Henry. He assumed the duties of this
office in a most gloomy time. The enemy were prepar
ing to carry the war into the South, and Jefferson knew
they would find Virginia almost defenseless. Her re
sources were drained to the dregs to sustain hostilities
in South Carolina and Georgia, and her sea coast was
almost wholly unprotected. The State was invaded by
the enemy several times and once the Governor was
almost captured by Tarleton.
Jefferson declined a re-election as lie perceived that
a military leader was needed, and he was succeeded by
General Nelson. Jefferson was appointed one of the
Ministers of the Colonies to Europe to assist Adams and
Franklin in negotiating treaties of commerce. He was
the means which brought about our system of coins,
doing away with the old English pounds, shillings and
pence, substituting the dollar and fractions of a dollar,
even down to a cent. He became our Minister to France
in 1785 in place of Franklin who had resigned. Here he
did good service for his country by securing the admis-
172 HIDDEN TREASURES.
sion into France of tobacco, flour, rice and various other
American products.
Being offered the head of Washington s cabinet, he
accepted it. Immediately upon his entrance into the
cabinet, in 1790, began the struggle between the Federal
ist and Republican parties, their leaders, Hamilton and
now Jefferson, both being members of the cabinet.
Jefferson was probably the real originator of the State
sovereignly idea, and the constitution did not wholly
meet his approval. He thought better of it, however,
when he became President and felt more forcibly the
need of authority in such a trying position.
He had just returned from an extended trip through
Europe, and he contended that the world was governed
too much. He was intensely Democratic in his belief
and as the head of the then rising Republican party
now the Democratic opposed all measures which tended
toward centralizing in one government, characterizing
all such measures as leading to monarchy.
Washington was a Federalist, and in all the leading
measures gave his support to Mr. Hamilton, Mr. Jeffer
son s opponent. As it was out of the question for Jeffer
son to remain in the cabinet of an executive wholly at
variance with him politically, he accordingly resigned in
1793 and retired to his farm at Monticello to attend to
his private affairs as he was embarrassed financially at
this time, and his attention was very much needed.
In 1796, Washington designing to retire from public
service, the two great parties decided upon Adams and
Jefferson as their standard-bearers ; the electoral votes
being counted, it was found that Adams stood first and
Jefferson next. Adams was therefore declared president
and Jefferson, according to existing law, vice-president.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 178
Then folio wed the alien and sedition laws and the war de
monstrations against France by the federal party, which
was objected to by the Republicans. The bearing of France
became so unendurable that Washington offered to take
his place at the head of the army. Finding all else of no
avail, the Republicans resorted to the State Arenas ; the
result was the Kentucky and Virginia resolutions of 98,
the former of which was the work of Jefferson, the latter
that of Madison. As is well known these were the founda
tion, years after, of Calhoun s Nullification Views. It was
a principle of Jefferson, which was never effectually set
tled, until civil war had rent the nation almost in twain.
Happily peace triumphed, and in the campaign that
followed, the Republicans were successful, Mr. Jefferson
becoming president Aaron Burr vice-president. Jeffer
son s ascension to the presidency caused a complete rev
olution in the politics of the country. The central idea
around which the party revolved was the diffusion of
power among the people. To this idea they would bend
every question indiscriminately, whether it related to a
national bank, tariff, slavery, or taxes. It held that in
the States themselves rested the original authority, that
in the government lay the power only for acts of a gen
eral character. Jefferson, their first president, now came
to Washington.
President Washington came to the capitol with ser
vants in livery, in a magnificent carriage drawn by four
cream-colored horses, Jefferson came on horse- back,
hitching his horse to a post while he delivered a fifteen
minute address. He abolished the presidential levees,
and concealed his birthday to prevent its being cele
brated. He even detested the word minister prefixed to
one s name, and eschewed breeches, wearing pantaloons.
174 HIDDEN TREASURES.
It was during his administration that Louisiana was
purchased, although, according to his own theory, he had
no constitutional right to do so, but the great benefit
derived from this purchase soon silenced all opposition.
It was during his administration that the piratical
Barbary States were cured of their insolence, and in his
second term that Burr s trial occurred. At the close of
this second term he retired to private life to become the
Sage of Monticello. He now turned his attention to
the establishing of the University of Virginia. He was
a believer in the free development of the human pow
ers so far as was consistent with good government. He
subjected the constitution of the United States to a care
ful scrutiny governed by this theory, and became con
vinced that the doctrine of State sovereignty was right
and he fought for it persistently when called to the head
of the government.
His inaugural address breathed that idea, but when
Aaron Burr bearded the authority of his government
he began to realize the rottenness of such a foundation,
and when it came to the purchase of Louisiana, his doc
trine had to be stretched, and he finally became con
vinced, as he expressed it, that the Government must
show its teeth.
On July 4th, 1826, at a little past noon, he died, a few
hours before his political opponent, but fast friend, John
Adams. I T ow strange to think that about that hour fifty
years before they had each signed the declaration of the
freedom of the country which they had so ably served.
The granite for his monument lies unquarried nor is
its erection needed. The Declaration of Independence is
a far greater monument than could be fashioned from
brass or stone.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 17&
JOHN MARSHALL,
TV MEBICA has been bountifully blessed with great
jTx an d good men. Washington The father I was
about to say founder of his country ; Jefferson who
taught us the beauty of plain dress but rich manners;
Hamilton who placed a tottering treasury upon a strong
foundation, Great indeed were all of these, but there
was born in Fouquier county, Virginia, on the 24th day
of September, 1755, a child who was to be knowr to all
posterity as the great Chief Justice of the United States.
This was John Marshall.
He was the eldest of a family of fifteen children. In
early boyhood he took an interest in poetry and was
perfectly familar with Dryden, Pope, Milton and Shakes
peare. He was for many years full of dreamy romance
and poetical enthusiasm, and his solitary meditations
were usually amid the wildest scenery.
After a short college course at West Moreland, where
he had as a fellow-student James Monroe, and a further
classical education under a resident clergyman ; he, at
eighteen, began the study of law, but enlisted to fight
the British before he obtained a license *to practice. He
soon took a part with his regiment, of which his father
was major, in the battle of Great Bridge leading, as lieu
tenant, in a flanking party which advanced in the face of
a murderous fire and put an end to the engagement.
He belonged to the Culpepper Minute-men, who wore
green hunting shirts with " Liberty or Death" on the
176 HIDDEN TREASURES.
bosom in white letters, and who carried a banner which
displayed a coiled rattlesnake with the motto, " Don t
tread on me." He took a part in the battle of Brandy-
wine, Germantown and Monmouth; he shared the hard
ships of Valley Forge; in fact saw almost continuous
service from the time he enlisted at the beginning
until the glorious end, for which he had so sanguinely
waited, came.
Meanwhile he had studied some, and had attended
a course of lectures delivered by the renowned Mr
Wythe at William and Mary College, and had secured
a license to practice. At the close of hostilities he com
menced business as an attorney; with marked success
from the first.
That extraordinary comprehension and grasp of mind
by which difficulties were seized and overcome without
parade, commended the attention of the courts of jus
tice ; and his sweet temper and loving ways gained
for him a host of friends. Such a man, who possessed
not only ability but a perfect control of himself, MUST
SUCCEED. He soon rose to distinction, being elected to a
seat in the council of the State. He was married in
1783 to the daughter of the State treasurer and moved
to Richmond.
In spite of this removal his old neighbors re-elected
him to represent their county, and in 1787 he became a
member from his adopted county, Henrico. As is well-
known, the Federal constitution was considered by many
an approach to monarchy. It was held by Jefferson and
many of his followers as tending toward that state of
things of which they had so much to fear. At the Vir
ginia Convention, assembled to discuss the constitution
drawn up at Philadelphia, where great opposition was
11
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 177
developed, Mr. Marshall s speech had a crushing effect on
its assailants. He next became a member from Rich
mond, that city now being entitled to a representative,
where he remained for three years.
Virginia was the headquarters of the State rights
party, headed by Jefferson. Mr. Marshall supported the
administration of Washington, defining the Federal view
so clearly that it carried conviction, yet so calmly and
with such moderation of tone, that when he retired from
that body in 1792 he left not an enemy behind. He now
devoted himself to his profession with unbounded suc
cess. While attending to a large legal practice, he also
frequently appeared at public meetings in support of the
administration of Washington.
In 1795 he was again a member of the House. In the
violent debate over Jay s treaty he became its champion,
and by a most eloquent speech, before a body that had
condemned it, he secured an amendment to their reso
lution, reversing their former decision, and the passage
of one favorable to the policy. Washington offered him
a place in his Cabinet, but he refused, as it would inter
fere with his profession ; later he was offered the mis
sion to France, which he also declined. In 1797 Presi
dent Adams sent another delegation to France, which he
accepted, and with Pickney and Gerry proceeded to Paris.
Upon his return he immediately resumed his practice,
but was urged to defend his party. Washington finally
prevailed upon him to run for Congress, to which he was
elected in 1799. Even during the canvass Adams offered
him a seat on the Supreme Bench, which he declined.
Within a few weeks from the time of his entrance upon
his duties as Congressman, he was called upon to an
nounce in that body the death of Washington. His
178 HIDDEN TREASURES.
words were few, but were ever remembered as producing
a profound impression.
Washington, the great Federal leader was dead.
Virginia had passed the resolution of 1798, recording her
solemn protest, and the Republicans were flushed with
the daily increasing revulsion against the Federal Gov
ernment. At this crisis John Marshall appeared in Con
gress and stepped to the front as the leader of his party.
In 1800 he was appointed Secretary of War. Before he
entered upon his duties he is placed at the head of the
Cabinet as Secretary of State, and a few months later
his name is sent by the President to Congress, and is
unanimously confirmed for the position of Chief Justice
of the United States.
John Marshall has been heretofore recognized as a
man of great ability, and now he takes a position which
he holds for life, and where his influence is paramount.
On one occasion a young house-keeper was swearing
lustily because he could find no one to carry his turkey
home for him. A plain man standing by offered to per
form the service, and when they arrived at the door the
young man asked, What shall I pay you, sir ? nothing,
replied the old man ; It was on my way, and no trouble.
Who is that polite old gentleman, asked the young man
of a bystander. The reply was, That is the Chief Jus
tice of the United States. The young man drank the
bitter cup without further comment.
An eminent writer once said of him : Here is John
Marshall, whose mind seems to be an inexhaustible
quarry from which he draws the materials and builds his
fabrics rude and Gothic, but of such strength that neither
time nor force can beat them down ; a fellow who would
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 179
not turn off a single step from the right line of his argu
ment, though a paradise should rise to tempt him.
What more could be said of him, only that he died
at Philadelphia on the 6th of July, 1835 ; more would be
superfluous.
ALEXANDER HAMILTON,
UPON the accession of the Republicans to the control
of the government, Jefferson ordered the books of
Hamilton searched to ascertain what charges could be
made against him, and to discover the alleged blunders
and frauds perpetrated by the Federal official while in
office. Albert Gallatin, himself one of the greatest finan
ciers of his age, undertook the task with a hearty relish
as he at that time entertained no great esteem for the
great Federalist. Struck by the almost absolute perfec
tion of the system, Gallatin reported to the President
that any change would certainly injure it and that no
blunders or frauds had been committed.
This great man was born on one of the West India
Islands, January llth, 1757. His father failed when he
was young and his mother died leaving the poor child
in actual want. He was taken by friends at Santa
Cruz. He had no great educational advantages there,
but being able to read both English and French he
devoured all such books as fell in his way. He was
placed in a counting-house in Santa Cruz and, although
he detested the business, applied himself dilligently to
180 HIDDEN TREASURES.
his task and the knowledge here gained was no small
factor of his future great success as a financier.
He applied every spare moment to study and early
began to use his pen. In 1772 a hurricane passed through
St. Christophers, and an account which young Hamilton
then wrote for the papers attracted so much attention
that his friends decided to give him a better chance.
They accordingly raised the money with which to send
him to New York to school, and after a few months
spent at a grammar school in Elizabethtown, New Jersey,
he entered Columbia College, New York then called
Kings College. Here he began study preparatory to a
medical course.
About this time his attention became drawn toward
the struggle which was about to commence between
Great Britain and America, and at a public meeting he
made a short speech which attracted general attention,
He was now but seventeen years of age, yet his pen was
keenly felt in the interest of America, through the
columns of Holts Journal, to which he had become a
regular contributor. He entered the army as captain of
an artillery company which he was the chief means of
raising, and did good service at White Plains, Trenton
and Princeton.
He secured this position through the influence of
General Schuyler and, although but nineteen years of
age, he was well qualified for the position, having made a
study of artillery tactics. His ability had not escaped
the attention of the army, and he was placed upon Wash
ington s staff with rank of lieutenant-colonel. Wash
ington needed some one to take charge of his great cor
respondence, some one who could think for himself,
Young as Hamilton was he assumed the entire respon-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 181
sibility of chief secretary, besides rendering much valu
able assistance as aid. He married one of General
Schuyler s daughters, and this alliance with one of the
wealthiest familes in the State proved a most fortunate
epoch in his life. A difference arising between Wash
ington and himself he resigned and, although Washing
ton sent an apology, he refused to recall his resignation
however their mutual esteem was continued. He subse
quently commanded a brigade at the battle of Yorktown.
He now took up his residence at Albany and began
the study of law with his wife s father. He was soon
licensed to practice, and was chosen one of the delegates
to the Continental Congress. He realized the necessity of
vesting more power in congress and secured the adoption,
by the State of New York, of a resolution urging the
amendment of the constitution with that object in* view.
He now moved to New York where he soon acquired an
immense practice. His efforts in behalf of the consti
tution were untiring and useful.
When Washington became president he selected Ham^
ilton as his Secretary of Treasury. It was a wise choice
as financial difficulties were the most formidable of any
in the way of the administration, and no man was more
capable of bringing order out of chaos thsn Alexander
Hamilton. All parties agreed that the debts incurred
abroad must be met according to contract, but as a large
amount of the domestic debt was in the hands of men
who had bought it for a rise it had been suggested that
these obligations be settled upon the basis of the amount
paid for them by their present holders. This 9 measure
Hamilton opposed. While acknowledging that specula
tion was an evil, still he saw that such a measure would
tend to weaken our financial credit. He also brought
182 HIDDEN TREASURES.
about the assumption by the government of the entire
State debt incurred during the war. This measure was
strongly opposed by Jefferson, and its passage had a
marked effect on our system tending to centralize
authority.
It will thus be seen that to Alexande. HamiLtoa
belongs no small share of founding and shaping the des
tiny of this powerful country of to-day. Like many,
other great and good men, he was obliged to suffer the
slander of the press, which charged him with a misap
propriation of the public money, but as has already been
shown in this narrative, it proved nothing but a foul
story concocted through jealousy and partisan hate, and
is no longer countenanced. His salary being insufficient
for his support, he resigned his position and resumed the
practice of his profession in New York. In the warlike
demonstration of 1798 he became, upon the death of
General Washington, the Commander-in-Chief of all the
armies of America, but happily the war with France was
averted and peace restored.
Now we come to the saddest page of American his
tory. We have followed this poor homeless boy from
childhood ; we have seen him rise from obscurity to a
leading position at the bar, become a gallant soldier and
the greatest financier in America. And yet, when his
country most needs his council and help, we see him, at
the age of fifty-seven, stricken down by an assassin.
Aaron Burr was an ambitious politician. His alleged
intrigues with the Federalists, whereby he sought to
effect the. election of himself to the presidency instead
of Jefferson, the people s choice, cost him the confidence
of his own party. Knowing New York to be the pivotal
State, he sought the gubernatorial chair through an
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 183
independent vote, hoping to secure Federal support, as
it was conceded that they could not elect a candidate of
their own. Hamilton, himself as pure as the bright
sunshine, felt his party to be imposed upon by this intru
der who, while professing to be a Republican, was seek
ing to thrust himself upon the other party.
At a caucus Hamilton warmly opposed the endorse
ment of a man whom he characterized as dangerous
and who had not ought to be trusted with the reins of
government. Hamilton took no active part in the cam
paign, but his opinion was frequently quoted by those
who did, and the result was Burr s defeat by Morgan
Lewis. Attributing his defeat to Hamilton, and feeling
him to be his greatest political rival, he early sought a
duel with him. Hamilton detested this practice, and
sought by all honorable means, as he wrote to his wife,
to avoid it. But finally he accepted, not in the spirit of
a professed duelist, but in the character of a public man.
They met on the morning of July llth, 1804, on the fatal
field of Weehawken, New Jersey.
At the first fire Hamilton sprang on his tip-toes, and,
after a convulsive movement, fell forward on his face.
At the same time his weapon was accidentally dis
charged, his missile flying wide of its mark. Indeed,
Hamilton did not fire ; in reality, he had resolved not to
return his antagonist s fire, and never knew that his
weapon was discharged, as he was insensible when he
fell. He died within thirty hours, and his funeral was
the most imposing ever witnessed in that day. Around
the name of Hamilton there glows a halo which has
brightened in the ages. Thus was America robbed of
her brave soldier and pure statesman.
184 HIDDEN TREASURES.
JAMES MADISON,
/TIHE subject of this narrative, James Madison, was born
J[ at King George, Virginia, March 16th, 1751. His
father was a planter, descended from John Madison, an
Englishman who settled in Virginia about the year 1656.
The maiden name of his mother was Eleanor Conway.
He was the eldest of seven children. He received a fairly
good education but better still, he applied himself very
closely at college, so much so as to make him noted in
this respect; the result was seen in after years.
In 1772 he returned to Virginia and commenced a
course of legal study. He particularly studied up on
public affairs, and in the spring of 1776 he was elected a
member of the Virginia convention from the county of
Orange, and procured the passage of the substance of an
amendment to the declaration of rights, by George Mason,
which struck out the old term * toleration ? and inserted
a broader exposition of religious rights. In the same
year he was a member of the general assembly, but lost
his election in 1777, from his refusal to treat the voters,
and the general want of confidence in his powers of
oratory. Thus, it is seen, that as James Madison s natural
abilities could not have been very marked, his success
was tlie natural result of GREAT EXERTION.
The legislature, however, on meeting in November of
the same year, elected him a member of the council of
the State; and in the winter of 1779 he was chosen by
the assembly a delegate to congress. He took his seat
in March, 1780, and remained in that body for three
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 185
years. He strongly opposed the issue of paper money
by the States, and was in favor of a formal recommenda
tion on the part of congress against the continuance of
the system. As chairman of the committee to prepare
instructions to the ministers at Versailles and Madrid, in
.support of the claims of the confederacy to western ter
ritory and the free navigation of the Mississippi, he
-drew an elaborate and able paper which was unani
mously adopted by congress. He zealously advocated in
1783 the measure proposed to establish a system of gen
eral revenue to pay the expenses of the war, and as chair
man of the committee to which the matter was referred,
prepared an able address to the State in support of the
plan, which was adopted by congress and received the
Tvarm approval of Washington.
The people of Virginia now began to realize the value
of his services ; a striking proof of which is exhibited
by the fact that the law rendering him inelligible after
three years service in Congress was repealed, in order
that he might sit during the fourth. On his return to
Virginia he was elected to the Legislature, and took his
seat during 1784. In this body he inaugurated the meas
ures relating to a thorough revision of the old statutes,
.and supported the bills introduced by the revisors, Jeffer
son, Wyth, and Pendleton, on the subject of entails, prim
ogeniture (exclusive heirship belonging to the first born)
and religious freedom.
He aided in the separation of Kentucky from Vir
ginia, and the formation of the new State, opposed the
further issue of paper money, and favored the payment
of debts due British creditors. His greatest service at
this time was his preparation, after the close of the
.assembly, of a "Memorial and Remonstrance" against
186 HIDDEN TREASURES.
the project of a general assessment for the support of
religion, which caused the utter defeat of the measure,
against which it was directed. In January, 1786, he
obtained the passage of a bill by the General Assembly
inviting the other States to appoint commissioners to
meet at Annapolis and devise a new system of commer
cial regulations. He was chosen one of the commis
sioners, and attended at Annapolis in September of the
same year. Five States only were represented, and the
commissioners recommended a convention of delegates
from all the States to meet at Philadelphia, in May, 1787.
The recommendation was generally adopted and, of
course, Madison was chosen one of the delegates from
Virginia.
The convention assembled and the result was the ab
rogation of the old articles and the formation of the
Constitution of the United States. Madison was promi
nent in advocating the Constitution and took a leading
part in the debates, of which he kept private notes, since
published by order of congress. His views of a federal
government are set .forth at length in a paper still ex
tant in the hand-writing of Washington, which contains
the subtance of a letter written to Washington by Madi
son before the meeting of the convention, proposing a.
scheme of thorough centralization. The writer declares
that he is equally opposed to the individual indepen
dence of the States/ and to the consolidation of the=
whole into one simple republic/
He is nevertheless in favor to invest in congress the
power to exercise a negative in all cases whatever on
the legislative acts of the States, as heretofore exercised
by the kingly prerogative. 7 Ho says further that the
right of coercion should be expressly declared; but the
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 187
difficulty and awkwardness of operating by force on the
collective will of a State, render it particularly desirable
that the necessity of it should be precluded. From these
extreme views Madison conscientiously departed, but in
the convention he supported them with zeal and vigor.
The scheme known as the Virginia Plan was adopted
.instead, and the convention adjourned. The subsequent
adoption of the Constitution was in a large measure due
to a series of essays, now familiar in their collected
form as " The Federalist." They were commenced in a
New York newspaper soon after the adjournment of the
Convention, and continued to appear until June, 1788.
The public journals everywhere republished them, and
it was soon known that they were the work of Hamilton,
Madison, and Jay. The volume remains the forcible
exposition upon the side which it espoused. The whole
ground is surveyed, generally and in detail ; the \arious
points at issue are discussed with the utmost acuteness,
and the advantages of the adoption of the instrument
urged with logical force and eloquence which place "The-
Federalist" beside the most famous political writings
of the old English worthies.
The Virginia convention, of which Madison was a
member, assembled in June. He had completely over
come his natural diffidence and, although deficient as an
orator, exerted a powerful influence over his associates,
contributing as much to the final triumph of the consti
tution as any one in the body. The instrument was
adopted by a vote of eighty-nine to seventy-nine and the
convention closed. The part which he had taken in its-
deliberations very greatly increased Madison s reputa
tion ; and he was brought forward as a candidate for
United States Senator but was defeated. He was, however,.
188 HIDDEN TREASURES.
chosen a member of congress and took his seat in that
body in 1789.
Alexander Hamilton was at the head of the treasury
department and Madison was obliged either to support
the great series of financial measures initiated by the
secretary, or distinctly abandon his former associate and
range himself on the side of the republican opposition.
He adopted the latter course. Although he had warmly
espoused the adoption of the constitution, he was now
convinced of the necessity of a strict construction of the
powers which it conferred upon the general government.
He accordingly opposed the funding bill, the national
bank, and Hamilton s system of finance generally.
His affection for Washington, and long friendship for
Hamilton, rendered such a step peculiarly disagreeable
to a man of Madison s amiable and kindly disposition,
but the tone of his opposition did not alienate his friends.
Occupying, as he did, the middle ground between the
violent partisans on both sides he labored to reconcile
the antagonism of the two parties, and always retained
the same cordial regard for Washington.
On Jefferson s return from France, Madison was
solicited to accept the mission and it was kept open for
twelve months awaiting his decision. He declined the
place, as he aftewards did the position of Secretary of
State on the retirement of Jefferson, from a firm convic
tion that the radical antagonism of views between him
self and a majority of the members of the cabinet would
render his acceptance of either office fruitful in misun
derstandings and collisions.
He remained in congress, becoming thoroughly iden
tified with the Eepublicans, and soon became the avowed
leader in congress. In 1794 he gave his full support to
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 189
its foreign policy by moving a series of resolutions,
based upon the report of Jefferson, advocating a retali
atory policy toward Great Britain, and commercial dis
criminations in favor of France. These resolutions he
supported in a speech of great ability. In March, 1797,
his term expired, and he returned to Virginia.
The insulting treatment of the American envoys to
France and the war message of President Adams were
about to be followed by the passage of the alien and
sedition laws. The Republicans vainly tried to stem the
popular current in favor of the measures of the adminis
tration. The passing of the alien and sedition laws in July,
1798, gave them the first opportunity to make a stand.
Opposition to even these violent measures was however
ineffectual in the Federal legislature; and the Republican
leaders determined to resort to the State arenas for the
decisive struggle.
It commenced in Kentucky, and resulted there in the
adoption of a series of resolutions, which were followed,
in December, 1798, by similar resolves of the Virginia
Assembly. The latter, now known as "the resolutions
of 1798- 9," were drawn up by James Madison, not then a
member. They declared the determination of the
Assembly to defend the Constitution of he United States,
but to resist all attempts to enlarge the authority of the
federal compact by forced constructions of general
clauses, as tending to consolidation, the destruction of
the liberties of the States, and finally to a monarchy.
In case of a "deliberate, palpable, and dangerous"
exercise of powers not clearly granted to the General
Government, the States had a right to interpose ; and as
the passing of the alien and sedition laws was such an
infraction of right, the assembly protested against those
190 HIDDEN TREASURES.
laws. The seventh resolution called upon the other
States to join with the State of Virginia in declaring,
as it does hereby declare, that the acts aforesaid are
unconstitutional, and that the necessary and proper meas
ures will be taken by each for co-operating with this
State in maintaining unimpaired the authorities, rights
and liberties reserved to the States respectively, or to the
people.
The resolutions passed the House by a vote of 100 to
63, and were duly communicated to the several States of
the Union. They met with little favor, especially in the
Northern States. Massachusetts and New England gen
erally remonstrated against them, and declared the ob
noxious laws both constitutional and expedient. This
drew forth, in the winter of 1799-1800, Madison s "Report"
in defence of his resolutions. This elaborate paper sub
jected the resolves to an exhaustive analysis and defended
them with masterly vigor. It is the most famous of his
political writings and will rank with the greatest state
papers written in America.
Although the resolutions met with an unfavorable
reception throughout the States, they exerted a power
ful influence on public opinion. Virginia had shown
how deeply in earnest she was by directing the establish
ment of two arsenals, and an armory sufficiently large
to store 10,000 muskets and other arms ; but a whole
some change in the sentiment of the country happily
restored good feeling and softened down all bitterness.
The alien and sedition laws found few supporters
ultimately, and Madison s views were fully vindicated.
The revulsion against the Federal party and in favor of
the Republicans, terminated in the election of Jefferson,
who entered upon the presidency in 1801. Madison was
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 191
Secretary of State during Jefferson s entire administra
tion, and his opinions on public affairs closely agreed
with those of the President.
He became still more popular with, and acceptable
to, his party and toward the close of Jefferson s second
term was generally spoken of as his successor. A caucus
of the majority of the Republican members of Congress
was finally held, and Madison was nominated. This met
with bitter opposition from a wing of the party, headed
by John Randolph, who were friendly to the nomination
of Monroe. They published a caustic Protest 7 against
the action of the caucus and denounced Madison for his
want of energy, his connection with the Federalist/
and his report upon the Yazoo claims.
His friends defended him against all charges and re
torted so strongly upon the .authors of the "Protest" that
they were silenced. The action of the caucus was gen
erally approved by the party, and Madison was elected
by a vote of 123 out of 175, and took his seat as president,
March 4, 1809.
President Madison entered upon his duties at a crisis
in public affairs which required the utmost foresight,
resolution and prudence. Great Britain and the United
States were on the verge of war. In 1807 the long series
of wrongs inflicted by England upon the commerce of
America, and the rights of her seaman, had been con
summated by the affair of the Leopard and Chesapeake.
This wanton insult had thrown the country into violent
commotion, and occasioned the embargo act, which had
been succeeded by the non-intercourse act, prohibiting
all commerce with France and England, until the decrees
of the French emperor and the British orders in council
192 HIDDEN TREASURES.
in relation to the seizure of neutrals and the impress
ment of seamen were repealed.
The first of the British cabinet did not encourage
peace. Mr. Erskine, the English minister, in promising
reparation for the affair of the Chesapeake, and a repeal
of the obnoxious orders in council, on condition of a
renewal of intercourse on the part of the United States,
was declared to have exceeded his authority, and was
recalled. He was succeeded by Mr. Jackson who was au
thorized to enter into a commercial treaty, but speedily
became embroiled with the Secretary of State. The
president directed the secretary to have no further com
munication with him, and soon afterward requested his
recall. This was complied with, but no censure was
visited upon the envoy, and no other was sent in his place.
In May, 1810, congress approved the course of the
executive, declared the official communications of Mr.
Jackson highly indecorous and insolent, and passed a
new act of non-intercourse. This provided that if either
France or England repealed her hostile decree, and the
other did not within three months do likewise, then inter
course should be resumed with the one, while with the
other non -intercourse should be persisted in.
In August the French minister for Foreign Affairs
gave notice to the American minister that the Berlin and
Milan decrees had been revoked by the Emperor ; and in
November Madison issued a proclamation declaring the
fact, and announcing that the act of non-intercourse
would be revived as to Great Britain unless her orders in
council should be revoked within three months from the
date of the proclamation.
The British government resisted this demand, on
the ground that there was no official evidence of
12
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 193
the repeal of the French decrees, and the act of
non-intercourse was accordingly declared in full force
against Great Britain. In March, 1811, the Emperor
Napoleon disavowed the statement of the Duke of
Cadore, and declared that "the decrees of Berlin and
Milan were the fundamental laws of the empire." Amer
ican vessels had been siezed and held by France even
after the president s proclamation, and every overture
on the part of the American minister at Paris toward
the re-establishment of friendly relations between the
two countries was viewed with indifference and utterly
failed. The country was slowly but surely drifting to
ward a war, which no exertions on the part of the admin
istration seemed adequate to prevent.
Madison pushed his pacific views to an extent that
proved displeasing to many of the most prominent men
of the Republican party. Bills were passed for augment
ing the army, repairing and equipping ships of war, or
ganizing and arming the militia, and placing the country
in an attitude to resist an enemy; for all which congress
appropriated $1,000,000.
Madison acquiesced in this policy with extreme re
luctance, but on June 1, 1812, transmitted a special
message to congress in which he reviewd the whole con
troversy, and spoke in strong terms of the aggressions of
Great Britain upon commercial rights. The act declar
ing war between Great Britain and America speedily
followed. The president gave it his approval on June
18, and promptly issued his proclamation calling upon
the people to prepare for the struggle, and to support the
government.
A short delay would probably have defeated the
policy of the war party, and re-opened the old negotia-
194 HIDDEN TREASURES.
tions. A decree of the French emperor had been ex
hibited to the United States minister to France, dated
April 28, 1811, which declared the definite revocation of
the Berlin and Milan decrees, from and after November
1, 1810. In consequence of this, Great Britain, on June
23, within five days after the declaration of war, repealed
the obnoxious orders in council in relation to the rights
of neutrals, and thus removed one of the main grounds
of complaint on the part of the American government.
On June 26, before the course of the British Cabinet
was known in America, Mr. Monroe, Secretary of State,
wrote to Mr. Russell proposing the terms of armistice.
These were a repeal of the orders in council, with no ille
gal blockades substituted, and a discontinuance of the
impressment of seamen. In the latter part of August,
Mr. Russell, our representative at London, received from
the English Government a definite refusal to accede to
these propositions, as on various grounds absolutely
inadmissible, he therefore returned to the United States.
In September Admiral Warren arrived at Halifax.
In addition to his naval command, he was invested with
powers to negotiate a provisional accommodation with
the United States. A correspondence on the subject
ensued between himself and Mr. Monroe, as the repre
sentatives of the two countries. The admiral proposed
an immediate cessation of hostilities, with a view to the
peaceful arrangement of the points at issue.
Monroe replied that his government was willing to
accede to this proposition, provided Warren was author
ized and disposed to negotiate terms for suspending in
the future the impressment of American seamen. The
British Government refused to relinquish the claim to
this right and nothing remained but war.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 195
On March 4, 1813, Madison entered upon his second
term of service. He had received 128 electoral votes ;
liis opponent DeWitt Clinton, 89 votes. The congres
sional elections had resulted in a large majority in favor
of the administration, and the war policy seemed to be
acceptable to a large majority of the people, though a
strong party was opposed to it, and endeavored to ob
struct the measures necessary to the vigorous prosecu
tion of hostilities. The war commenced in earnest with
the appearance, in 1813, of a British fleet in Chesapeake
Bay, and in March the whole coast of the United States,
with the exception of Rhode Island, New Hampshire
and Massachusetts, was declared in a state of blockade.
The long series of engagements on land and water during
the war which followed, find their proper place in the
general history of our country.
In March, 1813, soon after the commencement of hos
tilities, the Russian minister to the United States com
municated to the American government a proposal from
the Emperor Alexander to mediate between the belliger
ents. The proposition was accepted, and the president
appointed commissioners to go to St. Petersburg to
negotiate under the mediation of the emperor. Great
Britain declined the Russian mediation in September ;
but in November the American government was in
formed that that power was prepared to negotiate the
terms of a treaty of peace.
Steps were at once taken to meet this proposal. Mr.
Clay and Mr. Russell were added to the commission pre
viously appointed, and in January, 1814, joined their
associates in Europe. In August of the same year the
country was deeply aroused by the attack on the capitol.
A British force of 5.000 men ascended the Chesapeake,
196 HIDDEN TREASURES.
landed on the shores of the Patuxent, and marched on
Washington. The few troops hastily collected were
wholly unable to offer any effective resistance and re
tired before the enemy, who proceeded to the city,
burned the capitol, the president s house, and other
public buildings, and returned without loss to their ships.
The president and several members of his cabinet were
in the American camp, but were compelled to abandon
the city in order to avoid capture.
The enemy gained little by their movement, and the
wanton outrage only increased the bitterness of the
people. Among the public occurrences of the year 1814,
the meeting of the Hartford convention, in opposition to
the continuance of the war, occupies a prominent place.
The victory at New Orleans, however, and the intelli
gence of the conclusion of the treaty of peace, termin
ated the popular indignation. A treaty of peace had
been signed by the United States commissioners at Ghent,
on December 4, 1814, and being communicated by the
president to the senate, was ratified by that body in
February, 1815.
It was silent on the paramount question of impress
ment, and left the commercial regulations between the
two countries for subsequent negotiation. But the
country was tired of the war, and the treaty was hailed
with acclamation. In this general joy no one person
joined more heartily than did Madison. He had ac
quiesced reluctantly to the commencement of hostilities,
and had longed for peace since the beginning. The
country came out of a war, which cost her 30,000 lives
and $1,000,000, stronger and more honored than before;
thoroughly convinced of her own power and resources,
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 197
and regarded with increased respect by all the nations of
the world.
In 1815 a commercial treaty was concluded with
Great Britain based upon a policy of perfect reciprocity.
The subjects of impressment and blockades were not
embraced in it. The return of peace disbanded the
organized opposition to the administration, and the re
mainder of Madison s term was undisturbed by exciting
events.
In April, 1816, congress incorporated a national bank
with a capital of $35,000,000, to continue for twenty years.
The president had vetoed a similar bill in January of the
preceding year, but now approved of it, from a convic
tion that the derangement of the currency made it nec
essary. It encountered strong opposition, but was sup
ported by Henry Clay and other friends of the president,
and passed both houses.
In December, 1816, Madison sent in his last annual
message to congress. Its recommendations were con
sidered judicious and liberal, and secured the general
approbation of the country.
On March 4, 1817, his long official relations with the
country terminated, and he retired to his farm at Mont-
pelier, Virginia. In this pleasant retreat he passed the
remainder of his days in agricultural pursuits. Like
most of our famous men, his matrimonial connection
was a source of great advantage to him. During his
later years, in spite of his ill-health, Madison still busied
himself in service to his neighbors.
While at school, for MONTHS TOGETHER, he had slept
but three hours out of the twenty-four. He was not an
orator naturally; many others of his schoolmates, it is
stated, were far superior to him in natural abilities.
198 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Why, then, did he succeed, while so many others failed?
The strong feature whereby he won success was, like
that of many others, his capacity for HARD WORK.
As to Madison s principles, it will be remembered
that he was defeated in 1777, because he refused to treat
the people to liquor. In 1829 he sat in the Virginia Con
vention to reform the old constitution. When he rose
to utter a few words the members left their seats and
crowded around the venerable figure dressed in black,
with his thin gray hair powdered as in former times, to
catch the low whisper of his voice. This was his last
appearance in public.
If not endowed with the very first order of ability,
Madison had trained his mind until it was symmetrical
and vigorous. An unfailing accuracy and precision
marked the operation of his faculties. He was naturally
deficient in powers of oratory, and yet made himself one
of the most effective speakers of his time, although the
epoch was illustrated by such men in his own State as
Patrick Henry, Richard Henry Lee, George Mason and
Edmund Pendleton, to say nothing of Jefferson and
Monroe.
Jefferson s testimony on this point is strong: He
says : "Mr. Madison came into the house in 1776, a new
member, and young; which circumstances, concurring
with his extreme modesty, prevented his venturing him
self in debate before his removal to the council of state
in November, 1777. Thence he went to Congress, then
consisting of but few members. Trained in these suc
cessive schools, he acquired a habit of self-possession
which placed at ready command the rich resources of
his luminous mind, and of his extensive information,
acquired by INTENSE application, which rendered him
FROM OBSCURITY TO pREAT HONOR. 199
eventually the first of every assembly of which he after
ward became a member.
Never wandering from his subject into vain declama*
tion, but pursuing it closely, in language pure, classical,
and copious, always soothing the feelings of his ad versa-
ries by civilities and softness of expression. He steadily
rose to the high station which he held in the great na
tional convention of 1787. In that of Virginia which
followed, he sustained the new constitution in all its
parts, bearing off the palm against the logic of George
Mason, and the burning eloquence of Mr. Henry. With
these consummate powers was united a pure and spot
less virtue which no calumny has ever attempted to sully."
From his earliest years he was an intense scholar.
His memory was singularly tenacious, and what he clearly
understood was ever afterward retained. He thus laid
up that great store of learning which, in the conventions
of 1787-8 especially proved so effective, and latter made
him president. After Washington, no public man of his
time was more widely known or more highly loved and
respected.
The public confidence in, and respect for his honesty
and singleness of aim toward the good of the country
ripened into an affectionate attachment. His bearing
and address were characterized by simplicity and modesty.
He resembled a quiet student, rather than the head of a
great nation. He was a perfect gentleman.
At another time Jefferson said of him : " From three
and thirty years trial I can say conscientiously that I do
not know IN THE WHOLE WORLD a man of purer integrity,
more dispassionate, disinterested, and devoted to true
republicanism ; nor could I in the whole scope of Amer
ica and Europe point xit an abler head." What more
200 HIDDEN TREASURES.
could be said ? that we could have such a monument
left to mark our memory.
JAMES MONROE,
rRHE fifth president of the United States was a native
JL of the grand Old Dominion, being born in West
moreland county, Virginia, April 28, 1758. Like his
predecessor, Madison, he was the son of a planter. An
other strange incident: Within sight of Blue Ridge
in Virginia, lived three presidents of the United States,
whose public career commenced in the revolutionary
times and whose political faith was the same throughout
a long series of years. These were Thomas Jefferson,
James Madison and James Monroe.
In early youthhood Monroe received a good educa
tion, but left school to join the army and soon after was
commissioned a lieutenant. He took an active part in
the campaign on the Hudson, and in the attack on Tren
ton, at the head of a small detachment, he captured one
of the British batteries. On this occasion he received a
ball in the shoulder, and was promoted to a captaincy.
As aid-de-camp to Lord Sterling, with the rank of major,
he served in the campaign of 1777 and 1778, and dis
tinguished himself in the battles of Brandywine, Ger-
mantown andMonniouth.
Leaving the army, he returned to Virginia and com
menced the study of law under Thomas Jefferson, then
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 201
Governor of the State. When the British appeared soon
afterward in the State, Monroe exerted himself to the
utmost in organizing the militia of the lower counties ;
and when the enemy proceeded southward, Jefferson
sent him as military commissioner to the army in South
Carolina.
In 1782, he was elected to the assembly of Virginia
from the county of King George, and was appointed by
that body, although but twenty-three years of age, a
member of the executive council. In 1783 he was chosen
a delegate to congress for a period of three years, and
took his seat on December 13th. Convinced that it was
impossible to govern the people under the old articles of
confederation, he advocated an extension of the powers
of congress, and in 1785 moved to invest in that body
power to regulate the trade between the States.
The resolution was referred to a committee of which
he was chairman, and a report was made in favor of the
measure. This led to the convention of Annapolis, and
the subsequent adoption of the Federal Constitution.
Monroe also exerted himself in devising a system for the
settlement of the public lands, and was appointed a
member of the committee to decide the boundary
between Massachusetts and New York. He strongly
opposed the relinquishment of the right to navigate the
Mississippi river as demanded by Spain.
Once more we see the value of a proper and ele
vating marriage, as a feature in the success of our great
men. In 1785 he married a daughter of Peter Kortright,
a lady of refinement and culture. He, being ineligible
for the next three years according to the laws, settled in
Fredericksburg.
In 1787 he was re-elected to the general assembly,
202 HIDDEN TREASURES.
and in 1788 was chosen a delegate to the Virginia con
vention to decide upon the adoption of the Federal Con
stitution. He was one of the minority who opposed the
instrument as submitted, being apprehensive that with
out amendment it would confer too much authority
upon the general government. The course of the
minority in Congress was approved by the great mass of
the population of the Old Dominion, and Monroe was>
chosen United States Senator in 1790. In the Senate he
became a strong representative of the anti-Federal party,
and acted with it until his term expired in 1794.
In May of that year he was appointed Minister Pleni
potentiary to France, and was received in Paris with
enthusiastic demonstrations of respect. His marked ex
hibition of sympathy with the French Republic dis
pleased the administration. John Jay had been sent to
negotiate a treaty with England, and the course pursued
by Monroe was considered injudicious, as tending to
throw serious obstacles in the way of the proposed ne
gotiations. On the conclusion of the treaty his alleged
failure to present it in its true character to the French
government excited anew the displeasure of the cabinet;
and in August, 1796, he was recalled under an informal
censure.
On his return to America he published a * View of the
conduct of the Executive in the Foreign Affairs of the
United States/ which widened the breach between him
and the administration, but socially Monroe remained
upon good terms with both Washington and Jay.
He was Governor of Virginia from 1799 to 1802 and
at the close of his term was appointed Envoy Extraordi
nary to the French government to negotiate, in conjunc
tion with the resident minister, Mr. Livingston, for the
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 203
purchase of Louisiana, or a right of depot for the United
States on the Mississippi. Within a fortnight after his
arrival in Paris the ministers secured, for $15,000,000,
the entire territory of Orleans and district of Louisiana.
In the same year he was commissioned Minister
Plenipotentiary to England, and endeavored to conclude
a convention for the protection of neutral rights, and
against the impressment of seamen. In the midst of
these negotiations he was directed to proceed to Madrid
as Minister Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to adjust
the difficulties between the United States and Spain, in
relation to the boundaries of the new purchase of Louis-
iana. In this he failed, and in 1806 he was recalled to
England to act with Mr. Pickney in further negotiation
for the protection of neutral rights. On the last day of
that year a treaty was concluded, but because of the
omission of any provision against the impressment of
seamen, and its doubtfulness in relation to other leading
points the president sent it back for revisal. All efforts
to attain this failed and Monroe returned to America.
The time was approaching for the election of a presi
dent, and a considerable body of the Republican party
had brought Monroe forward as their candidate, but the
preference of Jefferson for Madison was well known and
of course had its influence. Monroe believed that the
rejection of the treaty and the predilection expressed for
his rival indicated hostility on the part of the retiring
President, and a correspondence on the subject ensued.
Jefferson candidly explained his course and assured
him that his preference was based solely upon solicitude
for the success of the party, the great majority of which
had declared in the favor of Madison. The misunder
standing ceased and Monroe withdrew from the canvass.
204 HIDDEN TREASURES.
In 1810 he was again elected to the general assembly of
Virginia, and in 1811 once more Governor of the State.
In the same year he was appointed Secretary of State
"by President Madison, and after the capture of the
capitol in 1814, he was appointed to take charge of the
war department, being both Secretary of State and Sec
retary of War at once. He found the treasury exhausted
and the national credit at the lowest ebb, but he set about
the task of infusing order and efficiency into the depart
ments under his charge, and proposed an increase of 40,-
000 men in the army by levying recruits throughout the
whole country.
His attention was also directed to the defence of New
Orleans, and finding the public credit completely pros
trated, he pledged his private means as subsidary to the
credit of the Government, and enabled the city to suc
cessfully oppose the forces of the enemy. He was the
confidential adviser of President Madison in the measures
for the re-establishment of the public credit of the coun
try and the regulation of the foreign relations of the
United States, and continued to serve as Secretary of
State until the close of Madison s term in 1817.
In that year he succeeded to the Presidency himself,
by an electoral vote of 183 out of 217, as the candidate
of the party now generally known as Democratic.
His Cabinet- was composed of some of the ablest men
in the country in either party. Soon after his inaugura
tion President Monroe made a tour through the Eastern
and Middle States, during which he thoroughly inspected
arsenals, naval depots, fortifications and garrisons ; re
viewed military companies, corrected public abuses, and
studied the capabilities of the country with reference to
future hostilities.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 205
On this tour he wore the undress uniform of a conti
nental officer. In every point of view this journey was
ci success. Party lines seemed about to disappear and
the country to return to its long past state of union.
The President was not backward in his assurances of a
strong desire on his part that such should be the case.
The course of the administration was in conformity to
these assurances, and secured the support of an over
whelming majority of the people.
The great majority of the recommendations in the
President s message were approved by large majorities.
The tone of debate was far more moderate ; few of the
bitter speeches which had been the fashion in the past
were uttered, and this period has passed into history as
the "Era of good feeling." Among the important events
of the first term of President Monroe was the consum
mation in 1818 of a treaty between the United States
and Great Britain in relation to the New Foundland
fisheries the interpretation of the terms of which we
have of late heard so much ; the restoration of slaves and
other subjects ; also the admission into the Union of the
States of Mississippi, Illinois and Maine ; in 1819 Spain
ceded to the United States her possessions in East and
West Florida with the adjacent islands.
In 1820 Monroe w T as re-elected almost unanimously,
receiving 231 out of the 232 electoral votes. On August
10th, 1821, Missouri became one of the United States,
after prolonged and exciting debates, resulting in the
celebrated "Missouri Compromise," by which slavery was
permitted in Missouri but prohibited FOREVER elsewhere
north of parallel thirty-six degrees and thirty min
utes. Other events of public importance during the
second term of President Monroe were the recognition
206 HIDDEN TREASURES.
in 1822 of the indepenence of Mexico, and the provinces
in South America, formerly under the dominion of Spain;
and the promulgation in his message of December 2,
1823, of the policy of neither entangling ourselves in the
broils of Europe, nor suffering the powers of the old
world to interfere with the affairs of the new, which has
become so famous as the "Monroe Doctrine." On this
occasion the president declared that any attempt on the
part of foreign powers to extend their system to any
part of this hemisphere would be regarded by the United
States as dangerous to our peace and prosperity, and
would certainly be opposed.
On March 4, 1825, Monroe retired from office and re
turned to his residence at Oak Hill in Virginia.
He was chosen a justice of the peace, and as such sat
in the county court. In 1829 he became a member of
the Virginia convention to revise the constitution, and
was chosen to preside over the deliberations of that body
but he was obliged, on account of ill-health, to resign
his position in that body and return to his home.
Although Monroe had received $350,000 for his public
services alone, he was greatly harrassed with creditors
toward the latter part of his life. Toward the last he
made his home with his son-in-law, Samuel L. Gouver-
neur of New York city, where he was originally buried,
but in 1830 he was removed to Richmond with great pomp
and re-interred in Holleywood Cemetery.
The subject of this sketch held the reins of govern
ment at an important time and admistered it with pru
dence, discretion, and a single eye to the general welfare.
He went further than any of his predecessors in devel
oping the resources of the country. He encouraged the
army, increased the navy, augmented the national de-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 207
fences, protected commerce, approved of the United
States Bank, and infused vigor into every department of
the public service.
His honesty, good faith, and simplicity were generally
acknowledged, and disarmed the political rancor of the
strongest opponents. Madison thought the country had
never fully appreciated the robust understanding of
Monroe. In person, Monroe was tall and well-formed,
with light complexin and blue eyes. The expression of
his countenance was an accurate index of his simplicity,
benevolence, and integrity. The country never fully
appreciated Monroe, partly on account of his never hav
ing gained distinction as an orator.
LEWIS CASS,
A MAN worthy of no small attention was Lewis Cass.
Born at Exeter, New Hampshire, October 9th, 1782.
He served in the war of 1812, rising to the rank of major
in the army. He was a school-fellow with Daniel Web
ster, became a school teacher at Wilmington, Delaware,
and walking from that place to Ohio, where his parents
moved, began the practice of law in Zanesville in 1802.
In 1806 he married and soon after was elected to the
legislature of Ohio. He performed a most conspicuous
part in the Burr trial, favoring the law which caused the
arrest of the supposed conspirator. He became a colonel
in the war of 1812, being included in the surrender of
General Hull, of Detroit, and was instrumental in bring-
208 HIDDEN TREASURES.
ing about that General s arrest on the charge of coward
ice and treason. He was afterward exchanged and served
as aid to General Harrison in the battle of the Thames.
He was appointed military governor of Michigan in the
autumn of 1813, having risen to the position of Brigadier
General.
In 1815 he purchased for $12,000 the whole plat of
Detroit, and the subsequent rise made him immensely
rich. He became Secretary of War under Jackson in
1831. He next became minister to France in 1842.
Three years after this he was elected United States
senator from Michigan, and resigned in 1848 to become
a candidate for the presidency, but a division in his party
caused the election of Taylor. He was then re-elected
to fill the vacancy caused by his resignation, and again re-
elected in 1854 for a full term of six years. He supported
measures favorable to the promotion of slavery notwith
standing the Michigan legislature had instructed him
to vote otherwise. He favored Douglass Kansas-Ne
braska bill.
He warmly favored Buchanan s nomination and be
came his Secretary of State, but promptly resigned when
the president refused to reinforce Fort Sumter; thus
closing a career of over fifty years of almost continuous
public servic. He, however, gave his support from this
time to the Union and lived to see that triumphant
suppression of treason. He died on the 18th day of
June, 1866. He was a man of pure integrity, great
ability, a fine scholar and an effective public speaker.
He was exceedingly generous in all worthy petitions
which his great wealth enabled him to gratify unspar
ingly. He was also an author of some note.
13
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 209
JOHN C. CALHOUN,
father of John C. Calhoun was born in Ireland ;
JL his mother was the daughter of an Irish Presbyte
rian, a lady of great worth. Most of our illustrious men
owe their success to a noble mother, and so it was with
Calhoun. He was early taught to read the Bible, and his
parents sought to impress upon him their Calvanistic
doctrines.
As a child he was grave and thoughtful, and at the
age of thirteen he studied history so perseveringly as to
impair his health. His father died about this time, and
a glimpse of his loving disposition can be obtained from
the fact that notwithstanding that he greatly desired an
education, still he would not leave the farm until assured
of the means of prosecuting his studies without impair
ing his mother s comfort. Consequently he had few of
the advantages to which systematic schooling is con
ducive until late in youth. He, however, made a satis
factory arrangement with his family, who agreed to
furnish him money for a course of seven years.
He had decided to study law, but declared that he
preferred being a common planter to a half-educated
lawyer. He soon entered Yale College, where he gradu
ated with distinction. President Dwight is said to have
remarked That young man has ability enough to be
President of the United States and will become one yet.
Before returning home he spent eighteen months in the
law-school at Litchfield, Connecticut. He also culti-
210 HIDDEN TREASURES.
vated extempore speaking, and finally returned South to
finish his studies.
Being admitted to the bar he began practice ; in 1808
was elected to the Legislature, and in 1811 to Congress.
The war party had gained complete control of the House,
and a speaker was chosen by the Democratic party. Cal-
houn was placed on the Committee of Foreign Relations,
and he framed the report that the time had come to
choose between tame submission and bold resistance.
Calhoun was chosen chairman of this committee, and
was a staunch supporter of the administration through
out. The increasing financial distress led to the National
Bank debates, in which he was a leading figure. The
necessity of this institution being admitted, to Calhoun
was intrusted entire management of the bill, and to him
is due the passage of the charter of the bank.
He was a most efficient agent of internal improve
ments, carrying a bill through the House by a vote of
86 to 84, authorizing a million and a half to be paid by
the United States bank and the income on seven mil
lions more to be devoted to internal improvements.
This bill passed the Senate twenty to fifteen, but was
vetoed by the president, denying the authority of con
gress to appropriate money for any such purpose. He
next became Secretary of War, under Monroe. He found
the war department in a demoralized condition bills
to the amount of $50,000 outstanding. These Calhoun
promptly settled and secured the passage of a bill reor
ganizing the staff of the army. President Monroe bring
ing before the cabinet the question of whether he should
sign the Missouri Compromise, Calhoun gave it as his
opinion that it was constitutional, supporting the view
that it was the duty of the president to sign the bill.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 211
He was veiy seriously thought of as Monroe s suc
cessor, the great State of Pennsylvania supporting him
at first, but General Jackson s great military fame won
for him the nomination, and Calhoun was almost unani
mously selected for vice-president.
The tariff question was an all-absorbing issue, and on
this question the Democrats divided the northern wing
being for protection, under the lead of Martin Van
Buren ; while the South was unanimous for free trade,
led by Calhoun. A rupture between the president and
Mr. Calhoun now arose ; this and other causes led to
Mr. Calhoun s distrust of the president, and the belief
that he could not be depended upon to settle the tariff
question; therefore he brought out his nullification
doctrine.
This doctrine was founded on the Virginia and Ken
tucky resolutions of 1798-9 which declared the constitu
tion to be a compact, each State forming an integral part.
It also declared that the government created by the com
pact was not made the final judge, each party having a
right to ratify or annul that judgment as an individual
State, that is, such laws as were deemed unconstitutional.
This doctrine he prepared, and the paper was presented
to the legislature where it became known as the South
Carolina Exposition. The next we see of it is in the
Senate of the United States, where the doctrine is brought
forward by Mr. Hayne, which led to his world-famed
debate with. Mr. Webster.
Then followed the passage of the tariff bill and the
nullification act, whereby South Carolina signified her
determination to resist the laws; and the final com
promise measure of Henry Clay which happly settled the
-difficulty at this time. Calhoun was now a senator and
212 HIDDEN TREASURES.
soon formed one of the powerful trio in opposition to
president Jackson. He characterized Jackson s distri
bution of the surplus left by the United States bank as
an attempt to seize onto the power of Congress and unite,
in his own hands, the sword and purse.
He declared that he had placed himself with the
minority to serve his gallant State, nor would he turn on
his heel if thereby he could be placed at the head of
the government. He thought that corruption had taken
such a hold of it that any man who attempted reform
would not be sustained. The American Anti-slavery
Society having sent tracts denunciatory to slavery
throughout the South, and as it was believed that such
measures had a tendency to incite the slaves to insur
rection, Calhoun brought in a bill subjecting to severe
punishment any postmaster who should knowingly re
ceive any such matter for distribution in any State
which should pass a law prohibiting the circulation of
such. The bill failed on a final vote, twenty-five to
nineteen.
He maintained that Congress had no jurisdiction over
the subject of slavery; that it was a recognized institu
tion; that the inequality of the negro was manifest;
that in slavery they held their true position and to
change their condition was to place them wholly depen
dent upon the State for support. Calhoun, believed
that the relations between the races was right, morally
and politically, and demanded that the institution of
slavery be protected.
The bill recommended by Jackson, to restrict the sale
of public lands to actual settlers and that in limited
quantities, drew from him a most fiery speech. He
claimed that the measure was really in the interest of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 213
speculators who had loaded themselves with land, and
whose interest now was to restrict the sale and thus en
hance the price of their ill-gotten domain. He also
claimed that people high in office had speculated largely,
even some in near relation to the president.
This brought from Jackson a letter that he should
either retract his words or bring the matter before Con
gress as an act of impeachment. The sole power of im
peachment lies within the House of Representatives,
and, while the senate had previously passed an act de
nouncing Jackson s methods, yet the House of Repre
sentatives was overwhelmingly in his favor, and he
must have known that no impeachment could pass
this body.
Jackson realized that such charges needed his atten
tion. Calhoun read his letter before the senate pro
nouncing it a cowardly attempt to intimidate, and re
peated his charges ; stating that not only persons high
in authority were implied in the charge, but the presi-
sident s nephew, calling his name, was a large speculator.
During the administration of Van Buren came the
great financial crash of our history; the aggregate of the
failures in New York and New Orleans alone amounting
to $150;000,00. All this trouble had been foretold by
Calhoun.
Mr. Van Buren s plan of an independent treasury,
which created a place for all the surplus to accumulate,
met with Calhoun 7 s approval, and he accordingly sepa
rated from Webster and Clay to act in support of what
was right, notwithstanding his personal feelings toward
Yan Buren. This illustrates the principle of Mr. Cal
houn. Notwithstanding his known idea of right and
wrong, this aroused the indignation of his late allies,
214 HIDDEN TREASURES.
who could ill spare his vote and powerful influence.
The fact that this measure, which he had determined to
support, is still in existence, proves conclusively the
wisdom of Calhoun as against both Webster and Clay.
Yet, in reply to Calhoun s speech on the Independent
Treasury bill, Clay used the strongest language, charging
him with desertion, and making his whole life the subject
of one of those powerful invectives so characteristic with
him. Calhoun answered ; Clay replied on the spot, and
Calhoun answered back.
This was a wonderful example of the different styles
of oratory of which each was master ; Clay, of declama
tion, invective, wit, humor and bitter sarcasm ; Calhoun
of clear statement and close reasoning. This contest,
aside from its oratorical power, deserves a place in his
tory. In answer to Clay s attack on his life he replied :
"I rest my public character upon it, and desire it to be
read by all who will do me justice."
As a debater, where close reasoning was essential, he
was an acknowledged leader. The tariff laws of Jack
son s time which brought this nullification doctrine prom
inently before the country were acknowledged to be
drawn in favor of the North, as against the South. The
least that can be said is that he was honest ; and that he
was able to defend his doctrine no one disputes. Hap
pily manufacturing interests are now investing in the
South, and the tariff question will right itself.
Mr. Calhoun was brilliant and his great aim in life
was the defense of slavery. He regarded that institu
tion as essential to the very existence of the Southern
States ; therefore thought that the abolition of slavery
would tend to the overthrow of the South. lie declared
that the Constitution should be revised.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 215
Although never publicly proclaiming such a method,
yet it seemed that his idea was to elect two Presidents,
one from the slave and one from the free States, and that
no bill of Congress could be ratified without their ap
proval. But if Mr. Calhoun was honest in this, as he no
doubt was, yet his measure would tend to take the power
from the many and place it within the few, which is con
trary to democratic ideas of good government.
It was on March 13th, 1850, that he fell exhausted at
the close of his speech in answer to General Cass, and
died soon after. Mr. Webster s funeral oration delivered
in the Senate upon the announcement of his death is a
mosb eloquent yet unexaggerated account of the virtues
of John C. Calhoun.
"Calhoun was a part of his own intellectual character,
which grew out of the qualities of his mind. It was
plain, strong, wise, condensed,concise, still always severe.
Rejecting ornament, not often seeking illustration ; his
power consisted in the plainness of his propositions, the
clearness of his logic, and the earnestness and energy of
his manner. No man was more respectful to others ; no
man carried himself with greater decorum ; no man with
superior dignity. I have not, in public or private life,
known a man more assiduous in the discharge of his
duties. Out of the Chambers of Congress he was either
devoting himself to the acquisition of knowledge per
taining to the immediate subject of the duty before him,
or else he was indulging in those social interviews in
which he so much delighted.
"There was a charm in his conservation not often found.
He had the basis, the indispensible basis of all high char
acter ; unspotted integrity and honor unimpeached. If
he had aspirations they were high, honorable and noble ;
216 HIDDEN TREASURES.
nothing low or meanly come near his head or heart. He
arose early and was a successful planter ; so much so
that to have been an overseer at i Fort Hill was a high
recommendation. He dealt almost exclusively in solid
reasoning when speaking, which was so plain that illus
tration was rarely needed. Certain it is that he was a
great and good man."
ROBERT Y, HAYNE,
renowned debate on the doctrine of nullification
X in which he was one of the principals, if it were the
only act of his life, must make the name of Robert Y.
Hayne forever illustrious. He was born in 1791, and ad
mitted to the bar before he was twenty-one, having
been educated in Charleston, South Carolina, his native
State.
He volunteered early in the war of 1812 and rapidly
rose to the position of Major-General, being considered
one of the best disciplinarians in the South. As his old
friend, Mr. Ehres, had been chosen to a seat in Congress,
he succeeded to his large practice, and before he was
twenty-two he had the most lucrative practice of any
lawyer in his State.
He was elected to the South Carolina legislature as a
member of the assembly of 1814, and as speaker of that
body four years after taking his seat and soon was
chosen Attorney General of the State. In every position
young Haynes was placed he not only acquitted himself
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 217
with credit but won for himself great esteem, and as
soon as he was old enough to be elligible for United
States Senator he was sent by his State to defend their
interests at the national capitol.
Here he became a most aggressive opponent, culminat
ing in "The battle of the giants," the great debate on
the interpretation of the constitution. Mr. Hayne s
speech on this occasion was heralded far and near, and
it was classed by his supporters with the mightiest efforts
of Burke or Pitt. Mr. Webster s reply has been generally
acknowledged the superior effort of the two; but certain
it is that whatever may have been the tendency of the
views espoused by him, Robert Y. Hayne was an honest
and sincere defender of the doctrine of the State Rights,
and was held in high esteem by his political opponents.
The obnoxious tariff laws passing, General Hayne
was elected Governor of his State; the people feeling
that they could place the helm of their ship in no safer
hands during the trying ordeal they felt they were to
pass through. In replying to President Jackson s cele
brated "proclamation Hayne issued a counter-manifesto
full of defiance. Happily the compromise of Mr. Clay
postponed for thirty years the threatened civil war.
The evening of the close of that great debate at a
presidential levee, Mr. Webster challenged Mr. Hayne to
drink a glass of wine with him, saying, "General Hayne,
I drink to your health, and hope that you may live a
thousand years." Hayne s disposition is shown by his
reply: "I shall not Ihe a hundred if you make another
such a speech." If he felt there was merit in an indi
vidual he was quickest to admit it even when it might
be to his own detriment, and when it is remembered that
lie was one of the first to compliment Webster on his
218 HIDDEN TREASURES.
great parliamentary success, his noble qualities are shown
in their true colors.
After serving in the gubernatorial chair with great
listinction he retired to become Mayor of Charleston.
JHe now turned his attention especially to internal im
provements, and soon became president of the Charles
ton, Louisville & Cincinnati Railway. This office he held
at his death, which occurred in his fiftieth year, Septem
ber 24th, 1841. There are many things in the character
of General Hayne worthy of study.
DANIEL WEBSTER,
ON January 8th, 1782, was born at Franklin, Now
Hampshire, a son to a comparatively poor farmer.
No royal blood flowed through the veins of this child
whereby to bring him honor, yet one day he was to rise
to the foremost rank among the rulers of his country.
At that early period the town of Salisbury, now Frank
lin, was the extreme northern settlement in New Hamp
shire, and the schools were of necessity in a primitive
state.
Daniel Webster labored on his father s farm during
the summer, and a few months of each winter attended
the district school some two miles from his home. Con
sidering the cold, and the heavy snows which are char
acteristic of his native State, one can scarcely realize the
amount of energy he must have utilized to enable him
to enter Exeter Academy at the early age of fourteen,
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR.
and one year later, Dartmouth College. He is repre
sented as promising nothing of his future greatness at
this time, but it is stated that he pursued every study
With EXTRAORDINARY TENACITY.
He read widely, especially in history and general
English literature, and thereby laid a good foundation
for the splendid education which his personal energy at
last brought him. As a matter of course, such a line of
action must bring out what qualities might be in any
man. The college societies soon sought him as a member.
While at Exeter he could hardly muster courage to
speak before his class, but before he had finished his-
college course he had delivered addresses before the
societies, which found their way into print. His dili
gence soon placed him at the head of his class, a position
he maintained until the close of his college studies,
graduating in 1801 with high honors.
Choosing law as his profession, he entered the law
office of a friend and neighbor, Thomas Thompson, who
afterwards became a congressman and eventually a
senator. Mr. Webster remained here for some time
when he left the office to become a teacher in Maine at a
salary of $350 per year, which he enlarged somewhat by
copying deeds. He afterwards returned to the office of
Mr. Thompson where he remained until 1804, when he
went to Boston and entered the office of Christopher
Gove, who also distinguished himself afterwards as
governor of Massachusetts.
He had previously helped his brother Ezekiel to pre
pare for college, and Daniel now in turn was helped to
continue his law studies as Ezekiel was teaching. His
opportunity to enter the office of Mr. Gove proved most
fortunate, as he was thus enabled to study men, books
220 HIDDEN TREASURES.
and daily bear intelligent discussions on the topics of
national interest.
In 1805 he was admitted to the bar, and established
himself at Boscawen. He had been offered the clerkship
of the Hillsboro County Court at a salary of $1,500 a
year, which was then a large income, and he was urged
to accept it by his father and other friends, but was dis
suaded from so doing by Mr. Gove, who forsaw great
honor in store for him at the bar. He practiced at Bos
cawen one year, when he was admitted to practice in the
Superior Court of New Hampshire, and he established
himself at Portsmouth, at that time the capital of the
State. Here he rose to distinction among the most emi
nent counsellors. During his nine years residence in
Portsmouth he gave his especial attention to constitu
tional law, becoming one of the soundest practitioners
in the State.
He had inherited from his father the principles of
the Federalist party, and, therefore, advocated them in
speeches on public occasions, but did not for some years
enter into politics. Mr. Webster came forward in a time
when party spirit ran high, and the declaration of war
in 1812, long deprecated by his party, created a demand
for the best talent the country afforded. Mr. Webster
now held a commanding reputation, and in 1812 he was
sent to Congress. This was a most favorable time for
Webster to enter Congress, as measures of the greatest
Importance were now to be discussed.
Henry Clay was speaker of the house, and placed this
new member on a most important committee. June 10,
1818, he delivered his maiden speech on the repeal of the
Berlin and Milan decrees. These decrees were a scheme
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 221
of Napoleon s, avowedly directed against the commer
cial interests of Great Britain.
They closed all ports of France, and her allied coun
tries against all vessels coming from England or any
English colony. All commerce and correspondence was
prohibited. All English merchandise was seized, and
English subjects found in any country governed by
France were held prisoners of war.
Great Britain retaliated by prohibiting neutral ves
sels from entering the ports of France under pain of
confiscation; and a later order placed France and her
allies, together with all countries with whom England
was at war, under the same restriction.
Napoleon then issued his decree from Milan and the
Tuileries declaring that any vessel that had ever been
searched by English authority, or had ever paid duty to
England, should be treated as a lawful prize of war.
Mr. Webster s first speech, as before stated, was upon
a resolution on the repeal of these decrees, and so ably
did he define our duty as a country, in the matter, and
so clearly did he show wherein both England and France
had transgressed; that, being a new member, unknown
outside of his own section of the Union, his lucid and
eloquent appeal took the house and nation by surprise.
His subsequent speeches on the increase of the navy
and the repeal of the embargo act won for him a first
place among the great debaters of his day. He culti
vated a friendly relation with political opponents as well
as partisan friends, which soon gained for him the re
spect of all and he became the acknowledged leader of
the Federal party. He was re-elected to Congress in 1814
by a large majority, and in the debates upon the United
States bank which followed, he displayed a most remark-
222 HIDDEN TREASURES.
able mastery of the financial questions of his time.
Afterward a bill which was introduced by him passed,
requiring all payments to the treasury to be made in
specie or its equivalent, restored the depreciated cur
rency of the country.
His home and library was burned and after some
hesitation as to whether to locate in Boston or Albany,
he decided on the former whither he moved, and where
he lived the remainder of his life. This change of loca
tion gave greater scope for the extension of his legal
business, and his resignation from Congress increased
still further his time and opportunities. During the next
seven years he devoted his exclusive attention to his
profession, taking a position as counsellor, above which
no one has ever risen in this country, and the best class
of business passed into his hands.
In 1816 the legislature of New Hampshire re-organized
the corporation of Dartmouth College, changing its name
to Dartmouth University, and selecting new trustees.
The newly-created body took possession of the institu
tion, and the old board brought action against the new
management. The case involved the powers of the leg
islature over the old corporation without their consent.
It was decided twice in the affirmative by the courts
of the State, when it was appealed to Washington, the
highest court.
Mr. Webster opened the case, delivering a most elo
quent and exhaustive argument for the college. His
argument was that it was a private institution supported
through charity, over which the State had no control,
and that the legislature could not annul except for acts
in violation of its charter, which had not been shown.
hief Justice Marshal decided that the act of the legis-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 223
ature was unconstitutional and reversed the previous
decisions. This established Mr. Webster s reputation in
the Supreme Court, and he was retained in every consid
erable case thereafter, being considered one of the
greatest expounders of constitutional law in the Union.
He was already acknowledged to be among the
greatest criminal lawyers, and at the anniversary of the
landing of the pilgrim fathers he delivered the first of a
series of orations which, aside from his legal and legis
lative achievements must have made him renowned.
He was elected in 1822 to congress, being chosen from
Boston, and during 1823 made his world-famous speech
on the Greek revolution ; a most powerful remonstrance
against what has passed into history as "The holy alli
ance/ 7 and he also opposed an extravagant increase of the
tariff. He also reported and carried through the house
a complete revision of the criminal law of the United
States, being chairman of the judiciary committee. In
1827 he was selected by the legislature of Massachusetts
to fill a vacancy in the United States senate. In that
body he won a foremost position.
Probably the most eloquent exhibition of oratory,
based on logic and true statesmanship, ever exhibited in
the Senate of the United States was the contest between
Mr. Webster, of Massachusetts, and Mr. Hayne, the
silver-tongued orator of South Carolina; the debate
transpiring in 1830. The subject of discussion before
the senate by these two intellectual gladiators grew out
of a resolution brought forward by Senator Foot, of Con
necticut, just at the close of the previous year with a
view of some arrangement concerning the sales of the
public lands. But this immediate question was soon lost
sight of in the discussion of a great vital principle of
224 HIDDEN TREASURES.
constitutional law, namely: The relative powers of the
States and the national government.
Upon this Mr. Benton and Mr. Hayne addressed the
Senate, condemning the policy of the Eastern States as
illiberal toward the West. Mr. Webster replied in vindica
tion of New England, and of the policy of the Government.
It was then that Mr. Hayne made his attack sudden, un
expected, and certainly unexampled upon Mr. Webster
personally, upon Massachusetts and other Northern States
politically, and upon the constitution itself. In respect
to the latter, Mr. Hayne taking the position that it is con
stitutional to interrupt the administration of the Consti
tution itself, in the hands of those who are chosen and
sworn to administer it; by the direct interference in
form of law, of the States, in virtue of their sovereign
capacity.
All of these points were handled by Mr. Hayne with
that rhetorical brilliancy, and the power which charac
terized him as the oratorical champion of the South on
the floor of the Senate, and it is not saying too much
that the speech produced a profound impression. Mr.
Hayne s great effort appeared to be the result of pre
meditation, concert, and arrangement.
He selected his own time, and that, too, peculiarly in
convenient to Mr. Webster, for at that moment the Su
preme Court was proceeding in the hearing of a case of
great importance in which he was a leading counsel.
For this reason he requested, through a friend, the post
ponement of the debate. Mr. Hayne objected, however,
and the request was refused. The time, the matter, and
the manner, indicated that the attack was made with
the design to crush so formidable a political opponent as.
Mr. Webster had become. To this end, personal history,
14
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 225
the annals of New England, and the federal party were
ransacked for materials.
It was attempted with the usual partisan unfairness
of political harangues to make him responsible not only
for what was his own, but for the conduct and opinions
of others. All the errors and delinquencies, real or sup
posed, of Massachusetts and the Eastern States, and of
the Federal party during the war of 1812, and indeed
prior and subsequent to that period were accumulated
and heaped upon him.
Thus it was that Mr. Hayne heralded his speech with a
bold declaration of war, with taunts and threats, vaunt
ing anticipated triumph saying that he would carry
the war into Africa until he had obtained indemnity for
the past and security for the future. It was supposed
that as a distinguished representative man, Mr. Webster
would be driven to defend what was indefensible, to
uphold what could not be sustained and, as a Federalist,
to oppose the popular resolutions of 98.
The severe nature of Mr. Hayne s charges, the ability
with which he brought them to bear upon his opponents,
his great reputation as a brilliant and powerful de-
claimer, filled the minds of his friends with anticipations
of complete triumph. For two days Mr. Hayne had con
trol of the floor. The vehemence of bis language and
the earnestness of his manner, we might properly say
the power of his oratory, added force to the excitement
of the occasion. So fluent and melodious was his elocu
tion that his cause naturally begat sympathy. No one
had time to deliberate on his rapid words or canvass his
sweeping and accumulated statements. The dashing
nature of the onset, the assurance, almost insolence of
226 HIDDEN TREASURES.
his tone ; the serious character of the accusations, con
founded almost every hearer .
The immediate impression of the speech was most
surely disheartening to the cause Mr. Webster upheld.
Congratulations from almost every quarter were showered
upon Mr. Hayne. Mr. Benton said in full senate that as
much as Mr. Hayne had done before to establish his repu
tation as an orator, a statesman, a patriot and a gallant
son of the South ; the efforts of that day would eclipse
and surpass the whole. Indeed the speech was extolled
as the greatest effort of the time or of other times
neither Chatham or Burke, nor Fox had surpassed it in
their palmiest days.
Mr. Webster s own feelings with reference to the
speech were freely expressed to his friend, Mr. Everett,
the evening succeeding Mr. Hayne s closing speech. He
regarded the speech as an entirely unprovoked attack on
the North, and what was of far more importance, as an
exposition of politics in which Mr. Webster s opinion
went far to change the form of government from that
which was established by the constitution into that
which existed under the confederation if the latter
could be called a government at all. He stated it to be
his intention therefore to put tjiat theory to rest forever,
as far as it could be done by an argument in the senate
chamber. How grandly he did this is thus vividly por
trayed by Mr. March, an eye-witness, and whose account
has been adopted by most historians.
It was on Tuesday, January 26th, 1880 a day to be
hereafter memorable in senatorial annals that the senate
resumed the consideration of Foot s resolution. There
was never before in the city an occasion of so much ex
citement. To witness this great intellectual contest
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 227
multitudes of strangers had, for two or more days pre
vious, been rushing into the city, and the hotels over
flowed. As early as nine o clock in the morning crowds
poured into the capitol in hot haste ; at twelve o clock,
the hour of meeting, the senate chamber, even its
galleries, floor, and lobbies was filled to its utmost capacity.
The very stairways were dark with men who hung on to
one another like bees in a swarm.
The House of Representatives was early deserted.
An adjournment would hardly have made it emptier.
The speaker, it is true, retained his chair, but no busi
ness of moment was or could be attended to. Members
all rushed in to hear Mr. Webster, and no call of the
House or other parliamentary proceedings could call
them back. The floor of the Senate was so densely
crowded that persons once in could not get out.
Seldom, if ever, has a speaker in this or any other
country had more powerful incentives to exertion ; a
subject, the determination of which involved the most
important interests and even duration of the Republic
competitors unequaled in reputation, ability, or position ;
a name to make still more renowned or lose forever ;
and an audience comprising, not only American citizens
most eminent in intellectual greatness, but representa
tives of other nations where the art of oratory had
flourished for ages.
Mr. Webster perceived and felt equal to the destinies
of the moment. The very greatness of the hazard
exhilarated him. His spirits arose with the occasion. He
awaited the time of onset with a stern aud impatient
joy. He felt like the war-horse of the Scriptures, who
paweth in the valley and rejoiceth in his strength : who
goeth on to meet the armed men who sayeth among the
228 HIDDEN TREASURES.
trumpets, ha ! ha ! and who smelleth the battle afar off,
the thunder of the Captains and the shouting/
A confidence in his resources, springing from no vain
estimate of his power but the legitimate off-spring of
previous SEVERE MENTAL DISCIPLINE, sustained and ex
cited him. He had gauged his opponents, his subject
and HIMSELF.
He was, too, at this period in the very prime of man
hood. He had reached middle-age an era in the life of
man when the faculties, physical or intellectual, may be
supposed to attain their fullest organization and most
perfect development. Whatever there was in him of
intellectual energy and vitality the occasion, his full life
and high ambition might well bring forth. He never
arose on an ordinary occasion to address an ordinary
audience more self-possessed. There was no tremulous-
ness in his voice or manner; nothing hurried, nothing
simulated. The calmness of superior strength was visible
everywhere; in countenance, voice and bearing. A deep-
seated conviction of the extraordinary character of the
emergency and of his ability to control it seemed to
possess him wholly. If an observer more than ordinarily
keen-sighted detected at times something like exulta
tion in his eye, he presumed it sprang from the excite
ment of the moment and the anticipation of victory.
The anxiety to hear the speech was so intense, irrepress
ible and universal that no sooner had the vice-president
assumed the chair that a motion was made and unani
mously carried to postpone the ordinary preliminaries of
senatorial action and take up immediately the considera
tion of the resolution.
Mr. Webster arose and addressed the Senate. His
exordium is known by heart everywhere. "Mr. Presi-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 229
dent when the mariner has been tossed about for many
days in thick weather and on an unknown sea he natur
ally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the
earliest glance of the sun to take his latitude and
ascertain how far the elements have driven him from
his true course. Let us imitate this prudence and before
we float further on the waves of this debate refer to the
point from which we departed that we may at least be
able to form some conjecture where we now are. I ask
for the reading of the resolutions."
Calm, resolute, impressive was this opening speech.
There wanted no more to enchain the attention. There
was a spontaneous though silent expression of eager atten
tion as the orator concluded these opening remarks. And
while the clerk read the resolution many attempted the
impossibility of getting nearer the speaker. Every head
was inclined closer toward him, every ear turned in the
direction of his voice and that deep, sudden, mysterious
silence followed which always attends fullness of emotion.
From the sea of upturned faces before him the orator
beheld his thought, reflected as from a mirror. The
varying countenance, the suffused eye, the earnest smile
and ever attentive look assured him of the intense in
terest excited. If among his hearers there were some
who affected indifference at first to his glowing thoughts
and fervant periods, the difficult mask was soon laid
aside and profound, undisguised, devout attention
followed.
In truth, all sooner or later, voluntarily, or in spite of
themselves were wholly carried away by the spell of
such unexampled eloquence. Those who had doubted
Mr. Webster s power to cope with and overcome his
opponent were fully satisfied of their error before he had
230 HIDDEN TREASURES.
proceeded far in this debate. Their fears soon took an
other direction. When they heard his sentences of
powerful thought towering in accumulated grandeur one
above the other as if the orator strove Titan-like to reach
the very heavens themselves, they were giddy with an
apprehension that he would break down in his flight.
They dared not believe that genius, learning any in
tellectual endowment however uncommon, that was
simply mortal could sustain itself long in a career
seemingly so perilous. They feared an Icarian fall. No
one surely who was present, could ever forget the awful
burst of eloquence with which the orator apostro
phized the old Bay State which Mr. Hayne had so de
rided, or the tones of deep pathos in which her defense
was pronounced :
"Mr. President: I shall enter on no encomium upon
Massachusetts. There she is behold her and judge for
yourselves. There is her history, the world knows it by
heart. The past at least is secure. There is Boston, and
Concord, and Lexington, and Bunker Hill, and there they
will remain forever. The bones of her sons falling in
the great struggle for independence now lie mingled
with the soil of every State from New England to
Georgia, and there they will remain forever. And sir,
where American liberty raised its first voice, and where
its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives
in the strength of its manhood and full of its original
spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party
strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if
folly and madness, if uneasiness under salutary and
necessary restraint, shall succeed to separate it from
that Union by which alone its existence is made sure it
will stand in the end by the side of that cradle in which
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 231
its infancy was rocked, it will stretch forth its arm with
whatever vigor it may still retain over the friends who
gather around it and it will fall at last, if fall it must,
amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory and on
the very spot of its origin."
No New England heart but throbbed with vehement
emotion as Mr. Webster dwelt upon New England suffer
ings, New England struggles, and New England triumphs
during the war of the Revolution. There was scarcely
a dry eye in the Senate; all hearts were overcome ; grave
judges and men grown old in dignified life turned aside
their heads to conceal the evidence of their emotion.
We presume that none but those present can under
stand the excitement of the scene. No one who was
present can, it seems, give an adequate description of it.
No word-painting can convey the deep, intense enthusi
asm, the reverential attention of that vast assembly, nor
limner transfer to canvas their earnest, eager, awe-struck
countenances. Though language were as subtle and flexi
ble as thought it would still be impossible to represent
the full idea of the occasion. Much of the instantaneous
effect of the speech arose of course from the orator s de
livery the tones of his voice, his countenance and man
ner. These die mostly with the occasion, they can only
be described in general terms.
"Of the effectiveness of Mr. Webster s manner in
many parts," says Mr. Everett, himself almost without a
peer as an orator, "it would be in vain to attempt to give
any one not present the faintest idea. It has been my
fortune to hear some of the ablest speeches of the great
est living orators on both sides of the water, but I must
confess I never heard anything which so completely
232 HIDDEN TREASURES.
realized my conception of what Demosthenes was when
he delivered the oration for the Crown."
Could there be higher praise than this ? Keen nor
Kemble nor any other masterly delineator of the human
passions ever produced a more powerful impression upon
an audience or swayed so completely their hearts. No
one ever looked the orator as he did; in form and feature
how like a god ! His countenance spake no less audibly
than his words. His manner gave new force to his
language. As he stood swaying his right arm like a
huge tilt-hammer, up and down, his swarthy countenance
lighted up with excitement, he appeared amid the smoke,
the fire, the thunder of his eloquence like Yulcan in his
armory forging thoughts for the gods !
Time had not thinned nor bleached his hair ; it was
as dark as the raven s plumage, surmounting his massive
brow in ample folds. His eye always dark and deep-set
enkindled by some glowing thought shown from beneath
his somber overhanging brow like lights in the blackness
of night from a sepulcher. No one understood better
than Mr. Webster the philosophy of dress ; what a pow
erful auxiliary it is to speech and manner when harmon
izing with them. On this occasion he appeared in a blue
coat, a buff vest, black pants and white cravat ; a cos
tume strikingly in keeping with his face and expression.
The human face never wore an expression of more with
ering, relentless scorn than when the orator replied to
Hayne s allusion to the "Murdered Coalition" a piece
of stale political trumpery well understood at that day.
"It is," said Mr. Webster, "the very cast off slough of
a polluted ana shameless press. Incapable of further
mischief it lies in the sewer, lifeless and despised. It is
not now, sir, in the power of the honorable member to
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 233
give it dignity or decency by attempting to elevate it
and introduce it into the Senate. He cannot change it
from what it is an object of general disgust and scorn.
On the contrary, the contact, if he choose to touch it,
is more likely to drag him down, down, down to the
place where it lies itself. 7 He looked as he spoke these
words as if the thing he alluded to was too mean for
scorn itself, and the sharp stinging enunciation made the
words still more scathing. The audience seemed relieved,
so crushing was the expression of his face which they
held onto as twere spell-bound when he turned to other
topics. But the good-natured yet provoking irony with
which he described the imaginary, though life-like scene
of direct collision between the marshaled army of South
Carolina under General Hayne on the one side, and the
officers of the United States on the other, nettled his
opponent even more than his severe satire, it seemed so
ridiculously true.
With his true Southern blood Hayne inquired with
some degree of emotion if the gentleman from Massa
chusetts intended any personal imputation by such
remarks? To which Mr. Webster replied with perfect
good humor, " Assuredly not, just the reverse !" The
variety of incident during the speech, and the rapid
fluctuation of passions, kept the audience in continual
expectation and ceaseless agitation. The speech was a
complete drama of serious comic and pathetic scenes,
and though a large portion of it was argumentative an
exposition of constitutional law yet grave as such por
tion necessarily must be, severely logical and abounding
in no fancy or episode, it engrossed throughout undivided
attention. The swell of his voice and its solemn roll
struck upon the ears of the enraptured hearers in deep
234 HIDDEN TREASURES.
and thrilling cadence as waves upon the shore of the far-
resounding sea.
The Miltonic grandeur of his words was the tit ex
pression of his great thoughts and raised his hearers up
to his theme, and his voice exerted to its utmost power
penetrated every recess or corner of the Senate pene
trated even the ante-rooms and stairways, as in closing
he pronounced in deepest tones of pathos these words of
solemn significance : "When my eyes shall be turned to
behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see
him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of
a once glorious Union ; on States dissevered, discordant,
belligerent, on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched,
it may be, in fraternal blood.
"Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather be
hold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic now known
and honored throughout the earth; still full, high, ad
vanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original
lustre, not a stripe erased nor polluted, not a single star
obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable inter
rogatory as What is all this worth? nor those other
words of folly and delusion : Liberty first and Union
afterwards/ but everywhere spread all over it characters
of living light blazing on all of its ample folds as they
float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind
under the whole heavens that other sentiment dear to
every American heart : LIBERTY AND UNION NOW AND
FOREVER, ONE AND INSEPARABLE !"
The speech was over but the tones of the orator still
lingered on the ear, and the audience, unconscious of the
close, retained their positions. Everywhere around
seemed forgetf ulness of all but the orator s presence and
words. There never was a deeper silence; the feeling
FEOM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 235
was too overpowering to allow expression by voice or
hand. But the descending hammer of the chair awoke
them with a start, and with one universal, long drawn,
deep breath, with which the over-charged heart seeks
relief, the crowded assembly broke up and departed.
In the evening President Jackson held a levee at the
White House. It was known in advance that Mr. Web
ster would attend it, and hardly had the hospitable doors
of the mansion been thrown open, when the crowd that
had filled the Senate-Chamber in the morning rushed in
and occupied the room, leaving a vast and increasing
crowd at the entrance. On all previous occasions the
general himself had been the observed of all observers.
His receptions were always gladly attended by large
numbers, and to these he himself was always the chief
object of attraction on account of his great military
and personal reputation, official position, gallant bearing,
and courteous manners. But on this occasion the room
in which he received his company was deserted as soon,
as courtesy to the president permitted.
Mr. Webster was in the East room and thither the
whole mass hurried. He stood almost in the center of
the room pressed upon by surging crowds eager to pay
him deference. Hayne, too, was there, and with others
went up and complimented Mr. Webster on his brilliant
effort. In a subsequent meeting between the two rival de-
bators Webster challenged Hayne to drink a glass of
wine with him, saying as he did so, "General Hayne I
drink to your health, and I hope that you may live a.
thousand years." "I shall not live more than one
hundred if you make another such a speech," Hayne
replied.
To this day Webster s speech is regarded as the
236 HIDDEN TREASURES.
master-piece of modern eloquence unsurpassed by even
the mightiest efforts of either Pitt, Fox or Burke a
matchless intellectual achievement and complete foren
sic triumph. It was to this great, triumphant effort that
Mr. Webster s subsequent fame as a statesman was due.
Upon the election of General Harrison to the presi
dency Mr. Webster was offered his choice of the places
in the cabinet, a recognition of ability probably never
accorded to any other man before or since. He finally
accepted the office of Secretary of State. Our relation
with England demanded prompt attention. The differ
ences existing between the two nations relative to the
Northern boundary could not be disregarded, and Mr.
Webster and Lord Ashburton brought about a treaty
which was equally honorable and advantageous to the
countries. He was also able later to contribute much
toward the settlement of the Oregon boundary question
through private channels of influence, though holding
no official position at the time.
In 1847 he started on a tour of the Southern States,
being well received throughout; especially in Charleston,
Columbia, Augusta and Savannah was as well received,
but his health failing him in the latter city, he was
obliged to abandon his project of making a tour of the
whole South. He became Secretary of State under Mr.
Fillmore. This position he held at his death which oc-
cured at Marshfield, on the 24th day of October, 1852.
Funeral orations were delivered throughout the country
in great numbers.
He was a man of commanding figure, large but well
proportioned. His head was of unusual size, his eyes
deep-seated and lustrious, and had a voice powerful yet
pleasing; his action, while not remarkably graceful, was
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 237
easy and impressive. His social tastes were very strong
and he possessed marked conversational power. He
lived in an age of great legislators and it is needless to
add that he was excelled in statesmanship by none.
Professor Ticknor, speaking in one of his letters of
the intense excitement with which he listened to Web
ster s Plymouth address, says : " Three or four times I
thought my temples would burst with the gush of blood,
for after all you must know I am aware it is no con
nected and compact whole, but a collection of broken
fragments, of burning eloquence to which his manner
gave ten fold force. When I came out I was almost
afraid to come near him. It seemed to me that he was
like the mount that might not be touched, and that
burned with fire."
ANDREW JACKSON,
OF all the Presidents of the United States Andrew
Jackson was, perhaps, the most peculiar. He was
of Scotch-Irish descent, his parents coming to this coun
try in 1765 from Ireland and settling in the northern
part of South Carolina on the Waxhaw Creek. They
had been very poor in the old country, his father tilling
a small farm while the mother was a weaver of linen.
His father never owned land in America, and died soon
after he arrived in this country, little Andrew being
born about the time of his death. One would hardly be
238 HIDDEN TREASURES.
justified in supposing young Jackson would one day be
ruler of a great nation, rising as he did from such a
beginning, yet such are the possibilities in our glorious
republic.
His mother wished to make a preacher of him, but his
boyhood is represented as mischievous ; to say the least,
his belligerent nature breaking out in childhood, and his
mother s fond hope was signally defeated. He was pas
sionately fond of athletic sports, and was excelled by
none of his years. The determination he evinced in
every undertaking guided by his maxim of "Ask nothing
but what is right submit to nothing wrong/ seemed to
l^e the key-note of his success, for he was not addicted
to books, and his education was limited.
Being an eye-witness of the horrible massacre perpe
trated by the bloody Tarlton at the Waxsaw settlement
his patriotic zeal was terribly awakened, and at the ten
der age of thirteen we find him among the American
forces, and his military career begins at Hanging Eock,
where he witnesses the defeat of Sumter, and he is soon
a prisoner of the enemy. The English officer ordered
him to black his boots ; at this all the lion in young Jack
son is aroused, and he indignantly refuses, whereupon
the officer strikes him twice with his sword, inflicting
two ugly wounds, one on his arm, the other on his head.
He had the small-pox while a prisoner, but his mother
effected his exchange, and after a long illness he recov
ered, but his brother died of the same disease.
Soon after his mother was taken from him his other
brother was killed at Stono ; thus left alone in the world
he began a reckless course, which must have been his
ruin but for a sudden change for the better, when he
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 239
"began the study of law at Salisbury, North Carolina, and
before he was twenty was licensed to practice.
Being appointed solicitor for the western district of
North Carolina now Tennessee he removed to Nash
ville, 1788. His practice soon became large which, in
those days, meant a great deal of travel on horseback.
He made twenty-two trips between Nashville and Jones-
borough during his first seven years, and dangerous
trips they were, too, for the Indians were numerous and
hostile. When he came to Nashville he entered, as a
hoarder, the family of Mrs. Donelson, a widow.
A Mr. and Mrs. Robards were boarders at the same
home. Mr. Robards becoming foolishly jealous of young
Jackson applied to the legislature of Virginia for an act
preliminary to a divorce. Jackson and Mrs. Robards,
thinking the act of the legislature was a divorce of itself,
were married before the action of the court. Judge
Overton, a friend, was himself surprised to learn that the
act of the legislature was not a divorce, and through his
advice they were again married in the early part of 1794.
The fact that Captain Robards own family sustained
Mrs. Robards in the controversy with her husband must
strongly point to the groundlessness of the charges;
while it is further conceded that Andrew Jackson was
not the first victim of the suspicious nature of Captain
Robards. However, this can never be regarded other
wise than a most unfortunate period in the life of An
drew Jackson, it being the immediate cause of more
than one of the many obstacles with which he was obliged
to contend in after years.
He was appointed district attorney of Tennessee
when that country became a federal territory, and in
1796 when Tennessee became a State, he was a man of
240 HIDDEN TREASURES.
no small wealth. On January llth, 1796, a convention
met at Knoxville to draft a constitution for the new
State, and Jackson was chosen one of five delegates from
Da\idson county to meet the other members from over
the State. He was appointed on the committee to draft
that important document. Having been elected to repre
sent his State in the popular branch of Congress he ac
cordingly took his seat in that legislative body in Decem
ber, 1796. As Jackson entered the house on the eve of
the retirement from public life of Washington, he voted
on the measure approving Washington s administration;
and, as he could not conscientiously vote otherwise, not
approving some of Washington s measures, he is recorded
among the twelve who voted in the negative.
He at this time belonged to the so-called Republican
party, now Democratic, which was then forming under
Jefferson, the incoming vice-president, under the Federal
Adams. His record in Congress is made exemplary by
his action on three important bills, namely: Against
buying peace of the Algerians, against a needlessly large
appropriation for repairing the house of the president,
and against the removal of the restriction confining the
expenditure of public money to the specific objects for
which said money was appropriated.
As would be natural, such a course was highly ap
proved by his constituents, and he was made a senator
in 1797, but his senatorial career was not so fruitful, as
it is believed that he never made a speech nor ever voted
once and resigned his seat in less than a year. He was
elected a justice of the supreme court of Tennessee, but
he did nothing remarkable here either as none of his
decisions remain. Nothing of note occurred for some
time except his becoming involved in a quarrel with
Governor Sevier, which came to a crisis in 1801, when
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 241
Jackson was made Major-General of militia over Sevier.
Jackson suspected Sevier of being involved in certain
land frauds, and a duel was averted only by the influence
of friends.
About this time Jackson became financially embar
rassed. Thinking himself secure, he sold a large amount
of land to a gentleman in Philadelphia, and, taking his
notes, bought goods for the Tennessee market, depending
on these notes for payment. The failure of these threw
h im into great difficulties ; but his firm will came to his
aid once more and saved him. He immediately resigned
the position of judge, and sold land enough to clear him
self from debt. He is said to have now removed to what
subsequently became known as the " Hermitage," taking
all his slaves, and dwelling in a log house.
He extended his business, being now at the head of
the firm of Jackson, Coffee and Hutchings. This was a
trading firm, raising wheat, corn, cotton, mules, cows
and horses, it being a concern whose business extended
to New Orleans, but it lost money, and finally came to
an end, although through no fault of Jackson, as ho
generally carried to success whatever he personally
managed, and this embarrassment grew out of reckless,
proceedings during his absence. We now come upon
another dark page of Jackson s life.
During the year 1806 a quarrel was started, which led
to the death of Charles Dickinson. This is one of his
quarrels resulting indirectly from the manner in which
he become married to Mrs. Robards. This Dickinson
had spoken offensively of Mrs. Jackson, he once retracted
his words and renewed them. In the meantime Jackson
became involved in a quarrel with a man by the name of
Swann over the terms of a horse race, and Jackson used
242 HIDDEN TREASURES.
some strong language relative to Dickinson, whose name
had been meaningly introduced. Jackson s words were
carried to Dickinson, as it appears he had intended. Af
terward the quarrel with Swann resulted in a bar-room
fight, it is said, begun by Jackson.
About this time Dickinson wrote a very severe attack
on Jackson and published it. Jackson challenged him
and the parties met a long day s journey from Nashville,
on the banks of the Red River, in Logan county, Ken
tucky. Dickinson was a very popular man in Nashville,
and he was attended by a number of associates. Dickin-
son ssecond was a Dr. Catlet; Jackson s, General Overtoil.
Dickinson fired first and his ball took effect, breaking
a rib and raking the breastbone, but Jackson never
stirred nor gave evidence of being hit. His object was to
hide from his adversary the pleasure of knowing that he
had even grazed his mark, for Dickinson considered him
self a great shot and was certain of killing him at the
first fire. Seeing he had missed he exclaimed, My God !
Have I missed him ? Jackson then fired and Dickinson
fell mortally wounded, dying that night without know
ing his aim had taken any effect. This duel was another
most unfortunate thing for Jackson, and caused him
great unpopularity in Tennessee until his military
victories turned popular attention from it .
Jackson lived a comparatively quiet life for the few
years following, nothing of importance happening except
his mistaken connection with Aaron Burr, and quarrel
with a Mr. Dinsmore, an agent of the Choctaw Indians.
In 1812 the second war with Great Britain broke out and
Jackson at once tendered his services to the government;
they were gladly accepted and the rest of the year was
devoted by him in raising more troops and organizing
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR.
243
them for active service. During the early part of 1813
lie started across the country, but for some reason the
Secretary of War ordered him to disband his forces, but
he marched them back to Tennessee. It was on this
march that he received the name of "Hickory," which
afterwards became "Old Hickory."
Arriving at Nashville he tendered his troops to the
Government for an invasion of Canada but the Secretary
of War never even answered his proposal, and finally he
disbanded the forces on May 22nd. The government
failed to sustain him and his transportation drafts were
allowed to go to protest. This must have ruined Jack
son had it not been for his friend Colonel Benton, who
made an appeal which the government felt bound to
comply with, as it was made plain that it would loose
the service of Tennessee if such a preposterous act was
^persisted in.
Thus he was saved from what might have been an
irretrievable financial misfortune. Through deceitful-
ness in others he was led to a disgraceful quarrel with
his intimate friend, Colonel Benton, who had helped him
so much at Washington. The difficulty with the Creek
Indians arising ; Jackson with his characteristic energy
helped to subjugate them. His victory over the Indians
of Horse Shoe Bend is so familiar to every American
school-boy that it is needless to relate the details. He
now gained a national reputation, and was made a
major-general in the "United States army, and soon be
came the acknowledged military leader of the southwest.
From now General Jackson s star grew steadily
brighter, and he began to develop the sterling qualities
which he unmistakably possessed. During the progress
of the war the Spanish authorities who then controlled
244 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Florida, had neither the power nor disposition to demand
of the British due regard to the rights of neutral territory.
They seemed to sympathize with England, as Jackson
could gain no satisfaction through his correspondence
with them, and as neither the Spanish or British could
be induced to change their purpose, Jackson, as was his
custom both in politics and war ever afterward, deter
mined to act without orders.
He immediately moved upon Pensacoia, razed the
town and drove the English forces out of Florida. Ke-
turning to Mobile he learned of the plan of the British
to conquer Louisiana. He immediately marched to New
Orleans, but the city was miserably defended, and his
own forces were a motley crew, consisting of about two
thousand. But Jackson made the most of his opportu
nities. He learned the plan of the British from the chief
of a band of smugglers. After a few preliminary battles
in which as a whole the Americans were victorious,
the British army, now twelve thousand strong, was joined
by General Packenham, who was a brother-inlaw of the
great Duke of Wellington, who changed the plans of the
British army. Jackson, at this time, was joined by about
two thousand more troops, but they were poorly armed.
The British captured a whole fleet of gun-boats.
This left the way clear, and it is thought that had the
British pushed in then, as Jackson would have done,
nothing could have saved the day for America. Jackson
fell back and threw up earth-works, cotton-bales and
sand-bags for protection, and waited for the enemy. On
the memorable day, the eighth of January, the army ad
vanced; Bidpath says, "They went to a terrible fate."
Packenham hurled column after column at the Amer
ican breast-works only to return bleeding and torn. The
FEOM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 245
Americans were well protected while the veterans of
England were exposed to the fire of the Tennessee and
Kentucky riflemen and the result was awful, the enemy
losing not only General Packenham, their commander,
but also General Gibbs, leaving only General Lambert to
lead the forces from the field, General Keen being wounded
The loss of the enemy was about two thousand killed,
wounded, and prisoners. The American s loss was eight
killed and thirteen wounded.
This battle was a most fortunate thing for Jackson
for the reputation this gained for him added to that
already gained in deciding forever the white man s su
premacy in America, undoubtedly made him President
of the United States. He became Governor of Florida
when that Territory was ceded to the United States by
Spain in 1821, but he held the position only a few months.
In 1828 the Tennessee Legislature made him a Senator,
and later he was nominated for the Presidency. This at
first was not regarded seriously, as many had misgivings
as to his capability as a legislator, although all admitted
his military power. The election proved that he had
great political strength as well, receiving the largest
number of electoral votes, 99, to 84 for Adams, 41 for
Crawford, and 37 for Clay. As no one had a majority
the case was decided by Congress, who gave the place to
Adams.
The opposition to the administration united under
Jackson, and in the next election he was triumphantly
elected, receiving 178 electoral votes to 83 for Adams.
In this campaign Jackson s private life was bitterly as
sailed, especially was the manner in which he came to
be married misrepresented. His wife died only a short
246 HIDDEN TREASURES.
time after his election, it is said, from the influence of
the vile stories which were circulated regarding her.
He entered upon his duties as President, with his
characteristic firmness. A rupture soon arose between
him and the Vice-President, Mr. Calhoun, and this was
intensified when Calhoun s nullification views became
known. The Democratic party outside of South Caro
lina supported the administration. The cabinet was
soon changed. During his administration over seven
teen hundred removals from office were made, more than
had occurred in all previous administrations. His ap
pointments gave much offence to some, and with a degree
of reason, it must be admitted, as they were selected wholly
from his political friends, notwithstanding his previously
avowed principles, which were implied in his advice to
Mr. Monroe in the selection of his Cabinet. However,
some allowance should be made as Jackson had a seem
ing rebellion on hand, and one hardly could blame him
for desiring men on whom he knew he could depend in
the promised hours of peril.
The tariff laws were especially obnoxious to South
Carolina, of the Southern States. Now Jackson was op
posed to the tariff laws himself, but as long as the laws
remained he proposed that they should be enforced and
when South Carolina met at Columbia and passed reso
lutions to resist the existing laws and declaring in favor
of State rights, he promptly sent forces to quell the
promised rebellion. Seeing what kind of a man they
had to deal with the nullifiers were glad to seize the
excuse for not proceeding, which Clay s Compromise Bill
afforded. This bill reduced the duties gradually until at
the end of ten years they would reach the standard de
sired by the South. His re-election was even more con-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 247
elusive than the former, inasmuch as it was found that
he had carried every State save seven. His principal
opponent was Henry Clay, who represented the party in
favor of renewing the charter of the United States bank.
Jackson was bitterly opposed to this institution, vetoed
the bill to re-charter the bank, and an effort to pass the
bill over his head failing to receive a two-thirds vote, the
bank ceased to exist.
He conceived the idea of distributing the surplus left
by the bank, about ten millions, among certain banks
named for that purpose. He had no acknowledged
authority for this but he believed himself right and acted
independently, as was characteristic in such cases. A
panic ensued, and the Whigs claimed that this measure
of Jackson s was the cause, while the Democrats were
equally confident that the financial troubles were brought
about by the bank itself, which was described as an in
stitution too powerful and despotic to exist in a free
country.
A powerful opposition was formed in the Senate
against him, headed by such men as Calhoun, Clay and
Webster, and finally a resolution condemning his course
was adopted by a vote of 26 to 20, but was afterward
expunged through the influence of his intimate friend,
Colonel Benton. The House sustained the President
throughout, or he must have been overthrown. The for
eign relations of our Government at the close of Jack
son s administration was very satisfactory indeed. The
national debt was extinguished, and new States were
admitted into the Union.
He issued a farewell address to his country, and re
tired to private life at the Hermitage, where he lived
until his death in 1845. There is much in the life of
248 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Andrew Jackson that can be profitably copied by the
American youth of to-day ; notably his fixedness of pur
pose, indomitable will, and great love of truth. There
are other things that would be well to pass by and give
little promise, such as his sporting propensities. Loss-
ing says : i The memory of that great and good man is
revered by his countrymen next to that of Washington.
His imposing stature occupies a conspicuous place in
President s Square, Washington, where it was unveiled
in 1852, being the first equestrian statue in bronze ever
erected in America. It is certain that he exercised a
marked influence in shaping the affairs of the genera
tions that were to follow his administration.
THOMAS E BENTON,
mHOMAS HART BENTON was born at Hillsbora
1 North Carolina, March 14th, 1782. During his youth
he enjoyed few educational advantages, his father dyin
while he was a child.
He, however, persevered and completed his studies at
Chapel Hill University supporting himself throughout
his school course. Removing to Tennessee he began the
study of law and commenced practice at Nashville, where
he arose to eminence at the bar. When elected to tin
legislature of the State, an event which occurred soon
after his beginning law practice in Nashville, he pro-
cured the passage of a bill securing to slaves the right ol
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 249
trial by jury. In the war of 1812 he was made a lieu
tenant-colonel, serving on the staff of General Jackson.
In 1814-15 Colonel Benton took up his residence in
St. Louis, Missouri, and established the Missouri Enquirer.
It is stated that this enterprise involved him in several
duels, one of which resulted fatally to his opponent, Mr.
Lucas. Mr. Benton took a leading part in the admission
of his adopted State into the Union, and in 1820 he was
elected one of her first senators, and remained a member
of the national government for thirty consecutive years ;
a leader of his party in debate.
He warmly supported Jackson in his administration
of the affairs of the government, and as is well-known
rendered him valuable and efficient service by his speech
on the expunging resolution which he successfully car
ried through the senate. In 1829 he made a speech on
the salt tax, which was a masterly production, and through
its influence is due largely the repeal of the same.
He was among the foremost who advocated a railroad
to the Pacific coast, and it was Thomas Benton who first
introduced the idea of congress granting pre-emption
rights to actual settlers. He favored trade with New
Mexico, and establishing commerce on the great lakes.
He was an eminent specie advocate ; so vehement was
he that he became known as "OLD BULLION, and it was
through his influence that the forty-ninth parallel was
decided upon as the northern boundary of Oregon. He
opposed the fugitive slave law, and openly denounced
nullification views wherever expressed. Nothing but his
known opposition to the extension of slavery caused his
final defeat in the legislature when that body chose
another to succeed him in the United States senate.
Thus in defence of human liberty ended his splendid
250 HIDDEN TREASURES.
career of thirty years in the upper house, struck down
by the frown of demagogism. Two years later he wa&
elected to the House of Representatives, where he did
noble work in opposition to the Kansas-Nebraska act,,
denouncing it as a violation of the Missouri Compromise,,
and was defeated as a candidate for congress in the next,
campaign. After two years devotion to literature he
was a candidate for governor of his State, but was defeated
by a third ticket being placed in the field. He was tho
popular candidate, however, of the three, against great
odds being defeated by only a few votes.
During this year he supported Mr. Buchanan for the
presidency against his son-in-law, Mr. Fremont. He now~
retired permanently from public life, devoting his exclu
sive attention to literature, and his "Thirty Years View;
or a History of the Working of the United States Govern
ment for Thirty Years from 1820 to 1850," was a mas
terly piece of literature, and reached a mammoth sale ;,
more than sixty thousand copies being sold when first
issued. When this was finished he immediately began
another, "An Abridgment of the Debates of Congress
from 1789 to 1850." Although at the advanced age of
seventy-six, he labored at this task daily, the latter part
of which was dictated while on his death-bed, and while
he could speak only in whispers. Surely he deserved tho
success which had attended his efforts. He died in.
Washington on the 10th day of April, 1858.
He had a large and grandly proportioned head, and
was a most aggressive debater. It was in the Expunging
Resolution and the exciting debates in which he bore sa
prominent a part that he gained his greatest reputation.
This bill and the manner in which he managed its.
course through the senate, securing its adoption against
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 251
the combined effort of such men as Clay, Webster and
Calhoun illustrates the characteristics of the man more
clearly than anything that could be said of him. When
reading the life of Andrew Jackson the reader will re
member that the senate passed a resolution condemning
the action of the president, Mr. Jackson, in regard to the
distribution of the public funds in the following lan
guage : Resolved, That the president in the late execu
tive proceedings in relation to the public revenue has
assumed upon himself authority and power not conferred
by the constitution and laws, but in derogation of both.
The motion of Mr. Benton was to strike from the
journals of the senate this resolution of censure. In
support of the president s course and of Mr. Benton s
proposed method of vindication various public proceed
ings were had in various sections of the country, and
some of the State legislatures not only voted in favor of
the removal of the record of censure but instructed their
congressional delegations to use their influence and votea
in a similar direction.
Mr. Benton s resolutions rehearsed the principal
points involved in the past history and present aspects,
of the controversy quite at length, the closing resolution
being as follows : "That the said resolve be expunged
from the journal, and for that purpose that the secretary
of the Senate at such time as the Senate may appoint,
shall bring the manuscript journal of the session 1883-4
into the Senate, draw black lines round the said resolve,
and write across the face thereof in strong letters the
following words : Expunged by order of the Senate
this day of , in the year of our Lord / "
For three years successively did Mr. Benton bring
forward on different occasions his celebrated motion, and
252 HIDDEN TREASURES.
again and again he suffered defeat after the most scath
ing debates that ever took place in any parliamentary
body, the Senate at this time containing an unusual
amount of oratorical talent and forensic power. But
the last scene, and with it victory to the great Missou-
rian and his presidential master, was now near at hand,
and this scene, as described by Mr. Benton himself, was
as follows :
Saturday the fourteenth of January the Democratic
Senators agreed to have a meeting, and to take their
final measures for passing an expunging resolution.
They knew they had the numbers, but they also knew
they had adversaries to grapple with to whom might be
applied the motto of Louis Fourteenth : Not an
unequal match for numbers. 7 They also knew that mem
bers of the party were in process of separating from it
and would require reconciliating. They met in the night
at the then famous restaurant of Boulanger giving to the
assemblage the air of convivial entertainment. It con
tinued till midnight and required all the moderation,
tact and skill of the prime movers to obtain and main
tain the Union in details on the success of which de
pended the fate of the measure. The men of concillia-
tion were to be the efficient men of that night, and all
the winning resources of Wright, Allen and Linn were
put in requisition. There were serious differences upon
the method of expurgation, while agreed upon the thing;
and finally obliteration, the favorite mover, was given
up and the mode of expurgation adopted which had been
proposed in the resolution of the general assembly of
Virginia, namely, to inclose the obnoxious sentence in a
square of black lines an oblong square, a compromise
of opinions to which the mover agreed upon condition
FEOM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 253
of being allowed to compose the the epitaph, "Expunged
by the order of the senate."
The agreement which was to lead to victory was then
adopted, each one severally pledging himself to it that
there should be no adjournment of the senate after the
resolution was called until it was passed, and that it
should be called immediately after the morning business
on the Monday ensuing. * Expecting a protracted session
extending through the day and night, and knowing the
difficulty of keeping men steady to their work and in
good humor when tired and hungry, the mover of the
proceeding took care to provide as far as possible against
such a state of things, and gave orders that night to have
an ample supply of cold hams, turkeys, rounds of beef,
pickles, wines and cups of hot coffee ready in a certain
committee-room near the senate chamber by four o clock
on the afternoon of Monday.
The motion to take up the subject w^as made at the
appointed time, and immediately a debate of long
speeches, chiefly on the other side, opened itself
upon the question. As the darkness of approach
ing night came on and the great chandelier was lit up,
splendidly illuminating the chamber then crowded with
the members of the house, and the lobbies and galleries
filled to their utmost capacity with visitors and specta
tors, the scene became grand and impressive. A few
spoke on the side of the resolution, chiefly Rivers, Buch
anan and Niles, and with an air of ease and satisfaction
that bespoke a quiet determination and consciousness of
victory.
The committee-room was resorted to in parties of
four and six at a time, always leaving enough on watch,
and not resorted to by one side alone. The opposition
254 HIDDEN TREASURES.
were invited to a full participation, an invitation of
which those who were able to maintain their temper
availed themselves of, but the greater part were not in
a humor to eat anything especially at such a feast. The
night was wearing away, the expungers were in full force,
masters of the chamber happy and visibly determined
to remain. It became evident to the great opposition
leaders that the inevitable hour had come that the
damnable deed was to be done that night/ and that the
dignity of silence was no longer to them a tenable
position.
The battle was going against them, and they must go
into it without being able to re-establish it. In the be
ginning they had not considered the expunging move
ment a serious proceeding, as it advanced they still ex
pected it to miscarry on some point, now the reality of
the thing stood before them confronting their presence
and refusing to "down" at any command.
Mr. Calhoun opposed the measure in a speech of great
severity. The day, said he, is gone, night approaches
and night is suitable to the dark deed we meditate ; there
is a sort of destiny in this thing, the act must be per
formed, and it is an act which will tell upon the politi
cal history of this country forever. Mr. Clay indulged
in unmeasured denunciation of the whole thing. The
last speech in opposition to the measure was made by
Mr. Webster, who employed the strongest language he
<?ould command condemnatory of an act which he de
clared was so unconstitutional, so derogatory to the char
acter of the senate, and marked with so broad an impres
sion of compliance with power. But though thus
pronounced an irregular and unconstitutional proceeding
by Mr. Webster and the other senators with whom he
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 255
sided and voted, Mr. JohnQuiiicy Adams, who was attJie
time a member of the house, and in direct antagonism,
politically, with Mr. feenton, and to the Jackson admin-
tration held a different opinion.
Midnight was now approaching. The dense masses
"which filled every inch of the room in the lobbies and
in the galleries remained immovable. No one went out,
no one could get in. The floor of the Senate was
crammed with privileged persons, and it seemed that all
Congress was there. Expectation and determination to
see the conclusion were depicted on every countenance.
It was evident there was to be no adjournment until the
vote should be taken until the deed was done, and this
aspect of invincible determination had its effect upon
the ranks of the opposition. They began to falter under
a useless resistance ; they alone now did the talking, and
while Mr. Webster was yet reciting his protest two Sen
ators from the opposition side who had been best able to
maintain their equanimity, came around to the mover of
the resolution and said : This question has degenerated
into a trial of nerves and muscles. It has become a
question of physical endurance, and we see no use in
wearing ourselves out to keep off for a few hours longer
what has to come before we separate. We see that you
are able and determined to carry your measure so call
the vote as soon as you please. We shall say no more.
Webster concluded. No one arose. There was a
pause, a dead silence, and an intense feeling. Presently
the silence was invaded by the single word question -
the parliamentary call for a vote rising from the seats
of different Senators. One blank in the resolve re
mained to be filled the date of its adoption. It was
done. The acting President of the Senate, Mr. King, of
256 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Alabama, then directed the roil to be called. The yeas
and nays had been previously ordered, and proceeded to
be called by the Secretary of the Senate, the result
showing a majority of five on the side of the expungers.
The passage of the resolution was announced by the
chair. Mr. Benton arose, and said that nothing now
remained but to execute the order of the Senate, which
he moved to be done forthwith. It was ordered accord
ingly. The secretary thereupon produced the original
manuscript journal of the Seriate, and opening at the
page which contained the condemnatory sentence of
March 28, 1834, proceeded in open Senate to draw a
square of broad black lines around the sentence, and to
write across its face in strong letters : EXPUNGED BY
ORDER OF THE SENATE THIS 16TH DAY OF JANUARY, 1837.
HENRY CLAY,
T FEW miles from old Hanover court-house in Yir-
\ ginia, where the splendors of Patrick Henry s genius
first beamed forth, is a humble dwelling by the road-side,
in the midst of a miserably poor region known as the
slashes. There, on the 12th of April, 1777, Henry Clay,
the great American statesman, was born, and from the
district-schools of his neigborhood he derived his educa
tion. He was the son of a Baptist clergyman of very
limited means, hence his early advantages were of nec
essity meager. He was very bashful and diffident, scarcely
16
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 257
dare recite before his class at school, but he DETERMINED
to BECOME AN ORATOR, he accordingly began the plan of
committing speeches and then reciting them in the corn
fields ; at other times they were delivered in the barn,
before the cows and horse.
Henry became a copyist in the office of the clerk of
the Court of Chancery, at Richmond. Here he was ena
bled to begin the study of law, an opportunity which he at
once embraced. While other boys were improving their
time having fun, he was studying, and so closely did he
occupy his odd time that he was enabled to pass the
necessary examination and be admitted to the bar at the
early age of twenty. Two years later he moved "West,"
(he was enterprising), settling at Lexington, Kentucky,
where he entered upon the practice of law.
Here he became an active politician as well as a pop
ular lawyer. He was an intelligent young man, and
early cultivated a genial disposition which was a lead
ing feature of his splendid success in life. In 1799 Ken
tucky called a convention for the purpose of revising
the constitution of the State. During this campaign
young Clay labored earnestly to elect delegates to that
convention favorable to the extinction of slavery. Thus
early he manifested an interest in a question many years
in advance of his countrymen. This is the man who,
when afterward told that his action on a certain measure
would certainly injure his political prospect replied, " I
WOULD RATHER BE RIGHT THAN BE PRESIDENT."
It was even so in this case, his action in behalf of the
freedom of slaves offended many but his opposition to
the obnoxious alien and sedition laws later restored him
to popular favor. After serving in the State legislature
with some distinction he was elected to fill the unex-
258 HIDDEN TREASURES.
pired term of General Adair in the United States Senate.
Here he made excellent use of his time, advocating bills
on internal improvements, accomplishing much toward
that end, although his time expired at the end of
the year. He left an impression on that body which fore
told his future greatness. He was now returned to his
State legislature where he was elected speaker, a postion
which he held for the next two terms.
Another vacancy occurred and Mr. Clay was again
elected to fill the unexpired time in the United States
Senate. This time he remained a member of that body
two years, and it was during this term that he placed
himself on record as one of the first and most powerful
of early protectionists; he also favored the admission of
Louisiana as a State. His term expired, he returned to
his constituents, who promptly elected him to a seat in
the House of Representatives, and immediately upon his
appearance in that body he was chosen SPEAKER of the
House !
This is an honor without parallel in the whole his
tory of our legislative affairs. It was at this session that
John C. Calhoun and William H. Crawford first made
their appearance in the National Congress. The duties
of this high office he discharged with marked ability and
great satisfaction through that and the succeeding Con
gress until 1814, when he was appointed one of the com
missioners to negotiate at Ghent, a treaty of peace with
Great Britain. Abroad Mr. Clay proved to be a diplo-
mate of no mean ability, and during his absence he was
re-elected to the National Congress, and upon his re-ap
pearance in that august assembly was immediately
chosen speaker.
Mr. Clay was one of the unsuccessful candidates for
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 259
the presidency in 1824, receiving thirty-seven electoral
votes, but became Secretary of State under John Quincy
Adams, who was chosen president by Congress. In 1831,
after a temporary retirement, he was elected to the
National Senate, this time for a full term of six years.
His services during this period were very important.
His compromise measure was probably, under the cir
cumstances, one of the most important bills that ever
passed the senate. As is well-known, it secured the
gradual reduction of the tariff for ten years, thus satis
fying the South, but allowing the manufacturers time to
accommodate themselves to the change. Mr. Clay was
a strong protectionist but this was a compromise on
both sides which Clay was willing to make, even though
it might be to satisfy a political opponent Calhoun to
whom he was bitterly opposed.
Certain it is when he saw his country in danger Henry
Clay was not the one to allow partisan hate to stand in
opposition to any bill which might tend to peace, and
while this measure had little merit in it of itself, still it
averted a civil war at that time. In 1834 President Jack
son proposed to Congress that they should give him
authority to secure indemnity from France through
reprisals. Mr. Clay, as chairman of the Committe on
Foreign Affairs, reported that Congress would not be
justified in so doing, as the neglect on the part of France
was clearly unintentional, thus war was once more
averted through the influence of the great pacifier/
At the presidential election of 1839 Mr. Clay, General
Harrison, and General Scott were submitted to the Whig
Convention as candidates. Mr. Clay was clearly the
choice of the convention, but by one of those strange
movements which so often occur at such times General
260 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Harrison was nominated. Many of Clay s friends were
disposed to bolt, but Mr. Clay promptly acknowledged
the ticket, and it was elected. Then followed the death
of the President in office, the obnoxious vetoes of the
newly installed President Tyler the division of the
Whig party, the nomination of Mr. Clay at this late
inopportune time and the election of Mr. Polk.
At the next convention Mr. Clay was a very promi
nent candidate for the nomination, but Mr. Taylor s mil
itary career seemed to carry everything with it and he
was nominated and elected. Had Mr. Clay been nomi
nated at either this convention or in 1839 he would have
been elected, but like Webster, the presidential honors
were not essential to perpetuate his name. During the
year 1849, as the people of Kentucky were about to re
model their constitution, Mr. Clay urged them to embody
the principles of gradual emancipation, but they refused
to do so.
He was again returned to the senate, and during this
term brought out the compromise act of 1850. This
measure, while recognizing no legal authority for the
existence of slavery in the newly acquired territory of
New Mexico, yet declared that in the establishment of
territorial governments in such territory no restriction
should be made relative to slavery. It also provided for
the admission of California without restrictions on the
subject of slavery, and opposed the abolition of slavery
in the District of Columbia. The bill carried with slight
changes. Mr. Clay being very feeble was in his seat but
few days of the session.
In 1852 he gradully sank until on June 29th, 1852, he
died. In him intellect, reason, eloquence, and courage
united to form a character fit to command. It was the
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 261
remark of a distinguished senator that Mr. Clay s eloquence
was absolutely intangible to delineation ; that the most
labored description could not embrace it, and that to be
understood it must be seen and felt. He was an orator
by nature, and by his indomitable assiduity he at once
rose to prominence. His eagle eye burned with patriotic
ardor or flashed indignation and defiance upon his foes
or was suffused with commiseration or of pity ; and it
was because HE felt that made OTHERS feel.
A gentleman, after hearing one of his magnificent
efforts in the Senate, thus described him : " Every mus
cle of the orator s face was at work. His whole body
seemed agitated, as if each part was instinct with a sepa
rate life ; and his small white hand with its blue veins
apparently distended almost to bursting, moved grace
fully, but with all the energy of rapid and vehement
gesture. The appearance of the speaker seemed that of
a pure intellect wrought up to its mightiest energies and
brightly shining through the thin and transparent will
of flesh that invested it."
The particulars of the duel between Mr. Clay and Mr.
Randolph maybe interesting to our readers. The eccentric
descendant of Pocahontas appeared on the ground in a
huge morning gown. This garment had such a vast cir
cumference that the precise whereabouts of the lean
senator was a matter of very vague conjecture. The
parties exchanged shots and the ball of Mr. Clay hit the
centre of the visible object, but the body of Mr. Randolph
was untouched. Immediately after the exchange of
shots Mr. Clay instantly approached Mr. Randolph, and
with a gush of the deepest emotion said, I trust in God,
my dear sir, you are untouched; after what has occurred
I would not have harmed you for a thousand worlds."
262 HIDDEN TREASURES.
The incident referred to above as occurring was the
fact of Mr. Kandolph s firing in the air, thus publicly
proclaiming his intention not to harm Mr. Clay at all
events.
In person, Clay was tall and commanding, being six
feet and one inch in stature, and was noted for the erect
appearance he presented, while standing, walking, or
talking. The most striking features of his countenance
were a high forehead, a prominent nose, an uncommonly
large mouth, and blue eyes which, though not particu
larly expressive when in repose, had an electrical appear
ance when kindled. His voice was one of extraordinary
compass, melody and power. From the deep and dread
ful sub-bass of the organ to the most serial warblings
of its highest key, hardly a pipe or stop was wanting.
Like all the magical voices, it had the faculty of impart
ing to the most familiar and commonplace expressions
an inexpressible fascination. Probably no orator ever
lived who, when speaking on a great occasion, was more
completely absorbed with his theme. "I do not know
how it is with others," he once said, "but, on such occa
sions, I seem to be unconscious of the external world.
Wholly engrossed by the subject before me, I lose all
sense of personal identity, of time, or of surrounding
objects."
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 263
MARTIN VANBUREN,
IN the quiet little village of Kinderhook, New York,
there was at the close of the Revolution, an indiffer
ent tavern kept by a Dutchman named Van Buren.
There his distinguished son Martin was born on the 5th
day of December, 1782.
After attending the academy in his native village he,
at the age of fourteen, began the study of law. His success
was phenomenal from the beginning, and he has passed in
to history as an indefatigable student all through life. In
1808 he was made surrogate of his native county. In
1812 he was elected to the senate of his native State and
in that body voted for electors pledged to support DeWitt
Clinton for the presidency. He was attorney-general of
the State from 1815 until 1819. Mr. Van Buren was a
very able politician and it was through his influence
that the celebrated Albany Regency/ whose influence
ruled the State uninterruptedly for over twenty years,
was set on foot.
In 1821 Mr. Van Buren was chosen to the United States
Senate and was made a member of the convention to
revise the State constitution. In the latter body he ad
vocated the extension of the elective franchise, but op
posed universal sufferage, as also the plan of appointing
justices of the peace by popular election. He voted
against depriving the colored citizens of the franchise
but supported the proposal to require of them a freehold
qualification of $250. In 1828 he was elected governor
264 HIDDEN TREASURES.
of the great State of New York and resigned his seat in
the National Congress to assume this new position. As
governor he opposed the safety fund system which was
adopted by the legislature in 1829. In the month of
March of the next year after assuming the gubernatorial
chair he accepted the leading position in the cabinet of
President Jackson but resigned two years later.
On May 22nd, 1832, he was nominated for the office of
vice-president on the ticket with General Jackson, and
was elected. The Democratic National Convention,
which met at Baltimore May 20th, 1835, unanimously
nominated him for the presidency, and in the ensuing
election he received 170 electoral votes out of a total of
283, 73 being cast for his principal antagonist, General
Harrison. The country was now plunged into the deepest
pecuniary embarrassments, the result of previous hot
house schemes and speculations, rather than the result
of the administrative measures of YanBuren. He had
succeeded to the presidency at a most unfortunate time.
Commerce was prostrate ; hundreds of mercantile houses
in every quarter were bankrupt ; imposing public meet
ings attributed these disasters to the policy of the
government.
On May 15th, he summoned an extraordinary session
of congress to meet the following September. Th3
president in his message advised that a bankrupt law for.
banking and other incorporations be enacted ; and that
the approaching deficit in the treasury be made good by
withholding from the States the fourth and last install
ment of a previous large surplus ordered to be deposited
with them by act of June 23rd, 1836, and by the tempo
rary issue of $6,000,000 of treasury notes. He also rec
ommended the adoption of what was called the independ-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 265
ent treasury system, which was passed in the senate, but
was laid on the table in the other branch of congress.
The payment of the fourth installment to the States was
postponed, and the emission of $10,000,000 of treasury
notes was authorized.
Again the President in his next annual message
recommended the passage of the independent treasury
bill, but the measure was again rejected. Another presi
dential measure, however, was more fortunate, a so-called
pre-emption law being enacted, giving settlers on public
lands the right to buy them in preference to others.
Van Buren s third annual message was largely occu
pied with financial discussions and especially with
argument in favor of the divorcement of the national
government from the banks throughout the country, and
for the exclusive receipt and payment of gold and silver
in all public transactions ; that is to say, for the inde
pendent treasury. Through his urgent arguments in its
favor it became a law June 30, 1840, and it is the distin
guishing feature in his administration. The canvass of
1840 was early begun by the opposition, and became a
bitterly contested one. The Whigs placed Harrison at
the head of their ticket and as Van Buren had no com
petitor, he became the candidate of the Democracy.
Never in the political history of the United States had
there been such universal excitement as was displayed
in the ensuing campaign. The great financial trials
through which the government had passed were made
the basis of all argument by the press and orators for
the opposition.
Charges of corruption, extravagance and indifference
to the welfare of the laboring classes were collected and
dumped upon poor Van Buren. Thus was Van Buren
266 HIDDEN TREASURES.
represented, while the enthusiasm for Harrison was
greatly augmented by log cabins, emblematical of his
humble origin. This time Van Buren received only 6
electoral votes, while General Harrison received 234.
His last annual message set forth with renewed energy
the benefits of the independent treasury; announced with
satisfaction that the government was without a public
debt ; and earnestly advised the enactment of more strin
gent laws for the suppression of the African slave trade.
In 1844 Mr. Van Buren s friends once more urged his
nomination for the presidency by the Democratic national
convention at Baltimore. But he was rejected there on
account of his opposition to the annexation of Texas to
the Union, avowed in a public letter to a citizen of Mis
sissippi who had asked for his position on that question.
Though a majority of the delegates in the convention
were pledged to his support, a rule being passed making
a two-thirds vote necessary to a choice, proved fatal to
his interest. For several ballots he led all competitors
when he withdrew his name and Mr. Polk was nomi
nated on the ninth ballot.
In 1848, when the Democrats had nominated General
Oass, and avowed their readiness to tolerate slavery in
the new territories lately acquired from Mexico, Mr.
Yan Buren and his adherents adopting the name of the
free democracy at once began to discuss in public that
new aspect of the slavery question.
They held a convention at Utica on June 22nd which
nominated Mr. Van Buren for president, and Henry
Dodge of Wisconsin for vice-president. Mr. Dodge de
clined, and at a great convention in Buffalo on August
9th, Charles Francis Adams was substituted. The con
vention declared: " Congress has no more right to make
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 267
a slave than to make a king; it is the duty of the federal
government to relieve itself from all responsibility for
the existence and continuance of slavery wherever the
government possesses constitutional authority to legis
late on that subject and is thus responsible for its
existence.
In accepting the nomination of this new party Mr,
Van Buren declared his full assent to its anti-slavery
principles. The result was that in New York he re
ceived the votes of more than half of those who had
hitherto been attached to the Democratic party, and
that General Taylor the candidate of the Whig party
was elected. At the outbreak of the civil war he at once
declared himself in favor of maintaining the Republic as
a Union. Unhappily he died before the close of the war
and was thus deprived the satisfaction of seeing perpetu
ated the Union he so dearly loved. On the 24th of July,
1872, at his home in Kinderhook, he passed from death
into life.
STEPHEN ARNOLD DOUGLASS,
ONE of the most noted statesman of the day was the
subject of this narrative. Short, thickset, and mus
cular in person, and strong in intellect Stephen A. Doug
lass came to be known as The Little Giant/
For many years he held a very conspicuous place in
the political history of the republic. He was a native
268 HIDDEN TREASURES.
of the Green Mountain State/ being born at Brandon,
April 23d, 1813. When he was about two months old
his father, who was a physician, died, and his mother
removed to a small farm, where Stephen remained until
he was about fifteen years old. Having received a com
mon school education he was very anxious to take a
college course, but this being impossible, he determined
thereafter to earn his own living. He accordingly ap
prenticed himself to a cabinet-maker, but his health
would not allow the pursuit of this business, and he was
compelled to abandon the undertaking.
When he was possibly able he removed to Illinois.
Upon his arrival in Jacksonville his entire wealth con
sisted of the sum of thirty-seven cents. He determined
to start a school at a place called Winchester, some
fifteen miles from Jacksonville, and as he had little
money, walked the entire distance. Arriving in Win
chester the first sight that met his eyes was a crowd
assembled at an auction, and he secured employment
for the time being as clerk for the auctioneer. For this
service, which lasted three days, he received $6, and with
this sum he started a school, which occupied his atten
tion during the day.
For two years previous he had studied law during his
SPARE MOMENTS; much of his time nights was now devoted
to the completion of his legal studies. Being admitted to
the bar during the following year, 1834, he opened an
office and began practicing in the higher courts where
he was eminently successful, acquiring a lucrative prac
tice, and HE WAS ELECTED ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE
STATE BEFORE HE WAS TWENTY-TWO.
He soon became a member of the legislature,
taking his seat as the youngest member in that body.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 269
He was the Democratic nominee for Congress before he
had acquired the required age, however, his twenty-fifth
birth-day occurred before election, thus this obstacle was
removed. In his district a most spirited canvass took
place, and out of over thirty-five thousand votes cast, his
opponent was declared elected by only five. He was
appointed register of the land office at Springfield, but
resigned this position in 1839. He became Secretary of
State the following year, and in 1841 was elected a judge
of the Supreme Court at the age of twenty-eight. This
position he also resigned two years after to represent his
district in congress where he was returned by successive
elections until 1848.
He was recognized as one of the able members while
in the national legislature, and his speeches on the Oregon
question are models. He next became a Senator from his
State, and supported President Polk in the Mexican
war. As is well-known he was the father of the Kansas-
Nebraska act, popularly known as Squatter Sovereignty/
carrying the measure through in spite of great opposition.
He was a strong candidate for the Democratic nomi
nation for the presidency in 1852, and his strength was
still more developed four years later when he was the
favorite candidate save one, James Buchanan, who finally
received the honor. At the end of the next four years
he was nominated by the convention meeting at Charles
ton, and was the unanimous choice of the northern wing
of the Democracy, but bitterly opposed by the Southern
faction, who nominated Mr. Breckinridge at a separate
convention. This caused a split in the Democratic vote,
and Mr. Lincoln was elected on a minority of the total
vote cast.
Stephen A. Douglass however, like Webster and Clay,
270 HIDDEN TREASURES.
needed not the honor of occupying the presidential chair
to make his name illustrious. He was remarkably suc
cessful in the promotion of his State s interest in Con
gress. To him is due the credit of securing the splendid
grant of land which brought about the successful opera
tion of the Illinois Central railroad which contributed
so much toward the weakened resources of the State.
As previously stated, Mr. Douglass was defeated by Mr.
Lincoln, yet at the outbreak of the civil war his voice
was heard in earnest pleas for the Union, declaring that
if this system of resistance by the sword, when defeated
at the ballot-box was persisted in, then " The history of
the United States is already written in the history of
Mexico."
He most strongly denounced secession as a crime and
characterized it as madness. His dying words were in
defence of the Union. To say that Mr. Douglass was a
wonderful man is the least that can be said, while more
could be added in his praise with propriety. As an
orator he was graceful, and possessed natural qualities
which carried an audience by storm. He died June 3rd,
1861, at the outbreak of the civil war. Had he lived no
one would have rendered more valuable assistance in
the suppression of that gigantic rebellion than would
Stephen A. Douglass.
But it was in the great political debate between him
self and Abraham Lincoln that Mr. Douglass gained his
greatest notoriety as well as Lincoln himself. The de
tails of this debate will be seen in our sketch of Mr.
Lincoln.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 271
ABBOTT LAWRENCE,
O.OLOMON said: "Seesfc thou a man diligent in his
X} business? he shall stand before kings, he shall
not stand before mean men." How true are those words;
how often have we seen them demonstrated.
Abbott Lawrence, brother of Amos Lawrence, was
born December 16, 1792, and what education he had he
received at the academy in Groton. When about six
teen years of age he took the stage for Boston, with the
princely sum of three dollars in his pocket. He entered
the store of his brother Amos as clerk. After five years
of faithful service he was taken in as partner, and the
firm-style became A. & A. Lawrence.
The war of 1812 came on, and Abbott, who possessed
less money than his brother, failed, but he was not dis
heartened. He applied to the government for a position
in the army, but before his application could be acted
upon peace was declared.
After the war his brother Amos helped him, and once
more they entered into partnership, Abbott going to
England to buy goods for the firm. About 1820 the
Lawrence brothers, with that enterprise which charac
terizes all great business men, commenced manufacture
ing goods in America, instead of importing them from
the old world, and to the Lawrences is due no small
credit, as the cities of Lowell and Lawrence will testify.
He was a member of the celebrated convention at
Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, whose recommendations to
272 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Congress resulted in the tariff act of 1828, which was so
obnoxious to Calhoun and the Cotton States. In 1834
Mr. Lawrence was elected to Congress, where he did
valuable service on the Committee of Ways and Means.
He declined re-election, but afterward was persuaded to
become a candidate and was again elected. By the
advice of Daniel Webster he was sent to England on the
boundary question.
President Taylor offered him a seat in his Cabinet,
but he declined later he was sent to England, where he
became a distinguished diplomat, and was recalled only
at his own request. At one time he lacked but six votes
of being nominated for Vice-President.
On the 18th of August, 1855, Abbott Lawrence died.
Nearly every business place in Boston was closed in
fact, Boston was in mourning ; the military companies
were out on solemn parade, flags were placed at half-
mast, and minute-guns were fired. Thus passed away
one of the merchant princes of New England.
ALEXANDER H. STEPHENS,
THIS great statesman was born in Georgia on Febru
ary 11, 1812, and was left an orphan at an early age.
He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1834,
having the advantage of a college education. He entered
upon the practice of law at Crawfordsville in his native
17
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 273
State, and his natural ability and splendid education
soon won for him a most lucrative practice.
Mr. Stephens early became a convert to the Calhoun
school of politics, and he remained firmly fixed until
death in the belief that slavery was the proper sphere in
which all colored people should move. He believed it
was better for the races both white and black.
Though physically weak he was wonderfully devel
oped in personal courage. In 1836 Mr. Stephens was
elected to the State legislature, to which he succeeded
five successive terms. In 1842 he was elected to the
State senate, there to remain only one year when he was
sent as a Whig to the national congress, there to remain
until 1859 when, July 2nd, in a speech at Augusta he an
nounced his intention of retiring to private life. When
the old Whig party was superceded by the present Re
publican party Mr. Stephens joined the Democrats.
During the presidential canvass of 1860 Mr. Stephens
supported the northern wing under Douglass, and in a
speech at the capitol of his State bitterly denounced
secession. As the speech so well illustrates his powers
of oratory, so far as words can portray that power, we
give the speech as follows :
This step, secession, once taken can never be recalled^
and all the baleful and withering consequences that must
follow, as you will see, will rest on this convention for
all coming time. When we and our posterity shall see
our lovely South desolated by the demon of war which
this act of yours will inevitably provoke, when our green
fields and waving harvests shall be trodden down by a
murderous soldiery, and the fiery car of war sweeps over
our land, our temples of justice laid in ashes and every
horror and desolation upon us ; who, but him who shall
274 HIDDEN TREASURES.
have given his vote for this unwise and ill-timed measure
shall be held to a strict account for this suicidal act by the
present generation, and be cursed and execrated by all
posterity, in all coming time, for the wide and desolat
ing ruin that will inevitably follow this act you now pro
pose to perpetrate ?
Pause, I entreat you, and consider for a moment what
reasons you can give that will satisfy yourselves in calmer
moments ? What reasons can you give to your feflow-
silfferers in the calamity that it will bring upon us ?
What reasons can you give to the nations of the earth
to justify it ? They will be calm and deliberate judges
of this case, and to what cause, or one overt-act can you
point on which to rest the plea of justification ? What
right has the North assailed ? Of what interest has the
South been invaded? What justice has been denied?
And what claim founded in justice and right has been
unsatisfied ? Can any of you name to-day one govern
mental act of wrong deliberately and purposely done by
the government at Washington, of which the South has
a right to complain ? I challenge an answer.
On the other hand, let me show the facts (and believe
me, gentlemen, I am not here the advocate of the North,
but I am here the friend, the firm friend and lover of the
South and her institutions, and for this reason I speak
thus plainly and faithfully for yours, mine, and every
other man s interest, the words of truth and soberness),
of which I wish you to judge, and I will only state facts
which are clear and undeniable, and which now stand in
the authentic records of the history of our country.
When we of the South demanded the slave trade, or the
importation of Africans for the cultivation of our lands,
did they not yield the right for twenty years? When we
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 275
asked a three-fifths representation in Congress for our
.section was it not granted? When we demanded the
return of any fugitive from justice, or the recovery of
those persons owing labor or allegiance, was it not incor
porated in the Constitution, and again ratified and
strengthened in the fugitive slave law of 1850? Do you
reply that in many instances they have violated this law
and have not been faithful to their engagements? As
individuals and local committees they may have done so,
but not by the sanction of government, for that has
always been true to the Southern interests.
Again, look at another fact. When we asked that
more territory should be added that we might spread
the institution of slavery did they not yield to our de
mands by giving us Louisiana, Florida and Texas out of
which four States have been carved, and ample territory
left for four more to be added in due time, if you do not
by this unwise and impolitic act destroy this hope, and
perhaps by it lose all and have your last slave wrenched
from you by stern military rule, or by the vindictative
decrees of a universal emancipation which may reason
ably be expected to follow.
But again gentlemen, what have we to gain by this
proposed change of our relation to the general govern
ment ? We ha\e always had the control of it and can
yet have if we remain in it and are as united as we have
been. We have had a majority of the presidents chosen
from the South as well as the control and management
of most of those chosen from the North. We have had
sixty years of Southern presidents to their twenty-four,
thus controlling the executive department. So of the
judges of the supreme court, we have had eighteen from
the South and but eleven from the North. Although
276 HIDDEN TREASURES.
nearly four-fifths of the judicial business has arisen in
the free States, yet a majority of the court has been from
the South. This we have required so as to guard against
any interpretation of the constitution unfavorable to us.
In like manner we have been equally watchful in the
legislative branch of the government. In choosing the
presiding officer, protem, of the Senate we have had
twenty-four and they only eleven; speakers of the house
we have had twenty-three and they twelve. While the
majority of the representatives, from their greater popu
lation, have always been from the North, yet we have
generally secured the speaker because he to a great ex
tent shapes and controls the legislation of the country,
nor have we had less control in every other department
of the general government.
Attorney-Generals we have had 14, while the North
have had but live. Foreign ministers we have had 86, and
they but 54. While three-fourths of the business which
demands diplomatic agents abroad is clearly from the
free States because of their greater commercial inter
ests, we have, nevertheless, had the principal embassies
so as to secure the world s markets for our cotton, to
bacco and sugar, on the best possible terms. We have
had a vast majority of the higher officers of both army
and navy, while a larger proportion of the soldiers and
sailors were drawn from the Northern States. Equally
so of clerks, auditors, and comptrollers, filling the execu
tive department ; the records show for the last 50 years
that of the 3,000 thus employed we have had more than
two-thirds, while we have only one-third of the white
population of the Republic.
Again, look at another fact, and one, be assured, in
which we have a great and vital interest ; it is that of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 277
revenue or means of supporting government. From
official documents we learn that more than three-fourths
of the revenue collected has been raised from the North.
Pause now while you have the opportunity to contem
plate carefully and candidly these important things.
Look at another necessary branch of government, and
learn from stern statistical facts how matters stand in
that department, I mean the mail and post-office privi
leges that we now enjoy under the General Government,
as it has been for years past. The expense for the trans
portation of the mail in the free States was by the report
of the postmaster-general for 1860, a little over $13,000,-
000,000, while the income was $19,000,000. But in the
Slave States the transportation of the mail was $14, 7 16,-
000, and the revenue from the mail only $8,000,265,
leaving a deficit of $6,715,735 to be supplied by the
North for our accommodation, and without which we
must have been cut off from this most essential branch
of the government.
Leaving out of view for the present the countless
millions of dollars you must expend in a war with the
North, with tens of thousands of your brothers slain in
battle, and offered up as sacrifices on the altar of your
ambition for what, I ask again ? Is it for the over
throw of the American Government, established by our
common ancestry, cemented and built up by their sweat
and blood, and founded on the broad principles of right,
justice and humanity? I must declare to you here, as I
have often done before, and it has also been declared
by the greatest and wisest statesmen and patriots of
this and other lands, that the American Government is
the best and freest of all governments, the most equal
in its rights, the most just in its decisions, the most
278 HIDDEN TREASURES.
lenient in its measures, and the most inspiring in its
principles to elevate the race of men that the sun of heaven,
ever shone upon.
Now for you to attempt to overthrow such a govern
ment as this under which we have lived for more than
three-quarters of a century, in which we have gained our
wealth, our standing as a nation, our domestic safety
while the elements of peril are around us with peace
and tranquility accompanied with unbounded prosperity
and rights unassailed is the height of madness, folly and
wickedness to which I will neither lend my sanction nor
my vote.
This is one of the most eloquent appeals recorded on.
the pages of history, and had Mr. Stephens carried out
his first intention as expressed, "I will neither lend my
sanction nor my vote," in his subsequent career during
that war he had so eloquently and prophetically depicted,
ke would to-day not only be recognized as one of the ablest
and most brilliant of orators as he is known, but would
have stamped his life as a consistent and constant legis
lator which is so laudable in any man. But only a month
later, after delivering the great speech at Milledgeville in
defense of the Union he accepted one of the chief offices
in the Confederacy, and began to perpetrate the very
wrongs he had so vehemently deplored, seeking by
speeches innumerable to overthrow that government he
had so eloquently eulogized.
At Savannah he spoke something as follows: "The
new constitution has put to rest forever all the agitating
questions relating to our peculiar institutions African
slavery as it exists among us the proper status of the
negro in our form of civilization. This was the immedi
ate cause of the late rupture and the present revolution.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 279
Jefferson in his forecast had anticipated this as the rock
upon which the old Union would split. The prevailing
ideas entertained by him and most of the leading states
men at the time of the formation of the old constitution,
were that the enslavement of the African was in viola
tion to the laws of nature; that it was wrong in princi
ple socially, morally and politically.
Our new government is founded on exactly the op
posite ideas. Its foundations are laid, its corner-stone
rests upon the great truth that the negro is not equal to
the white man. That in slavery, subordination to the
superior race, is his natural and normal condition. This,
our new government, is the first in the history of the
world based upon this great physical, philosophical and
moral truth. It is the first government ever instituted
upon principles in strict conformity to nature and the
ordination of Providence in furnishing the materials of
human society. Many governments have been founded
upon the principle of enslaving certain classes, but the
classes thus enslaved were of the same race and enslaved
in violation to the laws of nature.
Our system commits no such violation of the laws of
nature. The negro, by nature or by the curse against
Canaan is fitted for that condition which he occupies in
our system. The architect in the construction of build
ings lays the foundation with the proper material, the
granite ; then comes the brick or marble. The substra
tum of our society is made of the material fitted by
nature for it, and by experience we know that it is best
not only for the superior, but the inferior race that it
should be so. It is, indeed, in conformity with the Crea
tor. It is not for us to inquire into the wisdom of his
ordinances, or to question them. For his own purposes
280 HIDDEN TREASURES.
he bis made one race to differ from another, as he has
made one star to differ from another in glory. The great
objects of humanity are best attained when conformed
to his laws and decrees in the formation of governments
as well as in all things else. Oar confederacy is founded
upon principles in strict conformity with these laws.
This stone which was rejected by the first builders is be
come the chief stone of the corner in our new edifice.
By both of these speeches he was of great service to
the national government. The first was used to justify
the suppression of secession, and the second to excite
the animosity of the world against secession. After the
war Mr. Stephens was once more a member of the Na
tional Congress and Governor of his native State. On
the 3rd day of March, 1883, he died at his home in Craw-
fordville. We have thus spoken of Mr. Stephens as a
legislator ; personally, he was a very pleasant man to
meet, loved in society, was kind-hearted, and we believe
sincere. His eloquence was at times wonderful, and was
augmented rather than diminished by his physical in
firmity. Those who have heard him will never forget
the squeaking voice and haggard look.
According to Webster, the three cardinal points essen
tial to true oratory are clearness, force and sincerity.
In all of these Stephens was proficient. His descriptive
powers were remarkable, and he could blend pathos with
argument in a manner unusual. He was a warm friend
of Mr. Lincoln, and one of the most characteristic stories
ever told of Mr. Lincoln is in connection with Governor
Stephens diminutive appearance and great care for his
shattered health. On one occasion before the war he
took off three overcoats, one after the other, in the
presence of Mr. Lincoln, who rose, and walking around
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 281
him, said, "I was afraid of Stephens, for I thought he
might keep on taking off clothes until he would be
nothing but a ghost left," and speaking to a friend stand
ing by, remarked further, " Stephens and his overcoats
remind me of the biggest shuck off the smallest ear of
corn that I have ever seen in my life." One by one the
eminent men of State pass away. Their deaths make
vacancies which the ambitious and active hasten to
occupy whether they are able to fill them or not.
MlLLARD FlLLMORE.
, indeed, are the possibilities of our country.
The subject of this narrative, thirteenth president of
the United States, was born in Summer Hill, Cayuga
county, New York, January 7th, 1800. The nearest
house to that of Fillmore was four miles distant. Cayuga
county was then a wilderness with few settlers, conse
quently young Fillmore s education was limited to in
struction in reading, writing, spelling and the simplest
branches of arithmetic. At fourteen he was bound out
to learn the fuller s trade.
Think of it boys, what splendid opportunities most
of you have; yes, all of you have, compared to that of
Fillmore, for he had not the advantage of our glorious
and complete school system, and at that was bound out
when a mere lad. Yet at the age of nineteen he pre-
282 HIDDEN TREASURES.
sumed to aspire to become a lawyer ! He had two more
years to serve in his apprenticeship, but "Where there s
a will there s a way." "To think a thing impossible is to
make it so," and he accordingly set to work contriving
to gain for himself an education.
Contracting with his employer to pay him $30 for hi&
release, that obstacle was overcome. He next made an
arrangement with a retired lawyer, by which he received
his board for services, and studied nights. This con
tinued for two years, when he set out on foot for Buffalo
where he arrived with just $4 in his pocket. Ah! me-
thinks people who saw that boy must have felt that he
was destined to be somebody in the world. "Neither
do men light a candle and put it under a bushel but on
a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in
the house."
How often are we so deeply impressed by reading the
biographies of great men that it really does in a great
measure rest with ourselves whether we amount to some
thing, or worse than nothing, in the world. We have
followed this man from childhood and have seen him
overcome all obstacles thus far; will we then be sur
prised when we read that no sooner did he arrive in
Buffalo than he succeeded in making arrangements with
a resident lawyer, obtaing permission to study in his
office and supported himself by severe drudgery, teach
ing and assisting the post master.
By the spring of 1823 he had so far gained the confi
dence of the bar that by the intercession of several of its
leading members he was admitted as an attorney by the
Court of Common Pleas of Erie county, although he had
not completed the period of study usually required, and
commenced practice at Aurora where his father resided.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 288-
In the course of a few years he acquired not only a
large practice but a thorough mastery of the principles
of the common law, and he rose to a place among the
first lawyers of his State. In 1827 he was admitted as
counselor of the Supreme Court of the State. In 1830
he moved to Buffalo where he continued in the practice
of law until 1847, when, he was elected Comptroller of
the great Empire State.
He had previously been in the State legislature and
in the national congress. In congress he rose gradually
to the first rank for integrity, industry and practical
ability. As a State legislator he particularly distinguihed
himself by his advocacy of the act to abolish imprison
ment for debt, which was drafted by him, and which
passed in 1831. In congress he supported John Quincy
Adams in his assertion of the right of petition on the
subject of slavery. He opposed the annexation of
Texas, because it extended slave domain and advocated
the immediate abolition of the inter-state slave trade.
At the death of President Taylor, Mr. Fillmore, ac
cording to the provisions of the Constitution in such
cases, became President of the United States, and the
poor boy who had entered Buffalo on foot now entered
the National Capitol as the ruler of a mighty nation.
During his administration a treaty with Japan, securing
for the United States valuable commercial privileges,
was consummated. His administration, as a whole, was
a successful one, and had he not signed the fugitive slave
law, he would, undoubtedly, have been the nominee of
his party at the convention in 1852.
In 1854 he made an extensive tour in the Southern
and Western States, and in the Spring of 1855, after an
excursion through New England, he sailed for Europe.
284 HIDDEN TREASURES.
While in Eome he received information that he had
been nominated by the Native American party in his
native country for the office of President. He accepted,
but Maryland alone gave him her electoral vote; how
ever, he received a large popular vote. In 1874, March
the 8th, he died in Buffalo, where he had resided many
years in private life.
WILLIAM H, SEWARD,
A TRULY eminenent American statesman, William
H. Seward, was born in Florida, Orange county,
New York, May 16th, 1801.
He graduated with much distinction when only nine
teen at Union College, Schenectady, New York, then
taught school in Georgia six months when he entered a
New York law school, and was admitted to the bar in
1822; commenced the practice of law at Auburn in con
nection with Judge Miller, whose daughter he afterward
married.
In 1824 he entered upon his political career by pre
paring an address for a Republican convention in opposi
tion to the Democratic clique known as the Albany
Regency/ thus commenced a contention which only
ended when the association was broken up in 1838. He
presided over a young men s convention in New York
in favor of John Quincy Adams re-election to the presi-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 285
dency. In August, 1828, on his return home he was
offered a nomination as member of Congress but de
clined. He was elected to the State senate in 1830, when
he originated an opposition to corporate monopolies
which has since ripened into a system of general laws.
Alter a rapid tour through Europe in 1833 he returned
home to become the Whig candidate for governor of
New York, being defeated by W. L. Marcy. But in 1838
he was elected over Marcy, his former opponent, by a
majority of 10,000 votes.
Placed now in a position where he could exercise that
mighty mind which he unmistakably possessed, he
achieved National distinction in the measures he prose
cuted. Prominent among these measures was the effort
to secure the diffusion of common school education, ad
vocating an equal distribution of the public funds among
all schools for that purpose. Imprisonment for debt was
abolished, the banking system was improved, the first
lunatic asylum was established, and every vestige of
slavery was cleared from the statute books.
He also became famous through his controversy with
the Governor of Virginia. The latter issued a demand
on Mr. Seward, as the Governor of New York, for the
delivery of two men charged with abducting slaves.
Seward maintained that no State could force a requisi
tion upon another State, founded on an act which was
only criminal by its own legislation, and which com
pared with general standards was not only innocent,
but humane and praiseworthy. This correspondence
between the two executives known as "The Virginia
Controversy" was widely published, and was largely in
strumental in bringing about his triumphant re-election
in 1840.
286 HIDDEN TREASURES.
At the close of his second term he once more resumed
the practice of law, becoming a practitioner in the United
States Courts. He was also a great criminal lawyer, and
especially aided, not only by gratuitous service, but
money also, in aiding people whom he thought unjustly
accused. Becoming a United States Senator, he an
nounced his purpose to make no further concessions to
the slave power. In his speech on the admission of Cali
fornia, March llth, 1850, the judgment of the man, his
ability to fore-cast events, and his oratorical powers are
displayed. Among other things he said :
"It is true, indeed, that the national domain is ours.
It is true, it is acquired by the valor, and with the wealth
of the whole nation. But we hold, nevertheless, no
arbitrary power over it. We hold no arbitrary author
ity over anything, whether acquired lawfully, or seized
by usurpation. The Constitution regulates our steward
ship ; the Constitution devotes the domain to union, to
justice, to defence, to welfare, and to liberty.
But there is a higher law than the Constitution, which
regulates our authority over the domain, and devotes it
to the same noble purposes. The territory is a part, no
considerable part, of the common heritage of mankind,
bestowed upon them by the Creator of the universe.
We are his stewards, and must so discharge our trust as
to secure in the highest attainable degree their happi
ness." In another speech, delivered at Rochester in 1858,
in alluding to the constant collision between the system,
of free and slave labor in the United States, he said :
"It is an irrepressible conflict between opposing
forces, and it means that the United States must and
will, sooner or later, become either entirely a slave-
holding nation, or entirely a free labor nation." Thus,
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 287
-while others dodged this issue, William H. Seward came
squarely out in language which could not be misinter
preted. When the Whig party had proved its incompe-
tency to deal with the slavery question, Mr. Seward, in
conformity with his past public career, withdrew and
figured most conspicuously in the founding of the new
Eepublican party.
In the last session of the 36th Congress, when the
war clouds were threatening, and desertion of the Union
cause became an epidemic, high above the breathings of
-secession was heard the voice of William H. Seward,
exclaiming: "I avow my adherence to the Union with
my friends, with my party, with my State ; or without
either, as they may determine, in every event of peace
or war, with every consequence of honor or dishonor, of
life or death." In conclusion he declared : "I certainly
shall never directly or indirectly give my vote to estab
lish or sanction slavery in the common territories of the
United States, or anywhere else in the world."
His second term closed with the thirty-sixth congress,
March 4th, 1861. In the National Republican convention
he was the most conspicuous candidate for the presi
dency for 1856-60. He made quite an extended tour
through Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land in 1859.
Upon the accession of Mr. Lincoln to the presidency Mr.
Seward was called to fill the seat of honor in his cabinet.
At the outbreak of the civil war Mr. Seward had
already shown himself a very able man, but his manage
ment of the foreign affairs of our government during
those trying hours indelibly stamped him as the most
able, of able Secretaries of State. He was one of the few
men who have been conceded to be a great success in
the office of Secretary of State. His management of
288 HIDDEN TREASURES.
the complicated Trent affair, the manner of his declina
tion of the French proposal to unite with Great Britain
and Kussia in mediating between the Federal and Con
federate governments, and his thorough re-organization
of the diplomatic service abroad, thus insuring a correct
interpretation by foreign powers of the issues before the
government; in fact his management of the high office
did him great credit, and more than once averted a
foreign war.
When Mr. Lincoln had drafted his famous proclama
tion he submitted it to Seward for approval. Many
people at the North were dissatisfied with some measures
of the administration, and the rebellion had been char
acterized as a " Nigger war," even at the North, besides
all this the Union arms had met with terrible loss, and
Mr. Seward wisely saw the evil results which might fol
low such a proclamation at this time. Therefore,
through his advice the paper was held until after the
victory at Antietam, when the country was further edu
cated and better able to understand and receive the real
issue of the war.
Early in the spring of 1865 he was thrown from his
carriage, and his jaw and one arm were broken. While
confined to his bed by these injuries he was attacked by
a would-be assassin, and very severely wounded, being
cut several times with a knife his son Frederick W.
came to his rescue and was also injured. It was on the
same night that President Lincoln was shot, April 14.
The assassin escaped from the house, but was soon ar
rested and hanged with the other conspirators, July 7.
Mr. Seward s recovery was very slow and painful, and
it is thought the shock given by the accident, and this
murderous attack impaired his intellectual force, for
18
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 289
when he again resumed his duties under President John
son, he supported the President s reconstruction policy,
becoming at dissonance with the party he had so satis
factorily served, until now. At the close of his official
term in March, 1867, he retired from public life, and soon
made an extended tour through California, Oregon and
Alaska ; the latter having been acquired during his sec
retaryship, and mainly through his efforts.
Accompanied by his family he made a tour around
the world, returning to Auburn in October, 1871. He
was every where received with honor and great distinction.
The observations made during this extensive voyage are
embodied in "Wm. H. Seward s Travels around the
World," prepared by his adopted daughter, Olive Risley
Seward. He died at Auburn, New York, October 10th,
1872, lamented by a nation.
HORATIO SEYMOUR
ONE whose name and deeds are familiar to the people
of the whole Union was Horatio Seymour, the most
eminent and notable of the later Governors of New
York Born May 31st, 1810, at Pompey, Onondaga
county, New York ; a hamlet in what was then almost a
wilderness.
When he was nine years of age his parents moved to
Tltica, His school education was obtained at the acade-
290 HIDDEN TREASURES.
mies of Oxford and Geneva, New York, and Partridge s
military school, Middletown, Connecticut. He studied
the science of law, and fitted himself for the profession,
being admitted to the bar in 1832, but the death of his
father devolved upon him the settlement of a large
estate. This withdrew him from his intended calling,
but enabled him to give ample time and attention to
reading, for he had an intense thirst for knowledge.
His public life began with his appointment as mili
tary secretary to Governor Marcy. Martin Van Buren
is said to have seen with his keen eye the valuable quali
ties in the young man, and the appointment was made
at his instance. Seymour held this place through Marcy s
three terms, 1833-39, and being very young, he became
enamored with public life. In 1841 he was elected to
the State Assembly as a Democrat, was re-elected three
times, and in 1845 was chosen speaker, which office he
filled with dignity and courtesy toward all. In 1842,
while in the assembly, he was elected Mayor of Utica
for one year, and was especially interested in all public
matters pertaining to the welfare of that city.
In 1850 Mr. Seymour was an unsuccessful candi
date for governor of his native State, being defeated
by his personal friend, Washington Hurt, by a
plurality of only 262 votes. Considering the hopeless
condition of the Democratic party at that time, and his
majority of 20,000 over the same competitor two years
later, we can imagine something of his popularity at
this early period. His first term as the executive of
New York was marked by his veto of the prohibitory
law which had been passed by the legislature, but his
action in regard to the speedy completion of all public
works then in progress and the interest he manifested
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 291
in the diffusion of public education was very exemplary.
Howe\ er, in the ensuing election he was defeated by a
plurality, this time, of only 309 votes. In 1862 Mr. Sey
mour was again elected governor over Wadsworth by
nearly 11,000 majority.
The breaking out of the civil war found Mr. Seymour
allied to that element of the Democratic party which
made its views formally known at what has passed into
history as the " Tweedle Hall " meeting. He was one of
the principal speakers at this memorable peace conven
tion and employed his eloquence in behalf of concession
and conciliation, and pointedly inquired: "Shall we
compromise after war or without war ? " His position
was analogous with many of the great men in both
parties at this time. When hostilities had really begun
his tone changed, and in his inaugural address, January
1st, 1863, his position was clearly defined as follows :
"Under no circumstances can the division of the Union
be conceded. We will put forth every exertion of power;
we will use every policy of conciliation; we will guaran
tee them every right, every consideration demanded by
the constitution and by that fraternal regard which
must prevail in a common country; but we can never
voluntarily consent to the breaking up of the union of
these States or the destruction of the constitution."
President Lincoln telegraphed Mr. Seymour asking
if he could raise and forward forthwith 20,000 troops to
assist in repelling the threatened invasion by Lee, of
Maryland and Pennsylvania. Within three days 12,000
soldiers were on their way to Gettysburg. The draft riots
next occupied his attention. The National government
passed a conscription act, March 3rd, enrolling all able-
bodied citizens, between twenty and forty-five years of
292 HIDDEN TREASURES.
age, and in May the President ordered a draft of three
hundred thousand men. The project was exceedingly
unpopular, and was bitterly denounced on every hand,
says Barnes. The anti-slavery measure of the adminis
tration had already occupied wide-spread hostility to the
war.
While Pickett s noble southern troops were assault
ing Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg, inflammatoryjiandbills
were being circulated in New York city, which brought
on a riot July 13th. The mob rose in arms, sacked
houses, demolished the offices of the provost-marshal,
burned the colored orphan asylum, attacked the police,
and chased negroes; even women and children, wherever
found, were chased, and if caught hung to the nearest
lamp-post. Two millions of dollars worth of property
was destroyed. The Governor immediately went to New
York, and on the 14th he issued two proclamations ; one
calling on the rk)ters to disperse ; the other declaring the
city in a state of insurrection. He divided the city into-
districts, which were placed under the control of military
men, who were directed to organize the citizens ; and
3,000 stands of arms were issued to these and other or
ganizations. Boats were chartered to convey policemen
and soldiers to any point on the shores of the island
where disturbances were threatened. The Governor
visited all the riotous districts in person, and by persua
sion, as well as by the use of the force at his command,
aided in quelling the disturbance.
During his term Governor Seymour commissioned more
than 13,000 officers in the volunteer service of the United
States. In August 1864 he presided over the Democratic
National Convention at Chicago which nominated Gen
eral McClellan for the presidency. Four years later,.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 293
much against his will, he was nominated for the presi
dency himself and was defeated by General Grant, as
any nominee of the Democratic party at that time would
have been. He then retired to private life, dwelling in
elegant repose at his pleasant home near Utica, New
York, until his death which occurred February 12th, 1886.
His occasional addresses were charming to the hearer,
and no man could deliver a more edifying speech at any
celebration. He was an ardent lover of American his
tory, particularly the history of his native State, and on
all State topics he discoursed with learning and a charm*
peculiarly original. Notwithstanding the high position
held by Mr. Seymour among the great men of his time
his funeral was very simple. Eev. Dr. A. B. Goodrich
offered a prayer at the residence of ex-Senator Roscoe
Conkling, his brother-in-law, after which the regular
services were conducted at the old Trinity Church.
After the services the body was borne to Forest Hill
Cemetery and placed in the Chapel of Roses.
WINFIELD S, HANCOCK,
A LARGE man, finely proportioned with a most grace
ful carriage, and self-poise, and withal handsome,
thus had nature endowed Winfield Scott Hancock, who
was born in the county of Montgomery, Pennsylvania,
February 14, 1824.
294 HIDDEN TREASURES.
In 1844 he graduated from West Point with honor,
and served with distinction in the war with Mexico,
where he was commissioned lieutenant. Until the
breaking out of the civil war he was stationed with his
division in various parts of the country. Being re-called
to Washington, he was commissioned a brigadier-general
of volunteers, and served with great valor during the
Peninsula campaign. For this and other meritorious
conduct he was made a major-general, and commanded
a division at the great battles of Fredericksburg and
-Chancellorsville.
But in the great and decisive battle of Gettysburg
Hancock won his greatest laurels. General Meade, his
commander, sent him to the field of Gettysburg to decide
if battle should be given there, or if the army should
fall back to another position. Hancock reported that
Gettysburg was the proper place, and thus the little ham
let became famous in history ; two days of terrific fight
ing passed ; the afternoon of the third day arrives and
the final charge is made upon the division commanded
by Hancock.
About one o clock one hundred and fifty-five guns
suddenly opened on that one division. For two hours
the air was fairly alive with shells. Every size and
form of shell known to British or American gunnery
shrieked, whirled, moaned, whistled and wrathf ully flut
tered over the ground, says Wilkinson. u As many as
six in a second, constantly two in a second came scream
ing around the headquarters. They burst in the yard;
burst next to the fence where the horses belonging to
the aids and orderlies were hitched. The fastened
animals reared and plunged with terror. One horse fell,
then another; sixteen lay dead before the cannonade
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 295
ceased. Through the midst of the storm of screaming
and exploding shells an ambulance driven at full speed
by its frenzied conductor presented the marvelous specta
cle of a horse going rapidly on three legs, a hind one
had been shot off at the hock. A shell tore up the little
step at the headquarters cottage and ripped bags of oats
as with a knife. Another shell soon carried off one of
its two pillars. Soon a spherical case burst opposite the
open door, another tore through the low garret, the re
maining pillar went almost immediately to the howl of
a fixed shot that Whitworth must have made. Soldiers
in Federal blue were torn to pieces in the road and died
with the peculiar yell that blends the extorted cry of
pain with horror and despair."
"The Union guns," says Barnes, "replied for a time,
and were then withdrawn to cool." Probably the expe
rience of the veteran troops knew that they would soon
be needed for closer work. The men lay crouching
behind rocks and hi ding in hollows, from the iron tempest
which drove over the hill, anxiously awaiting the charge,
which experience taught them, must follow. Finally the
cannonade lulled, the supreme minute had come, and out
of the woods swept the Confederate double battle-line,
over a mile long, preceded by a cloud of skirmishers, and
with wings on either side to prevent its being flanked.
This was Lee s first charge, and upon it depended, as
subsequently seen, the rise or fall of the Confederate
cause.
A quarter of a mile away, and a hundred guns tore
great gaps in the line, but the men closed up and sternly
moved on. A thrill of admiration ran along the Union
ranks as silently and with disciplined steadiness, that
magnificent column of eighteen thonsand men moved
296 HIDDEN TREASUEES.
up the slope, with its red battle-flags flying, and the sun
playing on its burnished bayonets. On they came on
the run. Infantry volleys struck their ranks. Their
ranks were broken, and their supports were scattered to
the winds. Pickett s veterans and A. P. Hill s best troops
went down. Out of that magnificent column of men,
only one-fourth returned to tell the story. Three gen
erals, fourteen field officers, and fourteen thousand men
were either slain or captured. This was the supreme
moment of the war; from that hour the Confederate
cause waned and slowly died.
All honor to Hancock, the hero of Gettysburg, who
was borne bleeding from the field, not to resume active
service until March, 1864, when he took a leading part in
the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania Court-House,
North Anna, the second battle of Cold Harbor, and in
the operations around Petersburg. After the war was
over he was placed in command of the Middle Depart
ment, the Department of Missouri, of Louisiana and
Texas, of Dakota, and on the death of General Meade,
promoted to command the Department of the East,
which position he held at his death.
In 1868 he was a very prominent candidate for the
Democratic nomination, receiving 114J votes, but after
an exciting contest, Horatio Seymour was nominated on
the 22nd ballot. The next year he was tendered the
Democratic nomination for Governor of his native State,
but respectfully declined.
In 1880 he accepted the nomination from the same
party for the highest honor within the gift of the party,
but in the subsequent election was defeated by James
A. Garfield, the Republican nominee. His last conspicu
ous appearance in public was at the funeral services of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 297
General Grant, where ne acted as marsnal of ceremonies.
Scarcely six months were passed when we were startled
with the news : Hancock is dead, and on February 13th,
1886, with military honors, but no elaborate display, he
was laid at rest beside his father and beloved daughter.
No long line of troops, no sound of dirges, no trappings
of woe, marked the funeral of General Hancock. The
man who had received the nomination of a great party
for the highest honor in the nation s gift, who had turned
the fortunes of many a battle, and whose calm courage
in the midst of death had so often inspired the faltering
regiments, was laid at rest quietly, without pomp or
Tain show, at Norristown, Pennsylvania.
GEORGE B, MCCLELLAN,
ON the 3rd of December, 1826, was born in Philadel
phia, a child who would one day become celebrated
in the annals of history.
He enjoyed the privilege of a good education, gradu
ating at the University of Pennsylvania, and when
twenty years old he also graduated at West Point, rank
ing second in his class.
George B. McClellan was a brilliant scholar, and
during the Mexican war won high esteem as an engi
neer. After the war he was engaged in various engineer
ing projects, and rendered valuable service to the coun
try by introducing bayonet exercises into the military
298 HIDDEN TREASURES.
tactics at West Point, and translating a French Manual
of Bayonet Exercises, which was adapted to the United
States service, and became an authority. In 1855- 6 he
was a member of the Military Commission sent by the
government to visit the seat of the Crimean war.
He resigned his commission in the regular army in
1857 ; became chief engineer of the Illinois Central Rail
road, and in 1868 he also became Yice-President of the
road ; two years later, President of St. Louis and Cin
cinnati Railway. It is difficult to surmise what he mght
have become as a railway magnate but for the civil war.
At the outbreak of hostilities he became the major-
general of Ohio volunteers, and by skillful generalship
and bravery, succeeded in driving the rebels out of West
Virginia, which made him commander-in-chief of the
Army of the Potomac. General McClellan was over
cautious, and lingered about Washington with about
200,000 men, drilling and preparing for the battle. Suc
cumbing to popular clamor he moved out toward
Richmond.
Then followed the Peninsula campaign, wherein
McClellan was forced to change his base, accomplishing
one of the most masterly retreats in the annals of his
tory. Being relieved of the command by Pope, who
also failed, he was re-instated and fought the bloody
battle of Antietam. In this battle he foiled the Confed
erate project of invasion, but popular clamor demanded
his removal, as it was thought he followed up his victory
too leisurely. This virtually ended his military services,
and on November 8th, 1864, he resigned his commission.
After his unsuccessful canvass for the presidency he,
with his family, sailed for Europe, where he remained
until 1868, when he returned to the United States and
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR.
took up his residence at Orange, New Jersey. Hence
forth he followed his profession as an engineer.
In 1877 he was elected Governor of New Jersey. On
October 29th, 1885, he died at his residence in New York
city from the effects of heart disease.
We do not propose to pose as a champion of McClel-
lan s wrongs, real or supposed, but in reviewing his life
the following facts are worthy of thought : He was in
command at a time when the whole North were laboring
under a delusion as to the requirements of the war, and
it is doubtful if any general would have succeeded at
this time. The fact that such an able general as Hooker
was relieved after one reverse, leads one to wonder what
might have been the fate of even Grant had he com
manded at this time. However, it is not for us to say,
but certain it is, that no greater military tactician was
to be found among the generals of our late war, and as
such he deserves credit.
ULYSSES SIMPSON GRANT.
T 7T THEN a man is energetic and determines to be
V V somebody in the world which is praiseworthy so
long as that energy is guided by propriety and a just
conception of right there are always scores, hundreds,
perhaps thousands of people who endeavor to depreciate
that man s reward.
300 HIDDEN TREASURES.
No other excuse can be assigned for the slander and
vituperation which has from time to time been heaped
upon the fair reputation of General U. S. Grant.
Born in obscurity at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27th,
1822, his life is a fitting type of the possibilities of our
glorious institutions. Through the influence of Hon.
Thomas L. Hamer he was admitted at West Point in
1839. Personally, at this early age, he detested war and
was opposed to accepting the opportunity, but his father
persuaded him to go, and his name was blunderingly
registered as U. S., instead of H. U., hence he was ever
after known as U. S. Grant.
In 1843 he graduated, ranking twenty-first in a class
of thirty-nine. It will be remembered that Lee and
McClellan each ranked second when they graduated.
At this time Grant was not taken with war, and proba
bly evinced little interest in army tactics. The Mexican
war came on and Grant here distinguished himself, ris
ing to the rank of captain. After the war he was sta
tioned at Detroit, and Sacketts Harbor, but this kind of
inactivity was ill-suited to the restless nature of Grant;
he therefore resigned.
Having married a Miss Dent, of St. Louis, he accord
ingly moved onto a farm near that city. The next few
years he was engaged on the farm, in a real estate office
in St. Louis, and at the outbreak of the civil war was in
business with his father, dealing in leather. When the
news of the fall of Fort Sumter reached Galena he im
mediately raised a company and marched to Springfield
where they tendered their services to the governor.
Grant acted as mustering officer until, being commis
sioned colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Volunteers,
he took the field. His first great victory was the capture
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 301
of Fort Donelson with 15,000 prisoners. When asked
by the Confederate general what terms of surrender was
expected his answer was, "No terms other than an
unconditional and immediate surrender can be ac
cepted. I propose to move upon your works at once."
The fall of Fort Donelson and the capture of its garri
son being the first substantial victory that had crowned
the Union cause, together with the above described
answer to General Buckner, brought the name of Gen
eral Grant prominently before the country.
Pittsburgh Landing followed and then Grant deter
mined to take Vicksburg. All his generals declared the
plan he proposed unmilitary and impossible, but after
several unsuccessful attempts the Gibraltar of the Mis
sissippi was captured, and this time 27,000 prisoners
taken. Now came the battle of Chattanooga. General
Halleck in speaking of this battle said:
"Considering the strength of the rebel position, and
the difficulty of storming his intrenchments, the battle
of Chattanooga must be considered the most remarkable
in history. Indeed it is so. After Grant had turned the
Confederate right flank, Sherman was intercepted be
tween Longstreet and Bragg, thus cutting Longstreet en
tirely out, and preventing another junction being possi
ble. Resolutions of thanks were passed in Ohio and
New York, and Congress created Grant a Lieutenant-
General, a commission which had been held by no one
since General Scott resigned. Indeed, if ever a General
deserved honor, Grant had won it ; he had opened the
Mississippi to navigation, and had captured nearly 100,-
000 prisoners and arms.
He was now commander of all the Federal forces.
He at once inaugurated two campaigns to be carried on
302 HIDDEN TREASURES.
at once. One under Sherman, against Atlanta com
manded by the skillful rebel General Johnson ; the other
under Meade, directed against Lee and the Confederate
Capitol. Sherman advanced upon Atlanta, and the suc
cess of his famous march to the sea is well-known.
The capture of Lee was a far more difficult under
taking. After various flanking movements and costly
assaults, the problem of taking Lee narrowed itself down
to a siege of Petersburg. Grant perceived that his only
hope lie in literally starving the Confederate army out
by cutting off all resources as far as practicable. Lee
attempted to draw off attention toward Washington, but
General Sheridan drove Early out of the Shenandoah
Yalley, devastating the country to such an extent that it
was impossible to forage an army there should Lee
attempt such a maneuver again. Time wore away, an
on the 9th of April, 1865, Grant captured the Confeder
ate army under Lee, thus virtually ending the war.
On July 25, 1866, he was made general of the United
States army ; the rank having been created for him, he
was the first to hold it. At the next Republican Con
vention, Grant was nominated for President on the first
ballot, and was elected over Seymour, and was re-elected
a second term by an increased majority.
When his public services were finished he started in
company with his wife, son Jesse, and a few friends.
They set sail from Philadelphia on the 17th of May,
1877. They visited nearly all the countries of Europe,
and part of those of Africa and Asia. On this trip the
Grant party were the guests of nearly all the crowned
heads of those foreign countries, everywhere receiving
the most exalted honors it has ever been the pleasure of
an American to enjoy, and on his return to the United
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 303
States they were the recipients of an ovation in many
of the principal cities of this country.
His success seems to have been the outgrowth of
hard study and ability to perform the most exhaustive
labor without fatigue. The scenes of his later days were
clouded with the intrigues of a stock gambler, but the
stain that the Grant-Ward failure seemed likely to throw
on the spotless reputation of General Grant was wiped
away when the facts were brought to light, and a new
lustre was added to his fame by the self-sacrifice shown
in the final settlement.
General Grant proved to be a writer o. no low order,
and his autobiography is a very readable book. On July
23rd, 1885, the General surrendered to a loathsome can
cer, and the testimonials of devotion shown the honored
dead ; and the bereaved family throughout the civilized
world, indicated the stronghold upon the hearts of the
people held by the dead General.
STONEWALL JACKSON,
JTVHE true name of this most remarkable man was
JL Thomas Jonathan Jackson; few people, however,
would recognize by that name to whom was referred. At
the battle of Bull Run, when the Confederates seemed
about to fly, General Bee suddenly appearing in view of
his men, pointing to Jackson s column exclaimed : "There
304 HIDDEN TREASURES.
stands Jackson like a stone-wall." From that hour the
name he received by ordinance of water was supplanted
by that received in a baptism of fire.
Stonewall Jackson was born at Clarksburg, Virginia,
January 21st, 1824. He graduated at West Point in
time to serve in the Mexican war, where he became dis
tinguished for gallant service and was brevetted a&
captain, and finally major. After serving a number of
years in the regular army he resigned to become profes
sor and instructor in military tactics in the Virginia
Military Academy, situated at Lexington, Kentucky. He
was considered at this time a most peculiar man, being
very eccentric in his habits. At the breaking out of the
civil war he naturally sided with his State, and it is
believed that he was sincere. It is said that Jackson
never fought a battle without praying earnestly for the
success of his people. As has been intimated, he saved
the day for the Confederacy at Bull Run.
McClellan was promised the assistance of General
McDowell and forty thousand men who had been left at
headquarters for the protection of the capital. It was
well-known that a combined attack on Richmond was
designed immediately upon the junction of the two
great armies. To prevent the execution of this plan
Jackson was ordered to drive the Federal forces out of
the Shenandoah Valley and threaten Washington. He
accomplished this by one of the most brilliant cam
paigns of the war. He crossed the mountains and drove
the army of Fremont back, and returning to the Valley
with all speed defeated Banks at every turn ; indeed, it
was only by the most rapid marching that the Federals
escaped across the Potomac.
McDowell was suspended from joining McClellan and
19
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 305
ordered to co-operate in crushing Jackson. Jackson,
with a force of scarcely twenty thousand men, had op
posed to him, bent upon his destruction, fully seventy
thousand men. and four major-generals; his defeat
seemed certain, yet by a most rapid and skillful march
he eluded pursuit until his army had reached a point
from which his line of retreat was safe, when he turned
upon his enemy and defeated Fremont at Cross Keys
June 8th, and Shields at Port Republic the next day.
Having thus accomplished the purpose of the campaign,
he hastened to join Lee in his attack on McClellan. As
before stated, this was a most brilliant campaign. Not
only was McDowell prevented from joining McClellan,
but McClellan became alarmed as to his own safety, and
resolved to change his base from the York to the James.
This forced upon him the Peninsula campaign, which
resulted in the Union army being driven back to Wash
ington. For this and other important services he was
made a major-general. Being placed in immediate con
trol of nearly half of Lee s entire army, he made one of
his characteristic movements ; gaining Pope s rear, fell
upon the Union forces with a terrible ferocity ; which
carried all before it. By a rapid movement in the Antie-
tarn campaign Jackson captured Harper s Ferry and
eleven thousand men, and then, by a forced march,
rejoined Lee in time to take an important part in the
battle of Antietam two days afterward.
At Fredericskburg he was made a lieutenant-general.
He soon controlled two-thirds of the Confederate forces,
and at Chancellorsville he made a secret march of over
fifteen miles mostly by forest roads, and gaining
Hooker s right fell upon it by surprise, and drove it in
rout upon the main body. The engagement being ap-
306 HIDDEN TREASURES.
parently over he rode into the woods to reconnoiter, hav
ing with him a small escort. Upon his return they were
mistaken for Union scouts and fired upon by his own
men. Several of the escort were killed, and Jackson re
ceived three balls, one through each hand and one which
shattered his shoulder. He was at length carried to the
rear where his arm was amputated. Pneumonia set in,
however, which was the immediate cause of his death.
His last words were, "Let us cross over and rest under
the shade of the trees."
Stonewall Jackson was considered by the Confeder
ates to have been their most brilliant commander, and
his death had much to do with the overthrow of their
Government.
GENERAL ROBERT E, LEE,
"F) OBERT E. LEE was born in Virginia, at the town of
J[\ Stafford, June 19th, 1807. He was son of Colonel
Henry Lee, of revolutionary fame. He had a command
ing military bearing, was a most graceful horseman ; he
came from good "fighting stock/ and as there never was
a braver man drew sword, he was well calculated to
become the beau-ideal of the Southern Confederacy.
When eighteen years of age he entered the military
academy at West Point, where, after a four years course,
he graduated. One thing, General Lee, as a cadet, was
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 307
an example well worthy of imitation, as he, during his
whole four years course, never received a reprimand,
and graduated second only to one in his class. From
1829 until 1834, he served as assistant engineer in the
building of forts in the South, and later was assistant
astronomer ; aiding in determining the boundary of Ohio.
When the Mexican war broke out he was appointed chief
engineer for the army under General Scott.
During this war he served with great distinction,
being successively breveted major, lieutenant-colonel
and colonel, and was wounded once; certain it is that
Robert E. Lee gave ample proof of his ability in the
Mexican war. In the interim between the Mexican
and Civil wars he served his country in various ways,
being for some three years superintendent of the West
Point Military Academy.
In 1855 two new regiments were formed. Of the
second regiment Albert Sidney Johnson was made
colonel; Lee, lieutenant-colonel; Hardee and Thomas,
majors; Van Dorn and Kirby Smith, captains; among
the lieutenants were Stoneman and Hood. One can see
that the officers of that regiment were composed of men
of no small calibre. When Lincoln was elected Lee was
in Texas, but he obtained a leave of absence and hurried
to his home in Virginia. General Lee was held in very
high esteem by General Scott, who was then at the head
of all the Union armies. General Scott was getting very
old, too old for active service, and it is stated that he felt
strongly inclined to name Lee as his successor, but Lee
had other views on the question and he joined his for
tune with that of the South.
Perhaps a letter written to his sister will more
clearly portray Lee s convictions and motives at the
308 HIDDEN TREASURES.
breaking out of hostilities than anything that can be
found elsewhere in history: "The whole South is in a
state of revolution into which Virginia has been drawn
after a long struggle; and though I recognize no neces
sity for this state of things and would have forborne and
pleaded to the end for redress of grievances, real or sup
posed, yet in my own person I had to meet the question
whether I should take part against my native State.
With all my devotion to the Union and the feeling of
loyalty and duty of an American citizen, I have not
been able to make up my mind to raise my hand against
my relatives, my children, my home."
These were the words of General Lee to his sister.
The idea of certain power reserved from the "central
power," as they termed it, had been inculcated since
Jefferson and Madison drew up the Kentucky and Vir
ginia resolution in 1798. Upon these didCalhoun claim
authority to rest justified when he fostered the idea of
State Rights. Had it not been for a sudden wave of
popular politics which swept Jefferson into power it
might have been Thomas Jefferson or James Madison
who wpuld have been known in history as the author of
the Nullification Acts which did not come until Cal-
houn s day.
This doctrine had been taught in the South for several
generations, and had enlarged with rolling. The profit
able use of slaves helped to sustain it, and it is no won
der, to a careful observer, that these people were carried
away by rebellion, when he takes into consideration these
things, the characteristics of the people, etc. As it was
with Lee, so it was with the South, and despite assertions
to the contrary, we believe that Robert E. Lee was sin
cere, and not looking after glory any more than other
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 309
officers of recognized ability, who cast their fortunes
with the North.
Then, too, Lee gained his position at the head of the
Southern army only after one general had been killed,
another wounded, and another stricken with a paralytic
stroke ; he coming fourth in order.
On June 3d, 1862, Lee received his commission, and
immediately launched out upon a series of battles known
as the seven-days battle, in which he succeeded in driving
McClellan from before Kichmond. Pope was now placed
in command of the Union forces, and Lee signally de
feated him in the second battle of Bull Run. Now he
attempted his first invasion of the North, and was forced
back in the battle of Antietam. Retreating into Vir
ginia, he massed his forces at Fredericksburg. The
North being dissatisfied with the slow manner in which
McClellan was following Lee, placed Burnside in com
mand, who attacked Lee in his position, but was signally
repulsed by the Confederates. He next met Hooker at
Chancellorsville, and again success attended the standard
of Lee.
Flushed with the great victories of Fredericksburg
and Chancellorsville, Lee once more started on an inva
sion of the North. Meade was now put at the head of
the Union forces, who at once started in pursuit. They
met at Gettysburgh, Pennsylvania. Three long days of
terrible fighting resulted in the repulse of Lee, and he
retreated south in good order. When he reached the
Potomac he found it impassable. If Meade had followed
Lee up now he might have gained a glorious victory, but
he allowed Lee to escape into Virginia.
General Grant was now placed at the head of the
Union forces and Lee found he had other metal with
310 HIDDEN TREASURES.
which to deal. Grant was not only made of different
material but he could profit by the experience of his
predecessors. Then, too, Grant had the great resources
of the North behind him and the confidence of President
Lincoln. Lee could never replace the 30,000 veterans
lost at Gettysburg, but Grant could lose later 80,000 and
the government was amply able to replace three times
that number. Grant now commenced to starve Lee out, to
wear the Confederacy threadbare. The history of the war
from now until the close of the war is a series of flanking
movements carried on by two most skillful generals. At
last Lee was obliged to surrender on the 9th of April, 1865.
After the war he became president of Washington
and Lee University, his great popularity and good man
agement gaining for it a large patronage. He died on
the 12th of October, 1870.
HENRY WILSON,
REAT honor is due any man who rises from the shoe-
maker s bench to beVice-President of thellnited States.
Such a man was Henry Wilson, who was born at Farm-
ington, New Hampshire, February 16th, 1812. When
yet a mere child he was apprenticed to a farmer, whom
he was to serve until of age. Eleven long years did he
serve this man, receiving only about one year s school
ing during that time, but he borrowed books and read
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 311
nearly one thousand volumes during the "wee sma
hours" of his apprenticeship. Upon obtaining his ma^
jority he started on foot for Natick, Massachusetts, and
entered the town with all his worldly possessions in a
bundle. Obtaining employment as a shoemaker he was
thus occupied for the next two years. His course of
reading, so faithfully followed, had made him proficient
in history, but thirsting for additional knowledge he de
cided to attend school with the money he had saved.
About this time he went to Washington, when the sight
of slaves bought and sold excited his sympathy, and he de
cided to forever oppose with all his might the institution
of bondage, which he always did, no matter how found.
Upon his return he found his earnings swept away by
the failure of the man to whom he had intrusted them.
Accordingly he resumed the shoe business, but his light
was beginning to be seen. He was invited to partake in
the anti-slavery meetings, then so frequent in Massachu
setts, and actively engaged in the campaign in which
Harrison was elected President, making over sixty
speeches.
In 1843 he was elected to the State Senate. Also
manufactured shoes on an extended scale for the south
ern market. The old Whig party, with whom he had been
so earnestly allied, proving itself unable to cope with the
slave power, by rejecting the anti-slavely resolutions at
the convention of 1843, he withdrew from it. Later, he
was a conspicuous figure in. the organization of the new
Free Soil party, being the Chairman of the committee
in his State, and editor of the Boston Republican. In
1850-52 he was president of the State Senate, and in 52
presided at the Free Soil contention at Pittsburgh. The
next year he was the Free Soil candidate for Governor
312
HIDDEN TREASURES.
of Massachusetts, but was defeated. In 1855 he was
chosen United States Senator, where he distinguished
himself. When his colleague, Mr. Suraner, was attacked
by Preston S. Brooks, Mr. Wilson fearlessly denounced
it as a cowardly, not to say dastardly assault. He was
immediately challenged by Mr. Brooks, but declined on
the ground that dueling is a barbarous custom which the
law of the country has branded as a crime. He was one
of the leaders in the new Republican party movement.
During the civil war his labors were indefatigable for
the Union, and in 1872 he was elected on that ticket with
Grant by an overwhelming majority.
He died in office , November 22nd, 1875, and the boy
shoemaker was mourned by a great nation. Truly, the
price of success is patient toil.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN,
IF one reads the life of Abraham Lincoln they are
thoroughly convinced that the possibilities of our
country are indeed very great. He was born in Hardin
county, Kentucky, on the 14th day of February, 1809, of
very poor parents, who lived in a log cabin.
Scarcely a boy in the country will read these lines but
has tenfold the opportunity to succeed in the world as
had Abraham Lincoln. When he was still a little boy
his parents moved to Indiana, which was then a wilder-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 313
ness. Here, in a log cabin, he learned to read under the
tuition of his mother and afterward received nearly a
year s schooling at another log cabin a mile away,
nearly a year s schooling and all the schooling he ever
received from a tutor !
But he loved books, he craved knowledge and eagerly
did he study the few books which fell in his way. He
kept a scrap-book into which he copied the striking
passages and this practice enabled him to gain an educa
tion. Here he grew up, becoming famous for his great
strength and agility; he was six foot four inches in his
stockings and was noted as the most skillful wrestler in
the country. When he was about twenty years old the
Lincoln family moved to Illinois, settling ten miles from
Decatur, where they cleared about fifteen acres and built
a log cabin. Here is where Lincoln gained his great
reputation as a rail-splitter. He had kept up his original
system of reading and sketching, and from this period
in his life he became a marked man he was noted for
his information. It makes little difference whether
knowledge is gained in college or by the side of a pile of
rails, as Lincoln was wont to study after his day s work
was done.
In 1830 he took a trip on a flat-boat to New Orleans.
It was on this trip that he first saw slaves chained
together and whipped. Ever after, he detested the insti
tution of slavery. Upon his return he received a chal
lenge from a famous wrestler ; he accepted and threw
his antagonist. About this time he became a clerk in a
-country store, where his honesty and square dealing made
him a universal favorite, and earned for him the sobri
quet of Honest Abe. He next entered the Black
Hawk war, and was chosen captain of his company.
814 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Jefferson Davis also served as an officer in this war.
In the fall of 1832 he was a candidate for the legisla
ture, but was defeated. He then opened a store with a,
partner named Berry. Lincoln was made post-master,
but Berry proved a drunkard and spendthrift, bringing
the concern to bankruptcy, and soon after died, to fill a.
drunkard s grave, leaving Lincoln to pay all the debts.
But during all this time Lincoln had been improving his
spare moments learning surveying, and for the next few
years he earned good wages surveying.
He now decided to become a lawyer, and devoted his
attention, so far as possible, to the accumulation of a
thorough knowledge. At one period during his studies
he walked, every Saturday, to Springfield, some eight
miles away, to borrow and return books pertaining to
his studies. These books he studied nights, and early in
the morning, out of working hours. In 1834 he was
once more a candidate for the legislature, and was tri
umphantly elected, being re-elected in 1836, 1838, and
1840. In 1837, when he had arrived at the age of twenty-
eight, he was admitted to the bar, where he soon became
noted as a very successful pleader before a jury. He was
a Whig of the Henry Clay school, a splendid lawyer, and
a ready speaker at public gatherings.
In 1836 he first met Stephen A. Douglas who was
destined to be his adversary in the political arena for
the next twenty years. Stephen A. Douglas was, or
soon became the leader of the Democracy in Illinois and
Lincoln spoke for the Whigs as against Douglas. In
1847 Lincoln was sent to Congress, being chosen over
the renowned Peter Cartwright, who was the Democratic
candidate. In Congress he vigorously opposed President
Polk and the Mexican war, and proposed a bill to abolish
FEOM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 315
slavery in the District of Columbia, provided the inhabi
tants would vote for it. In 1855 he withdrew from the
contest for the United States Senatorship in favor of Mr.
Trumbull, whom he knew would draw away many
Democratic votes and to Lincoln was due Trumbull s
election. During the canvass he met Stephen A. Douglas
in debate at Springfield, where he exploded the theory
of Squatter Sovereignty in one sentence, namely: "I
admit that the emigrant to Kansas and Nebraska is com
petent to govern himself, but I deny his right to govern
any other person without that person s consent."
In 1858 he had his great contest for the United States.
Senatorship with Douglas. At that time Judge Douglas
was renowned throughout the nation as one of the ablest,
if not the ablest of American speakers. Horace Greeley
well said, "The man who stumps a State with Stephen
A. Douglas and meets him day after day before the peo
ple has got to be no fool." The tremendous political ex
citement growing out of the Kansas-Nebraska Act/ and
the agitation of the slavery question, in its relation to
the vast territory of Kansas and Nebraska, convulsed the-
nation. The interest was greatly heightened from the
fact that these two great gladiators, Stephen A. Douglas,
the great mouth-piece of the Democratic party and
champion of i Squatter Sovereignty/ and Abraham Lin
coln, a prominent lawyer, but otherwise comparatively
unknown, the opponent of that popular measure and the
coming champion of the anti-slavery party.
The question at issue was immense permanent, not
transient universal, not local, and the debate attracted
profound attention on the part of the people, whether
Democratic or Free Soil, from the Kennebec to the Kio
Grande. Mr. Douglas held that the vote of the majority
316
HIDDEN TREASURER
of the people of a territory should decide this as well as
all other questions concerning their domestic or internal
affairs. Mr. Lincoln, on the contrary, urged the neces
sity of an organic enactment, excluding slavery in any
form this last to be the condition of its admission into
the Union as a State. The public mind Was divided and
the utterances and movements of every public man were
closely scanned. Finally, after the true western style, a
joint discussion, face to face, between Lincoln and Doug
las, as the two representative leaders, was proposed and
agreed upon. It was arranged that they should have
seven great debates, one each at Ottawa, Freeport,
Charleston, Jonesboro, Galesburg, Quincy, and Alton.
Processions and cavalcades, bands of music and can
non-firing made every day a day of excitement. But the
excitement was greatly intensified from the fact that the
oratorical contests were between two such skilled de
baters, before mixed audiences of friends and foes, to
rejoice over every keen thrust at the adversary, and
again to be cast down by each failure to give back as
good/ or to parry the thrust so aimed.
In personal appearance, voice, gesture and general
platform style, nothing could exceed the dissimilarity of
these two speakers. Mr. Douglas possessed a frame or
build particularly attractive ; a natural presence which
would have gained for him access to the highest circles,
however courtly, in any land ; a thick-set, finely built,
courageous man, with an air as natural to him as breath,
of self-confidence that did not a little to inspire his sup
porters with hope. That he was every inch a man no
friend or foe ever questioned. Ready, forceful, animated,
keen, playful, by turns, and thoroughly artificial ; he was
one of the most admirable platform speakers that ever
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 317
appeared before an American audience, his personal
geniality, too, being so abounding that, excepting in a
political sense, no antagonism existed between him and
his opponent.
Look at Lincoln. In personal appearance, what a con
trast to his renow r ned opponent. Six feet and four inches
high, long, lean and wiry in motion; he had a good deal
of the elasticity and awkwardness which indicated the
rough training of his early life; his face genial looking,
with good humor lurking in every corner of its innumer
able angles. Judge Douglas once said, "I regard Lincoln
as a kind, amiable and intelligent gentleman, a good
citizen and an honorable opponent." As a speaker he
was ready, precise, fluent and his manner before a popu
lar assembly was just as he pleased to make it; being
either superlatively ludicrous or very impressive. He
employed but little gesticulation but when he desired
to make a point produced a shrug of the shoulders, an
elevation of the eyebrows, a depression of his mouth and
a general malformation of countenance so comically
awkward that it scarcely ever failed to bring down the
house. His enunciation was slow and distinct, and his
voice though sharp and piercing at times had a tendency
to dwindle into a shrill and unpleasant tone. In this
matter of voice and commanding attitude, the odds were
decidedly in favor of Judge Douglas.
Arrangements having been consummated, the first
debate took place at Ottawa, in Lasalle county, and
a strong Republican district. The crowd in attendance
was a large one, and about equally divided the enthu
siasm of the Democracy having brought more than a
due proportion of ther numbers to hear and see their
favorite leader. The thrilling tones of Douglas, his
318 HIDDEN TREASURES.
manly defiance against the principles he believed to be
wrong assured his friends, if any assurance were wanting,
that he was the same unconquered and unconquerable
Democrat that he had proved to be for the previous
twenty-five years.
Douglas opened the discussion and spoke one hour ;
Lincoln followed, the time assigned him being an hour
and a half, though he yielded a portion of it. It was
not until the second meeting, however, that the speakers
grappled with those profound public questions that had
thus brought them together, and in which the nation
was intensely interested. The debates were a wonderful
exhibition of power and eloquence.
In the first debate Mr. Douglas arraigned his opponent
for the expression in a former speech of a " House divided
against itself," etc., referring to the slavery and anti-
slavery sections of the country ; and Mr. Lincoln defended
those ideas as set forth in the speech referred to. As
Mr. Lincoln s position in relation to one or two points
growing out of the former speech referred to, had at
tracted great attention throughout the country, he availed
himself of the opportunity of this preliminary meeting
to reply to what he regarded as common misconceptions.
"Anything," he said, "that argues me into the idea of
perfect social and political equality with the negro is
but a specious and fantastic arrangement of words, by
which a man can prove a horse-chestnut to be a chest
nut horse, I will say here, while upon this subject, that I
have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with
the institution of slavery in the States where it now
exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I
have no inclination to do so. I have no purpose to in
troduce political and social equality between the white
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR.
and black races. There is a physical difference between
the two which, in my judgment, will probably forever
forbid their living together upon a footing of perfect
equality, and inasmuch as it becomes a matter of nec
essity that there must be a difference I, as well as Judge
Douglas, am in favor of the race to which I belong,
having the superior position. I have never said anything
to the contrary, but I hold that notwithstanding all this,
there is no reason in the world why the negro is not en
titled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Dec
laration of Independence the right to life, liberty, and
the pursuits of happiness. I hold that he is as much
entitled to these as the w r hite man. I agree with Judge
Douglas he is not my equal in many respects certainly
not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual en
dowment. But in the right to eat the bread without the
leave of any one else, which his own hand earns, he is
my equal, and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal
of every living man.
Touching the question of respect or weight of opin
ion clue to deliverance of the United States Supreme
Court an element which entered largely into this na
tional contest, Mr. Lincoln said: "This man Douglas
sticks to a decision which forbids the people of a terri
tory from excluding slavery, and he does so, not because
he says it is right in itself he does not give any opinion
on that, but because it has been decided by the Court,
and being decided by the Court, he is, and you are bound
-to take it in your political action as law ; not that he
judges at all of its merits, but because a decision of the
Court is to him a Thus saith the Lord. He places it
on that ground alone, and you will bear in mind that
thus committing himself unreservedly to this decision,
320 HIDDEN TREASURES.
commits him to the next one just as firmly as to this.
He did not commit himself on account of the merit or
*
demerit of the decision, but is a Thus saith the Lord/
The next decision, as much as this, will be a Thus saith
the Lord/ There is nothing that can divert or turn him
away from this decision. It is nothing that I point out
to him that his great prototype, General Jackson, did not
believe in the binding force of decisions it is nothing
to him that Jefferson did not so believe. I have said
that I have often heard him approve of Jackson s course
in disregarding the decision of the Supreme Court, pro
nouncing a national bank unconstitutional. He says: I
did not hear him say so ; he denies the accuracy of my
recollection. I say he ought to know better than I, but
I will make no question about this thing, though it still
seems to me I heard him say it twenty times. I will tell
him, though, that he now claims to stand on the Cincin-
nati platform which affirms that Congress cannot charter
a national bank, in the teeth of that old standing de
cision that Congress can charter a bank. And I remind
him of another piece of history on the question of
respect for judicial decisions, and it is a piece of Illinois
history belonging to a time when the large party to
which Judge Douglas belonged were displeased with a.
decision of the Supreme Court of Illinois, because they
had decided that a Governor could not remove a Secre
tary of State. I know that Judge Douglas will not deny
that he was then in favor of oversloughing that decision
by the mode of adding frve new judges, so as to vote
down the four old ones. Not only so, but it ended in
the judge s sitting down on that very bench, as one of
the five new judges so as to break down the four old
ones." In this strain Mr. Lincoln occupied most of his
20
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR.
time. But the debate was a very equal thing, and the
contest did not prove a walk over either way.
At the meeting in Ottawa Mr. Lincoln propounded
certain questions to which Judge Douglas promptly an
swered. Judge Douglas spoke in something of the fol
lowing strain: "He desires to know if the people of
Kansas shall form a constitution by means entirely
proper and unobjectionable, and ask admission into the
Union as a State before they have the requisite popula
tion for a member of Congress, whether I will vote for
that admission ? Well, now, I regret exceedingly that he
did not answer that interrogatory himself before he put
it to me, in order that we might understand and not be
left to infer on which side he is. Mr. Trumbull during
the last session of Congress voted from the beginning to
the end against the admission of Oregon, although a free
State, because she had not the requisite population. As
Mr. Trumbull is in the field fighting for Mr. Lincoln, I
would like to have Mr. Lincoln answer his own question
and tell me whether he is fighting Trumbull on that
issue or not. But I will answer his question. In refer
ence to Kansas it is my opinion that as she has popula
tion enough to constitute a slave State, she has people
enough for a free State. I will not make Kansas an ex
ceptional case to the other States of the Union. I made
that proposition in the Senate in 1856, and I renewed it
during the last session in a bill providing that no terri
tory of the United States should form a constitution and
apply for admission until it had the requisite population.
On another occasion I proposed that neither Kansas
nor any other territory should be admitted until
it had the requisite population Congress did not
adopt any of my propositions containing this gen-
322 HIDDEN TREASURES.
eral rule, but did make an exception of Kansas.
I will stand by that exception. Either Kansas
must come in as a free State, with whatever population
she may have, or the rule must be applied to all the
other territories alike."
Mr. Douglas next proceeded to answer another ques
tion proposed by Mr. Lincoln, namely: Whether the
people of a territory can, in any lawful way, against the
wishes of any citizen of the United States, exclude
slavery from their limits prior to the formation of a
State constitution. Said Judge Douglas: I answer
emphatically, as Mr. Lincoln has heard me answer a
hundred times from every stump in Illinois, that in my
opinion the people of a territory can, by lawful means,
exclude slavery from their limits prior to the formation
of a State constitution. Mr. Lincoln knew that I had
answered that question over and over again. He heard
me argue the Nebraska Bill on that principle all over
the State in 1854, in 1855 and in 1856, and he has no ex
cuse for pretending to be in doubt as to my position. It
matters not what way the Supreme Court may hereafter
decide as to the abstract question, whether slavery may
or may not go into a territory under the constitution,
the people have the lawful means to introduce it or ex
clude it as they please, for the reason that slavery can
not exist a day or an hour unless it is supported by local
police regulations. Those police regulations can only
be established by the local legislature, and if the people
are opposed to slavery they will elect representatives to
that body who will, by unfriendly legislation, efiectually
prevent the introduction of it into their midst. If, on
the contrary, they are for it their legislation will favor
its extension. Hence, no matter what the decision of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 323
the Supreme Court may be on that abstract question,
still the right of the people to make a slave territory or
free territory is perfect and complete under the Ne
braska Bill."
It was with great vigor and adroitness that the two
great combatants went over the ground at the remain-
ing five places of debate, all of which were attended
and listened to by immense concourses. On both sides
the speeches were able, eloquent, exhaustive. It was
admitted by Lincoln s friends that on several occasions
he was partly foiled, or at least badly bothered, while on
the other hand the admirers of Douglas allowed that in
more than one instance he was flatly and fairly floored
by Lincoln. It was altogether about an equal match in
respect to ability, logic, and eloquence. Both of them
were self-made men; both of them were able lawyers and
politicians ; both sprang from obscurity to distinction ;
both belonged to the common people ; and both were
strong and popular with the masses.
Though defeated by an unfair apportionment of the
legislative districts for the senatorship, yet Lincoln so
ably fought the great Douglas with such wonderful
power as to surprise the nation. Heretofore but little
known out of his native State ; this debate made him one
of the two most conspicuous men in the nation, and the
excitement was intensified from the fact that both from
that hour were the chosen opponents for the coming
presidential contest.
At the ensuing presidential contest Lincoln was
elected to the presidency, and the gory front of secession
was raised. Forgetting past differences, Douglas mag
nanimously stood shoulder to shoulder with Lincoln in
behalf of the Union. It was the olive branch of genuine
324 HIDDEN TREASURES.
patriotism. But while proudly holding aloft the banner
of his nation in the nation councils, and while yet the
blood of his countrymen had not blended together and
drenched the land, the great senator was suddenly
snatched from among the living in the hour of the coun
try s greatest need ; while the brave Lincoln was allowed
to see the end the cause triumphant, when he was also
called from death unto life.
Lincoln elected, though he was, and admitted to have
received his election fairly and triumphantly, was yet of
necessity compelled to enter Washington, like a thief in
the night, to assume his place at the head of the nation.
Lincoln met the crisis calmly but firmly. He had watched
the coming storm and he asked, as he bade adieu to his
friends and fellow-citizens, their earnest prayers to Al
mighty God that he might have wisdom and help to see
the right path and pursue it. Those prayers were
answered. He guided the ship of State safely through
the most angry storm that ever demanded a brave and
good pilot. We can only gaze in awe on the memory of
this man. He seemingly knew in a moment, when
placed in a trying position that would have baffled an in
ferior mind, just what to do for the best interest of the
nation.
Mr. Lincoln had unsurpassed fitness for the task he
had to execute. Without anything like brilliancy of
genius, without breadth of learning or literary accom
plishments, he had that perfect balance of thoroughly
sound faculties which gave him the reputation of an
almost infallible judgment. This, combined with
great calmness of temper, inflexible firmness of will,
supreme moral purpose, and intense patriotism made up
just that character which fitted him, as the same quali-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 325
ties fitted 7ashington, for the salvation of his country
in a period of stupendous responsibility and eminent
peril.
Although far advanced on the question of slavery,
personally, he was exceedingly careful about pushing
measures upon a country he knew was hardly prepared
as yet to receive such sweeping legislation. An ac
quaintance once said : It is hard to believe that very
nearly one-half of the Republican party were opposed
to the issue of the proclamation of emancipation/ Thus
Lincoln avoided all extremes, and this quality alone
made him eminently fit to govern. Yet, when necessary,
he was stern and unrelenting. When the British minis
ter desired to submit instructions from his government,
stating that that government intended to sustain a neutral
relation, he refused to receive it officially. When France
demanded recognition by the United States of the gov
ernment of Maximilian, in Mexico, he steadily refused.
He was firm as a rock ; he would ride post haste twenty
miles to pardon a deserter, but under no consideration
could he be induced to suspend hostilities against a
people who were trying to destroy the Union. All sorts
of political machinery was invented to manufacture
public opinion and sentiment against him, but he was
triumphantly re-elected in 1864.
The morning of Lincoln s second inauguration was
very stormy, but the sky cleared just before noon, and
the sun shone brightly as he appeared before an im
mense audience in front of the capitol, and took the
oath and delivered an address, alike striking for its
forcible expressions and conciliatory spirit. He spoke
something as follows :
"On the occasion corresponding to this, four years
826 HIDDEN TREASURES.
ago, all thoughts were anxiously directed to an impend
ing civil war. * * * Both parties deprecated war,
but one of them would make war rather than let the
nation survive, and the other would accept war rather
than let it perish; and the war came. * * * Both
read the same Bible, and pray to the same God, and each
invokes His aid against the other. It may seem strange
that any man should dare to ask a just God s assistance
in wringing their bread from the sweat of other men s
faces; but let us judge not that we be not judged. The
prayer of both could not be answered. That of neither
has been fully. * * * With malice toward none,
with charity for all, with the firmness in the right, as
God gives us light to see the right, let us finish the work
we are in to bind up the nation s wounds, to care for
him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow
and his orphans, to all which may achieve and cherish
a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all
nations."
He hated slavery from the beginning, but was not an
abolitionist until it was constitutional to be so. At the
head of the nation, when precedents were useless, he
was governed by justice only. He was singularly fortu
nate in the selection of his cabinet officers, and the
reason was he never allowed prejudice to prevent his
placing a rival in high office.
Yes, Mr. Lincoln is probably the most remarkable
example on the pages of history, showing the possibili
ties of our country. From the poverty in which he was
born, through the rowdyism of a frontier town, the rude
ness of frontier society, the discouragement of early
bankruptcy, and the fluctuations of popular politics, he
rose to the championship of Union and freedom when
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 327
the two seemed utterly an impossibility; never lost his
faith when both seemed hopeless, and was suddenly
snatched from earth when both were secured. He was
the least pretentious of men, and when, with the speed
of electricity, it flashed over the Union that the great
Lincoln shot by an assassin was no more, the excite
ment was tremendous. The very heart of the republic
throbbed with pain and lamentation. Then the immor
tal President was borne to his last resting-place in
Springfield, Illinois. All along the journey to the grave,
over one thousand miles, a continual wail went up from
friends innumerable, and they would not be comforted.
Never was there a grander, yet more solemn funeral
accorded to any, ancient or modern. He was a states
man without a statesman s craftiness, politician without
a politician s meanness, a great man without a great
man s vices, a philanthropist without a philanthropist s
dreams, a Christian without pretensions, a ruler without
the pride of place or power, an ambitious man without
selfishness, and a successful man without vanity. Hum
ble man of the backwoods, boatman, axman, hired
laborer, clerk, surveyor, captain, legislator, lawyer, de
bater, orator, politician, statesman. President, savior
of the republic, emancipator of a race, true Christian,
true man.
Gaze on such a character ; does it not thrill your very
soul and cause your very heart to bleed that such a man
should be shot by a dastardly assassin? Yet on the 14th
of April, 1865, J. Wilkes Booth entered the private box
of the President, and creeping stealthily from behind,
as become the dark deed which he contemplated, delib
erately shot Abraham Lincoln through the head, and the
country lost the pilot in the hours when she needed him
so much.
328 HIDDEN TREASURES.
EDWARD EVERETT,
7t MONGr the more eminent of eminent men stands
jf\ Edward Everett in the annals of American history.
We do not give his history to show how he struggled
through privations, overcoming all obstacles, until
victory at last crowned his efforts, as so many of our
great men have been obliged to do, but we do delineate
his achievements to illustrate what hard work will do,
provided a man has ability to develop. Yes, to show
what hard work will do. But some will say, Well, that
does sound well, but I guess if Edward Everett had been
ftn ordinary man no amount of hard work would have
made him the Edward Everett of history 7 ; another may
say, That s so, it is foolish to argue as you do, and hold
up such men as examples, intimating that their success
is the result of hard work ; and still another may say,
Say what you will, you cannot gainsay the factor of
opportunities, of luck/ if you choose to so designate it."
We do not gain-say anything; we simply point to
history; read for yourself. Take eminent men, read
their lives, and see if seven-tenths, at least, of our great
men did not acquire success through their own
effort. Read carefully and see if they did not
largely MAKE their own opportunities. True, all
cannot be Everetts or Clays, but by extraordinary
effort and careful thought, any one will better his
or her condition. Sickness may come, they will be the
better prepared. Losses will be more easily met and
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 329
discharged. No man ever succeeded by waiting for
something to turn up. The object of this work is not to
make people delude themselves by any conceited ideas,
but to encourage, to inspire, to enkindle anew the fires
of energy laying dormant. The point is, it is not a
slumbering genius within people that it is our desire
to stimulate, but a slumbering energy/ We are content
that others should take care of the genius 7 ; we are sat
isfied that any influence, no matter from what source
it comes, that will awaken dormant energies will do the
world more good than ten times the same amount of in
fluence trying to prove that we are fore ordained to be
somebody or nobody.
Mr. Everett was a man who fully comprehended and
appreciated this fact. All great men understand that it
is the making the most of one s talents that makes the
most of our chances -which absolutely tells. Rufus
Choate believed in hard work. When some one said to
him that a certain fine achievement was the result of
accident, he exclaimed: "Nonsense. You might as
well drop the Greek alphabet on the ground and expect
to pick up the Illiad." Mr. Beecher has well said that
every idle man has to be supported by some industrious
man. Hard labor prevents hard luck. Fathers should
teach their children that if any one will not work neither
shall he attain success. Let us magnify our calling and
be happy, but strive to progress. As before said, Mr.
Everett fully understood all this and great men innu
merable could be quoted in support of this doctrine.
The year 1794 must ever be memorable, as the year
in which Mr. Everett was ushered into the world, in
which he was to figure as so prominent a factor. We
have written a long preamble, but it is hoped that the
330 HIDDEN TREASURES.
reader has taken enough interest thus far to fully take
in the points which we have endeavored to make, and it
is further hoped that such being the case, the reader will,
by the light of those ideas, read and digest the wonder
ful character before us.
Undoubtedly Everett possessed one of the greatest
minds America has ever produced, but if he had rivaled
Solomon in natural ability, he could not have entered
Harvard College as a student at the age of thirteen had
he not been an indefatigable worker, and will any man
delude himself into the belief that he could have gradu
ated from such a school at the age of only seventeen, and
at the head of his class, had he not exercised tremendous-
energy. Still further do any of the readers who chance
to read this volume think that he was picked up bodily
and placed in the ministerial chair vacated by the gifted
Buckminister when he was only nineteen because he
was lucky? A city preacher at nineteen! Occupying
one of the first pulpits in the land at nineteen ! "Why,
he was gifted." Of course he was, and he was a tremen
dous worker. Thus was his success enhanced.
At twenty he was appointed to a Greek professorship
in Harvard College, and qualified himself by travel in
Europe for four years. During that time he acquired
that solid information concerning the history and prin
ciples of law, and of the political systems of Europe,
which formed the foundation of that broad statesman
ship for which he was afterward distinguished. During
his residence in Europe his range of study embraced the
ancient classics, the modern languages, the history and
principles of the civil and public law, and a comprehen
sive examination of the existing political systems of
Europe. He returned home, and from that time until
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 331
his death he was recognized as one of the greatest
orators of his time. In 1825 to 1835 he was a distin
guished member of the national congress. He then
served three successive terms as governor of Massachu
setts. In 1814 he was appointed minister to the English
court. It was an important mission, for the relations of
his government with that of England, then wore a grave
aspect. His official career in London was a marked suc
cess. His personal accomplishments made him a friend
and favorite with the leading men and families of Eng
land. After this he was sent as a commissioner to China,
and after his return from abroad, he was at once chosen
President of Harvard College.
He entered upon the duties of this new office with
his characteristic energy and enthusiasm, but ill-health
compelled his resignation at the end of three years.
Upon the death of his bosom friend, Daniel Webster, he
was appointed to succeed to Webster s position at the head
of President Fillmore s cabinet. Before the close of his
duties as Secretary of State, he was chosen by the Mas
sachusetts State Legislature to a seat in the National
Senate. Once more overwork compelled his withdrawal
from active responsibility, and in May, 1854, under the
advice of his physician, he resigned his seat. But he
was content to remain idle only a few months when he
entered with great zeal upon a new enterprise.
The project of purchasing Mount Vernon and beauti
fying it as a memento of esteem to the Nation s father
attracted his attention, and his efforts in behalf of the
association to raise money for the above-named object
netted over $100,000, besides his valuable time, and pay
ing his own expenses. He afterwards raised many more
thousands of dollars for the benefit of numerous chari-
332 HIDDEN TREASURES.
table societies and objects. Emerging from private life
at the opening of the civil war he gave himself inces
santly to the defense of the Union. He died on the 14th
of January, 1865, and was mourned throughout the
whole North. Eulogies innumerable were called forth
by the death of this intellectual phenomenon of the
nineteenth century.
EDWIN M, STANTON,
EDWIN . STANTON, whom President Lincoln
selected for his Secretary of War, notwithstanding
the fact that he had served in the cabinet of Buchanan,
was born at Steubenville, Ohio, December 19th, 1814, and
died in Washington, D. C., December 24th, 1869.
When fifteen years old he became a clerk in a book
store in his native town, and with money thus accumu
lated, was enabled to attend Kenyon College, but at the
end of two years was obliged to re-enter the book-store
as a clerk.
Thus through poverty lie was deterred from graduating,
but knowledge is just as beneficial, whether acquired in
school or out. Thurlow Weed never had the advantages
of a college, but stretched prone before the sap-house
fire, he laid the foundation upon which he built that
splendid reputation as an able editor ; Elihu Buritt never
saw the inside of a college school-room as a student, but
while at the anvil, at work as a blacksmith, with book
laying on a desk near, he framed the basis of that classi-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 333
cal learning which made him, as master of forty different
languages, the esteemed friend of John Bright and others
of the most noted people the world has ever known.
As it was with them, so it was with Stanton. He had
but little advantages, but he would not down. It is
said that if Henry Ward Beecher had gone to sea, as he
desired to do, he would not have long remained, for in
him was even then a * slumbering genius/ But he him
self once said that had it not been for his great love of
work he never could have half succeeded. Ah, that s it ;
if ability to accomplish hard digging is not genius, it
is the best possible substitute for it. A man may have
in him a t slumbering genius, but unless he put forth
the energy, his efforts will be spasmodic, ill-timed and
scattered.
" Full many a gem, of purest ray serene
The dark, unfathomed caves of ocean bear ;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
Young men, there is truth hidden in these words,
despite what some writers would make you think. They
would argue that if you are to be a Milton, a Cromwell,
a Webster, or a Clay, that you cannot help it, do what
you will. Possibly, this may be so ; it may not be
thought proper for me to dispute their lordship, but it
does seem to me that such arguments can give but little
hope ; if they have influence at all it cannot be an in
spiring one. No, never mind the reputation ; never pine
to be a Lincoln, or a Garfield, but if you feel that your
chances in youth are equal to theirs, take courage WORK.
If you are a farmer strive to excel all the surround
ing farmers. If a boot-black, make up your mind to
monopolize the business on your block. Faculty to do
this is the best possible substitute for a slumbering
334 HIDDEN TREASURES.
genius/ If perchance you should lack that ; most essen
tial faculty to success. At any rate, never wait for the
slumbering genius to show itself, if you do, it will
never awake but slumber on through endless time, and
leave you groping on in midnight darkness.
But to return to Stan ton. Whether he possessed a
4 slumbering genius does not appear, but certain it is
that by down-right HARD WORK he gained a knowledge
of the law, and was admitted to the bar in 1836, when in
his twenty-first year. While yet a young lawyer he was
made prosecuting attorney of Harrison county. In 1842
he was chosen reporter of the Ohio Supreme Court, and
published three volumes of reports.
In 1847 he moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, but
for nine years afterward retained his office in Steuben-
ville, as well as that in Pittsburgh. In 1857 his business
had so expanded that he found it necessary to move to
Washington, D. C., the seat of the United States Supreme
Court. His first appearance before the United States
Supreme Court was in defence of the State of Pennsyl
vania against the Wheeling and Belmont Bridge Com
pany, and thereafter his practice rapidly increased.
In 1858 he was employed by the national government
as against the government of Mexico on land titles, deeds,
etc. This great legal success, together with several
others, won for him a national reputation. It has been
stated by one of the leading jurists in the United States
that the cause of nine out of ten of the failures in the
legal profession is laziness, so common in lawyers ,
after being admitted to the bar. Once in, they seem
to think that they have but to sit and wait for
business. Possibly their eye has, at one time or another,
caught those sentiments so dear to some writers in regard
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 335
to the slumbering genius/ Be that as it may, it is very
evident that Stanfcon had never been idle, and was seldom
obliged to refer to his library before answering ques
tions in relation to the law.
He was called to the high position of attorney-general
in President Buchanan s cabinet, and on January llth,
1862, nine months after the inauguration of Lincoln, he
was placed in the most responsible position in his cabi
net at that time, Secretary of War. His labors in this
department were indefatigable, and many of the most
important and successful movements of the war origin
ated with him. Never, perhaps, was there a more illus
trious example of the right man in the right place. It
seemed almost as if it were a special Provincial interposi
tion to incline the President to go out of his own party
and select this man for this most responsible of all trusts,
save his own.
With an unflinching force, an imperial will, a courage
never ONCE admitting the possibility of failure, and hav
ing no patience with cowards, compromisers or self-
seekers ; with the most jealous patriotism he displaced
the incompetent and exacted brave, mighty, endeavor of
all, yet only like what he EXACTED OF HIMSELF. He reor
ganized the war with HERCULEAN TOIL. Through all
those long years of war he thought of, saw, labored for
one end VICTORY. The amount of work he does in
some of these critical months was absolutely amazing by
its comprehension of details, the solution of vexed ques
tions, the mastery of formidable difficulties, wonder was
it his word sometimes cut like a sharp, quick blow, or
that the stroke of his pen was sometimes like a thunder
bolt. It was not the time for hesitation, or doubt, or
even argument. He meant his imperiled country should
336 HIDDEN TREASURES.
be saved, and whatever by half-loyalty or self-seeking
seemed to stand in the way only attracted the lightning
of his power.
The nation owes as much to him as to any one who
in council or in field contributed to its salvation. And
his real greatness was never more conspicuous than at
the time of Mr. Lincoln s assassination. His presence
of mind, his prompt decision, his unfailing faith and
courage strengthened, those about him, and prevented
the issue of a frightful panic and disorder following that
unexpected assault upon the life of the republic. To
have equipped, fed, clothed and organized a million and
a-half of soldiery, and when their work was done in twa
days, to have remanded them back to the peaceful indus
tries from which they had been called ; to have had the
nation s wealth at his disposal, and yet so incorruptible
that hundreds of millions could pass through his hands,
and leave him a poor man at the end of his commission,
shattered in health, yet from necessity obliged to resume
his legal practice, must for all time rank him among the
world s phenomena. Such a man, so true, so intent,
upon great objects must many a time have thwarted the
greed of the corrupt, been impatient with the hesitation
of the imbecile, and fiercely indignant against half-
heartedness and disloyalty. Whatever faults, therefore,
his enemies may allege, these will all fade away in the
splendor with which coming ages will ennoble the greatest
of war ministers in the nineteenth centuiy. He will be
remembered as "one who never thought of self, and who
held the helm in sunshine and in storm with the same
untiring grip."
Nor w^ere his services less valuable to his country
when, after the surrender of the Confederate armies, the.
21
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 337
rebellion was transferred to the White House, and he
stood the fearless, unflinching patriot against the
schemes and usurpations of its accidental occupant. Mr.
Stanton entered on his great trust in the fullest prime
of manhood, equal, seemingly, to any possible toil and
strain. He left his department incurably shorn of health.
He entered upon it in affluence, with a large and remu
nerative practice. He left it without a stain on his
hands, but with his fortune lessened and insufficient.
Yet, when it was contemplated by some of his friends,
after his retirement, to tender him a handsome gift of
money, he resolutely and unhesitatingly forbade it, and
the project had to be abandoned. He was as truly a
sacrifice to his country as was the brave soldier who laid
down his life in the prison-pen or sanctified the field with
his blood. For an unswerving and passionate patriot
ism, for a magnificent courage, for rare unselfishness, fo*
transcendent abilities, for immeasurable services to his
country; the figure of the greatest war minister in
modern times will tower with a noble grandeur, as un-
dimmed and enviable a splendor as that of any in the
history of the Republic; which, like his friend and co-
worker, the great Lincoln, he gave his life to save.
HIDDEN TREASURES.
ANDREW JOHNSON,
rr\HE life-career of the seventeenth president of the
JL United States well illustrates the spirit and genius
of our free institutions. Four of the incumbents of the
national executive chair were born in North Carolina.
Of these, the subject of this sketch was one, being born
in the above-named State, December 29th, 1808.
His father, who died in 1812, was sexton of a church
and porter in the State bank. Extreme poverty prevented
Andrew from receiving any schooling, and at the age of
ten he was apprenticed to a tailor. A gentleman was in
the habit of visiting the shop and reading to the work
men, generally from the * American Speaker/ Andrew
became intensely interested, especially in the extracts
from the speeches of Pitt and Fox. He determined to
learn to read, and having done this he devoted all his
leisure hours to the perusal of such books as he could
obtain. In the summer of 1824, a few months before his
apprenticeship expired, he got into trouble by throwing
stones at an old woman s house, and ran away to escape
the consequences. He went to Lauren s Court House,
South Carolina, and obtained work as a journeyman
tailor.
In May, 1826, he returned to Raleigh. Mr. Selby, his
former employer, had moved into the country, and John
son walked twenty miles to see him, apologized for his
misdemeanor and promised to pay him for his unful
filled time. Selby required security, which Johnson
could not furnish, and he went away disappointed. In
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 339
September he went to Tennessee, taking with him his
mother, who was dependent upon him for support. He
worked a year at Greenville when he married, and finally
settled, deciding to make that town his home.
Thus far his education had been confined to reading ;
but now, under the tuition of his wife, he learned to
* write and cipher. During this time he became promi
nent in a local debating society, formed of resident young
men and students of Greenville College. One student
says ; " On approachng the village there stood on the hill
by the highway a solitary little house, perhaps ten feet
square, we invariably entered when passing. It con
tained a bed, two or three stools, and a tailor s platform.
We delighted to stop because one lived here whom we
knew well outside of school and made us welcome ; one
who would amuse us by his social good nature, taking
more than ordinary interest in us, and catering to our
pleasure,"
Mr. Johnson, taking an interest in local politics, or
ganized a workingman s party in 1828, to oppose the
aristocrat element/ which had always ruled the town.
Considerable excitement ensued, and Johnson was elected
an alderman by a large majority. He rose to be mayor,
member of the State legislature, and a represent
ative in Congress, holding the last office for ten j^ears.
In 1853 he was elected governor, and re-elected
in 1855. The contest was exciting, and violence and
threats of murder were frequent. At one meeting
Johnson appeared with pistol in his hand, laid it on the
desk, and said : " Fellow-citizens, I have been informed
that part of the business to be transacted on the present
occasion is the assassination of the individual who now
has the honor of addressing you. I beg respectfully to
340 HIDDEN TREASURES.
propose that this be the first business in order: therefore,
if any man has come here to-night for the purpose in
dicated, I do not say to him let him speak, but let him
shoot." After pausing for a moment, with his hand on
his pistol, he said, "Gentlemen, it appears that I have
been misinformed. I will now proceed to address you
upon the subject that has brought us together."
Mr. Johnson s next office was as a member of the
national Senate, where he ably urged the passage of a
bill granting to every settler 160 acres of public land.
When Tennessee passed the ordinance of secession he
remained steadfast for the Union. Although a Demo
crat, he had opposed many of their measures in the
interest of slavery, and now gravitated toward the
Republican party. In nearly every city of his native
State he was burned in effigy; at one time a mob entered
a railroad train on which he was known to be and
attempted to take him, but he met them with a pistol in
each hand, and drove them steadily before him off the
train. His loyal sentiments, his efforts to aid Union
refugees, and the persecution he received at home com
mended him to the North. In 1862 he was appointed
millitary governor of Tennessee, in which position he
upheld the Federal cause with great ability and zeal. In
the winter of 1861-2 large numbers of Unionists were
driven from their homes in East Tennessee, who sought
refuge in Kentucky. Mr. Johnson met them there, re
lieved the immediate wants of many from his own purse
and used his influence with the national government for
the establishment of a camp where these refugees found
shelter, food and clothing, and were to a large extent
organized into companies and mustered into the national
service. His own wife and child were turned out of their
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 341
home and his property confiscated. All through his duties
as military governor of Tennessee Johnson displayed
great ability and discharged the duties of his office fear
lessly, amid eminent personal peril.
On June 7th, 1864, the Republican convention held at
Baltimore, having re-nominated Mr. Lincoln, chose Mr.
Johnson for the second place on their ticket. They were
inaugurated March 4th, and April 14th the President was
assassinated, and within three hours after Lincoln expired
Andrew Johnson was president of the United States.
Soon after his inauguration as President of the United
States, in the course of a speech on the condition of the
country he declared, "the people must understand that
treason is the blackest of crimes, and will surely be
punished." Now follows the strangest scenes imaginable,
coming from such a man as he had always, until now,
proved himself to be. As this part of ex-President
Johnson s life has been given great prominence, we for
bear to speak further in relation to it. We are constrained,
however, to say that it was sad to see a man, thus late in
life, destroying in a few months a good character, as a
citizen, and reputation as an able statesman, which he
had been so many years building, and in which he had
so eminently succeeded. In 1866 the University of North
Carolina conferred upon him the degree of LL.D.
On the 31st of July, 1875, this wonderful man, who
had riven from the tailor s bench, to the hightest place
within the gift of a great nation, then to be disgraced
and vanquished at his own bidding, died a disappointed
man.
342 HIDDEN TREASURES.
JAMES A, GARFIELD,
OUR country probably never produced a character
more perfectly rounded, physically, intellectually
and morally than that which is presented to us in the
person of James A. Garfield, who was born in a log cabin
in Cuyahoga county, Ohio, November 19th, 1831.
His childhood was passed in almost complete isola
tion from social influences, save those which proceeded
from his mother. His father had died when James was
only eighteen months old, and when old enough to be of
any use he was put to work on the farm. The family
was very poor, and his services were needed to help make
both ends meet. 7 At school, as a little boy, he allowed
no one to impose upon him. He is said to have never
picked a quarrel, but was sure to resent any indignity
with effect, no matter how large a boy the offender hap
pened to be. He attended school during the cold months
when it was impossible to be of value on the farm; sum
mers he generally worked out/ at one time being a driver-
boy on the canal.
He attended school at the Geauga Seminary, where
he got through his first term on the absurdly small sum
of seventeen dollars. When he returned to school the
next term he had but a six pence in his pocket, and this
he dropped into the contribution box the next day at
church. He made an arrangement with a carpenter in
the village to board with him, and have his washing, fuel
and light furnished for one dollar and six cents per week.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 343
The carpenter was building a house, and Garfield en
gaged to help him nights and Saturdays. The first Sat
urday he planed fifty-one boards, and thereby made one
dollar and two cents. So the term went, and he re
turned home, having earned his expenses and AND THREE
DOLLARS OVER.
The following winter he taught school at $12 a month
and boarded around. In the spring he had $48, and when
he returned to school he boarded himself at an expense of
thirty-one cents a week. Heretofore, he had supposed a
college course beyond him, but meeting a college graduate
who explained that it was barely possible for a poor boy
to graduate, if he worked and attended alternate years,
he determined to try it. After careful calculation Gar-
field concluded he could get through school within
TWELVE YEARS. He accordingly began to lay his plans
to graduate. Think of such determination, dear reader,
and then see if you can reasonably envy the position
attained by Garfield. He appeared as a scholar at Hiram,
a new school of his own denomination, in 1851. Here
he studied all the harder, as he now had an object in
life. Returning home he taught a school, then returned
to college, and attended the spring term. During the
summer he helped build a house in the village, he him
self planing all the lumber for the siding, and shingling
the roof. Garfield was now quite a scholar, especially
in the languages, and upon his return to Hiram he was
made a tutor, and thenceforward he worked both as a
pupil and teacher, doing a tremendous amount of work
to fit himself for college. When he came to Hiram he
started on the preparatory course, to enter college, ex
pecting it would take four years. Deciding now to enter
some eastern institution, he wrote a letter to the presi-
344 HIDDEN TREASURES.
dent of each of the leading colleges in the east, telling
them how far he had progressed. They all replied that
he could enter the junior year, and thus graduate in two
years from his entrance. He had accomplished the pre
paratory course, generally requiring four solid years, and
had advanced two years on his college course. He had
crowded six years into three, beside supporting himself.
If ever a man was worthy of success Garfield was. He
decided to enter Williams College, where he graduated
in 1856, thus came that institution to grasp the honor of
giving to the United States of America one of our most
popular presidents. The grasp of the mind of Garfield,
e\en at this early period, can be seen by glancing at the
title of his essay, "The Seen and the Unseen. He next
became a professor; later, principal of the college at
Hiram.
In the old parties Garfield had little interest, but
when the Eepublican party was formed he became
deeply interested, and became somewhat noted as a
stump orator for Fremont and Dayton. In 1860 he was
sent to the State senate, and while there began prepara
tion for the legal profession, and in 1861 was admitted
to the bar. The war broke out about this time, which
prevented his opening an office, and he was commissioned
a colonel, finally a major-general. His career in the
army was brief, but very brilliant, and he returned home
to go to Congress. In Washington his legislative career
was very successful. He proved to be an orator of no
mean degree of ability, his spendid education made him
an acknowledged scholar, and he soon became known as
one of the ablest debaters in Congress, serving on some of
the leading committees.
When Ohio sent her delegation to the Republican
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 345
National Convention, of 1880, pledged for Sherman, Gar-
field was selected as spokesman. His speech, when he
presented the name of John Sherman, coming, as it did,
when all was feverish excitement, must be acknowl
edged as a master-piece of the scholary oratory of which
he was master. Conkling had just delivered one in favor
of Grant, the effect of which was wonderful. The Grant
delegates pooled the flags, which marked their seats,
marched around the aisles and cheered and yelled as if
they were dwellers in Bedlam, just home after a long ab
sence. Fully twenty minutes this went on, and Mr.
Hoar, the president of the convention after vainly trying
to restore order gave up in despair, sat down, and calmly
allowed disorder to tire itself out.
At last it ceases, Ohio is called, a form arises near
the center of the middle aisle, and moves toward the
stage amid the clapping of thousands of hands, which
increases as General Garfield mounts the same platform
upon which Senator Conkling has so lately stood. In
speaking he is not so restless as was Conkling, but speak
ing deliberately he appeals to the judgment of the
masses, as follows :
"Mr. President: I have witnessed the extraordinary
scenes of this convention with deep solicitude. No
emotion touches my heart more quickly than a senti
ment in honor of a great and noble character. But, as I
sat on these seats and witnessed these demonstrations,
it seemed to me you were a human ocean in a tempest.
I have seen the sea lashed into a fury and tossed into a
spray, and its grandeur moves the soul of the dullest
man. But I remember that it is not the billows, but the
calm level of the sea from which all heights and depths
are measured. When the storm had passed and the
346 HIDDEN TREASURES.
hour of calm settles on the ocean, when sunlight bathes
its smooth surface, then the astronomer and surveyor
takes the level from which he measures all terrestrial
heights and depths. Gentlemen of the convention, your
present temper may not mark the healthful pulse of our
people. When our enthusiasm has passed, when the
emotions of this hour have subsided, we shall find the
calm level of public opinion below the storm from which
the thoughts of a mighty people are to be measured, and
by which their final action will be determined. Not
here, in this brilliant circle where fifteen thousand men
and women are assembled, is the destiny of the Republic
to be decreed ; not here, where I see the enthusiastic
faces of seven hundred and fifty-six delegates waiting to
cast their votes into the urn and determine the choice
of their party; but by four million Republican firesides,
where the thoughtful fathers, with wives and children
about them, with the calm thoughts inspired by love of
home and love of country, with the history of the past,
the hopes of the future, and the knowledge of the great
men who have adorned and blessed our nation in days
gone by there God prepares the verdict that shall
determine the wisdom of our work to-night. Not in
Chicago in the heat of June, but in the sober quiet that
comes between now and November, in the silence of de
liberate judgment will this great question be settled.
Let us aid them to-night.
"But now, gentlemen of the convention, what do we
want? Bear with me a moment. Hear me for this
cause, and, for a moment, be silent that you may hear.
Twenty-five years ago this Republic was wearing a triple
chain of bondage. Long familiarity with traffic in the
bodies and souls of men had paralyzed the consciences
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 347
of a majority of our people. The baleful doctrine of
State sovereignty had shocked and weakened the noblest
and most beneficent powers of the national government,
and the grasping power of slavery was seizing the virgin
territories of the West and dragging them into the den
of eternal bondage. At that crisis the Republican party
was born. It drew its first inspiration from that fire of
liberty which God has lighted in every man s heart, and
which all the powers of ignorance and tyranny can never
wholly extinguish. The Republican party came to
deliver and save the Republic. It entered the arena,
when the beleaguered and assailed territories were strug
gling for freedom, and drew around them the sacred
circle of liberty which the demon of slavery has.
never dared to cross. It made them free forever.
Strengthened by its victory on the frontier, the young
party, under the leadership of that great man who, on
this spot, twenty years ago, was made its leader, entered
the national capitol and assumed the high duties of the
government. The light which shone from its banner
dispelled the darkness in which slavery had enshrouded
the capitol, and melted the shackles of every slave, and
consumed, in the fire of liberty, every slave-pen within
the shadow of the capitol. Our national industries, by
an impoverishing policy, were themselves prostrated, and
the streams of revenue flowed in such feeble currents
that the treasury itself was well-nigh empty. The money
of the people was the wretched notes of two thousand
uncontrolled and irresponsible State banking corpora
tions, which were filling the country with a circulation
that poisoned rather than sustained the life of business.
The Republican party changed all this. It abolished the
babel of confusion, and gave the country a currency as
34S HIDDEN TREASURES.
national as its flag, based upon the sacred faith of the
people. It threw its protecting arm around our great
industries, and they stood erect as with new life. It
filled with the spirit of true nationality all the great
functions of the government. It confronted a rebellion
of unexampled magnitude, with slavery behind it, and,
under God, fought the final battle of liberty until victory
was won. Then, after the storms of battle, were heard
the sweet, calm words of peace uttered by the conquer
ing nation, and saying to the conquered foe that lay
prostrate at its feet: This is our only refuge, that you
join us in lifting to the serene firmament of the Consti
tution, to shine like stars for ever and ever, the immortal
principles of truth and justice, that all men, white or
black, shall be free and stand equal before the law.
"Then came the question of reconstruction, the pub
lic debt, and the public faith. In the settlement of the
questions the Republican party has completed its twenty-
five years of glorious existence, and it has sent us here
to prepare it for another lustrum of duty and victory.
How shall we do this great work ? We cannot do it, my
friends, by assailing our Republican brethren. God forbid
that I should say one word to cast a shadow upon any name
on the roll of our heroes. This coming fight is our Ther-
mopylge. We are standing upon a narrow isthmus. If
our Spartan hosts are united, we can withstand all the
Persians that the Xerxes of Democracy can bring against
us. Let us hold our ground this one year, for the stars
in their courses fight for us in the future. The cen
sus taken this year will bring re-enforcements and
continued power. But in order to win this victory
now, we want the vote of every Republican, of every
Grant Republican, and every anti-Grant Republican in
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 34$
America, of every Elaine man and every anti-Elaine
man. The vote of every follower of every candi
date is needed to make our success certain; there
fore, I say, gentlemen and brethren, we are here to
take calm counsel together, and inquire what we shall
do. We want a man whose life and opinions em
body all the achievements of which I have spoken.
We want a man who, standing on a mountain height,
sees all the achievements of our past history, and carries
in his heart the memory of all its glorious deeds, and
who, looking forward, prepares to meet the labor and
the dangers to come. We want one who will act in no-
spirit of unkindness toward those we lately met in battle.
The Republican party offers to our brethren of the South
the olive branch of peace, and wishes them to return to-
brotherhood, on this supreme condition, that it shall be
admitted forever and fore verm ore, that, in the war for
the Union, we were right and they were wrong. On
that supreme condition we meet them as brethren, and
on no other. We ask them to share with us the bless
ings and honors of this great republic.
"Now, gentlemen, not to weary you, I am about to
present a name for your consideration the name of a
man who was the comrade and associate and friend of
nearly all those noble dead whose faces look down upon
us from these walls to-night, a man who began his career
of public service twenty-five years ago, whose first duty
was courageously done in the days of peril on the plains
of Kansas, when the first red drops of that bloody shower
began to fall, which finally swelled into the deluge of
war. He bravely stood by young Kansas then, and,
returning to his duty in the National Legislature, through
all subsequent time his pathway has been marked by
350 HIDDEN TREASURES.
labors performed in every department of legislation.
You ask for his monuments. I point you to twenty-five
years of national statutes. Not one great beneficent
-statute has been placed in our statute books without his
intelligent and powerful aid. He aided these men to
formulate the laws that raised our great armies and
carried us through the war. His hand was seen in the
workmanship of those statutes that restored and brought
back the unity and married calm of the States. His
hand was in all that great legislation that created the
war currency, and in a still greater work that redeemed
the promises of the Government, and made the currency
equal to gold. And when at last called from the halls of
legislation into a high executive office, he displayed that
experience, intelligence, firmness and poise of character
which has carried us through a stormy period of three
years. With one-half the public press crying crucify
him, and a hostile Congress seeking to prevent success,
in all this he remained unmoved until victory crowned
him. The great fiscal affairs of the nation, and the
great business interests of the country he has guarded
and preserved while executing the law of resumption
and effecting its object without a jar and against the
false prophecies of one-half of the press and all the
Democracy of this continent. He has shown himself
-able to meet with calmness the great emergencies of the
Government for twenty-five years. He has trodden the
perilous heights of public duty, and against all the shafts
of malice has borne his breast unharmed. He has stood
in the blaze of that fierce light that beats against the
throne, but its fiercest ray has found no flaw in his
armor, no stain on his shield. I do not present him as a
better Republican or as better man than thousands of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 351
others we honor, but I present him for your deliberate
consideration. I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio."
The speech was over, its effect was like oil upon
troubled waters. When the balloting began a single
delegate only voted for Garfield. The fight was between
Grant, Elaine, Sherman and Edmunds; Windom and
others were waiting the possibility of a compromise.
Garfield managed Sherman s forces. He meant to keep
his favorite in the field, in vain trying to win over
Elaine s followers. On the thirty-fourth ballot the Wis
consin delegation determined to make a break, and hence
put forth an effort in an entirely new direction, casting
their entire seventeen votes for Garfield. The General
arose and declined to receive the vote, but the chairman
ruled otherwise, and on the next ballot the Indiana dele
gation swung over. On the thirty-sixth ballot he was
nominated. Then followed his canvass and election.
Time flew, and he was about to join his old friends
at Williams College, when an assassin stealthily crept
up and shot him from behind, as dastardly assassins and
cowardly knaves generally do. The wnole country was
thrown into a feverish heat of excitement between this
cowardly act and the president s death, which occurred
two months later. Thus, after a struggle for recognition,
which had won the admiration of the world, he was
snatched from the pleasure of enjoying the fruits of his
toil, and from the people who needed his service. Like
Lincoln, he had come from the people, he belonged to
the people, and by his own right hand had won the first
place among fifty millions of people. Like Lincoln, he
was stricken down when his country expected the most
of him, stricken in the very prime of life. Like Lincoln,
when that enjoyment for which he had labored was
852 HIDDEN TREASURES.
about to crown his efforts; and like Lincoln, it could not
be said of him he lived in vain.
CHESTER A, ARTHUR,
HHESTER ALLAN ARTHUR S career, like that of
\Q thousands of other Americans, illustrates the truth that
wealth, high social position and all the advantages with
which fortune and affection can surround the young are
not essential to their success and prosperity in profes
sional, business or public life. In fact, too often they
tend to enervate both mind and body, and thus prove in
reality obstacles to attaining true and worthy manhood.
Mr. Arthur, like Lincoln, Grant, Garfield and others
Who preceded him in the presidential office, hewed his
own way upward and onward from a discouraging
beginning.
He was born in Fairfield, Franklin county, Vermont,
October 5th, 1830. He was the eldest son of the Rev.
William Arthur, a Baptist clergyman, having a large
family and a modest income. The Rev. Mr. Arthur was
born in Ireland, and came to this country when eighteen
years of age. He is remembered as a man of great force
of character, sturdy piety and a faithful and earnest
Christian minister. He had few worldly benefits to be--
stow upon his children, but he implanted deep into their
minds principles governing their actions which were
never effaced.
22
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 353
As a lad, Mr. Arthur was trained in the public schools
accessible to him, and by his fathers aid, fitted himself
for college, entering Union when fifteen years old, and
graduating with high honors in 1848. The Hon. Fred
erick W. Seward, who was in the class next below young
Arthur, says of his school days : "Chet, as we all called
him, was the most popular boy in his class. He was
always genial and cheerful, a good scholar, and apt in
debate. To aid in defraying his expenses, Chester taught
country schools during parts of two winters, but kept
pace with his class while absent, showing his inde
pendence of spirit, and his zeal to acquire an education.
Mr. Arthur s preference turned toward the law, and
after a course in Fowler s law school at Ballston, he went
to New York city ; became a law student in the office of
Erastus D. Culver, and was admitted to the bar in 1852.
Mr. Culver showed his confidence in his promising student
by taking him into partnership. Mr. Culver was soon
elected civil judge of Brooklyn, and the partnership was
dissolved. Mr. Arthur then formed a partnership
with Henry D. Gardiner, with a view to practicing in
some growing Western city. The young lawyers went
West and spent three months in prospecting for a locality
to suit their taste, but not finding it, they returned to
New York, hired an office, and before long had a good
business. The most noted cases in which Mr. Arthur
appeared in his early career as a lawyer, were the Lena-
mon slave case, and the suit of Lizzie Jennings, a fugi
tive slave, whose liberty he secured, and a colored lady,
a superintendent of a Sunday-School for colored children,
who was ejected from a Fourth Avenue horse-car, after
her fare had been accepted by the conductor, because a
white passenger objected to her presence.
354 HIDDEN TREASURES.
In the first case he was largely instrumental in estab
lishing a precedent, setting forth the theory that slaves
brought into free territory, were at liberty. In the
second case, he obtained a verdict of $500.00 damages in
favor of the colored woman as against the company.
The establishment of this precedent caused the street
railroad companies of the city to issue an order that
colored persons should be allowed to travel in their cars.
Thus did Chester A. Arthur obtain equal civil rights for
negroes in public vehicles.
In 1859 he married Miss Ellen Lewis Herndon, of
Fredericksburg, Virginia; daughter of Captain William
Lewis Herndon, United States Navy, who went
bravely to his death in 1857, sinking with his ship, the
Central America, refusing to leave his post of duty,
though he helped secure the safety of others. Mrs.
Arthur was a devoted wife, and a woman of many ac
complishments. She died in January, 1880, and lies
buried in the Albany Rural Cemetery.
Mr. Arthur took a lively interest in politics, and was
first a Henry Clay Whig, but later helped to form the
Republican party. He held several offices in the militia
prior to 1860, and when Edwin D. Morgan became gov
ernor of the State in 1860, he made Mr. Arthur a member
of his staff, promoting him from one position to another
until he became quarter-master general. The duties of
this post were most arduous and exacting. To promptly
equip, supply and forward the thousands of troops sent
to the front to defend the Union was a task demanding
the highest executive ability and rare organizing skill,
besides the greatest precision in receiving, disbursing
and accounting for the public funds. Millions of dollars
passed through his hands ; he had the letting of enor-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 355
mous contracts, and opportunities, without number, by
which he might have enriched himself. But he was true
to himself and to his trust. So implicit was the confi
dence reposed in him that his accounts were audited at
Washington without question or deduction, though the
claims of many States were disallowed, to the extent of
millions. He left the office poorer than when he entered
it, but with the proud satisfaction of knowing that all
the world esteemed him as an honest man.
From 1863 to 1871 General Arthur successfully en
gaged in the practice of law in New York. November
20th, 1871, he was appointed collector of the port of New
York, and re-appointed in 1875. The second appointment
was confirmed by the Senate without reference to a com
mittee, the usual course, the fact being highly compli
mentary, and testifying to the high opinion held by the
Senate regarding his official record. He was suspended
by President Hayes, though no reflection upon his official
conduct was made. He again returned to the practice
of law, though taking an energetic part in politics,
serving several years as chairman of the Republican
State Committee. General Arthur, in the campaign of
1880, was an ardent supporter of Grant before the
National Convention, being one of the famous "306" who
voted for Grant to the last.
His nomination for Vice President was as much a
surprise as that of Garfield for the first place on the
ticket. He had not been mentioned as a candidate, and
his own delegation had not thought of presenting his
name until the roll was called in the Convention. When
New York was reached in the call the delegation asked
to be excused from voting for a time. Then General
Stewart L. Woodford cast the vote for Arthur. The tide
356 HIDDEN TREASURES.
quickly turned. The Ohio men were disposed to be concili
atory, and swung over to Arthur, who was nominated
on the first ballot. The incidents that followed the in
auguration of Glarfield and himself as President and Vice-
President ; the unhappy differences that led to the resig
nation of Senators Conkling and Platt ; the strife over
the election of their successors; the assassination and
death of President Garfield, and the accession to the
presidency of General Arthur. These form a chapter in
our political history, with the details of which we are all
familiar, and are not likely to soon be forgotten.
It was under the most unfavorable circumstances
that Chester A. Arthur assumed the office of President;
the people s passion over the death of the second Presi
dent of the United States, to fall by an assassin s hand,,
was intense ; factional feeling in his own party was bit
ter and apparently irreconcilable; when the popular
mind was filled with dreadful forebodings as to the
future ; but he exhibited a gravity, a reticence, an affa
bility, and a firmness which commanded the respect of
conservative men of all parties. Not only was he the
most successful perhaps the only successful Vice-
President elevated to the Presidency by the death
of the President, but he is worthy to be counted among
the most serviceable of the Presidents.
Peace and prosperity, were promoted by his adminis
tration. Ex-President Chester A. Arthur died at his resi
dence in New York city, November 18th, 1886. He leaves
as surviving members of his family two children, Chester
Allan, a young man of twenty -two years, and Miss Nellie,
just budding into womanhood. At the age of fifty-six,
without elaborate display, he was quietly laid beside his
wife in Rural Cemetery.
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 357
JOHN A, LOGAN,
"T ENTERED the field to die, if need be, for this go v-
J[ ernment and never expect to return to peaceful
pursuits until the object of this war of preservation has
become a fact established." Thus spoke John A. Logan
in 1862, when asked to return home from the field and
become a candidate for Congress.
General Logan was born February 9th, 1826, in Mur-
physboro, Illinois, and was the eldest of eleven children.
He received his education in the common schools and in
Shiloh Academy.
The Mexican war broke out when young Logan was
but twenty years of age, and he at once enlisted and was
made a lieutenant in one of the Illinois regiments. He
returned home in 1848 with an excellent military record,
and commenced the study of law in the office of his
uncle, Alexander M. Jenkins, who had formerly been
lieutenant-governor of the State.
In 1844, before he had completed his law course, he
was elected clerk of Jackson county, and at the expira
tion of his term of office went to Louisville, Kentucky,
where he attended law lectures, and was admitted to the
l)ar in the spring of 1851. In the fall of the same year
he was elected to represent Jackson and Franklin
counties in the legislature, and from that time has been
almost uninterruptedly in the public service, either civil
or military.
He was twice elected to the legislature, and in 1854
358 HIDDEN TREASURES.
was a Democratic presidential elector, and cast his vote
for James Buchanan.
The year of 1860 the year of the great Lincoln cam
paign saw Logan serving his second term in Congress
as the representative of the Ninth Illinois Congressional
District. Mr. Logan was then a Democrat and an ardent
supporter of Stephen A. Douglas, Mr. Lincoln s opponent.
On the floor $f Congress he several times in 1860 and
1861 attacked the course of the Southern members.
The war came at last, and Logan was one of the first
to enter the Union army. He resigned his seat in Con
gress in July, 1861, for that purpose, and took a brave
part in the first battle of Bull Run. He personally raised
the Thirty-first Illinois Regiment of Infantry, and was
elected its colonel. The regiment was mustered into
service on September 13th, 1861, was attached to General
M demand s brigade, and seven weeks later was under
a hot fire at Belmont. During this fight Logan had a,
horse shot from under him, and was conspicuous in his
gallantry in a fierce bayonet charge which he personally
led. The Thirty-first, under Logan, quickly became
known as a fighting regiment, and distinguished itself at
the capture of Forts Henry and Donelson. In this last en
gagement Logan was severely wounded, and for many
weeks unfitted for duty. During his confinement in the
hospital his brave wife, with great tact and energy, got
through the lines to his bedside, and nursed him until he
was able to take the field once more.
"Logan was promoted to the rank of Brigadier-General
of Volunteers soon after reporting for duty. This was
in March, 1862, and he was soon after hotly engaged in
Grant s Mississippi campaign. In the following year he
was asked to return home and go to congress again, but
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 359
declined with an emphatic statement that he was in the
war to stay until he was either disabled or peace was
established. Eight months after his promotion to the
rank of Brigadier-General he was made a Major-General
for exceptional bravery and skill, and was put in com
mand of the Third Division of the Seventeenth Army
Corps, under General MTherson. After passing through
the hot fights of Raymond and Port Gibson, he led the
center of General MTherson s command at the siege of
Yicksburg, and his column was the first to enter the city
after the surrender. He was made the Military Governor
of the captured city, and his popularity with the Seven
teenth Corps was so great that a gold medal was given
to him as a testimonial of the attachment felt for him
by the men he led.
" In the following year he led the Army of the Tennessee
on the right of Sherman s great march to the sea. He
was in the battles of Resaca and the Little Kenesaw
Mountain, and in the desperate engagement of Peach
Tree Creek where General MTherson fell. The death of
M Pherson threw the command upon Logan, and the close
of the bitter engagement which ensued saw 8,000 dead
Confederates on the field, while the havoc in the Union
lines had been correspondingly great.
"After the fall of Atlanta, which occurred on the 2nd
of September, General Logan returned to the North, and
took a vigorous part in the Western States in the cam
paign which resulted in the election of Abraham Lin
coln for the second time to the presidency. He rejoined
his command at Savannah, and was with it until the sur
render of Johnson, after which he went with the army
to Washington.
"His military career ended with his nomination in
360
HIDDEN TREASURES.
1866 by the Eepublicans of Illinois to represent the State
as Congressman at-large in the Fortieth Congress. He
was elected by 60,000 majority. He was one of the
managers on the part of the House of Eepresentatives
in the impeachment proceedings which were instituted
against Johnson. In 1868 and 1870 he was re-elected to
the House, but before he had finished his term under the
last election he was elected to the United States Senate
to succeed Senator Yates. The last term for which he
was elected expires in 1891.
"He took an active part in the last presidential cam
paign, when he and Mr. Elaine were the candidates on
the presidential ticket, and had a strong influence in
holding the soldier vote fast in the Eepublican ranks."
Mr. Logan s views in regard to the immortality of the
soul was clearly expressed in a speech delivered at the
tomb of General Grant on Memorial Day, 1886 :
"Was any American soldier immolated upon a blind
law of his country? Not one! Every soldier in the
Union ranks, whether in the regular army or not, was in
the fullest sense a member of the great, the imperish
able, the immortal army of American volunteers. These
gallant spirits now lie in untimely sepulcher. No more
will they respond to the fierce blast of the bugle or the
call to arms. But let us believe that they are not dead,
but sleeping! Look at the patient caterpillar as he
crawls on the ground, liable to be crushed by every care
less foot that passes. He heeds no menace, and turns
from no dangers. Eegardless of circumstances, he treads
his daily round, avoided by the little child sporting upon
the sward. He has work, earnest work, to perform, from
which he will not be turned, even at the forfeit of his
life. Eeaching his appointed place, he ceases even to eat,
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 361
and begins to spin those delicate fibres which, woven into
fabrics of beauty and utility, contribute to the comfort
and adornment of a superior race. His work done, he
lies down to the sleep from which he never wakes in the
old form. But that silent, motionless body is not dead ;
an astonishing metamorphosis is taking place. The
gross digestive apparatus dwindles away; the three pairs
of legs, which served the creature to crawl upon the
ground, are exchanged for six pairs suited to a different
purpose; the skin is cast ; the form is changed ; a pair of
wings, painted like the morning flowers, spring out, and
presently the ugly worm that trailed its slow length
through the dust is transformed into the beautiful but
terfly, basking in the bright sunshine, the envy of the
child and the admiration of the man. Is there no
appeal in this wonderful and enchanting fact to man s
highest reason ? Does it contain no suggestion that
man, representing the highest pinnacle of created life
upon the globe, must undergo a final metamorphosis, as
supremely more marvelous and more spiritual, as man is
greater in physical conformation, and far removed in
mental construction from the humble worm that at the
call of nature straightway leaves the ground, and soars
upon the gleeful air? Is the fact not a thousand-fold
more convincing than the assurance of the poet:
"It must be so; Plato, thou reasonest well ;
Else whence this pleasing hope, this fond desire,
This longing after immortality ?
Or whence this dread secret and inward horror
Of falling into naught ? Why shrinks the soul
Back on herself, and startles at destruction ?
Tis the divinity that stirs within us ;
Tis heaven itself that points out fin hereafter,
And intimates eternity to man,
Eternity ! thou pleasing, dreadful thought."
362 HIDDEN TREASURES.
"On December 26th, 1886, the strong man succumbed
to rheumatism. His death was a great shock to his.
numerous friends throughout the Union, and he was
mourned by a great and mighty nation. From the lowly
ranks to whom he belonged by birth, to the most exalted
circles, the sympathy for the bereaved was genuine.
JAMES G, BLAINK
F k EW men are more prominently placed before the
vision of a mighty nation to-day than James G.
Elaine. Born in obscurity, he possesses traits of char
acter which are peculiar to himself ; they differ widely
from that of any statesman who ever spoke in the legis
lative halls at Washington.
Colleges, of themselves, make no man great. An
1 educated idiot will never make a statesman, notwith
standing the too prevalent notion that the possession of
a diploma should entitle any one to a place in our social
aristocracy. The great, active, relentless, human world
gives a man a place of real influence, and crowns him as
truly great for what he really is; and will not care a fig
for any college certificate. If the young man is deter
mined to succeed in the world then a college is a help.
The trouble is not in the college, but in the man. He
should regard the college as a means to attain a result,
not the result of itself. The question the great busy
world asks the claimant is: What can he do? If the
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 363
claimant enter school determined to succeed, even if he
sleeps but four to six hours out of the twenty-four, he
will be benefited. However, study like that of Webster,
by New Hamshire pine knots; and like Garh eld s, by a
wood-pile; generally proves valuable. Elaine s life is
thus beautifully described by his biographer :
"James Gillespie Blaine, the subject of this biography,
was born January 31st, 1830. His father, Ephraim L.
Blaine, and his mother, Maria Gillespie, still lived in their
two-story house on the banks of the Monongahela.
No portentious events, either in nature or public affairs,
marked his advent. A few neighbors with generous in
terest and sympathy extended their aid and congratula
tions. The tops of the hills and the distant Alleghanies
were white with snow, but the valley was bare and
brown, and the swollen river swept the busy ferry-boat
from shore to shore with marked emphasis, as old ac
quaintances repeated the news of the day, Blaine has
another son/
Another soul clothed in humanity; another cry; in
creased care in one little home. That was all. It seems
so sad in this, the day of his fame and power, that the
mother who, with such pain and misgiving, prayer and
noble resolutions, saw his face for the first time should
now be sleeping in the church-yard. In the path that
now leads by her grave, she had often paused before en
tering the shadowy gates of the weather-beaten Catholic
church, and calmed her anxious fears that she might de
voutly worship God and secure the answer to her prayer
for her child.
It seems strange now, in the light of other experi
ences, that no tradition or record of a mother s prophecy
concerning the future greatness of her son comes down
364 HIDDEN TREASURES.
to us from that birthday, or from his earliest years. But
the old European customs and prejudices of her Irish
and Scottish ancestry seem to have lingered with suffi
cient force to still give the place of social honor and to
found the parent s hopes on the first-born. To all con
cerned it was a birth of no special significance. Outside
of the family it was a matter of no moment. Births
were frequent. The Brownsville people heard of it, and
passed on to forget, as a ripple in the Monongahela
flashes on the careless sight for a moment, then the river
rolls on as before. Ephraim Blaine was proud of another
son; the little brother and the smaller sister hailed a new
brother. The mother, with a deep joy which escaped not
in words, looked onward and tried to read the future
when the flood of years should have carried her new
treasure from her arms. That flood has swept over her
now, and all her highest hopes and ambition is filled,
hut she seems not to hear the church bells that ring nor
the cannon that bellow at the sound of his name.
"All his early childhood years were spent about his
home playing in the well-kept yard gazing at the numer
ous boats that so frequently went puffing by. For a
short time the family moved to the old Gillespie House
further up the river, and some of the inhabitants say
that at one time, while some repairs were going on, they
resided at the old homestead of Neal Gillespie, back
from the river, on Indian Hill."
At seventeen he graduated from school and, his
father, losing what little property he did have, young
Blaine was thrown upon his own resources. But it is
often the best thing possible for a young man to be thus
tossed over-board, and be compelled to sink or swim. It
develops a self-reliant nature. He secured employment
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 365
as a teacher, and into this calling he threw his whole
soul. Thus he became a success as an educator at Blue
Lick Springs. He next went to Philadelphia, and for
two years was the principal teacher of the boys in the
Philadelphia Institution for instruction of the blind.
When he left that institution he left behind him a
universal regret at a serious loss incurred, but an im
pression of his personal force upon the work of that
institution which it is stated, on good authority, is
felt to this day. Mr. Chapin, the principal, one day
said, as he took from a desk in the corner of the school
room a thick quarto manuscript book, bound in dark
leather and marked i Journal: "Now, I will show you
something that illustrates how thoroughly Mr. Elaine
mastered anything he took hold of. This book Mr. Elaine
compiled with great labor from the minute-books of the
Board of Managers. It is a historical view of the insti
tution from the time of its foundation, up to the time of
Mr. Elaine s departure. He did all the work in his own
room, telling no one of it till he left. Then he presented
it, through me, to the Board of Managers who were both
surprised and gratified. I believe they made him a
present of $100 as a thank-offering for an invaluable
work." The book illustrates one great feature in the
success of Mr. Elaine. It is clear, and indicates his
mastery of facts in whatever he undertook, and his
orderly presentation of facts in detail. The fact that no
one knew of it until the proper time, when its effect
would be greatest, shows that he naturally possesses a
quality that is almost indispensible to the highest attain
ment of success.
He left Philadelphia for Augusta, Maine, where he
became editor of the Kennebec Journal. While editor
366
HIDDEN TREASURES.
and member of his State legislature, he laid the founda
tion which prepared him to step at once to the front,
when in 1862 he was sent to the National Congress,
when the country was greatly agitated over the Five-
twenty bonds, and how they should be redeemed. Mr.
Elaine spoke as follows :
" But, now, Mr. Speaker, suppose for the sake of argu
ment, we admit that the Government may fairly and
legally pay the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency,
what then? I ask the gentleman from Massachusetts to
tell us, what then? It is easy, I know, to issue as many
greenbacks as will pay the maturing bonds, regardless
of the effect upon the inflation of prices, and the general
derangement of business. Five hundred millions of
Five-twenties are now payable, and according to the
easy mode suggested, all we have to do is to set the print
ing-presses in motion, and so long as rags and lamp
black hold out we need have no embarrassment about
paying our National Debt. But the ugly question re
curs, what are you going to do with the greenbacks thus
put afloat? Five hundred millions this year, and eleven
hundred millions more on this theory of payment by the
year 1S72 ; so that within the period of four or five years
we would have added to our paper money the thrilling
inflation of sixteen hundred millions of dollars. We
should all have splendid times doubtless ! Wheat, under
the new dispensation, ought to bring twenty dollars a
bushel, and boots would not be worth more than two
hundred dollars a pair, and the farmers of our country
would be as well off as Santa Anna s rabble of Mexican
soldiers, who were allowed ten dollars a day for their
services and charged eleven for their rations and clothing.
The sixteen hundred millions of greenbacks added to the
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 367
amount already issued would give us some twenty-three
hundred millions of paper money, and I suppose the
theory of the new doctrine would leave this mass perma
nently in circulation, for it would hardly be consistent to
advocate the redemption of the greenbacks in gold after
having repudiated and foresworn our obligation on the
bonds.
But if it be intended to redeem the legal tenders in
gold, what will have been the net gain to the Govern
ment in the whole transaction? If any gentleman will
tell me, I shall be glad to learn how it will be easier to
pay sixteen hundred millions in gold in the redemption
of greenbacks, than to pay the same amount in the
redemption of Five-twenty bonds? The policy advo
cated, it seems to me, has only two alternatives the one
to ruinously inflate the currency and leave it so, reckless
of results ; the other to ruinously inflate the currency at
the outset, only to render redemption in gold far more
burdensome in the end.
I know it maybe claimed, that the means necessary
to redeem the Five-twenties in greenbacks may be real
ized by a new issue of currency bonds to be placed on
the market. Of results in the future every gentleman
has the right to his own opinion, and all may alike in
dulge in speculation. But it does seem to me that the
Government would be placed in awkward attitude when
it should enter the market to negotiate the loan, the
avails of which were to be devoted to breaking faith
with those who already held its most sacred obligations!
What possible security would the new class of creditors
have, that when their debts were matured some new form
of evasion would be resorted to by which they in turn
would be deprived of their just and honest dues?
368 HIDDEN TREASURES.
"Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus would supply the
ready form of protest against trusting a Government
with a new loan when it had just ignored its plain obli
gation on an old one.
" Payment of the Five-twenty bonds in paper currency
involves therefore a limitless issue of greenbacks, with at
tendant evils of gigantic magnitude and far-reaching con
sequence. And the worse evil of the whole is the delusion
which calls this a payment at all. It is no payment in any
proper sense, for it neither gives the creditor what he is
entitled to, nor does it release the debtor from subsequent
responsibility. You may get rid of the Five-twenty by
issuing the greenback, but how will you get rid of the
greenback except by paying gold ? The only escape from
ultimate payment of gold is to declare that as a
nation we permanently and finally renounce all idea
of ever attaining a specie standard that we launch our
selves on an ocean of paper money without shore or
sounding, with no rudder to guide us and no compass to
steer by. And this is precisely what is involved if we
adopt this mischievous suggestion of a new way to pay
old debts/ Our fate in attempting such a course majr be
easily read in the history of similar follies both in Europe
and in our own country. Prostration of credit, finan
cial disaster, widespread distress among all classes of
the community, would form the closing scenes in our
career of gratuitous folly and national dishonor. And
from such an abyss of sorrow and humiliation, it would
be a painful and toilsome effort to regain as sound a
position in our finances as we are asked voluntarily to
abandon to-day.
The remedy for our financial troubles, Mr. Speaker,
will not be found in a superabundance of depreciated
23
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 369
paper currency. It lies in the opposite direction and
the sooner the nation finds itself on a specie basis, the
sooner will the public treasury be freed from embarrass
ment, and private business relieved from discourage
ment. Instead, therefore, of entering upon a reckless
and boundless issue of legal tenders, with their conse
quent depression if not destruction of value, let us set
resolutely to work atfd make those already in circula
tion equal to so many gold dollars. When that result shall
be accomplished, we can proceed to pay our Five-twen
ties either in coin or paper, for the one would be equivalent
to the other. But to proceed deliberately on a scheme
of depreciating our legal tenders and then forcing the
holders of Government bonds to accept them in payment,
would resemble in point of honor, the policy of a mer
chant who, with abundant resources and prosperous
business, should devise a plan for throwing discredit on
his own notes with the view of having them bought up
at a discount, ruinous to the holders and immensely
profitable to his own knavish pocket. This comparison
may faintly illustrate the wrongfulness of the policy,
but not its consummate folly for in the case of the
Government, unlike the merchant, the stern necessity
would recur of making good in the end, by the payment
of hard coin, all the discount that might be gained by
the temporary substitution of paper.
" Discarding all such schemes as at once unworthy and
unprofitable, let us direct our policy steadily, but not
rashly, toward the resumption of specie payment. And
when we have attained that end easily attainble at no
distant day if the proper policy be pursued we can all
unite on some honorable plan for the redemption of the
Five-twenty bonds, and the issuing instead thereof, anew
#70 HIDDEN TREASURES.
series of bonds which can be more favorably placed at a
low rate of interest. When we shall have reached the
specie basis, the value of United States securities will be
so high in the money market of the world, that we can
command our own terms. We can then call in our Five-
twenties according to the very letter and spirit of the
bond, and adjust a new loan that will be eagerly sought
for by capitalists, and will be free from those elements
of discontent that in some measure surround the exist
ing Funded debt of the country.
" As to the particular measures of legislation requisite
to hasten the resumption of specie payment, gentlemen
equally entitled to respect may widely differ ; but there
is one line of policy conducive thereto on which we all
ought to agree; and that is on a serious reduction of the
government expenses and a consequent lightening of the
burdens of taxation. The interest-bearing debt of the
United States, when permanently funded, will not ex
ceed twenty-one hundred millions of dollars, imposing
an annual interest of about one hundred and twenty-five
millions. Our other expenses, including War, Navy, the
Pension list, and the Civil list, ought not to exceed one
hundred millions; so that if we raise two hundred and
fifty millions from Customs and Internal Revenue com
bined, we should have twenty-five millions annual sur
plus to apply to the reduction of the Public debt. But
to attain this end we must mend our ways, and practice
an economy far more consistent and severe than any we
have attempted in the past. Our Military peace estab
lishment must be reduced one-half at least, and our
Naval appropriations correspondingly curtailed; and in
numerable leaks and gaps and loose ends, that have
so long attended our government expenditure, must
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 371
fce taken up and stopped. If such a policy be
pursued by Congress, neither the principal of the
debt, nor the interest of the debt, nor the annual ex
penses of government, will be- burdensome to the peo
ple. We can raise two hundred and fifty millions of
revenue on the gold basis, and at the same time have a
vast reduction in our taxes. And we can- do this with
out repudiation in any form, either open or covert,
avowed or indirect, but with every obligation of the
government fulfilled and discharged in its exact letter
and in its generous spirit.
u And this, Mr. Speaker, we shall do. Our national
honor demands it; our national interest equally demands
it. We have vindicated our claim to the highest hero
ism on a hundred bloody battle-fields, and have stopped
at no sacrifice of life needful to the maintenance of our
national integrity. I am sure that in the peace which
our arms have conquered, we shall not dishonor our
selves by withholding from any public^creditor a dollar
that we promised to pay him, nor seek, by cunning con
struction and clever afterthought, to evade or escape the
full responsibility of our national indebtedness. It will
doubtless cost us a vast sum to pay that indebtedness
but it would cost us incalculably mpre not to pay it."
This speech, here referred to, occuring, as it did when
the ablest speakers were interested, was pronounced as
a marvel. The great rows of figures which he gave, but
which space will not allow us to give, illustrates the man,
and his thorough mastery of all great public questions.
He never enters a debate unless fully prepared; if not
already prepared, he prepares himself. His reserve
power is wonderful. What a feature of success is reserve
power.
372 HIDDEN TREASURES.
in 1876 occurred one of the most remarkable contests
ever known in Congress. The debate began upon the
proposition to grant a general amnesty to all those who
had engaged in the Southern war on the side of the Con
federacy; of course this would include Mr. Da^ is. Hon.
Benjamin H. Hill, of Georgia, one of the ablest Congress
men in the South, met Mr. Elaine on the question. As
space will not permit us to go into detail at all as we
would like to, we give simply an extract from one of Mr.
Elaine s replies :
"I am very frank to say that in regard to all these
gentlemen, save one, I do not know of any reason why
amnesty should not be granted to them as it has been to
many others of the same class. I am not here to argue
against it. The gentleman from Iowa (Mr. Kasson^
suggests on their application. I am coming to thaix
But as 1 have said, seeing in this list, as I have examined
it with some care, no gentleman to whom I think there
would be any objection, since amnesty has already be
come so general and I am not going back of that ques
tion to argue it I am in favor of granting it to them.
But in the absence of this respectful form of application
which, since May 22d, 1872, has become a sort of common
law as preliminary to amnesty, I simply wish to put in that
they shall go before a United States Court, and in open
court, with uplifted hand, swear that they mean to con
duct themselves as good citizens of the United States.
That is all.
"Now, gentlemen may say that this is a foolish exac
tion. Possibly it is. But somehow -or other I have a
prejudice in favor of it. And there are some petty points
in it that appeal as well to prejudice as to conviction.
For one, I do not want to impose citizenship on any
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 373
gentlemen. If I am correctly informed, and I state it
only on rumor, there are some gentlemen in this list
who have spoken contemptuously of the idea of their
taking citizenship, and have spoken still more contempt
uously of the idea of their applying for citizenship. I
may state it wrongly, and if I do, I am willing to be
corrected, but I understand that Mr. Robert Toombs has,
on several occasions, at watering-places, both in this
country and in Europe, stated that he would not ask the
United States for citizenship.
"Very well ; we can stand it about as well as Mr.
Robert Toombs can. And if Mr. Robert Toombs is not
prepared to go into a court of the United States and
swear that he means to be a good citizen, let him stay
out. I do not think that the two Houses of Congress
should convert themselves into a joint convention for
the purpose of embracing Mr. Robert Toombs, and gush
ingly request him to favor us by coming back to accept
of all the honors of citizenship. That is the whole. All
I ask is that each of these gentlemen shall show his good
faith by coming forward and taking the oath which you
on that side of the House, and we on this side of the House,
and all of us take, -and gladly take. It is a very small exac
tion to make as a preliminary to full restoration to all
the rights of citizenship.
"In my amendment, Mr. Speaker, I have excepted
Jefferson Davis from its operation. Now, I do not place
it on the ground that Mr. Davis was, as he has been com
monly called, the head and front of the rebellion, because,
on that ground, I do not think the exception would be
tenable. Mr. Davis was just as guilty, no more so, no
less so, than thousands of others who have already re
ceived the benefit and grace of amnesty. Probably he
374 HIDDEN TREASURES.
was far less efficient as an enemy of the United States r
probably he was far more useful as a disturber of the
councils of the Confederacy than many who have already
received amnesty. It is not because of any particular
and special damage that he, above others, did to the
Union, or because he was personally or especially of con
sequence, that I except him. But I except him on this
ground ; that he was the author, knowingly, delibe
rately, guiltily, and willfully, of the gigantic murders
and crimes at Andersonville.
"Mr. Speaker, this is not a proposition to punish Jef
ferson Davis. There is nobody attempting that. I will
very frankly say that I myself thought the indictment
of Mr. Davis at Richmond, under the administration of
Mr. Johnson, was a weak attempt, for he was indicted
only for that of which he was guilty in common with
all others who went into the Confederate movement.
Therefore, there was no particular reason for it. But I
will undertake to say this, and as it may be considered
an extreme speech, I want to say it with great deliber
ation, that there is not a government, a civilized govern
ment, on the face of the globe I am very sure there is
not a European government that would not have ar
rested Mr. Davis, and when they had him in their power
would not have tried him for maltreatment of the pris
oners of war and shot him within thirty days. France,
Russia, England, Germany, Austria, any one of them
would have done it. The poor victim Wirz deserved
his death for brutal treatment, and murder of many vic
tims, but I always thought it was a weak movement on
the part of our government to allow Jefferson Davis to
go at large, and hang Wirz. I confess I do. Wirz was
nothing in the world but a mere subordinate, a tool, and
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 375
there was no special reason for singling him oat for death.
I do not say lie did not deserve it he did, richly, amply,
fully. He deserved no mercy, but at the same time, as I
have often said, it seemed like skipping over the presi
dent, superintendent, and board of directors in the case
of a great railroad accident, and hanging the brakeman
of the rear car.
"There is no proposition here to punish Jefferson Davis.
Nobody is seeking to do it. That time has gone by. The
statute of limitation, common feelings of humanity, will
supervene for his benefit. But what you ask us to do is
to declare by a vote of two-thirds of both branches of
Congress, that we consider Mr. Davis worthy to fill the
highest offices in the United States if he can get a con
stituency to indorse him. He is a voter; he can buy and
he can sell ; he can go and he can come. He is as free
as any man in the United States. There is a large list
of subordinate offices to which he is eligible. This bill
proposes, in view of that record, that Mr. Davis, by a two-
thirds vote of the Senate and a two-thirds vote of the
House, be declared eligible and worthy to fill any office
up to the Presidency of the United States. For one,
upon full deliberation, I will not do it."
These two speeches illustrates the scope of Elaine in
debate. These speeches also clearly show why he is so
dearly beloved, or so bitterly hated. But that Mr. Blaine
is an orator of the first order cannot be gainsaid. The
preceding speeches represent the highest attainment of
one ideal of an orator, and in a role in which Mr. Blaine
is almost without parallel. In his Memorial address on
Garfield, delivered in the hall of the House of Repre
sentatives, he presents the lofty style which is the beau
ideal of oratory. He spoke something as follows:
376 HIDDEN TREASURES.
"Mr. President: For the second time in this genera
tion the great departments of the government of the
United States are assembled in the Hall of Representa
tives to do honor to the memory of a murdered president.
Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty struggle in which
the passions of men had been deeply stirred. The
tragical termination of his great life added but another
to the lengthened succession of horrors which had marked
so many lintels with the blood of the first-born. Gar-
field was slain in a day of peace, when brother had been
reconciled to brother, and when anger and hate had been
banished from the land. Whoever shall hereafter draw
the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been ex
hibited where such example was last to have been looked
for, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the
brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled
hate. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced,
bloodless demon; not so much an example of human
nature in its depravity and in its paroxisms of crime, as
an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary display and
development of his character." * * * *
" His father dying before he was two years old, Gar-
field s early life was one of privation, but its poverty has
been made indelicately and unjustly prominent. Thous
ands of readers have imagined him as the ragged, starving
child, whose reality too often greets the eye in the squalid
sections of our large cities. General Garfield s infancy
and youth had none of this destitution, none of these
pitiful features appealing to the tender heart, and to the
open hand of charity. He was a poor boy in the same
sense in which Henry Clay was a poor boy; in which
Andrew Jackson was a poor boy; in which Daniel Web
ster was a poor boy; in the sense in which a large major-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 377
ity of the eminent men of America in all generations
have been poor boys. Before a great multitude, in a
public speech, Mr. Webster bore this testimony:
" It did not happen to me to be born in a log cabin,
but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log
cabin raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at
.a period so early that when the smoke rose first from its
rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills there was
no similar evidence of a white man s habitation between
it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its
remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I
carry my children to it to teach them the hardships en
dured by the generations which have gone before them.
I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred
ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives
-and incidents which mingle with all I know of this primi
tive family abode. 7
"With the requisite change of scene the same words
would aptly portray the early days of Garfield. The
poverty of the frontier, where all are engaged in a com
mon struggle, and where a common sympathy and
hearty co-operation lighten the burdens of each, is a
very different poverty, different in kind, different in in
fluence and effect, from that conscious and humiliating
indigence which is every day forced to contrast itself
with neighboring wealth on which it feels a sense of
grinding dependence. The poverty of the frontier is in
deed no poverty. It is but the beginning of wealth, and
has the boundless possibilities of the future always open
ing before it. No man ever grew up in the agricultural
regions of the West, where a house-raising, or even a
corn-husking, is matter of common interest and helpful
ness, with any other feeling than that of broad-minded,
378 HIDDEN TREASURES.
generous independence. This honorable independence
marked the youth of Garfield, as it marks the youth of
millions of the best blood and brain now training for the
future citizenship and future government of the Republic*
Garfield was born heir to land, to the title of free-holder,
which has been the patent and passport of self-respect
with the Anglo-Saxon race ever since Hengist and Horsa
landed on the shores of England. His adventure on the
canal an alternative between that and the deck of a
Lake Erie schooner was a farmer boy s device for earn
ing money, just as the New England lad begins a possi
bly great career by sailing befor the mast on a coasting
vessel, or on a merchantman bound to the farther India
or to the China seas.
"No manly man feels anything of shame in looking
back to early struggles with adverse circumstances, and
no man feels a worthier pride than when he has con
quered the obstacles to his progress. But no one of noble
mould desires to be looked upon as having occupied a
menial position, as having been repressed by a feeling of
inferiority, or as having suffered the evils of poverty
until relief was found at the hand of charity. General
Garfield s youth presented no hardships which family
love and family energy did not overcome, subjected him
to no privations which he did not cheerfully accept, and
left no memories save those which were recalled with
delight, and transmitted with profit and with pride.
"Garfield s early opportunities for securing an educa
tion were extremely limited, and yet were sufficient to
develop in him an intense desire to learn. He could read
at three years of age, and each winter he had the advant
age of the district school. He read all the books to be
found within the circle of his acquaintance ; some of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR.
them he got by heart. While yet in childhood he was a-
constant student of the Bible, and became familiar with
its literature. The dignity and earnestness of his speech
in his maturer life gave evidence of this early training.
At eighteen years of age he was able to teach school,,
and thenceforward his ambition was to obtain a college
education. To this end he bent all efforts, working in
the harvest field, at the carpenter s bench, and in the
winter season, teaching the common schools of the neigh
borhood. While thus laboriously occupied he found time
to prosecute his studies, and was so successful that at
twenty-two years of age he was able to enter the junior
class at Williams College, then under the presidency of
the venerable and honored Mark Hopkins, who, in the
fullness of his powers, survives the eminent pupil to
whom he was of inestimable service.
"The history of Garfield s life to this period presents
no novel features. He had undoubtedly shown perse
verance, self-reliance, self-sacrifice, and ambition-
qualities which, be it said for the honor of our country,
are everywhere to be found among the young men of
America. But from his graduation at Williams, onward
to the hour of his tragical death, Garfield s career was
eminent and exceptional. Slowly working through his
educational period, receiving his diploma when twenty-
four years of age, he seemed at one bound to spring into
conspicuous and brilliant success. Within six years he
was successively President of a College, State Senator of
Ohio, Major-General of the Army of the United States and
Kepresentative-elect to the National Congress. A com
bination of honors so varied, so elevated, within a period
so brief and to a man so young, is without precedent or
parallel in the history of the country.
380 HIDDEN TREASURES.
"Garfield s army life was begun with no other mili
tary knowledge than such as he had hastily gained from
books in the few months preceding his march to the
field. Stepping from civil life to the head of a regi
ment, the first order he received when ready to cross the
Ohio was to assume command of a brigade, and to operate
.as an independent force in eastern Kentucky. His im
mediate duty was to check the advance of Humprey
Marshall, who was marching down the Big Sandy with
the intention of occuping, in connection with other Con
federate forces, the entire territory of Kentucky, and ol
precipitating the State into secession. This was at the
close of the year 1861. Seldom, if ever, has a young
college professor been thrown into a more embarassing
and discouraging position. He knew just enough of
military science, as he expressed it himself, to measure
the extent of his ignorance, and with a handful of men
he was marching, in rough winter weather, into a strange
country, among a hostile population, to confront a
largely superior force under the command of a distin
guished graduate of West Point, who had seen active
and important service in two preceding wars.
"The result of the campaign is matter of history.
The skill, the endurance, the extraordinary energy shown
by Garfield, the courage he imparted to his men, raw and
untried as himself, the measures he adopted to increase
his force, and to create in the enemy s mind exaggerated
estimates of his numbers, bore perfect* fruit in the rout
ing of Marshall, the capture of his camp, the dispersion
of his force, and the emancipation of an important terri
tory from the control of the rebellion. Coming at the
close of a long series of disasters to the Union arms,
Oarfield s victory had an unusual and extraneous import-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT ilONOR. 381
ance, and in the popular judgment elevated the young
commander to the rank of a military hero. With less
than two thousand men in his entire command, with a
mobilized force of only eleven hundred, without cannon,
he had met an army of five thousand and defeated them,
driving Marshall s forces successively from two strong
holds of their own selection, fortified with abundant
artillery. Major-General Buell, commanding the Depart
ment of the Ohio, an experienced and able soldier of the
Regular Army, published an order of thanks and con^
gratulation on the brilliant result of the Big Sandy Cam
paign, which would have turned the head of a less cool
and sensible man than Garfield. Buell declared that his
services had called into action the highest qualities of a
soldier, and President Lincoln supplemented these words
of praise by the more substantial reward of a Brigadier-
General s Commission, to bear date from the day of his
decisive victor^ over Marshall.
" The subsequent military career of Garfield fully sus
tained its brilliant beginning. With his new commission
he was assigned to the command of a brigade in the
Army of the Ohio, and took part in the second and
decisive day s fight on the bloody field of Shiloh. The
remainder of the year 1862 was not especially eventful
to Garfield, as it was not to the armies with which he
was serving. His practical sense was called into exer
cise in completing the task, assigned him by General
Buell, of reconstructing bridges and re-establishing lines
of railway communication for the army. His occupa
tion in this useful but not brilliant field was varied by
service on courts-martial of importance, in which depart-
ment of duty he won a valuable reputation, attracting
the notice and securing the approval of the able and
382 HIDDEN TREASURES.
eminent Judge Advocate General of the army. This of
Itself was warrant to honorable fame ; for among the
great men who in those trying days gave themselves,
with entire devotion, to the service of their country, one
who brought to that service the ripest learning, the most
fervid eloquence, the most varied attainments, who
labored with modesty and shunned applause, who, in the
day of triumph, sat reserved and silent and grateful as
Francis Deak in the hour of Hungary s deliverance was
Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, who, in his honorable retire
ment, enjoys the respect and veneration of all who love
the Union of the States.
"Early in 1863 Garfield was assigned to the highly
Important and responsible post of Chief of Staff to Gen
eral Eosecrans, then at the head of the Army of the
Cumberland. Perhaps in a great military campaign no
subordinate officer requires sounder judgment and quicker
knowledge of men than the Chief of Staff to the Com
manding General. An indiscrete man in such a position
an sow more discord, breed more jealousy, and dissem
inate more strife than any other officer in the entire
organization. When General Garfield assumed his new
duties he found various troubles already well developed
and seriously affecting the value and efficiency of the
Army of the Cumberland. The energy, the impartiality,
and the tact with which he sought to allay these dissen
sions, and to discharge the duties, of his new and trying
position, will always remain one of the most striking
proofs of his great versatility. His military duties closed
on the memorable field of Chickamauga, a field which,
however disastrous to the Union arms, gave to him the
occasion of winning imperishable laurels. The very
rare distinction was accorded him of a great promotion
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 383
for bravery on a field that was lost. President Lincoln
appointed him a Major-General in the Army of the
United States, for gallant and meritorious conduct in the
battle of Chickamauga.
"The Army of the Cumberland was reorganized under
the command of General Thomas, who promptly offered
Garfield one of its divisions. He was extremely desirous
to accept the position, but was embarrassed by the fact
that he had, a year before, been elected to Congress, and
the time when he must take his seat was drawing near.
He preferred to remain in the military service, and had
within his own breast the largest confidence of success
in the wider field which his new rank opened to him.
Balancing the arguments on the one side and the other,
anxious to determine what was for the best, desirous
above all things to do his patriotic duty, he was deci
sively influenced by the advke of President Lincoln and
Secretary Stanton, both of whom assured him that he
could, at that time, be of especial value in the House of
Representatives. He resigned his commission of major-
general on the 5th day of December, 1863, and took his
seat in the House of Representatives on the 7th. He
had served two years and four months in the army, and
had just completed his thirty-second year.
"The Thirty-eighth Congress is pre-eminently entitled
in history to the designation of the War Congress. It
was elected w r hile the war was flagrant, and every mem
ber was chosen upon the issues involved in the continu
ance of the struggle. The Thirty-seventh Congress had,
indeed, legislated to a large extent on war measures,
but it was chosen before any one believed that secession
of the States would be actually attempted. The mag
nitude of the work which fell upon its successor was
384 HIDDEN TREASURES.
unprecedented, both in respect-to the vast sums of money
raised for the support of the army and navy, and of the
new and extraordinary powers of legislation which it
was forced to exercise. Only twenty-four States were
represented, and one hundred and eighty-two members
were upon its roll. Among these were many distin
guished party leaders on both sides, veterans in the pub
lic service, with established reputations for ability, and
with that skill which comes only from parliamentary
experience. Into this assemblage of men Gar field entered
without special preparation, and, it might almost be
said, unexpectedly. The question of taking command
of a division of troops under General Thomas, or taking
his seat in Congress, was kept open till the last moment,
so late, indeed, that the resignation of his military com
mission and his appearance in the House were almost
contemporaneous. He wore the uniform of a major-
general of the United States Army on Saturday, and on
Monday, in civilian s dress, he answered to roll-call as a
Representative in Congress from the State of Ohio.
"He was especially fortunate in the constiuency which
elected him. Descended almost entirely from New Eng
land stock, the men of the Ashtabula district were in
tensely radical on all questions relating to human rights.
Well educated, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs,
acutely discerning of character, not quick to bestow con
fidence, and slow to withdraw it, they were at once the
most helpful and most exacting of supporters. Their
tenacious trust in men in whom they have once confided
is illustrated by the unparalleled fact thatElisha Whittle-
sey, Joshua R. Giddings, and James A. Garfield repre
sented the district for fifty-four years.
"There is no test of a man s ability in any department
24
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 385
of public life more severe than service in the House of
Representatives ; there is no place where so little defer
ence is paid to reputation previously acquired, or to
eminence won outside ; no place where so little consid
eration is shown for the feelings or the failures of be
ginners. What a man gains in the House he gains by
sheer force of his own character, and if he loses and
falls back he must expect no mercy, and will receive no
sympathy. It is a field in which the survival of the
strongest is the recognized rule, and where no pretense
can deceive and no glamour can mislead. The real man
is discovered, his worth is impartially weighed, his rank
is irreversibly decreed.
"With possibly a single exception, Garfield was the
youngest member in the House when he entered, and
was but seven years from his college graduation. But
he had not been in his seat sixty days before his ability
was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to
the front with the confidence of one who belonged there.
The House was crowded with strong men of both parties ;
nineteen of them have since been transferred to the
Senate, and many of them have served with distinction
in the gubernatorial chairs of their respective States,
and on foreign missions of great consequence; but
among them all none grew so rapidly, none so firmly, as
Garfield. As is said by Trevelyan, of his parliamentary
hero, Garfield succeeded because all the world in con
cert could not have kept him in the back-ground, and
because when once in the front he played his part with
a prompt intrepidity and a commanding ease that were
but the outward symptoms of the immense reserves of
energy on which it was in his power to draw/ Indeed,
the apparently reserved force which Garfield possessed
386 HIDDEN TREASURES.
was one of his great characteristics. He never did so well
but that it seemed he could easily have done better. He
never expended so much strength but that he appeared
to be holding additional power at call. This is one of
the happiest and rarest distinctions of an effective de
bater, and often counts for as much, in persuading an
assembly, as the eloquent and elaborate argument.
"The great measure of Garfield s fame was filled by
his service in the House of Representatives. His military
life, illustrated by honorable performance, and rich in
promise, was, as he himself felt, prematurely terminated,
and necessarily incomplete. Speculation as to what he
might have done in a field where the great prizes are so
few, cannot be profitable. It is sufficient to say that as
a soldier he did his duty bravely ; he did it intelligently;
he won an enviable fame, and he retired from the service
without blot or breath against him. As a lawyer,
though admirably equipped for the profession, he can
scarcely be said to have entered on its practice. The few
efforts he made at the bar were distinguished by the
same high order of talent which he exhibited on every
field where he was put to the test ; and, if a man may
be accepted as a competent judge of his own capacities
and adaptations, the law was the profession to which
Oarfield should have devoted himself. But fate ordained
otherwise, and his reputation in history will rest largely
upon his service in the House of Representatives. That
service was exceptionally long. He was nine times con
secutively chosen to the House, an honor enjoyed proba
bly by not twenty other Representatives of the more
than five thousand who have been elected, from the
organization of the government, to this hour.
"As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. B87
squarely joined, where the position had been chosen and
the ground laid out, Garfield must be assigned a very
high rank. More, perhaps, than any man with whom he
was associated in public life, he gave careful and system.-
atic study to public questions, and he came to every dis
cussion in which he took part with elaborate and com
plete preparation. He was a steady and indefatigable
worker. Those who imagine that talent or genius can
supply the place or achieve the results of labor will find
no encouragement in Garfield s life. In preliminary
work he was apt, rapid and skillful. He possessed in a
high degree the power of readily absorbing ideas and
facts, and, like Dr. Johnson, had the art of getting from
a book all that was of value in it by a reading appar
ently so quick and cursory that it seemed like a mere
glance a t the table of contents. He was a pre-eminently
fair and candid man in debate, took no petty advantage>
stooped to no unworthy methods, avoided personal allu
sions, rarely appealed to prejudice, did not seek to in
flame passion. He had a quicker eye for the strong
point of his adversary than for his weak point, and on
his own side he so marshalled his weighty arguments as
to make his hearers forget any possible lack in the com
plete strength of his position. He had a habit of stating
his opponent s side with such amplitude of fairness and
such liberality of concession that his followers often
complained that he was giving his case away. But never
in his prolonged participation in the proceedings of the
House did he give his case away, or fail in the judgment
of competent and impartial listeners to gain the mastery.
" These characteristics, which marked Garfield as a
great debater, did not, however, make him a great parlia
mentary leader. A parliamentary leader, as that term
388 HIDDEN TREASURES.
is understood wherever free representative government
exists, is necessarily and very strictly the organ of his
party. An ardent American defined the instinctive
warmth of patriotism when he offered the toast, Our
country, always right; but right or wrong, our county.
The parliamentary leader who has a body of follower that
will do and dare and die for the cause, is one who be
lieves his party always right, but right or wrong, is for
his party. No more important or exacting duty devolves
upon him than the selection of the field and the time
for contest. He must know not merely how to
strike, but where to strike and when to strike.
He often skillfully avoids the strength of his oppo
nent s position, and scatters confusion in his ranks by
attacking an exposed point when really the righteousness
of the cause and the strength of logical intrenchment are
against him. He conquers often both against the right
and the heavy battalions ; as when young Charles Fox,
in the days of his Toryism, carried the House of Com
mons against justice, against its immemorial rights,
against his own convictions, if, indeed, at that period
Fox had convictions, and, in the interest of a corrupt
administration, in obedience to a tyrannical sovereign,
drove Wilkes from the seat to which the electors of Mid
dlesex had chosen him, and installed Luttrell, in defiance
not merely of law but of public decency. For an achieve
ment of that kind Garfield was disqualified disqualified
by the texture of his mind, by the honesty of his heart,
by his conscience, and by every instinct and aspiration
of his nature.
"The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders
hitherto developed in this country are Mr. Clay, Mr.
Douglas, and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. They were all men
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 389
of consummate ability, of great earnestness, of intense
personality, differing widely each from the others, and
yet with a signal trait in common the power to com
mand. In the give-and-take of daily discussion, in the
art of controlling and consolidating reluctant and refrac
tory followers, in the skill to overcome all forms of
opposition, and to meet with competency and courage
the varying phases of unlooked-for assault or unsus
pected defection, it would be difficult to rank with these
a fourth name in all our Congressional history. But of
these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would, perhaps, be
impossible to find in the parliamental annals of the
world a parallel to Mr. Clay, in 1841, when at sixty-four
years of age he took the control of the Whig party from
the President who had received their suffrages, against
the power of Webster in the Cabinet, against the elo
quence of Choate in the Senate, against the herculean
efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise in the House.
In unshared leadership, in the pride and plentitude of
power, he hurled against John Tyler, with deepest scorn
the mass of that conquering column w^hich had swept
over the land in 1840, and drove his administration to
seek shelter behind the lines of its political foes. Mr.
Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful, when
in 1854, against the secret desires of a strong adminis
tration, against the wise counsel of the older chiefs,
against the conservative instincts, and even the moral
sense of the country, he forced a reluctant Congress into
a repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Stevens, in
his contests from 1865 to 1868, actually advanced his
parliamentary leadership until Congress tied the hands
of the President and governed the country by its own
will, leaving only perfunctory duties to be discharged
390 HIDDEN TREASURES.
by the Executive. With two hundred millions of patron
age in his hands at the opening of the contest, aided by
the active force of Seward in the Cabinet, and the moral
power of Chase on the bench, Andrew Johnson could not
command the support of one-third in either House against
the parliamentary uprising of which Thaddeus Stevens
was the animating spirit and the unquestioned leader.
"From these three great men Garfield differed radi
cally, differed in the quality of his mind, in temperament,
in the form and phase of ambition. He could not do
what they did, but he could do what they could not, and
in the breadth of his Congressional work he left that
which will longer exert a potential influence among men,
and which, measured by the severe test of posthumous
criticism, will secure a more enduring and more enviable
fame.
"Those unfamiliar with Garfield s industry, and igno-
tant of the details of his work may, in some degree,
measure them by the annals of Congress. No one of the
generation of public men to which he belonged has con
tributed so much that will prove valuable for future
reference. His speeches are numerous, many of them
brilliant, all of them well studied, carefully phrazed, and
exhaustive of the subject under consideration. Collected
from the scattered pages of ninety royal octavo volumes
of Congressional record, they would present an invalua
ble compendium of the political events of the most im
portant era through which the National government has
ever passed. When the history of this period shall be
impartially written, when war legislation, measures
of reconstruction, protection of human rights, amend
ments to the Constitution, maintenance of public
credit, steps toward specie resumption, true theories of
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 391
revenue, may be reviewed, unsurrounded by prejudice
and disconnected from partisanism, the speeches of Gar-
field will be estimated at their true value, and will be
found to comprise a vast magazine of fact and argument,
of clear analysis and sound conclusion. Indeed, if no
other authority were accessible, his speeches in the
House of Representatives from December, 1863, to June,
1880, would give a well-connected history and complete
defense of the important legislation of the seventeen
eventful years that constitute his parliamentary life.
Far beyond that, his speeches would be found to fore
cast many great measures yet to be completed measures
which he knew were beyond the public opinion of the
hour, but which he confidently believed would secure
popular approval within the period of his own lifetime,
and by the aid of his own- efforts.
"Differing as Garfield does, from the brilliant parlia
mentary leaders, it is not easy to find his counterpart
anywhere in the record of American public life. He,
perhaps, more nearly resembles Mr. Seward in his
supreme faith in the all-conquering power of a principle.
He had the love of learning, and the patient industry of
investigation, to which John Quincy Adams owes his
prominence and his presidency. He had some of those
ponderous elements of mind which distinguished Mr.
Webster, and which, indeed, in all our public life have
left the great Massachusetts Senator without an intel
lectual peer.
"In English parliamentary history, as in our own,
the leaders in the House of Commons present points of
essential difference from Garfield. But some of his
methods recall the best features in the strong, indepen
dent course of Sir Robert Peel, to whom he had striking
392 HIDDEN TREASURES.
resemblances in the type of his mind and in the habit of
his speech. He had all of Burke s love for the sublime
and the beautiful with, possibly, something of his super
abundance. In his faith and his magnanimity, in his
power of statement, in his subtle analysis, in his fault
less logic, in his love of literature, in his wealth and
world of illustration, one is reminded of that great
English statesman of to-day, who, confronted with ob
stacles that would daunt any but the dauntless, reviled
by those whom he would relieve as bitterly as by those
whose supposed rights he is forced to invade, still labors
with serene courage for the amelioration of Ireland and
for the honor of the English name.
"Garfield s nomination to the presidency, while not
predicted or anticipated, was not a surprise to the
country. His prominence in Congress, his solid qualities,
his wide reputation, strengthened by his then recent
election as Senator from Ohio, kept him in the public
eye as a man occupying the very highest rank among
those entitled to be called statesmen. It was not mere
chance that brought him this high honor. We must,
says Mr. Emerson, reckon success a constitutional trait.
If Eric is in robust health and has slept well and is at
the top of his condition, and thirty years old at his
departure from Greenland, he will steer west and his
ships will reach Newfoundland. But take Eric out and
put in a stronger and bolder man, and the ships will sail
six hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred miles farther
and reach Labrador and New England. There is no
chance in results.
"As a candidate, Garfield steadily grew in popular
favor. He was met with a storm of detraction at the
rery hour of his nomination, and it continued with in-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 393
creasing volume and momentum until the close of his
victorious campaign :
No might nor greatness in mortality
Can censure scape ; baekwounding calumny
The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong
Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue ?
*********
"Surely, if happiness can ever come from the honors
or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning,
James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No
foreboding of evil haunted him ; no slightest premoni
tion of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was
upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect,
strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out
before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, help
less, doomed to weary weeks of torture, to silence, and
the grave.
"Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death.
For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wick
edness, by the red hand of murder, be was thrust from
the full tide of this world s interests, from its hopes, its
aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of
death and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short
moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up
life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days
of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not
less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and
calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What
blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may
tell what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high
ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood s
friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties !
Behind him a proud expectant nation, a great host of
sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wear-
394
HIDDEN TREASURES.
ing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears; the
wife of his youth, whose w^hole life lay in his; the little
boys not yet emerged from childhood s day of frolic;
the fair young daughter; the sturdy sons just springing
into closest companionship, claiming every day, and every
day rewarding a father s love and care ; and in his heart
the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demand. Before
him, desolation and great darkness! And his soul was
not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant,
profound and universal sympathy. Masterful in his
mortal weakness, he became the center of a nation s
love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the
love and all the sympathy could not share with him his
suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfalter
ing front he faced death. With unfailing tenderness he
took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the
assassin s bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple
resignation he bowed to the Divine decree.
"As the end drew near, his early cravings for the sea
returned. The stately mansion of power had been to
him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to
be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, sti
fling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness.
Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale
sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to
die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving
billows, within sound of its manifold voices. With wan,
fevered face, tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he
looked out wistfully upon the ocean s changing wonders;
on its fair sails, whitening in the morning light ; on its
restless waves, rolling shoreward, to break and die be
neath the noonday sun ; on the red clouds of evening,
arching low to the horizon ; on the serene and shining
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 395
pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes
read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting
soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of
the receding world be heard the great waves breaking on
a farther shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow
the breath of the eternal morning."
We regret that we cannot give our readers the full
speech here also, but it is sufficient to say that it was a
masterly production. We give these three extracts from
speeches to show, and enable the thinker to read and
study the characteristics which make Mr. Elaine the
great and renowned man that he really is to-day; an
honor he has earned for himself.
We do not desire to be regarded as a personal admirer
of Mr. Elaine. We are not, but his ability we are in
duty bound to delineate truthfully. Our readers will
observe the description Mr. Elaine gives in his address
on Garfield, of the qualifications necessary in a parlia
mentary leader. We will say nothing as to our opinion
of some enterprises in which Mr. Elaine has engaged;
and we will not ask him to explain, what he has never
satisfactorily explained, in relation to some transactions,
nor will we try to explain, in our short space, his skill-
fullness in parliamentary practice. As before said, our
readers have read his description of a parliamentary
leader, and we will further simply say that Mr. Elaine is
one of the most skillful parliamentary leaders in the
country. He is generally recognized as such by all
parties. His canvass for the presidency is well-known
to the people. Had he been elected he would, undoubtedly,
have made a very satisfactory president, probably one
of whom we would long have been proud.
396 HIDDEN TREASURES.
SAMUEL J, TILDEN.
IN 1814 there was born at New Lebanon, New York, an
infant son to- Elam Tilden, a prosperous farmer. His
father, being a personal and political friend of Mr. Van
Buren and other members of the celebrated Albany
Regency ; his home. was made a kind of headquarters for
various members of that council to whose conversation
the precocious hild enjoyed to listen.
Mr. Tilden declared of himself that he had no youth.
As a boy he was diffident, and was studying and investi
gating when others were playing and enjoying the pleas
ures of society. From the beginning he was a calculator.
Martin Van Buren, to whom he was greatly attached,
often spoke of him as The sagacious Sammy.
Thrown into contact with such men at his parent s
home, he early evinced a fondness for politics which first
revealed itself in an essay on The Political Aspect, dis
playing ability far beyond one of his years, which was
printed in the Albany Argus, and which was attributed
to Mr. Van Buren, at that time the leader of the Albany
Regency.
At twenty he entered Yale College, but ill-health com
pelled his return home. He, however, afterward resumed
his studies at the University of New York ; graduating
from that instution he began the practice of law. At
the bar he became known as a sound, but not especially
brilliant pleader. In 1866 he was chosen Chairman of
the State Committee of his party. In 1870-1, he was
largely instrumental in unearthing frauds perpetrated in
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 897
the city of New York, and in 1874 was elected the reform
governor of the great Empire State. Although in
political discord with Mr. Tilden, it is in no disparaging
sense that we speak of him. It is in the sense of a his
torian bound and obligated to truth that we view him.
We regard him as the MYSTERIOUS STATESMAN OF AMERI
CAN HISTORY.
His personal character was, to a great extent, shrouded
from the public in a veil of mystery, which had both its
voluntary and involuntary elements. If Mr. Tilden had
desired to be otherwise than mysterious it would have
required much more self-control and ingenuity than
would have been necessary to thicken the veil to in-
penetr ability.
His habit was to weigh both sides of every question,
and therein he resembled, though in other particulars
entirely different, the late Henry J. Raymond, the founder
of the New York Times ; and the effect was to some ex
tent similar, for each of these men saw both sides of
every question so fully as to be under the power of both
sides, which sometimes produced an equilibrium, caus
ing hesitation when the crisis required action.
Mr. Tilden had intellectual qualities of the very
highest order. He could sit down before a mass of inco
herent statements, and figures that would drive most
men insane, and elucidate them by the most painstak
ing investigation, and feel a pleasure in the work. In
deed, an intimate friend of his assures us that his eye
would gleam with delight when a task was set before
him from which most men would pay large sums to be
relieved : Hence, his abilities were of a kind that made
him a most dangerous opponent.
Some persons supposed that Mr. Tilden was a poor
398 HIDDEN TREASURES.
.speaker because, when he was brought before the
people as a candidate for President of the United States,
lie was physically unable to speak with much force. But
twenty years ago, for clearness of statement, and for an
easy and straightforward method of speech he had few
superiors. His language was excellent, his manner that
of a man who had something to say and was intent upon
saying it. He was at no time a tricky orator, nor did he
aim at rousing the feelings, but in the clearest possible
manner he would make his points and no amount of preju
dice was sufficient to resist his conclusions. He was a
great reader, and reflected on all that he read.
No more extraordinary episode ever occurred than
his break with William M. Tweed, and his devoting him
self to the overthrow of that gigantic ring. It is not
our purpose to treat the whole subject ; yet, the manner
of the break was so tragic that it should be detailed.
William M. Tweed had gone on buying men and legisla
tures, and enriching himself until he had reached the
state of mind in which he said to the public, "What are
you going to do about it ?" He had gone further. He
had applied it to the leading men of the Democratic
party. The time came when he sat in his gorgeously
furnished apartment in Albany, as Chairman of a certain
committee of the Senate. Samuel J. Tilden appeared
before the committee to represent a certain interest. On
that occasion Mr. Tweed, who was either intoxicated
with liquor, or intoxicated with pride and vanity, grossly
insulted Mr. Tilden, spoke to him in the most disre
spectful manner, and closed by saying : "You ARE AN OLD
HUMBUG; YOU ALWAYS WERE A HUMBUG, AND WE DON T
WANT TO HEAR ANYTHING FROM YOU ! "
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 399
Mr. Tilden turned pale, and then red, and finally
livid. A spectator, a man second to none in New York
State for position, informed the writer that as he gazed
upon Mr. Tilden he was terrified. Not a word did he
utter; he folded up his books and papers and departed.
As he went the spectator said to himself, "This man
means murder; there will ne^er be any accommodation
of this difficulty." Back to the City of New York went
Mr. Tilden. He sat down with the patience and with
the keen scent of a sleuth-hound, and unravelled all the
mystery of the iniquity which had cursed the City of<
New York, and of which William M. Tweed was the
master-spirit.
Judge Noah Davis said to an acquaintance that Mr.
Tilden s preparation of the cases against Tweed and his
confederates was one of the most remarkable things of
which he had ever seen or heard. He said that Tilden
would take the mutilated stubbs of check-books, and
construct a story from them. He had restored the case
of the city against the purloiners as an anatomist, by the
means of two or three bones, would draw you a picture
of the animal which had inhabited them in the palaeon-
tological age. 7 It will be remembered that Judge Noah
Davis tried the cases and sentenced Tweed.
It is not necessary for us to conjecture whether Mr.
Tilden would have appeared as the reformer if he had not
been grossly insulted by Tweed. That he had not so ap
peared until the occasion referred to, and that immedi
ately afterward he began the investigation and move
ments which ended in the total overthrow of the ring and
its leader, are beyond question. There came a time
when Tweed, trembling in his very soul, sent a com
munication to Mr. Tilden offering anything if he would
400 HIDDEN TREASURES.
relax, but no bronze statue was ever more silent and
immovable than Samuel J. Tilden at that time. It is
remarkable that a man so silent and mysterious, not to
say repellent, in his intercourse with his fellow-men
could exert such a mighty influence as he unquestion
ably did. He did it by controlling master-minds, and by
an apprehension rarely or never surpassed of the details
to be wrought out by other men.
Mr. Tilden was capable of covering his face with a
mask, which none could penetrate. The following scene
occurred upon a train on the Hudson River road. Mr.
Tilden was engaged in a most animated conversation
with a leading member of the Republican party with
whom he entertained personal confidential relations.
The conversation was one that brought all Mr. Tilden s
learning and logical forces into play. It was semi-liter
ary, and not more political than was sufficient to give
piquancy to the interview. A committee of the lower
class of ward politicians approaching, Mr. Tilden turned
to receive him, and in the most expressionless manner
held out his hand. His eye lost every particle of lustre
and seemed to sink back and down. The chairman of
the committee stated the point he had in view. Mr.
Tilden asked him to restate it once or twice ; made curi
ous and inconsequential remarks, appeared like a man
just going to sleep, and finally said : "I will see you on
the subject on a future occasion." The committee with
drew. In one moment he resumed the conversation with
the brilliancy and vivacity of a boy. Subsequently the
chairman of the committee said to the leading Republi
can, whom he also knew: "Did you ever see the old
man so nearly gone as he was to-day? Does he often get
so? Had he been taking a drop too much 7 ?
25
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 401
He was at no time in his career embarrassed in his
intellectual operations by his emotional nature ; he was
a man of immense brain-power, and his intellect was
trained up to the last possibility; every faculty was
under his control ; until his health failed he knew no
such other source of joy as WORK.
Craft had a very important place in his composition,
but it was not the craft of the fox ; it was a species of
craft which at its worst was above mere pettifogging,
and at its best was unquestionably a high type of diplo
macy. Those mistake who considered him only as a
cunning man. A person opposed to him in politics, but
who made a study of his career, observed that in power
of intellect he had no superior at the bar of New York,
nor among the statesmen of the whole country. The
supreme crisis of his life was when he believed himself
elected President of the United States. The political
aspect we will not revive, except to say that Mr. Tilden
consented to the peculiar method of determining the
case. The departure of David Davis from the supreme
bench in all human probability determined the result.
It is known that Abram S % Hewitt, David Dudley
Field, and eminent Democratic leaders, Hewitt being
chairman of the National Democratic committee at the
time, did all in their power to induce Mr. Tilden to issue
a letter to the American people saying that he believed
himself to be the President elect, and that on the fourth
day of March 1877, he would come to Washington to be
inaugurated. Had that been done God alone can tell
what would have been the result. In all probability a
coup d etat on one side or the other, followed by civil war
or practical change in the character of the relations of
the people to the Federal Government. At that moment
402 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Mr. Tilden s habit of balancing caused him to pursue the
course that he did. It is reported that Mr. Tilden s letter
explaining to Mr. Hewitt the reason why he would not
do so is still in existence. Of this we know nothing ;
but that he had reasons and assigned them is certain.
Why he consented to the method of arbitration is one
of the mysteries of his career. Taking all the possi
bilities into account, the fact that the issue passed with
out civil war is an occasion of devout thankfulness to
Almighty God. But the method of determing the ques
tion is one which the good sense of the American people
will never repeat.
Mr. Tilden must have had considerable humor in his
composition. Some years ago a Methodist preacher came
to the city of New York to raise money for a certain church
in Pennsylvania which had been grievously embarrassed.
He stayed at the house of one of the ministers in Brook
lyn. One evening he said to his host: "I am going to
call on Samuel J. Tilden and see if I can t get something
out of him for our church. He has a barrel/ and I un
derstand it is pretty full." The next morning he went,
and on returning said to his host: "Well, I called on Mr.
Tilden, and I said:" "Mr. Tilden, I am from , such
a place, in Pennsylvania. My name is - . I am
pastor of a church there. We have met with great mis
fortunes, and are likely to lose our church. There are
more than sixty members of my church that voted for
you for President, and they are ready to vote for you
again, and they wanted me to call on you and tell you of
their misfortune, and ask you to give them a little help."
"Well, what did Mr. Tilden say?" "He looked up
and said he was busy, but told me to come the next
morning at nine o clock." He went, and on his return
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 403
.Teported, when the question : "What did Mr. Tilden say" ?
was asked. " He said to rue, Your name is - ? You
.are from , in Pennsylvania ? You said that you had
.more than sixty members who voted for me for Presi
dent, and who are ready to do it again ? "Yes." "And
.they wanted you to tell me of their misfortune " ? "Yes."
Then pulling out of his pocket-book he counted what
money he had, which amounted to $15, and handed me
$14, and said : " You tell them that Samuel J. Tilden
gave you ALL THE MONEY HE HAD EXCEPT ONE DOLLAR,
>WHICH HE KEPT FOR HIMSELF." In all probability he was
^satirizing an appeal under those circumstances.
For his service in breaking up the Tweed ring, and
for his career as Governor of the State of New York,
apart from purely party aspects, he is entitled to the
thanks of the people. His own party will say to the
end of time that he was elected president of the United
States, and defrauded out of the office. But neither
they nor anyone else can say, after the plan was agreed
upon and adopted for determining the result, that the
person who did occupy the chair did not have a legal
right there, and was not president after the acceptance
by the House of Representatives of the conclusion.
Mr. Tilden will never be considered inferior in in
tellect and learning to the many great men of whom
New York can proudly boast. He will ever be ranked
with Daniel Tompkins, George Clinton, William L.
Marcy, Silas Wright, William H. Seward, John A. Dix
.and many others, and it is not strange that it was with
a feeling of deep and genuine regret that on the 4th of
August, 1886, the people were told of his sudden death
;at Greystone.
404 HIDDEN TREASURES.
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
A STURDY tree, standing alone in a vast field, sug
gesting strength, growth and independence, and
regarded both as a landmark and a shelter; withstand
ing alike the heats of summer and wrestling with and
throwing off the blasts of winter; drawing from Nature
her myriad stores of nutrition and giving back to Nature
a wealth of power and grace in return; seemed Henry
Ward Beecher, in his youth of old age, to the observa
tion of men. Original orator, advocate, poet, humorist,
agitator, rhetorician, preacher, moralist and statesman.
The greatest preacher of modern times, possibly of all
times, the man was one of the wonders of America; one
of the marvels of the world.
Henry Ward Beecher s career has been phenominal
for the activity and variety of its achievements. Coming
from a long line of mentally alert and physically vigor
ous ancestors, he was richly endowed with the qualities
going to make up the highest type of human nature.
He was handicapped only in being the son of a man
whose fame was world-wide ; a preacher of such in
tensity of spirit and eloquence of expression that he
stood at the head of, if not above, all of his contempo
raries. Yet, while Dr. Lyman Beecher will always hold
an honored place in American history and biography,
who can deny that his fame has been far outshone by
that of his brilliant son ? It may be truly said, there
fore, that Henry Ward Beecher won a double triumph.
He emerged from the comparative obscurity in which
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 405
he dwelt, behind the shadow of his father s greatness,
and he lived to see his own name emblazoned more
brightly and engraved more indellibly upon the records
of time than that of his noble father.
HewasbornatLitchfield, Connecticut, June 24th, 1813.
His father was a busy minister, and the mother divided
her time among several children, so that no especial at
tention was paid to Henry Ward, nor was he considered
more promising than some of the others. He was not,
by any means, fond of books in early life. He gives the
following sketch of himself in one of his personal writ
ings: A hazy image of myself comes back to me a
lazy, dreamy boy, with his head on the desk, half-lulled
asleep by the buzzing of a great blue-bottle fly, and the
lowing of the cows, and the tinkling of their bells,
brought into the open door, across the fields and
meadows/ Through the advice of his father, he attended
Mount Pleasant Academy. Afterwards he attended Am-
herst College where he graduated in 1834. During his
last two years of school, Beecher followed the example
of many another young man who has since attained
eminence in his chosen profession, and taught in district
schools. With the money thus obtained he laid the
foundation upon which he built that splendid super-
tructure which is recalled at the sound of his name.
Dr. Lyman Beecher meanwhile had accepted a pro
fessorship at Lane Seminary, Cincinnati, and having
decided to follow the ministry, the son went West this
same year and began the study of theology under his
father. He finished his course three years later, married,
and accepted the first charge offered him; a small Pres
byterian Church in Lawrenceburg, a little town on the
406 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Ohio river, near Cincinnati. Of this dismal beginning of
his illustrious career he said :
"How poor we were ! There were only about twenty
persons in the flock. I was janitor as well as pastor of
the little white- washed church. I bought some lamps
and I filled them and lighted them. I swept the church
and dusted the benches, and kindled the fire, and I
didn t ring the bell, because there wasn t any; did every
thing in fact but come to hear myself preach, that they
had to do. It doesn t occur to me now that Lawrence-
burg was remarkable for anything but a superabundance
of distilleries. I used to marvel how so many large dis
tilleries could be put in so small a town. But they were
flourishing right in the face of the Gospel, that my little
flock and I were preaching in the shadows of the
chimneys. My thoughts often travel back to my quaint-
little church and the big distilleries at Lawrenceburg.
Well, my next move was to Indianapolis. There I had
a more considerable congregation, though I was still far
from rich in the world s goods. I believe I was very
happy during my eight years out there. I liked the
people. There was a hearty frankness, a simplicity in
their mode of life, an unselfish intimacy in their social
relations that attracted me. They were new people
unharrowed and uncultured like the land they lived on
but they were earnest and honest and strong. But the
ague shook us out of the State. My wife s health gave
out and we were forced to come East."
From this it would seem that chills and fever were
the means used by Providence for bringing Henry Ward
Beecher and Plymouth Church together. The church
came into existence on the 8th of May, 1847, when six
gentlemen met in Brooklyn at the house of one of their
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 407
number, Mr. Henry C. Bowen, the present proprietor of
the Independent, and formed themselves into a company
of trustees of a new Congregational Church, the services
of which they decided to begin holding at once in an
edifice on Cranberry street, purchased from the Presby
terians. The following week Mr. Beecher happened to
speak in New York, at the anniversary of the Home
Missionary Society. He had already attracted some
attention by his anti-slavery utterances, and the fearless
manner in which he had preached against certain popular
vices.
The founders of the new congregation invited him to
deliver the opening sermon on the 16th. A great audi
ence was present, and shortly afterwards the young
preacher was asked to become the first pastor of the
organization. He accepted, and on the 10th of the fol
lowing October he entered upon the term of service
which lasted until the day of his death. And what a
pastorate that was ! The congregation readily grew in
numbers and influence until Plymouth Church and Henry
Ward Beecher became household words all over the land,
and a trip to Brooklyn to hear the great preacher grew
to be an almost indispensable part of a stranger s visit
to New York.
At the opening of the civil war, in 1861, Mr. Beecher
undertook the editorship of the Independent which, like
the church under his administration, speedily became a
power in the country. In addition to all this work he
was continually delivering speeches ; for from the firing
of the first gun on Fort Sumpter on April 12th, Plymouth s
pastor was all alive to the needs of the nation. With
voice and pen he pointed out the path of duty in that
dark and trying hour, and his own church promptly re-
408 HIDDEN TBEASURES.
sponded to the call by organizing and equipping the
First Long Island regiment. But the strain of this three
fold service preaching, speaking and editing, was too
much for his strength, powerful and well-grounded, as
he was, physically. His voice gave out at last, and doc
tor s imperatively demanded rest. This brought about
the trip to Europe which was destined to be remembered
as the most remarkable epoch in the remarkable career
of this man.
Decidedly the most memorable oratorical success
ever achieved by an American citizen abroad, in behalf
of the name and honor of his country, was that by the
Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, which he achieved during
this trip. Undertaking the journey for recreation and
recuperation he was bitterly opposed by his friends in
his decision, but he saw there was work to be done, and
felt that he must do it. Beginning at Manchester, Octo
ber 9th, Mr. Beecher delivered five great speeches in the
great cities of the kingdom, Manchester, Glasgow, Edin
burgh, Liverpool and London, each speech being devoted
to some special train of thought and argument bearing
upon the issues involved in the momentous contest ; and
the whole series taken together did more for the Union
cause in Great Britain than all that had before been said
or written. Possessing the faculty beyond any other
American orator of combining close, rapid, powerful,
practical reasoning with intense passion his mind al
ways aglow with his subject the effect of Mr. Beecher s
speaking was to kindle sympathy, even if it did not flash
conviction. It is this quality, according to the opinion
of those best acquainted with Mr. Beecher s oratory,
which combined with his marvelous power of illustra
tion, marvelous alike for its intense vividness and un-
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 409
erring pertinency, and his great flexibility whereby he
seemed to adapt himself completely to the exigency of
the instant gave him rare command over a popular
assemblage.
Mayor Carrington, of Richmond, tells the following :
"He went to Richmond in 1881, his first appearance there
after the war, and he was somewhat doubtful as to the
reception he would get. He walked onto the stage where
he was to lecture, before a crowded house, and was not
greeted with the slightest welcoming applause. Imme
diately in front of the stage facing Mr. Beecher were
several leading ex-generals of the Confederate army,
among them General Fitz-Hugh Lee. Mr. Beecher sur
veyed the cold and critical audience for a moment, and
then stepping directly in front of General Lee, he said,
*I have seen pictures of General Fitz-Hugh Lee, and
judge you are the man ; am I right V General Lee was
taken aback by this direct address, and nodded stiffly,
while the audience bent forward breathless with curios
ity as to what was going to follow. Then/ said Beecher,
his face ligthing up, I want to offer you this right hand
which, in its own way, fought against you and yours
twenty-five years ago. but which I would now willingly
sacrifice to make the Sunny South prosperous and
happy. Will you take it, General ? " There was a
moment s hesitation, a moment of death-like stillness in
the hall, and then General Lee was on his feet, his hand
was extended across the footlights, and was quickly met
by the preacher s warm grasp. At first there was a mur
mur, half surprise, half-doubtfulness, by the audience.
Then there was a hesitating clapping of hands, and
before Mr. Beecher had loosed the hand of Robert E. Lee s
nephew, now Governor of Virginia there were cheers
410 HIDDEN TREASURES.
such as were ne\er before heard in that hall, though
it had been the scene of many a war and political meet
ing. When the noise subsided, Mr. Beecher continued :
When I go back home I shall proudly tell that I have
grasped the hand of the nephew of the great Southern
Chieftain ; I shall tell my people that I went to the Con
federate capitol with a heart full of love for the people
whom my principles once obliged me to oppose, and that
I was met half way by the brave Southerners who can
forgive, as well as they can fight. That night Beecher
entered his carriage and drove to his hotel amid shouts,
such as had never greeted a Northern man since the war."
The famous Beecher-Tilton trial began in a series of
whispers. With such an immense congregation, with
everybody in Brooklyn familiar with his affairs, and with
the whole community seemingly resolved into an im
mense gossipping committee, it was no wonder that
rumors and report went flying about until at last, in the
summer of 1874, Plymouth Church appointed a commit
tee to investigate the charges preferred by Theodore
Tilton against Mr. Beecher.
Mr. Tilton read a sworn statement detailing his
charges and specifying the actions of Mrs. Tilton and
Mr. Beecher during the previous two years. This was
on July 28th, and on the next day Mr. Beecher made his
speech declaring the innocence of Mrs. Tilton; and she,
too, testified in her own defense. Mr. Beecher made an
elaborate statement before his congregation, August 14th,
denying all immorality. Mr. and Mrs. Tilton were sub
jected to a most thorough examination and cross-exami
nation, and then Mr. Francis D. Moulton, the famous
mutual friend, came into the matter with his story of a
most remarkable series of confessions and letters. The
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 411
committee reported its findings at the weekly prayer-
meeting, August 28th. Mr. Beecher was acquitted, and
Mr. Moulton was most vigorously denounced, and when
he left the meeting it was under police protection,
because of the fury of the friends of the pastor. Before
this Mr. Tilton had concluded to go to the courts, and
on August 19th opened a suit for $100,000 against Mr.
Beecher. It was not until October 17th that Judge Neil-
son granted an order for a bill of particulars against the
plaintiff, and William M. Evarts, for Mr. Beecher, and
Roger A. Pryor for Mr. Tilton, carried the case up to the
Court of Appeals, where the decision of the general term
was reversed, and on December 7th, the new motion for
a bill was granted.
It was on January 4th, 1875, that the case was taken
up in the City Court of Brooklyn. For Mr. Tilton ap
peared General Pryor, ex-Judge Fullerton, William A.
Beach and S. D. Morris; while on the other side were
William M. Evarts, General Benjamin F. Tracy and
Thomas G. Shearman. The first witness was Editor
Maverick, who testified on the 13th of January to the
Tilton marriage. Mr. Tilton took the stand on January
29th, and Mr. Evarts objected to his being sworn, and
took several days to state his objections. From Febru
ary 2nd to February 17th, Mr. Tilton was on the stand,
and the case for the defense opened on February 25th,
and the first witness took the stand March 2nd. Mr.
Beecher took the stand April 1st, and affirmed his testi
mony. He kept the stand until April 21st, and on May
13th the testimony on both sides closed after the ex
amination of one hundred and eleven witnesses, and the
consumption of four and one-half months of time. Mr.
Evarts took eight days for his summing up, and other
412 HIDDEN TREASURES.
counsel for the defense six more. Mr. Beach talked for
nine days, and Judge Neilson, on June 24th, charged the
jury, which, after a consultation of eight days, reported
on July 2nd, that they were unable to agree. All through
the trial Mrs. Beecher sat beside her husband in court.
The court was packed day after day, and in the daily papers
thousands of columns were consumed in reporting every
word uttered. It was never tried again.
The enormous expense of the defense was met by a
generous subscription. Mr. Beecher s letters were re
markable productions for any man other than Beecher
to pen, and the explanation of them so that the jury
men, and men generally, could comprehend them was
the task of his counsel. Mr. Tilton is now in Europe,
and Mrs. Tilton is in this country. Mr. Beecher passed
through the ordeal of his life in safety, and since the
trial he has been watched as no man ever has been
before or since.
He was unquestionably one of the most able, if not
the ablest, preacher the world ever knew, and it is not
strange that the country should be startled at the an
nouncement of his sudden death on march 7th, 1887, at
his home in Brooklyn.
Henry Ward Beecher is already as historical a char-
actor as Patrick Henry; with this exception, that where
as there are multitudes living who have seen and heard
Mr. Beecher, and many who knew him personally; there
are few, if any, who can remember Patrick Henry. Mr.
Beecher was the most versatile and ready orator this
country has ever produced, a kind of Gladstone in the
pulpit. He was a master of every style; could be as de
liberate and imposing as Webster; as chaste and self-
contained as Phillips; as witty and irregular as Thomas
FROM OBSCURITY TO GREAT HONOR. 413
Corwin ; as grandiloquent as Charles Sumner ; as
dramatic as father Taylor, and as melo-dramatic as
Gough.
To attempt to analyze the sources of his power is like
exhibiting the human features separately, in the hope
of giving the effect of a composite whole; for whether
he moved his finger, elevated his brow, smiled, frowned,
whispered or vociferated, each act or expression derived
its power from the fact that it was the act and expres
sion of Henry Ward Beecher. His oratory was marked
by the entire absence of trammels, of rhetoric gesture
or even grammar. Not that his style was not ordinarily
grammatical and rhetorical, but that he w r ould never
allow any rules to impede the expression of his thought
and especially of his feelings, nor was he restrained by
theological forms, and always appeared independent and
courageous. He believed in the absolute necessity of
conversion and a thorough change of heart; he taught
the beauty of living a religious life, for the nobleness of
the deeds rather than for the purpose of escaping a
future punishment, and his sayings in this connection
were often misconstrued.
He stimulated the intellect by wit ; he united the
heart and mind by humor ; he melted the heart by un
mixed pathos. He was characterized by the strange
power of creating an expectation with every sentence
he uttered, and though he might on some occasions, when
not at his best, close without meeting the expectations
aroused, no dissatisfaction was expressed or apparently
felt by his hearers. In personal appearance he was re
markable, chiefly for the great transformation of his
countenance under the play of emotion.
On the platform of Plymouth Church he was as a
414 HIDDEN TREASURES.
king upon his throne, or the commander of a war-ship
in victorious action. His manners in private life were
most ingratiating, His writings can impart to coming
generations no adequate conception of his power
as an orator. His career in England during those
five great speeches were worth 50,000 soldiers to the
National government, and probably had much to do with
the prevention of the recognition of the Southern Con
federacy by European nations. It was a triumph of
oratory ; he literally compelled a vast multitude, who
were thoroughly in opposition to him, to take a new view
of the subject.
A Metropolitan in the pulpit, a magician on the plat
form, a center of life and good cheer in the home, a prince
in society possessed of exhaustive vitality, warmth and
energy, he suggested to any one who gazed upon him
the apostrophe of Hamlet to the ideal man : " What a
piece of work is man ! How noble in reason ! How
infinite in faculties ! In form and moving how express
and admirable ! In action how like an angel ! In appre
hension how like a god ! The beauty of the World, the
paragon of animals ! " Such a piece of work was Henry
Ward Beecher. He had no predecessor, and can have no
successor till a similar ancestry and life ; the one coeval
with birth, and the other running parallel with the lusty
youth of such a nation, and a similar life and death
struggle, both in a conflict of moral principles fought
out under a Democratic form of Government, shall com
bine to evolve a similar career. The course of human
history does not furnish a probability of another coin
cidence of elements so extraordinary.
PERCEPTION.
Engraved Expressly for " Hidden Treasures.
IN this advanced age we know the power of steam, and
what a great factor it is as a help in carrying on the
daily work of life. Yet, it is only during the last
century that men have discovered to how many purposes
it can be applied.
James Watt, the great utilizer of steam, was born in
Greenock, Scotland, January 19th, 1736. His father was
a carpenter and general merchant in Greenock, and seems
to have been highly respected, for he was long a mem
ber of the council, and for a time magistrate. James
was a sickly child, unable to attend school with regu
larity, hence was left to follow his own inclinations ;
becoming his own instructor, to a great extent. The
boy was early furnished with tools by his father, and
415
416 HIDDEN TREASURES.
with them found amusement and instruction. He early
manifested a taste for mathematics and mechanics,
studied botany, chemistry, mineralogy, natural philoso
phy, and at fourteen constructed an electrical machine.
At the age of eighteen he was sent to Glasgow to learn
to make mathematical instruments, but for some reason
he went to London the same year, engaging with one
Morgan, working at the same trade. Ill-health, however,
compelled his return home about a year later. He had
made great use of his time while in London, and after
his health had improved somewhat he again visited
Glasgow with the desire of establishing himself there,
but met with opposition from some who considered him
an intruder, upon their privileges. The Principal of the
college, appreciating his fine tact and ingenuity, offered
him protection and gave him an apartment for carrying
on his business within their precinct, with the title of
"Mathematical Instrument Maker to the University."
But this location was unfavorable for his business. He
was scarcely able to make a living, however, the five or
six years he passed in those quarters were well employed
in investigations, and during the time he unmistakably
manifested rare abilty.
As soon as possible he secured a better situation in
town, and after this change did much better, still it is.
said : "He had to eke out his living by repairing fiddles,
which he was able to do, though he had no ear for music,"
also, in doing any mechanical piece of work that came
in his way ; no work requiring ingenuity or the applica
tion of scientific knowledge seems to have baffled him.
But he kept studying, devoting his evenings and spare
moments to the mastery of German, Italian, mastered
some of the sciences, learned to sketch, was a superior
26
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 417
model-maker ; and, if his profession had been defined at
the time he first turned his attention to steam, having
constructed an improved organ, he would have been
spoken of as a musical-instrument maker.
In 1858 he began his experiments with steam as a
propelling power for land carriages, which he tempor
arily abandoned, and did not patent a road engine until
1784. In 1767 he assumed a new occupation, for in that
year he was employed to make the surveys and prepare
the estimates for a projected canal to connect the Forth
and Clyde. This project fell through for the time being,
as it failed to gain the sanction of Parliament, but Watt
had now made a beginning as civil engineer, and hence
forth he obtained a good deal of employment in this
capacity. He superintended the surveys and engineer
ing works on the Monkland Collieries Canal to Glasgow,
deepening the Clyde, improving the harbors of Ayr,
Port, Glasgow, and Greenock; building bridges and other
public works his final survey being for the Caledonia
Canal.
During this period he had invented an improved
micrometer, and also continued his experiments with
steam as a motive power. Perhaps it would be interest
ing to some of our readers to know how Watt tested the
power of steam. The implements with which he per
formed his experiments were of the cheapest kind.
Apothecaries vials, a glass tube or two, and a tea-kettle
enabled him to arrive at some very important conclu
sions. By attaching a glass tube to the nose of the tea
kettle he conducted the steam into a glass of water, and
by the time the water came to the boiling point, he found
its volume had increased nearly a sixth part ; that is, one
measure of water in the form of steam can raise about
418 HIDDEN TREASURES.
six measures of water to its own heat. It would be im
possible in our allotted space to tell fully of the many
experiments James Watt made. It is needless to say
that his success came by slow and discouraging channels,
so slow, indeed, that most men would have given up long
before.
His reputation was assailed by jealous rivals, his
originality denied, and his rights to various patents
vehemently contested. He was many times disappointed
in the workings of his own machines, and was obliged
to throw away pieces of machinery from which he had
expected much, while with others he had perfect success.
His experiments finally resulted in his invention of
the condensing engine. Now, he struggled for years,
through poverty and every imaginable difficulty, to
make a practical application of his improvements, doing
work as a surveyor in order to support himself.
In 1769 he became a partner of Mathew Boulton, a
large hardware dealer and manufacturer, of Birming
ham, England. Previously Mr. Boulton had built engines
after the plans of Savery, hence, he undoubtedly dis
cerned the great improvement over all engines then in
use, that this new discovery was sure to prove. He was
a man of wealth, and, in all probability, his personal
knowledge of such matters greatly aided his faith. No
other can be given, for he was obliged to advance over
$229,000 before Watt had so completely perfected his
engine that its operations yielded profit. But his con
fidence was not misplaced. The immense Birmingham
manufactory, which employed over one thousand hands,
was ultimately driven to its utmost capacity to supply
the constantly increasing demand for steam enginges.
It was first applied to coinage in 1783, from thirty to
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 419
forty thousand milled coins being struck off in an hour
as a test. Boulton & Watt sent two complete mints to
St. Petersburg, and for many years executed the entire
copper coinage of England.
Watt was the first to conceive the idea of warming
buildings by steam. He was the first to make a copy
ing-press; he also contrived a flexible iron pipe with
ball and socket joints, to adapt it to the irregular river
bed, for carrying water across the Clyde. At the time
of his death he was fellow of the Royal Societies of
London, and Edinburgh correspondent of the French
Institute, and foreign associate of the Academy of
Sciences. He was buried beside Boulton, in Hands worth
Church; his statue, by Chantery, is in Westminister
Abbey. The pedestal bears the following inscription :
"Not to perpetuate a name
Which must endure while the peaceful arts flourish,
But to show
That mankind have learned to honor those
Who best deserve their gratitude,
The King,
His Ministers, and many of the Nobles
And Commoners of the Realm,
Raised this Monument to
James Watt,
Who, directing the force of an original Genius,
Early exercised in philosophic research,
To the improvement of
The Steam Engine,
Enlarged. the resources of his Country,
Increased the power of man, and rose to an eminent place
Among ths most illustrious followers of Science
And the real benefactors of the World.
Born at Greenock, MDCCXXXVI,
Died at Heathfield, in Staffordshire, MDCCCXIX."
420 HIDDEN TEEASUEES.
The properties of steam had been known to a certain
extent for centuries. In the seventeenth century atten
tion was frequently directed by ingenious workers to the
uses of steam in performing simple but laborious occu
pations, such as pumping water out of the mines. To
other purposes steam was imperfectly applied, but it
remained for Watt to make more practical and efficient
use of it.
This, indeed, is the history of almost every useful art.
A discovery, which, after it is known, seems so simple
that every one wonders why it remained hiddened for so
many years, yet proves simple enough to immortalize the
name of the fortunate inventor. It is said there was
hardly a physical science or one art with which Watt
was not intimately acquainted. His philosophical judg
ment kept pace with his ingenuity. He studied modern
languages, and was acquainted with literature. His
memory was extremely tenacious, and whatever he once
learned he always had at his command ; and yet this
brave earnest worker and gifted man was a sufferer from
ill-health all his life. With constitutional debility, in
creased by anxiety and perplexity during the long process
of his inventions, and the subsequent care of defending
them in court; yet. through constant temperance and
watchfulness over his peculiar difficulties, his life was
preserved to the great age of eighty-three years. He
had in his character the utmost abhorrece for all parade
and presumption, and, indeed, never failed to put all
such imposters out of countenance by the manly plain
ness and honest intrepidity of his language and manner.
In his temper and disposition he was not only kind and
affectionate, but generous and considerate of the feelings
of all around him, and gave the most liberal assistance
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 421
and encouragement to all young persons who proved
any indication of talent, or applied to him for patronage
or advice. He was twice married, and left his two sons,
long associated with him in his business, to carry out
some of his plans and discoveries of the great utility and
power of steam. All men of learning and science were
his cordial friends, and such was the influence of his
mild character and perfect firmness and liberality, even
to pretenders of his own accomplishments, that he lived
to disarm even envy itself, and died the peaceful death
of a Christian without, it is thought, a single enemy.
GEORGE STEPHENSON,
TV SMALL collection of houses in a mining district,
J\ called Wylam, about nine miles west of Newcastle-
on-Tyne, we find to be the birth-place of George Stephen-
son, born June 9th, 1781.
His father was a very humble workman, who filled the
position of fireman of the pumping-engine in use at the
colliery, at three dollars a week. With a wife and six
children to support, there was not much left after satis
fying the cravings of hunger. The children, soon as
opportunity afforded, were set at work to help support
the family. We find young George beginning life pulling
turnips at two pence a clay. At eight years old he tended
Widow Ainslie s cows at five cents a day. Later, he re
ceived fifty cents a week when caring for horses.
422 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Of course, it is the rule to find something in the boy
indicative of the man, and in Stephenson s case, legend
or history furnishes the material. It seems that while
acting as herder, in company with other boys, it was his
favorite amusement to model engines out of clay. After
a time he received a dollar a week as assistant to his
father, and at the age of sixteen he was appointed to
work as attendant upon the pumping-engine, at men s
wages, three dollars per week. He was delighted, and
it is doubtful if he was ever happier over subsequent
triumphs as a locomotive builder, than when he was ele
vated to this position. He was employed at various
collieries, as fireman, and afterwards as plugman, and
gradually acquired so complete a knowledge of the en
gine as to be able to take it apart and make ordinary
repairs. His ingenuity in repairing an obstinate defect
in a steam engine gained him the charge of the engine.
After this his fondness for his work increased until,
with study, he had thoroughly mastered all its details.
At the age of eighteen he could not even read, and he
began to long for some education, so that he might fit
himself for a higher place in his business. He accordingly
commenced his studies by taking lessons in reading, of
a neighboring school-master, three nights in a week, at
a small tuition. At the end of a year he could read and
spell some, and could write his own name. He now had
a great thirst for mathematics, which he studied faith
fully the second year; at the close of which, by his at-
tentiveness, he could cipher with tolerable facility.
During odd moments he gave some attention to
mending shoes, by which he was able to earn a few extra
pence. Among some shoes that were sent him to repair
was a pair belonging to a young lady, whom he after-
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 423
ward married. In 1805 he removed to Killingworth col
liery, and about this time he was desirous of emigrating
to the United States, but was unable to raise money for
his outfit and passage. He continued to work at his
home evenings and leisure hours, cutting out clothes foi 4
the miners, mending clocks and shoes, and all this time
studying mechanics and engineering with a view to per
petual motion, which a great many others of his time
wer studying.
His first opportunity to show his superiority was when
an expensive pump had been put in the colliery, and
utterly failed to do the work required of it. Various ex
perts gave it their best efforts, but it still refused to do
what was required of it. Stephenson was heard to say,
by some of the workmen, that he could repair it. After
all others had failed, the overseer, in despair, with
but little expectation that anything could be accom
plished by a raw colliery hand, employed him to attempt
a remedy. He took the engine to pieces and at the end
of a few days repaired it ready for work, and in two days
it cleared the pit of water.
For this, and other improvements made upon old
machinery, he was appointed chief engineer in 1813, at
Killingworth, at a salary of 100 per year. Besides
erecting a winding engine for drawing up coal, and a
pumping-engine, he projected and laid down a self-act
ing incline along the declivity of the Willington ballast
quay, so arranged that full wagons descending to the
vessels drew up the empty ones. But the construction
of an efficient and economical locomotive steam engine
mainly occupied his mind. He was among those who
saw the Blenkinsop engine first put on the track, and
watched its mechanism for some time, when he con-
424 HIDDEN TREASURES.
eluded lie could make a better machine. He found a
friend in his employer, Lord Bavensworth, who furnished
the money, and in the work-shops at West Moor, Killing-
worth, with the aid of the colliery blacksmith, he con
structed a locomotive which was completed in July,
1814. The affair, though clumsy, worked successfully
on the Killingworth railway, drawing eight loaded
carriages, of thirty tons each, at the rate of four miles
an hour. It was the first locomotive made with smooth
wheels, for he rejected the contrivance which Trevithick,
Blenkinsop and others had thought necessary to secure
sufficient adhesion between the wheels and the rails.
While engaged on plans for an improved engine his
attention was attracted to the increase in the draught of
the furnace obtained by turning the waste steam up the
chimney, at first practiced solely in the desire to lessen
the noise caused by the escape of the steam. Hence
originated the steam-blast, the most important improve
ment in the locomotive up to that time. The steam-
blast, the joint action of the wheels by connecting them
with horizontal bars on the outside, and a simplifying
connection between the cylinder and the w r heels, were
embodied in the second engine, completed in 1815. For
some years Stephenson had been experimenting with
the fire-damp in the mines, and in the above year com
pleted a miner s safety lamp, which he finally perfected
under the name of the "Gregory Lamp," which is still
in use in the Killingworth collieries. The invention of
a safety lamp by Sir Humphry Davy was nearly simulta
neous, and to him the mining proprietors presented a
service of plate worth 2,000, at the same time awarding
100 to Stephenson. This led to a protracted discussion
as to the priority of the invention, and in 1817 Stephen-
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 425
son s friends presented him with a purse of $5,000 and a
silver tankard.
Having now brought the locomotive to a considerable
degree of perfection, Stephenson next turned his atten
tion to the improvement of railways, his opinion being
that both were parts of one mechanism, and that the
employment of steam carriages on common roads w r as
impracticable. For the purpose of making railways
solid and level, and preventing jerks at the junction of
the rails, he took out a patent for an improved rail and
chair, and recommended the employment of heavier
rails, and the substitution of wrought for cast-iron. In
connection with these improvements he added consider-
bly to the lightness and strength of the locomotive,
simplified the construction of the working parts, and
substituted steel springs for the small cylinder, on
which the- boiler had at first rested.
His next important undertaking was the construc
tion of a railway eight miles in length, for the owners of
the Helton Colliery, which was successfully opened No
vember 18th, 1822. The level parts were traversed by
five of Stephenson s locomotives, while stationary en
gines were employed to overcome the heavy grades.
In 1820 an act of Parliament was obtained for a rail
way between Stockton and Darlington, which was opened
September 27th, 1825. Stephenson, who made the pre
liminary surveys and specifications, was appointed engi
neer. The line was intended to be worked by stationary
engines for the steep gradients, with horse-power on the
level portions ; but at Stephenson s urgent request, the
act was amended so as to permit the use of locomotives
on all parts of the road. In the meantime he had
opened, in connection with Edward Pease, an establish-
426 HIDDEN TREASURES.
ment for the manufacture of locomotives, at Newcastle-
onTyne.
In 1825 he was appointed principal engineer of the
Liverpool & Manchester railroad, which employed him
during the next four years. Canals connected the two
towns, Liverpool and Manchester, but it was believed
that the carrying trade would support this new railway
if it could be made to work. The people were told by
the newspapers that locomotives would prevent cows
from grazing and hens from laying. The poisoned air
from the locomotives would kill birds as they passed
over them, and render the preservation of pheasants and
foxes no longer possible. Householders adjoining the
line were told that their houses would be burned up by
fire thrown from the engine chimneys, while the air
around would be polluted by the clouds of smoke. There
would be no longer any use for horses, and if the rail
ways extended the species would become extinct, and
therefore oats and hay would become unsalable. Travel
ing by road would be rendered exceedingly dangerous,
and country inns would be ruined. Boilers would burst
and blow the passengers to pieces.
Of course, the inculcation of such theories rendered
it extremely difficult for Stephenson and his party to
survey for the proposed line. The land-owners along
the line made all sorts of trouble for them. Their in
struments were smashed and they were mobbed, yet, on
they went, at meal times they worked, before the resi
dents awoke in the morning, and nights, in some in-
tances,.were employed. At last the survey was accom
plished, the plans drawn, and the estimates furnished
the company, were approved.
In Parliament even more opposition was experienced.
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 427
Public sentiment can be inferred from an article which
appeared in the Quarterly Review for March, 1825.
Among other things it said : "What can be more pal
pably absurd and ridiculous than the prospect held out
of locomotives travelling twice as fast as horses. We
should as soon expect the people of Woolwich to suffer
themselves to be fired off upon one of Congreve s richochet
roukets as to trust themselves to the mercy of such &
machine, going at such a rate. We trust that Parlia
ment will, in all the railways it may grant, limit the
speed to eight or nine miles an hour, which we entirely
agree with Mr. Sylvester is as great as can be ventured on.
But despite all such seemingly insurmountabilities,
Stephenson succeeded in getting the railway bill passed.
But the troubles of George Stephenson were not at an
end. The company, not fully satisfied with his opinion
alone, conferred with two of the leading engineers of
England, who reported averse to the locomotive, recom
mending stationary engines at a distance of one and
a-half miles apart. But at last Stephenson prevailed
upon the company to offer a prize of about $2,500 for the
best locomotive produced at a trial to take place on the
6th of October, 1829. At last the eventful clay came,
and with it thousands of spectators. Four engines ap
peared to compete for the prizes, "The Novelty," the
"Rocket," the "Perseverance" and the "Sanspareil."
The " Perseverance" could only make six miles an hour,
and as the rules called for at least ten, it was ruled out.
The "Sanspareil made an average of fourteen miles an.
hour, but as it burst a water-pipe, it lost its chance.
The "Novelty" did splendidly, but unluckily also burst
a pipe, and was crowded out, leaving the field to the
"Rocket," which carried off the honors. The average
HIDDEN TREASURES.
speed made by this engine, which belonged to Stephen-
son, was fifteen miles, and even attained twenty-nine
miles an hour.
The distinguishing features of the Rocket, the first
high-speed locomotive of the standard modern type,
were the multitubular boiler, which was not Stephen-
son s invention, but was first applied by him to loco
motives; the blast pipe; and the direct connection of
the steam cylinders to one axle, and one pair of wheels.
At the opening of the road, September 15th, 1830, eight
locomotives, constructed at the Stephenson works, were
employed, and Mr. Huskinson, having been accidentally
struck down and fatally injured by the Rocket, was con
veyed in the Northumbrian, driven by George Stephen-
son, from Parkside to Eceles, fifteen miles, at the unprece-
edented rate of thirty-six miles an hour.
Stephenson was almosb incessantly employed for the
next fifteen years on new roads, and was called three
times to Belgium, and once to Spain as a consulting en
gineer. With his increasing wealth he also engaged
extensively and profitably in coal mining and lime
works, particularly in the neighborhood of Tapton Park,
an elegant seat in Derbyshire, where he passed his latter
years. He declined the honor of Knighthood.
To Watt is due the honor of giving the world a prac
tical stationary engine; George Stephenson picked that
engine up bodily and placed it on wheels, and against
the most direful predictions of the foremost engineers
of his age, proved the practicability of harnessing steam
to coaches for rapid transportation.
On August 12th, 1848, Stephenson died, leaving an
Immense fortune, which was the honest reward he
deserved.
GEEAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 429
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN.
"QOSSIBLY there never has lived a man who has excited
1 more comment than has the subject of this narra
tive, who was born in Boston, January 17th, 1706. His
father was a soap boiler and tallow chandler, and he was
the fifteenth in a family of seventeen children.
Young Benjamin was expected by his parents to be
come a minister of the Gospel, and for this purpose was
placed in school at the age of eight, but the reduced
circumstances of his father compelled his return home
two years later, and he began the work of cutting wicks
in his father s establishment. Afterwards he was bound
to his brother James, who was a printer, where he worked
hard all day, and often spent half the night in reading -
The secret of his great success can be readily per
ceived, when we know that his favorite books were
Mather s " Essays to Do Good," and DeFoe s "Essays of
Projects," and many others of alike nature: instead of
the modern "Three Fingered Jack," "Calamity Jane,"
"The Queen of the Plains," or the more refined of to
day s juvenile reading.
When he was about sixteen he wrote, in a disguised
hand, an article for his brother s paper. This article
was published anonymously, and excited great curiosity.
Other articles followed, at length the identity of the
author was discovered, and for some unknown reason
the elder brother was offended. From that hour Benja
min resolved to leave Boston, as his brother s influence
was used to his disadvantage in that city.
430 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Embarking, he worked his passage to New York,
where he arrived at the age of seventeen, almost penni
less, and without recommendations. Failing to obtain
work here he continued on to Philadelphia, where he
arrived, disappointed but not discouraged. He now had
but one dollai> and a few copper coins, in the world.
Being hungry, he bought some bread, and with one roll
under either arm, and eating the third, he passed up the
street on which his destined wife lived, and she beheld
him as he presented this ridiculous appearance. Obtain
ing employment, he secured board and lodging with Mr.
Reed, afterward his father-in-law.
Being induced to think of going into business for
himself, through promises of financial help from influ
ential parties, he sailed to London for the purpose of
buying the necessary requisites for a printing office.
Not until his arrival in that great city, London, did he
learn of the groundlessness of his hope for aid from the
expected quarter. In a strange land, friendless and
alone, without money to pay his return passage, such
was his predicament ; yet he lost not his courage, but
obtained employment as a printer, writing his betrothed
that he should likely never return to America. His stay
in London lasted, however, but about eighteen months,
during which time he succeeded in reforming some of
his beer-drinking companions.
In 1826 he returned to America as a dry-goods clerk,
but the death of his employer fortunately turned his
attention once more to his especial calling, and he soon
after formed a partnership with a Mr. Meredith. This
was in 1728. Miss Reed, during his stay abroad, had been
induced to marry another man who proved to be a
scoundrel ; leaving her to escape punishment for debt,
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 431
and, it is alleged, with an indictment for bigamy hanging
over his head. Franklin attributed much of this misfor
tune to himself, and resolved to repair the injury so far
as lay within his power. Accordingly he married her
in 1830. This proved a most happy union. His business
connection with Mr. Meridith being dissolved, he pur
chased the miserably conducted sheet of Mr. Keimer,
his former employer, and under Franklin s management
it became a somewhat influential journal of opinion.
It was through this channel that those homely say
ings, with such rich meanings, first appeared in print.
His great intelligence, industry and ingenuity in devis
ing reforms, and the establishment of the first circulating
library, soon won for him the esteem of the entire
country. 1732 is memorable as the year in which ap
peared his almanac in which was published the sayings
Of the world-famous Toor Richard/ This almanac
abounded with aphorisms and quaint sayings, the in
fluence of which tended mightily to economy, and it was
translated into foreign languages, in fact was the most
popular almanac ever printed.
After ten years absence he returned to his native
city, Boston, and his noble instincts were shown, as he
consolingly promised his dying brother that he would
care for his nephew, his brother s son. Returning to
Philadelphia he became postmaster of that city, estab
lished a fire department, becomes a member of the
Assembly, to which office he is elected ten consecutive
years.
Although he was not an orator, no man wielded more
influence over the legislative department than did
Franklin. As is well-known, he invented the celebrated
Franklin Stove, which proved so economical, and for
432 HIDDEN TREASURES.
which he refused a patent. For years he entertained
the theory that galvanic electricity, and that which pro
duced lightning and thunder were identical; but it was
not until 1752 that he demonstrated the truth by an
original but ingenious contrivance attached to a kite, and
to Franklin we owe the honor of inventing the lighning
rod, but not its abuse which has caused such widespread
animosity to that valuable instrument of self-preser
vation.
These discoveries made the name of Franklin re
spected throughout the scientific world. Forever after
this period, during his life, he was connected with na
tional affairs. At one time he was offered a commission
as General in the Provincial Army, but distrusting his
military qualifications he unequivocally declined. Sir
Humphrey Davy said : "Franklin seeks rather to make
philosophy a useful inmate and servant in the common
habitations of man, than to preserve her merely as an
object for admiration in temples and palaces." While it
is said of him by some that he always had a keen eye to
his own interests all are forced to add he ever had a
benevolent concern for the public welfare.
The burdens bearing so heavily upon the colonies :
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Georgia, and Massachusetts,
appointed Franklin as their agent to the mother-country.
Arriving in London in 1757, despite his mission, honors
awaited him at every turn. There he associated with
the greatest men of his time, and the universities of
Edinburgh and Oxford honored him with the title of L.L.D.
and the poor journeyman printer of a few years before,
associated with princes and kings. At the end of five
years he returned to America, and in 1762 received the offi
cial thanks of the Assembly. Two years later he was
27
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 433
again sent to England, and he opposed the obnoxious
stamp act, and where he carried himself with decorum
and great ability before the entire nobility, Upon his
return to America he was made a member of the Assem
bly the day he landed, where he exerted his whole influ
ence for a Declaration of Independence, and soon after
had the pleasure of signing such a document.
In 1776 Congress sent him to France, where he be
came one of the greatest diplomats this country has ever
known. During his voyage over he made observations
relative to the Gulf Stream, and the chart he drew of it
nearly one hundred years ago, still forms the basis of
maps on the subject. As is well known, to Franklin
more than all others, are we indebted for the kindly
interference by France in our behalf, whose efforts,
though ineffective in the field, helped the revolutionary
cause wonderfully in gaining prestige. At the close of
the war Franklin was one of the commissioners in
framing that treaty which recognized American inde
pendence. His simple winning ways won for him admi
ration in any court of embroidery and lace, w r hile his
world-wide reputation as a philosopher and statesman
won for him a circle of acquaintances of the most varied
character. On the 17th of April, 1790, this great states
man died, and fully 20,000 people followed him to the
tomb. The inscription he had designed read :
"The body of Benjamin Franklin, printer;
Like the cover of an old book
Its contents torn out, and stript of its lettering and gilding:
Lies here food for worms."
Yet the work itself shall not be lost. For it will, as
he believed, appear once more, in a new and more beau
tiful edition, corrected and amended by the Author.
434 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Truly, America has been rich in great men, of which
Franklin was not the least. Dr. Franklin, in his will,
left his native town of Boston, the sum of one thousand
pounds, to be lent to the young married artificers upon
good security and under odd conditions. If the plan
should be carried out as successfully as he expected, he
reckoned that this sum would amount in one hundred
years to one hundred and thirty-one thousand pounds.
It was his wish, and so expressed in his will that one
hundred thousand pounds should be spent upon public
works, "which may then be judged of most general util
ity to the inhabitants ; such as fortifications, bridges,
aqueducts, public buildings, baths, pavements, or what
ever makes living in the town more convenient to its
people, and renders it more agreeable to strangers re
sorting thither for health or temporary residence." It
was also his wish that the remaining thirty-one thousand
pounds should again be put upon interest for another
hundred years, at the end of which time the whole
amount was to be divided between the city and the
State. The bequest at the end of the first one hundred
years may not attain the exact figure he calculated, but it
is sure to be a large sum. At the present time it is more
than one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, and
it has many years yet to run.
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 435
ELI WHITNEY.
n~\HE year of 1765 was made famous by the birth of a
JL man who was destined to enrich his country millions
of dollars.
Eli Whitney was born at Westborough, Massachu
setts, December 8th, 1765, and received a good education,
graduating at Yale College. Going South as a tutor in
a private family, his attention was arrested by the slow
process by which the seed was extracted from cotton.
At that time a pound of greenseed cotton was all that a
negro woman could clean in a day.
At the instance of Mrs. Greene, widow of General
Greene, he set about constructing a machine to do the
work. He had no facilities for pushing the work, even
having to manufacture his tools, but he persevered and
accomplished his purpose. Rumors of the machine
spreading over the State, a mob at night broke open the
building wherein the machine was stored, carried his
precious model away, and before he could make another,
various machines were in use. However, he went North
to Connecticut and established a manufactory to make
the machines. South Carolina granted him $50, 000 after
long and vexatious litigation, and North Carolina
allowed him a per centage, which was paid in good faith.
But, although Eli Whitney had invented a machine
which would do in one day as much as an ordinary hand
would in months, which has been worth hundred of
millions of dollars to the South; yet, through the influ
ence of Southern members, Congress would not renew
436 HIDDEN TREASURES.
his patent, and so much opposition was raised that he
actually never received from his invention the money
he had spent to perfect it. All efforts to obtain a finan
cial recognition in this invention failing, he abandonee!
the manufacture of the cotton-gin. He was not dis
couraged, not at all, but turned his attention to fire-arms.
These he greatly improved, being the first to make
them adjustable, that is, any single piece to fit the same
place in any of the thousands of guns that might be in
process of manufacture in his works. He manufactured
arms for the government, and reaped a fortune which
he had so honestly earned.
On January 8th, 1825, the country lost this wonder
ful genius, but his fame is growing year by year, as one
of the world s benefactors.
ROBERT FULTON,
n~lHE genius of Fulton was of no ordinary mold. It
JL began to unfold in less than ten years after his
birth, which occurred at Little Britain, Pennsylvania, in
the year 1765. His parents were farmers, and of Irish
birth, but Protestants in religious belief.
At seventeen he went to Philadelphia and begun the
study of printing. Four years later he evinced such
decided talents in miniature painting that his friends
united in sending him to London, where he remained
for some years under the teaching of the world-renowned
West. Being a friend of West, he was thus drawn into
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 48V
association with such men as the Duke of Bridgewater
and the Earl of Stanhope. Through the influence of the
former he adopted the profession of a civil engineer.
He also became acquainted with Watt, who had just
brought out his great improvement on the steam engine,
the details of which Fulton mastered.
While in London, at this time, he also contrived a
new device for sawing marble which proved to be a
valuable improvement. To this period in his life also
belongs his invention of a machine for spinning flax.
In 1797 he removed to Paris where he remained seven
years, assidiously studying the sciences. It was during
his sojourn there that he brought out his celebrated
torpedo-boat, since known as the Nautilus, a name
derived from its resemblance in action to that wonder
ful little animal. This boat was a plunging machine
designed for sub-marine service in placing torpedoes and
other work, for which a submarine vessel could be used.
According to Golden this boat was brought to a wonder
ful state of perfection, his account of which may be
interesting.
On the 3rd of July, 1801, he embarked with three
companions on board his plunging boat, in the harbor of
Brest, and descended in it to the depth of five, ten, fif
teen, and so on, to twenty-five feet ; but he did not at
tempt to go deeper because he found that his imperfect
machine would not bear the pressure of a greater depth.
He remained below the surface one hour. During the
time, they were in utter darkness. Afterwards he de
scended with candles ; but finding a great disadvantange
from their consumption of vital air he caused, previous
to his next experiment, a small window of thick glass
to be made near the bow of his boat, and he again de-
438 HIDDEN TREASURES.
scended with her on the 24th of July, 1801. He found
that he received from his window, or rather aperture
covered with glass, for it was no more than an inch and
a half in diameter, sufficient light for him to count the
minutes on his watch.
Having satisfied himself that he could have sufficient
light when under water ; that he could do without a sup
ply of fresh air for a considerable time ; that he could
descend to any depth and rise to the surface with equal
facility; his next object was to try her movements a&
well on the surface as beneath it. On the 26th of July
he weighed his anchor and hoisted his sails ; his boat had
one mast, a main-sail and a jib. There was only a light
breeze, and therefore she did not move on the surface at
more than the rate of two miles an hour ; but it was
found that she would tack and steer, and sail on a wind
or before it as well as any common sail-boat. He then
struck her masts and sails ; to do which, and to perfectly
prepare the boat for plunging, required about two min
utes. Having plunged to a certain depth he placed two
men at the engine which was intended to give her pro
gressive motion, and one at the helm, while he, with a
barometer before him, governed the machine which kept
her balanced between the upper and lower waters. He
found that with the exertion of only one hand he could
keep her at any depth he desired. The propelling en
gine was then put in motion, and he found that on com
ing to the surface he had, in about seven minutes, made
a progress of four hundred metres, or five hundred yards.
He then again plunged, turned her around, while under
the water, and returned to near the place he began to
move from.
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 439
He repeated his experiments several days successively
until he became familiar with the operation of the ma
chinery, and the movements of the boat. He found that
she was as obedient to her helm under water, as any
boat could be on the surface, and that the magnetic
needle traversed as well in the one as in the other.
On the 27th of August Mr. Fulton again descended
with a store of atmospheric air compressd into a copper
globe, of a cubic foot capacity, into which two hundred
atmospheres were forced. Thus prepared he descended
with three companions to the depth of five feet. At the
expiration of an hour and forty minutes, he began to
take small supplies of pure air from his reservoir, and
did so, as he found occasion, for four hours and twenty
minutes. At the expiration of the time he came to the
surface without having experienced any inconvenience
from having been so long under the water.
Fulton, about this time, hearing of Fitchews experi
ments in the United States with steam, became more
than ever interested in the subject of "navigating boats
by means of fire and water." Our Minister to Great
Britain, Robert R. Livingstone, becoming greatly inter
ested in steam navigation, and especially in Fulton s
ideas in the matter, agreed to furnish the necessary funds
to bring to success the enterprise. Accordingly, they
ordered an engine of Watt & Boulton, "which would
propel a large boat," and the engine arrived in America
during the year 1806. Fulton at once set to work to
buil d a boat to fit the machinery, and in 1807 the "Cler-
mont" was ready for trial.
The reader will not be surprised at the statement of
an eye-witness: "When it was announced in the New
York papers that the boat would start from Cortlandt
440 HIDDEN TREASURES.
street at 6:30 a. m., on the 4th of August, and take pas
sengers to Albany, there was a broad smile on every face
as the inquiry was made if any one would be fool enough
to go?" One friend was heard to accost another in the
street with : "John, will thee risk thy life in such a con
cern? I tell thee she is the most fearful wild fowl living,
and thy father should restrain thee." When the event
ful morning came, Friday August 4th, 1807, the wharves,
piers, housetops, and every available elevation was
crowded with spectators. All the machinery was uncov
ered and exposed to view. The periphery of the balance
Wheels of cast iron, some four or more inches square,
ran just clear of the water. There were no outside
guards, the balance wheels being supported by their
respective shafts, which projected over the sides of the
boat. The forward part was covered by a deck which
afforded shelter for her hands. The after-part was fitted
up in a rough manner for passengers. The entrance
into the cabin was from the stern in front of the steers
man, who worked a tiller as in an ordinary sloop.
Black smoke issued from the chimney ; steam issued
from every ill-fitted valve and crevice of the engine.
Fulton himself was there. His remarkably clear and
sharp voice was heard high above the hum of the multi
tude and the noise of the engine, his step was confident
and decided ; he heeded not the fearf ulness, doubts or
sarcasm of those by whom he was surrounded. The
whole scene combined had in it an individuality, as well
as an interest, which comes but once, and is remembered
a lifetime. Everything being ready the engine was set
in motion, and the boat moved steadily but slowly from
the wharf. As she turned up the river and was fairly
under way, there arose such a huzza as ten thousand
GKEAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 441
throats never gave before. The passengers returned the
cheer, but Fulton stood upon the deck, his eyes flashing
with an unusual brilliancy as he surveyed the crowd.
He felt that the magic wand of success was waving over
him and he was silent. The entire trip was an ovation,
and is thus described by Golden :
"From other vessels which were navigating the river
she had the most terrific appearance when she was
making her passage. The first steam-boats used dry
pine for fuel, which sends forth a column of ignited
vapor many feet above the flue and whenever the fire is
stirred a galaxy of sparks fly off, and in the night have a
very beautiful and brilliant appearance. This uncom
mon light first attracted the attention of the crews of
other vessels. Notwithstanding the wind and the tide
were adverse to its approach they saw with astonish
ment that it was coming rapidly towards them ; and
when it came so near that the noise of the machinery
and paddles was heard, the crews (if what was said at
the time in the newspapers be true) in some instances
shrunk beneath the decks from the terrific sight, and left
the vessels to go ashore, while others prostrated them
selves and besought Providence to protect them from
the approach of the horrible monster, which was march
ing on the tides and lighting its path by the fires it
vomited."
Of peculiar interest and instruction is the following
narrative connected with this historic voyage from the
graphic pen of one who was personally an actor in the
scene described: "I chanced to be at Albany on business
when Fulton arrived there in his unheard of craft,
which everbody felt so much anxiety to see. Being
ready to leave, and hearing that his craft was going to
442 HIDDEN TREASURES.
return to New York, I repaired on board and inquired
for Mr. Fulton. I was referred to the cabin, and there
found a plain, gentlemanly man, wholly alone and en
gaged in writing. Mr. Fulton, I presume? * Yes sir/
Do you return to New York with this boat? We shall
try to get back, sir. Can I have a passage down?
You can take your chance with us, sir. I inquired the
amount to be paid, and after a moment s hesitation, a
sum, I think six dollars, was named. The amount in
coin, I laid in his open hand, and with his eye fixed
upon it, he remained so long motionless that I supposed
it might be a miscount, and said to him, Is that right
sir? This question roused him as from a kind of reverie,,
and, as he looked up, the tears were brimming in his-
eyes and his voice faltered as he said: Excuse me sir;
but my memory was busy, as I contemplated this, the
first pecuniary reward I have ever received for all my
exertions in adapting steam to navigation. I should
gladly commemorate the occasion over a bottle of wine
with you but really I am too poor for that just now; yet,
I trust we may meet again when this will not be the case.
" Some four years after this," continues the writer of
this reminiscence, " when the Clermont had been greatly
improved, and her name changed to North River, and
when two other boats, the Car of Neptune and the Para
gon had been built, making Mr. Fulton s fleet consist of
three boats regularly plying between New York and
Albany, I took passage upon one of these for the latter
city. The cabin in that day was below, and as I walked
its deck, to and fro, I saw that I was very closely ob
served by one, I supposed a stranger. Soon, however, I
recalled the features of Mr. Fulton; but without disclos
ing this, I continued my walk. At length, in passing his
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS.
seat, our eyes met, when he sprang to his feet and
eagerly seizing my hand, exclaimed, I knew it must be
you, for your features have never escaped me; and,
although I am still far from rich, yet I may venture
that BOTTLE NOW ! It was ordered, and during its dis
cussion Mr. Fulton ran rapidly, but vividly, over his ex
perience of the world s coldness and sneers, and the
hopes, fears, disappointments and difficulties that were
scattered through his whole career of discovery up to-
the very point of his final crowning triumph, at which
he so fully felt he had at last arrived.
And in reviewing all these matters, he said : " I have
again and again recalled the occasion, and the incident
of our first interview at Albany ; and never have I done
so without renewing in my mind the vivid emotion it
originally caused. That seemed, and does still seem to
me, the turning point in my destiny, the dividing line
between light and darkness, in my career upon earth,
for it was the first actual recognition of my usefulness
to my fellow-men." Why was it that Fulton won re
nown. True it was that he possessed unusual genius.
We know that every one cannot be a Fulton, yet how.
few there are who would have exercised the stick-to-it-
ive-ness that he was obliged to do before success came.
How few would have passed through the trials and with
stood the sneers that Robert Fulton passed through. On
the 24th of February, 1815, he died, when the honor of
first crossing the ocean by steam power was being con
templated by him, but his fame was established, and need
naught to enhance it.
444 HIDDEN TREASURES.
ELIAS HOWE, JR,
rMFFERENCE of opinion there may be as to the ab-
\_J stract question, who first conceived the principle
involved in sewing by machinery, or in respect to who
first constructed a machine that would fulfill that idea;
but so far as great results are concerned the world must
be considered as indebted to Elias Howe. Jr., a New
England mechanic, born and reared in obscurity, and at
an early age thrown upon his own resources. He was
born at Spencer, Massachusetts, July 9th, 1819. His father
was a farmer and miller, but at sixteen he left home,
engaging in a cotton mill. Space will not permit us to
follow him through all the details of his varied expe
rience during his early years. It will be sufficient to say
that he lived in Boston in his twentieth year, where he
was working in a machine-shop. He was a good work
man, having learned his trade at Harvard by the side of
his cousin, Nathaniel Banks, who has since greatly dis
tinguished himself as a general in the United States
army and speaker of the House of Representatives.
He was married soon after, and when twenty-two or
three, his health failing, he found himself surrounded by
a family, and poverty staring him in the face. The idea
suggested itself to Howe in the following manner, as
described by Parton in the Atlantic Monthly: "In the
year 1839 two men in Boston, one a mechanic, the other
a capitalist, were striving to produce a knitting-machine,
which proved to be a task beyond their strength. When
the inventor was at his wit s end, his capitalist brought
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 445
the machine to the shop of Ari Davis, to see if that
eccentric genius could suggest the solution of the diffi
culty, and make the machine work. The shop, resolving
itself into a committee of the whole, gathered about the
knitting-machine and its proprietor, and were listening
to an explanation of its principles, when Davis, in his
wild, extravagant way, broke in with the question :
What are you bothering yourself with a knitting-ma
chine for ? Why don t you make a sewing-machine ? I
wish I could, said the capitalist, but it can t be done/
Oh, yes, it can, said Davis, I can make a sewing-
machine myself. Well, said the other; you do it,
Davis, and I ll insure you an independent fortune. There
the conversation dropped, and was never resumed. The
boastful remark of the master of the shop was consid
ered one of his sallies of affected extravagance, as it
really was, and the response of the capitalist to it was
uttered without a thought of producing an effect. Nor
did it produce any effect upon the person to whom it was
addressed, as Davis never attempted to construct a sew
ing-machine.
Among the workmen who stood by and listened to
this conversation was a young man from the country, a
new hand named Elias Howe, then twenty years old.
The person whom we have named capitalist, a well-
dressed and fine looking man, somewhat consequential
in his manners, was an imposing figure in the eyes of
this youth, new to city ways, and he was much im
pressed with the emphatic assurance that a fortune was
in store for the man who would invent a sewing-machine.
He was the more struck with it because he had already
amused himself with inventing some slight improve
ments, and recently he had caught from Davis the habit
446 HIDDEN TEEASUEES.
of medi bating new devices. The spirit of invention, as
all mechanics know, is exceedingly contagious. One
man in a shop who invents something that proves suc
cessful will give the mania to half his companions, and
the very apprentices will be tinkering over a device
.after their days s work is done."
Thus it was that the idea of a sewing-machine first
entered Howe s mind. The following is the touching
story of Howe s early struggle and final triumph as told
by himself : "I commenced the invention of my sewing-
machine as early as 1841, when I was twenty-two years
of age. Being then dependent on my daily labor for the
support of myself and my family I could not devote my
attention to the subject during the working hours of the
day, but I thought on it when I could, day and night.
It grew on until 1844; I felt impelled to yield my whole
time to it. During this period I worked on my inven
tion mentally as much as I could, having only the aid of
needles and such other small devices as I could carry in
my pockets, and use at irregular intervals of daily labor
at my trade. I was poor, but with promises of aid from
a friend, I thereafter devoted myself exclusively to the
construction and practical completion of my machine.
I worked alone in an upper room in my friend s house,
and finished my first machine by the middle of May, 1845.
"This was a period of intense and persistent applica
tion, of all the powers I possessed, to the practical em
bodiment of my mechanical ideas into a successful
sewing-machine. I soon tested the practical success of
my first machine by sewing with it all the principal
seams in two suits of clothes, one for myself, and one
for my friend. Our clothes were as well made as any
made by hand-sewing. I still have my first machine ;
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 447
and it will now sew as good a seam as any sewing-ma
chine known to me. My first machine was described in
the specification of my patent, and I then made a second
machine, to be deposited in the patent office as a model.
I then conveyed one-half of my invention and patent
to my friend, for five hundred dollars ; in fact, though a
much larger sum (ten thousand dollars) was named in
the deed at his suggestion. My patent was issued on the
10th of September, 1846. I made a third machine, which
I tried to get into use on terms satisfactory to myself
and friend. For this purpose I endeavored to attract
notice to it by working with it in tailor shops, and ex
hibited it to all who desired to become acquainted with
it. After my patent was obtained, my friend declined
to aid me further. I then owed him about two thousand
dollars, and I was also in debt to my father, to whom I
conveyed the remaining half of my patent for two
thousand dollars. Having parted with my whole title,
and having no means for manufacturing machines, I was
much embarrassed, and did not know what to do.
" My brother, Amasa B. Howe, suggested that my in
vention might succeed in England, when, if patented, it
would be wholly under my control ; and on my behalf,
with means borrowed of my father, my brother took my
third machine to England, to do the best he could with
it. He succeeded in selling my machine and invention
for two hundred pounds in cash, and a verbal agreement
that the purchaser should patent my invention in Great
Britain, in his own name ; and if it should prove suc
cessful, to pay me three pounds royalty on each machine
he made or sold under the patent. He also agreed to
employ me in adapting my machine to his own kind of
work at three pounds a week wages.
448 HIDDEN TREASURES.
"The purchaser obtained a patent for my machine in
England, and I went to London to enter his employ
ment. I then made several machines with various modi
fications and improvements, to suit his peculiar kind of
work, and they were put to immediate use ; but after
wards we ceased to be friendly, and I was discharged
from his employment. In the meantime my wife and
three children had joined me in London. I had also, at
the suggestion of another person, endorsed a hundred
pound note, on which I was afterwards sued and arrested ;
but I was finally released on taking the poor debtor s
oath. 7 By small loans from fellow mechanics, and by
pawning a few articles, I managed to live with my fam
ily in London, until, from friendly representations from
some American acquaintances, the captain of an Ameri
can packet was induced to take my wife and children
home to the United States on credit. I was then alone,
and extremely poor, in a foreign land.
My invention was patented, and in successful use in
England, but without any profit to me, and wholly out
of my control. In the spring of 1849 I was indebted to
a Scottish mechanic for a steerage passage, and I re
turned to the United States, poorer, if possible, than
when I left. On my return I found my wife and children
very destitute ; all other personal effects, save what they
had on, being still detained to secure payment for their
passage home. My wife was sick, and died within ten
days after my arrival. During my absence in England
a considerable number of sewing-machines had been
made, and put in operation in different parts of the
United States; some of these by the procurement of the-
friend to whom I had sold half of my American paten
but most of them infringements on my patent.
28
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 449
"Having obtained from my father, in the summer
of 1849, an agreement to re-convey to me his half of
my patent; I tried to induce the friend who held the
other half to join me in prosecuting our rights against
infringers, but he declined to do so. After failing to
make any satisfactory settlement with the infringers,
who well knew my poverty and embarrassments, I filed
a bill in equity against one of such persons, and made
my friend a party defendant also, in order to bring him
into court as co-owner of my machine. After this he
joined me in a suit at law against another infringer. In
this case the validity of my patent was fully established
by a verdict and judgment at law. After several
transfers of the half share sold my friend, I purchased it
back, about five years ago, and I am now sole owner of
fche American patent."
Thus did Howe modestly tell the story of his terrible
trials and suffering. After long litigation Mr. Howe s
claim to have been the original inventor was legally and
irreversibly established, the judge deciding, "that there
was no evidence which left a shadow of doubt that for
all the benefit conferred upon the public by the intro
duction of the sewing-machine the public are indebted
to Mr. Howe." Therefore to him all inventors or im
provers had to pay a royalty on each machine they
made. From being a poor man, living in a garret, Howe
became one of the most noted millionaires in America.
Doubtless many of our readers would be interested
in the principles involved in Mr. Howe s machine ; which
seem to be essential in all two-threaded machines. We
find that two threads are employed , one of which is carried
through the cloth by means of a curved pointed needle ;
the needle used has the eye that is to receive the thread.
450 HIDDEN TREASURES.
about an eighth of an inch from the pointed end. When
the thread is carried through the cloth, which may be
done to the distance of about three-fourths of an inch
the thread will be stretched above the curved needle,
something like a bowstring, leaving a small open space
between the two. A small shuttle, carrying a bobbin,
filled with thread, is then made to pass entirely through
this open space, between the needle and the thread
which it carries ; and when the shuttle is returned the
thread which was carried in by the needle is surrounded
by that received from the shuttle ; as the neeedle is
drawn out, it forces that which was received from the
shuttle into the body of the cloth giving the seam formed
the same appearance on each side of the cloth.
Thus, according to this arrangement, a stitch is made
at every back and forth movement of the shuttle.
The two thicknesses of cloth that are to be sewed, are
held upon pointed wires which project out from a metalic
plate, like the teeth of a comb, but at a considerable
distance from each other, these pointed wires sustaining
the cloth, and answering the purpose of ordinary bast
ing. The metallic plate, from which these wires project,
has numerous holes through it, which answer the pur
pose of rack teeth in enabling the plate to move forward,
by means of a pinion, as the stitches are taken. The
distance to which the plate is moved, and, consequently,
the length of the stitches may be regulated at pleasure.
He opened a manufactory for his machines where he
could carry on the business in a small way. From this
small beginning his business grew until, with the
royalties he received, his income reached $200,000 an
nually. Notwithstanding his wealth, he enlisted in the
war as a private, and his principles and sympathy were
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 451
displayed at one time when, seeing the men needy, the
government having been unable to pay promptly, he
himself advanced enough money to pay the entire regi
ment. In the month of October, 1867, at the early age
of forty-eight he died.
But he had lived long enough to see his machine
adopted and appreciated as one of the greatest labor-
saving devices in the world. It is estimated that to-day
the sewing-machine saves annually the enormous sum
of $500,000,000. It has been truly said that had it not
been for the sewing-machine it would have been im
possible to have clothed and kept clothed the vast armies
employed on both sides during the late war. Great,
indeed, is a world s benefactor; such is Elias Howe.
ISAAC M. SINGER,
7T\HE greatest competitor of Mr. Howe was I. M. Singer.
J[ In 1850 there appeared in a shop in Boston, a man
who exhibited a carving machine as his invention.
Mr. Parton, in the Atlantic Monthly, said : " Singer
was a poor, baffled adventurer. He had been an actor
and a manager of a theatre, and had tried his hand at
various enterprises, none of which had been successful."
The proprietor of the shop, who had some sewing-ma
chines there on exhibition, speaking of them, said :
"These machines are an excellent invention, but have
some serious defects. Now if you could make the de-
452 HIDDEN TREASURES.
sired improvement, there would be more money in it
than in making these carving machines." This seemed
to gently impress Singer, and the friend advancing $40,
he at once began work. According to Singer s testimony
in the Howe vs. Singer suits, the story of this wonderful
man runs something like this :
" I worked day and night, sleeping but three or four
hours out of the twenty-four, and eating generally but
once a day, as I knew I must get a machine made for
forty dollars or not get it at all. The machine was com
pleted the night of the eleventh day from the day it was
commenced. About nine o clock that evening we got
the parts of the machine together, and commenced
trying it. The first attempt to sew was unsuccessful,
and the workmen, who were tired out with almost unre
mitting work, left me, one by one, intimating that it was
a failure. I continued trying the machine, with Zieber,
who furnished the forty dollars, to hold the lamp for me;
but in the nervous condition to which I had been re
duced, by incessant work and anxiety, was unsuccessful
in getting the machine to sew light stitches.
"About midnight I started with Zieber to the hotel,
where I boarded. Upon the way we sat down on a pile
of boards, and Zieber asked me if I had not noticed that
the loose loops of thread on the upper side of the cloth
came from the needle ? It then flashed upon me that I
had forgotten to adjust the tension upon the needle
thread. Zieber and I went back to the shop. I adjusted
the tension, tried the machine, and sewed five stitches
perfectly, when the thread broke. The perfection of
those stitches satisfied me that the machine was a suc
cess, and I stopped work, went to the hotel, and had a
sound sleep. By three o clock the next day I had the
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 453
machine finished, and started with it to New York, where
I employed Mr. Charles M. Keller to get out a patent
for it."
The trial resulted in favor of Howe, but of the two
men Singer was in every way the superior in business
capacity. In fact; there never has been a sewing-
machine manufacturer that coulcl compare with I. M.
Singer. "Great and manifold were the difficulties which
arose in his path, but one by one he overcame them all.
He advertised, he traveled, he sent out agents, he pro
cured the insertion of articles in newspapers, he exhibited
the machines at fairs in town or country. Several times
he was on the point of failure, but in the nick of time
something always happened to save him, and year after
year he advanced toward an assured success.
"We well remember his early efforts, when he only
had the back part of a small store on Broadway, and a
little shop over a railroad depot; and we remember also
the general incredulity with regard to the value of the
machine with which his name was identified. Even
after hearing him explain it at great length, we were
very far from expecting to see him one day riding to the
Central Park in a French diligence, drawn by five horses
paid for by the sewing-machine. Still less did we antici
pate that within twelve years the Singer company would
be selling a thousand sewing-machines a week, at a
profit of a thousand dollars a day. He was the true
pioneer of the mere business of selling machines, and
made it easier for all his subsequent competitors."
The peculiarity of the Singer machine is the chain
stitch or single thread device, but with the employment
of an eye-pointed needle, and other appliances, so as to
make it admirably adopted for the general purposes of
454 HIDDEN TREASURES.
sewing. At Mr. Singer s death it was found that his.
estate amounted to about $19,000,000.
RICHARD M, HOE
rj~lHE recent death of Richard March Hoe, in Florence,,
JL Italy, closes the career of one whose name is known
wherever the newspaper is used to spread intelligence.
He was the senior member of the firm of printing-
press makers, and one of the leading inventors and de
velopers of that great lever of public opinion. Mr. Hoe s
father was the founder of the firm. He came to this
country from England in 1803, and worked afc his trade
of carpentry. Through his skill as a workman he waa
sought out by a man named Smith, a maker of printer s
material. He married Smith s sister, and went into part
nership with Smith and brother. The printing-presses
of those days were made chiefly of wood, and Hoe s skill
as a wood-worker was valuable to the firm.
In 1822 Peter Smith invented a hand-press. This
press was finally supplanted by the Washington press,
invented by Samuel Rust in 1829. Mr. Smith died a
year after securing his patent, and the firm-name was
changed to R. Hoe & Co., but from the manufacture of
the Smith press the company made a fortune. The de
mand for hand presses increased so rapidly that ten years
later it was suggested that steam power might be util
ized in some way to do the pulling and tugging neces-
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 455
sary in getting an impression. At this time Richard M.,
one of the sons of the founder of the house, was an at
tentive listener to the discussions.
Young Richard M. Hoe was born in 1812. He had
the advantage of an excellent education, but his father s
business possessed such a fascination for him that it was
with difficulty he was kept in school. He was a young
man of twenty before his father allowed him to work
regularly in his shop; but he had already become an
expert in handling tools, and soon became one of the
best workmen. He joined with his father in the belief
that steam would yet be applied to the printing-press,
and the numerous models and experiments they made to
that end would, in the light of the present day, appear
extremely ridiculous.
In 1825-30 Napier had constructed a steam printing-
press, and in 1830 Isaac Adams, of Boston, secured a
patent for a power press. These inventions were kept
very secret ; the factories in which they were made being
guarded jealously. In 1830 a Napier press was imported
into this country for use on the National Intelligencer.
Mordecai Noah, editor of Noah s Sunday Times and Mes
senger, was collector of the port of New York at that
time, and being desirous of seeing how the Napier press
would work, sent for Mr. Hoe to put it up. He and Rich
ard succeeded in setting up the press, and worked it
successfully.
The success of Napier s press set the Hoes to think
ing. They made models of its peculiar parts and studied
them carefully. Then, in pursuance of a plan suggested
by Richard, his father sent his partner, Mr. Newton, to
England, for the purpose of examining new machinery
there, and to secure models for future use. On his return
456 HIDDEN TREASURES.
with ideas, Mr. Newton and the Hoes projected and
turned out for sale a novel two-cylinder press, which
became universally popular and soon superseded all
others, the Napier included.
Thus was steam at last harnessed to the press, but
the demand of the daily papers for their increasing
editions spurred the press makers to devise machines
that could be worked at higher speed than was found
possible with the presses, in which the type was secured
to a flat bed, which was moved backward and forward
under a revolving cylinder. It was seen, then, that if
type could be secured to the surface of a cylinder, great
speed could be attained. In Sir Rowland Hill s device
the type was cast wedge-shape ; that is, narrower at the
bottom. A broad "nick" was cut into its side, into which
a "lead" fitted. The ends of the "lead" in turn fitted
into a slot in the column rules, and these latter were
bolted into the cylinder. The inventor, Sir Rowland
Hill, the father of penny postage in England, sunk, it is
said, 80,000 in the endeavor to introduce this method.
In the meantime Richard M. had succeeded to his
father s business, and was giving his attention largely
to solving this problem of holding type on a revolving
cylinder. It was not until 1846 that he hit on the
method of doing it. After a dozen years of thought the
idea came upon him unexpectedly, and was startling in
its simplicity. It was to make the column rules wedge-
shape instead of the type. It was this simple device, by
the introduction of the "lightning press," that revolution
ized the newspaper business of the world, and made the
press the power it is. It brought Hoe fame and put him
at the head of press makers. His business grew to such
dimensions that he has in his employ in his New York
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 457
factory from 800 to 1,500 hands, varying with the state
of trade. His London factory employes from 150 to 250
hands.
Yet the great daily cravings demanded still faster
presses. The result was the development of the Web
press, in which the paper is drawn into the press from a
continuous roll, at a speed of twelve miles an hour. The
very latest is a machine called the supplement press,
capable of printing complete a paper of from eight to
twelve pages, depending on the demand of the day, so
that the papers slide out of the machine with the sup
plements gummed in and the paper folded ready for
delivery. Of late years many other remarkably ingen
ious presses of other makers have come into the market,
but still the genius of R. M. Hoe has left an indelible
mark in the development of the printing-press. He died
June 6th, 1886.
CHARLES GOODYEAR,
7\ BOUT the year 1800 was born in New Haven, Con-
jTl necticut. Charles Goodyear. He received only a
public school education, and when twenty-one years of
age joined his father in the hardware trade in the city
of Philadeiphia ; but in the financial troubles of 1830,
the firm went under, and the next three years was spent
in looking for a life-work.
Passing a store in the city of New York, his eye was
458 HIDDEN TREASURES.
attracted by the words "!NDIA RUBBER FOR SALE." Hav
ing heard much of this new article of late, he purchased
a life-preserver which he carried home and so materially
improved, in conception, that he was induced to return
to the store for the purpose of explaining his ideas. At-
the store he was now told of the great discouragements
with which the rubber trade was contending, the mer
chants giving this as a reason for not taking to his im
provement. The rubber, as then made, would become
as hard as flint during cold weather, and if exposed to
heat would melt and decay.
Returning to Philadelphia, Goodyear commenced ex
periments, trying to discover the secret of how to remedy
this trouble. He was very poor, and to support his family
he cobbled for his neighbors. He tried every experi
ment within his grasp of intellect, but met only with
failure. His friends, who had helped him, left him one
by one ; his failures continued, but he would not give
up. The last piece of furniture was sold, and his family
moved into the country, taking up cheap lodgings..
Finally he found a druggist who agreed to furnish him
what he needed from his store to use in his investiga
tions and purchasing small quantities of rubber at a
time he contined his experiments. At length, after three
years he discovered that the adhesiveness of the rubber
could be obviated by dipping it in a preparation of nitric
acid. But this only affected the exterior, and he was
once more plunged into the worst of poverty." It was
generally agreed that the man who would proceed fur
ther, in a cause of this sort, was fairly deserving of all
the distress brought on himself, and justly debarred the
sympathy of others. "His suffering during the years
that followed is simply incredible. The prejudice against
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS.
him was intense. Everybody characterized him as a fool r
and no one would help him. A witness afterwards testified
in a trial : "They had sickness in the family ; I was often
in and found them very poor and destitute, for both food
and fuel. They had none, nor had they anything tobuy~
any with. This was before they boarded with us, and
while they were keeping house. They told me they had
no money with which to buy bread from one day to
another. They did not know how they should get it.
The children said they did not know what they should
do for food. They dug their potatoes before they were
half-grown, for the sake of having something to eat.
Their son Charles, eight years old, used to say that they
ought to be thankful for the potatoes, for they did
not know what they should do without them. We
used to furnish them with milk, and they wished us to
take furniture and bed-clothes in payment, rather than
not pay for it. At one time they had nothing to eat, and
a barrel of flour was unexpectedly sent them."
It is a record of destitution, imprisonment for debt,
and suffering from this time until 1841. when he began
to see day-light. By accident he one day allowed a,
piece of rubber to drop on the stove, when, lo ! he had
found the secret, heat was the thing needed. Six years
had he struggled on through untold hardships, and now
he seemed crowned with success. He had found the
desired solution of the problem, but he made a fatal
mistake here. Instead of settling down and manufac
turing his discovery, which would have brought him a.
fortune, he sold rights and kept on experimenting. By
certain legal informalities he secured no benefit what
ever from his patent in France and he was cheated en
tirely out of it in England. Although he lived to see
460 HIDDEN TREASURES.
large factories for its manufacture spring up in both
America and Europe, employing 60,000 operatives, still
he died in 1860 at the age of seventy-one, leaving his
family unprovided for. The cause was not lack of per
severance nor energy, but the sole cause was lack of
judgment in business matters.
The vulcanized rubber trade is one of the greatest
industries of the world to-day, amounting to millions of
dollars annually. The usefulness of India rubber is thus
described in the North American Review : " Some of our
readers have been out on the picket-line during the war.
They know what it is to stand motionless in a wet and
miry rifle-pit in the chilly rain of a southern winter s
night. Protected by India rubber boots, blanket and cap,
the picket-man is in comparative comfort; a duty which,
without that protection, would make him a cowering
and shivering wretch, and plant in his bones a latent
rheumatism, to be the torment of his old age. Good-
year s India rubber enables him to come in from his pit
as dry as when he went into it, and he comes in to lie
down with an India rubber blanket between him and the
damp earth. If he is wounded it is an India-rubber
stretcher or an ambulance, provided with India-rubber
springs, that gives him least pain on his way to the hos
pital, where, if his wound is serious, a water-bed of India
rubber gives ease to his mangled frame, and enables him
to endure the wearing tedium of an unchanged posture.
Bandages and supporters of India rubber avail him much
when first he begins to hobble about his ward. A piece of
India rubber at the end of his crutch lessens the jar and
the noise of his motions, and a cushion of India rubber
is comfortable to his arm-pit. The springs which close
the hospital door, the bands which excludes the drafts
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 46].
from doors and windows, his pocket-comb and cup and
thimble are of the same material. From jars hermetic
ally closed with India rubber he receives the fresh fruit
that is so exquisitely delicious to a fevered mouth. The
instrument case of his surgeon, and the store-room of
his matron contains many articles whose utility is in
creased by the use of it, and some that could be made
of nothing else. In a small rubber case the physician
carries with him and preserves his lunar caustic, which
would corrode any metallic surface. His shirts and
sheets pass through an India rubber clothes-wringer,
which saves the strength of the washer- worn an and the
fibre of the fabric. When the government presents him
with an artificial leg, a thick heel and elastic sole of
India rubber give him comfort e^ery time he puts it on
the ground. In the field this material is not less strik
ingly useful. During the late war armies have marched
through ten clays of rain and slept through as many
nights, and come out dry into the returning sunshine
with their artillery untarnished and their ammunition
not injured, because men and munitions were all under
India rubber."
Ought we soon to forget him to whom we are in
debted, in a large measure, for all this? The American
people will long remember Charles Goodyear when others
have faded from memory.
462 HIDDEN TREASURES.
PROF. S F, B, MORSE,
{( /^ANST thou send lightnings that they may go and
\Q say unto thee : Here we are ! " Said the Lord from
the whirlwind to afflicted Job, who remained dumb for
he could not answer. The question has been answered
in the affirmative in our day by the perfector of the
electro-magnetic telegraph, the late Professor Morse, by
whose invention the promise has been fulfilled: "Til
put a girdle around the globe in forty minutes."
Samuel Finly Breese Morse was born in Charleston,
Massachusetts, April 27th, 1791. His father was the first
person to publish geographies in America. His father
was also a celebrated Congregational minister, spending
much of his time in religious controversy, in maintaining
the orthodox faith throughout the New England churches
and against Unitarianism. He was prominent among
those who founded Andover Theological Seminary, and
published many religious periodicals.
S. F. B. Morse was a graduate from Yale at the age of
nineteen, and soon went to England for the purpose of
studying painting. At the end of two years he received
the gold medal of the Adelphia Society of Arts for an
original model of a " Dying Hercules, " his first attempt
at sculpture. The following year he exhibited "The
Judgment of Jupiter," a painting praised by his teacher,
Mr. West. Becoming quite proficient in painting and
sculpture, he returned home in 1815, following his pro
fession in Boston, Charleston, South Carolina, and later
in New York city. At the latter place, in connection
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 463
with other artists, he organized a drawing association,
which resulted in the establishment of the National
Academy of Design. Prof. Morse was chosen its first
President, and was continued in that office for the follow
ing sixteen years. He painted a great many portraits,
among which was a full length portrait of Lafayette,
which was highly prized and commended by the Asso
ciation. In 1829 he visited Europe a second time to
complete his studies in art reading for more than three
years in the principal cities of the continent. During
his absence abroad he was elected Professor of the liter
ature of the Arts of Design in the University of New
York ; and in 1835 he delivered a course of lectures be
fore that school on the affinity of those arts.
While in college Mr. Morse had paid special atten
tion to chemistry and natural philosophy; but his love
of art seemed to be the stronger; later, however, these
sciences became a dominant pursuit with him. As far
back as 1826- ?, he and Prof. J. Freeman Dana had been
colleague lecturers at the A^thenseum in the City of New
York, the former lecturing on the fine arts, and the
latter upon electro-magnetism. They were intimate
friends, and in their conversation the subject of electro-
magnetism was made familiar to the mind of Morse.
The electro-magnet on Sturgeon s principle the first ever
shown in the United States was exhibited and ex
plained in Dana s lectures, and at a later date, by gift of
Prof. Torrey, came into Morse s possession. Dana even
then suggested, by his spiral volute coil, the electro
magnet of the present day; this was the magnet in use
when Morse returned from Europe, and it is now used
in every Morse telegraph throughout both hemispheres.
On his second return to the United States he em-
464 HIDDEN TREASURES.
barked from Havre on the packet ship Sully, in the
autumn of 1832 and in a casual conversation with some
of the passengers on the then recent discovery in France
of the means of obtaining the electric spark from the
magnet, showing the identity or relation of electricity
and magnetism, Morse s mind conceived, not merely the
idea of an electric telegraph, but of an electro-magnetic
and chemical recording telegraph; substantially and
essentially as it now exists. The testimony to the pa
ternity of the idea in Morse s mind, and to his acts and
drawings on board the ship is ample. His own testi
mony was corroborated by all the passengers with a
single exception, Thomas Jackson, who claimed to have
originated the idea and imparted the same to Morse.
However, there is little controversy in regard to this
matter at the present day as the courts decided irrevoc
ably in favor of Morse. The year 1832 is fixed as the
date of Morse s conception and realization, also, so far
as drawings could embody the conception of the tele
graph system; which now bears his name. A part of the
apparatus was constructed in New York before the close
of the first year, but circumstances prevented its com
pletion before 1835, when he put up a-half mile of wire
in coil around a room and exhibited the telegraph in
operation. Two years latex he exhibited the operation of
his system before the University of New York.
From the greater publicity of this exhibition the date
of Morse s invention has erroneously been fixed in the
autumn of 1837, whereas he operated successfully with
the first single instrument in November, 1835. In 1837
he filed his caveat in the Patent Office in Washington,
and asked Congress for aid to build an experimental line
from that city to Baltimore. The House Committee on
29
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 465
Commerce gave a favorable report, but the session closed
without action, and Morse went to Europe in the hope
of interesting foreign governments in his invention.
The result was a refusal to grant him letters patent in
England, and the obtaining of a useless brevet $ invention
in France, and no exclusive privileges in any other coun
try. He returned home to struggle again with scanty
means for four years, during which he continued his
appeals at Washington. His hope had expired on the
last evening of the session of 1842-3 ; but in the morn
ing, March 4th, he was startled with the announcement
that the desired aid of Congress had been obtained in
the midnight hour of the expiring session, and $30,000
placed at his disposal for his experimental essay be
tween Washington and Baltimore. In 1844 the work
was completed, and demonstrated to the world the prac
ticability and the utility of the Morse system of electro
magnetic telegraphing. Violations of his patents and
assumption of his rights by rival companies involved him
in a long series of law suits ; but these were eventually
decided in his favor, and he reaped the benefits to which
his invention entitled him.
It is doubtful if any American ever before received
so many marks of distinction. In 1846 Yale College
conferred on him the degree of LL.D.; in 1848 he re
ceived the decoration of the Nishan Iftikur in diamonds
from the Sultan of Turkey ; gold medals of scientific
merit were awarded him by the king of Prussia; the
king of Wurtemberg, and the Emperor of Austria. In
1856 he received from the Emperor of the French the
cross of Chevalier of the Legion of Honor ; in 1857 from
the King of Denmark the cross of Knight Commander
of the First Class of the Danebrog; in 1858 from the
466 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Queen of Spain the cross of Knight Commander of the
Order of Isabella the Catholic ; from the king of Italy
the cross of the Order of SS. Maurice and Lazarus, and
from the king of Portugal the cross of the Order of the
Tower and Sword. In 1856 the telegraph companies of
Great Britain gave him a banquet in London ; and in
Paris, in 1858, another banquet was given him by Ameri
cans numbering more than 100, and representing almost
every State in the Union. In the latter year, at the
instance of Napoleon III, representatives of France,
Russia, Sweden, Belgium, Holland, Austria, Sardinia,
Tuscany, the Holy See, and Turkey met in Paris to de
cide upon a collective testimonial to him, and the result
was a vote of 400,000 francs as a personal reward for
his labors. On December 29th, 1868, the citizens of New
York gave him a public dinner. In June, 1871, a bronze
statue of him, erected by the voluntary contributions of
telegraph employees, was formally unveiled in Central
Park, New York, by William Cullen Bryant, and in the
evening a reception was held in the Academy of Music,
at which Prof. Morse telegraphed, by means of one of
the instruments used on the original line between New
York and Washington, a message of greeting to all the
cities of the continent.
The last public service which he performed was
the unveiling of the statue of Franklin in Printing
House Square, New York, on January 17th, 1872. Sub
marine telegraphy also originated with Prof. Morse, who
laid the first sub-marine lines, in New York harbor in
1842, and received at the time from the American Insti
tute a gold medal. He died in the city of New York
April 2nd, 1872, While in Paris in 1839 he made the ac
quaintance of Daguerre, and from drawings furnished
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 467
him by the latter, he constructed, on his return, the first
daguerreotype apparatus, and took the first sun pictures
ever taken in America. He was also an author and
poet of some standing.
CYRUS W, FIELD,
THERE are few people living who have not heard of
^ Cyrus W. Field. Few people, however, have taken
the trouble to learn more of him other than the fact
that to him are we indebted for the Atlantic Cable, and
THIS information has been forced upon them.
One often hears the old saying, "blood tells," and
when we review the Field family we are constrained to
admit its truth. David Dudly Field, Sr., the father, was
a noted Divine. He had a family of seven sons, the old
est of which, David Dudly, Jr., is a most conspicuous
lawyer. Stephen Johnson, has held some of the most
exalted positions as a jurist within the gift of the nation
and his adopted State, California. Henry Martyn, is a
renowned editor and Doctor of Divinity. Matthew D. is
an expert engineer, and in this capacity did much to aid
the success of the cable which has made famous for all
time the subject of this narrative. Matthew is also a
somewhat noted and successful politician. Another
brother, Timothy, entered the navy, and we doubt not
would have become equally distinguished but for his
untimely death. Cyrus West, was born at Stockbridge,
Massachusetts, November 30th, 1819. Unlike the Apple-
HIDDEN TREASURES.
tons, Harpers and numerous other noted families, the
Fields seemed to discard the idea "in union is there
strength," each selecting his own calling, to become
individually singled out and honored.
As heretofore shown, almost the entire Field family-
have made history, but upon Cyrus does the world be
stow the greatest distinction. He was the only brother
choosing a mercantile life, and at the age of fifteen,
nearly sixteen, he was apprenticed to the great A. T.
Stewart. After his apprenticeship he returned to Massa
chusetts and started a small paper-mill, and still later
came to New York again, this time to open a paper ware
house, but for some reason failed. One feature of the
great success which has attended Mr. Field was his stick-
to-it-iveness which enabled him to fight it out on that
line if it took all summer/ He accordingly compromised
the matter with his creditors, re-established the business,
profited by his past mistakes, and in the course of eleven
or twelve years had amassed an ample fortune. Accord
ingly, about 1853, he decided to retire, and spent six
months traveling in South America, not, however, until
he had enclosed a check to each of his old creditors,
thereby discharging a moral obligation, although not
legally bound.
In the meantime, a Mr. Gibson had enlisted the sym
pathy of his brother Matthew, the engineer, in a trans
atlantic telegraph company, which was to be carried on
by a co-operation of the telegraph, and a system of fast
ocean steamers. Although adverse to all thought of re
suming any business this brother obtained for Mr. Gib
son an audience, and he presented to Mr. Field his scheme
which involved a telegraphic communication between
New York and St. John ; hence, by fast ocean steamers,
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 469
Mr. Gibson left without gaining his object, but upon re
flection Mr. Field suddenly exclaimed: "Why not run a
wire through the ooean itself, instead of ending it at
St. John ? " Although it is claimed that Field had never
heard of such an idea, yet it did not originate with him.
In fact, a cable was then in operation between Dover
and Calais, connecting England and France. Having
become imbued with this plan he at once consulted his
brother David as to what legal obstacles might possibly
arise, and being satisfied on that score, he set about the
accomplishment of his purpose.
He saw Peter Cooper and several other moneyed men
and solicited their aid, forming a company, with Peter
Cooper as president. Matthew was now interested as
chief engineer, and David as counsel. These will be
remembered as two of the famous brothers. The bur
den of the work, however, fell upon our hero, He seemed
to be everywhere. First in New Foundland, where he
bought the rights of a rival company then before the
Provincial Government, where his influence secured the
consent of the legislature of Newfoudland. Then he is
over in England, where he is successful in not only se
curing the necessary rights and privileges to occupy
British territory, but the special favor of the Queen and
the capital stock of about $1,680,000, which it was hoped
could be placed in England, was taken in a few weeks,
and not only this but the British government agreed to
pay an annual subsidy of about $68,000, for the use of
the cable by that government and ships, not only for
surveying but to help lay the cable.
Mr. Field now ordered the cable made, and again set
sail for America, and is soon at the national capitol try
ing to enlist the sympathy and aid of our country. The
470 HIDDEN TREASURES.
lobby and other influences seemed to be against him,
and he met with the cold shoulder at every turn, but
nothing dismayed this man. At last the bill passed
the Senate by the majority of but one vote, and in the
Lower House by an absolutely small majority, but after
a hard fight it became a fixed thing, and received the
signature of President Buchanan.
Reader, look back upon the trials of Cyrus Field as
you have followed them thus far; imagine if you can the
trouble, vexation and disappointments which have thus
far attended him, and when you think that he had all this
trouble to get PERMISSION to lay the cable, and that while
he had already passed through much; yet his disappoint
ments were destined to be tenfold greater ere success-
attended him; will you say he is undeserving of that
success? The rights are secure; the stock taken; the.
cable is done and all seems fair sailing.
The Agamemnon of the Royal Mary and the Niagara,
furnished by the United States government, started with
their precious burden. The paying out machine kept up
its steady revolutions. Slowly, but surely, the cable
slips over the side and into the briny deep. Many emi
nent men were eagerly watching with Mr. Field on the
Niagara ; a gradual solemnity took possession of the
entire ship s company. Who would not be interested ?
Who would not feel the powerful pressure of responsi
bility, and when at last the too sudden application of a
break parted the cable, and it wholly disappeared from
view, the shock was too much for the stoutest nerves.
All appeared to feel that a dear friend had just slipped
the cable of life, and had gone to make his grave beneath
the deep waters.
But of all that sad company, Mr. Field is the least
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 471
dismayed. He recognized that a most expensive and
disastrous accident had happened ; but the belief was
firmly fixed in his mind that the plan was practicable.
He was now offered the position of General Manager, at
a salary of $5,000 per year. The position he accepted,
but declined the salary.
In 1858 the second attempt was begun, but when
about two hundred miles had been laid, the cable parted,
and the result of months of labor and large capital was
remorsefully swallowed up by the mighty deep. But
while all seemed ready to give up, Cyrus Field seemed
to be everywhere. His activity seemed to exceed the
bounds of human endurance. Many were the successive
twenty-four hours in which he had no sleep, and his
friends were alarmed lest he and the new enterprise
should break together.
By his assiduousness the work was recommenced this
same year, and on the 5th of August, 1858, was com
pleted. Messages were exchanged between Queen Vic
toria and President Buchanan, and for about a month
the cable worked perfectly, amid great rejoicing, when
all at once it stopped ; the cable refused to respond.
Few thought the project would be prosecuted further,
but they miscalculated the power of endurance, the
possession of which has brought the success of that man
whom they now envy, " because fortune has smiled upon
him more especially than them. 7
How often do we find ourselves wishing we were as
rich as some person, or as influential as another ; when
we have but to follow their example, do as they have
done, endure what they have endured to acquire the
coveted success.
If we would stop to consider that seventy-three per
472 HIDDEN TREASURES.
cent, of our great men were poor boys, we would readily
see that those we now envy are only enjoying the fruit
of their own toil.
The civil war broke out and all work was suspended,
but in 1863 a new cable was ordered of Gloss, Elliot &
Company in London, and a capital of $3,000,000 was
raised by the indomitable energy of Mr. Field. The
Great Eastern was employed to lay it, and on the 23rd
day of July, 1865, that leviathan of the deep, started on
her momentous journey, successfully traversing about
three-fourths of the entire distance, when the cable once
more parted, carrying with it to the bottom of the ocean
every fond hope cherished by so many. But once more
arose Cyrus West Field, and an entirely new company is
formed, and $3,000,000 more is raised. On Friday, July
13th, 1866, the Great Eastern once more starts, and on
Friday, the 27th of July, the following cablegram is re
ceived.
HEARTS CONTENT, July 27th.
We arrived here at nine o clock this morning. All well, thank
God. The Cable is laid, and is in perfect working order.
Signed, CYRUS W. FIELD."
To make the victory more complete, the Great Eastern
again put to sea, raised the cable which was lost the
preceding year, spliced it, and the two have since been
in constant use.
Who dares deny that Cyrus W. Field is not deserving
of enduring fame ? For thirteen years he had borne the
brunt of all the ridicule and sneers directed at this
greatest enterprise of modern history. He has been
bitterly denounced by many as a capitalist, a monopo
list, and the like ; but if the world has been benefited
so many millions by the Ocean Telegraph, it seems to us
that the BEST is inadequate as a reward to its proprietor.
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 478
GEORGE M, PULLMAN,
JT~IHE subject of this sketch we consider one of the
JL greatest of philanthropists. He is a modest man.
and for this reason disclaimed all desire to be known as
a benefactor. But we cannot now think of any one who
is more clearly identified with the great effort which is
going on for the benefit of mankind.
He is a native of the grand old empire State, being
born in the western part of New York, March 3rd, 1831.
His father was a mechanic of some note, but died before
George was of age, leaving him to help support his
mother and younger brothers.
He worked for a time in a furniture establishment,
but this kind of employment did not satisfy his active
nature, and he went to Chicago, where his enterprise
could have sea room. He at first became identified with
the work of raising and placing new foundations under
several large buildings of that city. He helped raise a
whole block several feet high, an enterprise which was
accomplished without hardly a break, discontinuing
none of the business firms who occupied the buiding,
their business being carried on uninterrupted.
George M. Pullman had a perceptive mind sohave
all truly successful men. He perceived that while the
railway coaches were far superior to the old stages, yet
they were far inferior to what he imagined they ought
to be. He at once applied to the Chicago and Alton
railway management and laid his plan before them.
474 HIDDEN TREASURES.
They furnished him with two old coaches, with which,
to experiment. These he fitted up with bunks, and
while they were not to be compared with the elegant
palaces which he has since constructed, still one could
lie down and sleep all night, which was so far in advance
of anything the people had seen, that they were very
highly appreciated.
He now went to Colorado, and engaged in various
mining schemes, but here he was out of his sphere, and
after a three years sojourn, returned to Chicago. His
active imagination had thought out many improvements
on the cars he had previously constructed ; and he had
also secured capital with which to carry out his ideas.
Fitting up a shop on the Chicago and Alton road, he
constructed two coaches, at the then fabulous cost of
$18,000 each. The management of the various western
roads looked upon snch enterprise as visionary. George
M. Pullman, however, cared but little about their opinion.
The Union and Pacific was then exciting much at
tention. He knew that on the completion of such a>
road, travelers would appreciate a car in which they
could enjoy the comforts of home for the entire tedious
trip. To say that his hopes were fully realized, would
be inadequate. So popular did they become, that his
shops at Chicago could not begin to fill the demands
made upon it for his parlor, dining, and sleeping cars.
Branches were started at Detroit, St. Louis, Philadelphia,
and various places in Europe.
These establishments, of necessity, could not come
under his immediate supervision he, therefore, conceived
the idea of concentrating his business into one vast
establishment, and gathered about him a force of skilled
workmen. He looked upon Chicago and its locality as;
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 475
the coming center of population in the United States ;
but a site in that city would be far too expensive, if
indeed one could have been found sufficient for his.
purpose. About twelve to fifteen miles from Chicago
was a swamp : it was considered worthless, but it was
as easy for this natural mechanic to conceive the idea^
of draining this tract of land, as it was to conceive
methods to raise buildings. A very large force of men
were put to work draining; gas-pipes were laid ; streets-
were laid out and graded, and an architect employed to
draw the plans for the building of a whole city at once.
Gigantic work-shops were built, and a water supply
brought from Lake Michigan, miles away. Besides all
this, over fourteen hundred beautiful homes were built
before any man was asked to come to Pullman to enter
the shops. A bank was opened, a library, containing
thousands of volumes, was provided; all these things
were brought about by Mr. Pullman. He has expended
several million of dollars in beautifying and providing
for the comfort and pleasure of his employees. The
buildings are not mushroom affairs, but substantial brick
edifices which give this place an appearance which
will compare favorably with any city. He built a fine
hotel, and erected a beautiful church, placing a rich
toned organ in it, which alone cost $3,500. Every honest
tradesman can come to Pullman. None but liquor dealers,
or men who desire to keep low groggeries are excluded.
No property is sold, but if a party desires to live there
he applies to the Superintendent, and a lease is given r
which can be cancelled by either party at ten days
notice. Nothing but liquor is forbidden. A man can
squander his time, can gamble, possibly, but he cannot
obtain drink ; the result is, there are no policemen. No
476 HIDDEN TREASURES.
visible form of government, save Mr. Pullman, and yet
this is a city of nearly eight thousand people. The
people are not muddLed with drink ; they are promptly
paid; their personal rights are not interfered with,
save in respect to the selling of liquor ; they are con
tented and happy. Mr. Pullman has been largely iden
tified with the Metropolitan Railway and the Eagleton
Wire Works in New York city. But the name of Pull
man is destined to long remain a synonym of philan
thropy. He has practically demonstrated the benefit of
legislation against the sale of intoxicating liquors as a
beverage. He claims to have done this as a business
policy, and disclaims all honor as a philanthropist. We
answer, would that we had more men who would follow
this kind of a business policy.
THOMAS A, EDISON,
ON February llth, 1845, was born at Milan, Ohio, Thomas
A. Edison, now a little over 42 years of age, and to
day enjoying a reputation as an inventor that is without
a parallel in history.
At eight or nine years of age he began to earn his
own living, selling papers. When twelve years old his
enterprise, pushed by ambition, secured him a position
as newsboy on the Grand Trunk Railroad. Here his
inventive genius manifested itself. Arranging with sta
tion agents along the line, he caused the headings of
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 477
news to be telegraphed ahead, the agents posting the
same in some conspicuous place. By this means the
profits of his business were greatly augmented. He next
fitted up a small printing press in one corner of a car,
and when not busy in his regular work as newsboy, suc
cessfully published a small paper. The subject-matter
was contributed by employes on the road, and young
Edison was the proprietor, editor, publisher and selling
agent. He also carried on electrical experiments in one
corner of the car.
Finally, he entered one of the offices on the ro ad, and
here he learned the art of telegraphy. The next few
years he was engaged as an operator in several of the
largest cities throughout the Union, such as Cincin nati,
Indianapolis, Louisville, Boston, New York, Memphis,
and Port Huron. He not only became one of the most
expert operators in the country, but his office was a
labratory for electrical experiment. All day long he
attended to the duties of his office, and at night one
would find him busy at experiments tending toward the
development of the use of the telegraph.
Hard work an-d frequent wanderings at last found
him developing his ideas in Boston. He brought out
duplex telegraphy and suggested a printing telegraph for
the use of gold and stock quotations. His ability becom
ing so apparent he was retained by wealthy men in New
York at a high salary. In 1876 he removed to Menlo
Park, New Jersey, where he fitted up an extensive labra
tory for the prosecution and development of his en
terprise.
Here he has won his world-wide fame, keeping two
continents in a fevered state of expectancy. Indeed,
some of his inventions have been so wonderful that he
478 HIDDEN TREASURES.
might be accredited with supernatural powers. By im
provement he brought the telephone of Gray, Bell, etc.,
from a mere toy to an instrument of great commercial
worth. Ten years ago hardly a telephone was in use;
now the business of our country would hardly know how
to do without it. Of all modern inventions connected
with the transmission of electrical sound the telephone
has excited, perhaps, the most interest. An instrument
which not only transmits intelligible signals great dis
tances, but also the tones of the voice, so that the voice
shall be as certainly recognized when heard hundreds of
miles away as if the owner was speaking in the same
room. No great skill is required of the operator,. and if
a business man desires to speak with another person he
has but to step to an instrument in his own office, ring
a bell, and thus, through a central office, connect himself
with the instrument of the desired party, when a con
versation can take place.
In its mechanism the telephone consists of a steel
cylindrical magnet, perhaps five inches long and one-
half of an inch thick, encircled at one end by a short
bobbin of ebonite, on which is wound a quantity of fine
insulated copper wire. The two ends of the coil are
soldered to thicker pieces of copper wire which traverse
the wooden envelop from end to end, and terminate in
the screws of its extremity. Immediately in front is a
thin circular plate of iron; this is kept in place by being
jammed between the main portion of the wooden case
and the cap, which carries the mouth or ear trumpet,
which are screwed together. Such is the instrument in
vented by Bell and Edison.
The means to produce light by electricity next oc
cupied his attention, and the Edison-Electric Light was
GREAT INVENTORS AND THEIR INVENTIONS. 479
the result. The electric current for this light is gener
ated by means of large magneto-electric machines, which
are driven by some motive power. It is the only light
known to science which can be compared to the rays of
the sun. Especially is this light useful in lighthouses,
on board ships and for lighting "streets in cities. It is,
however, used in factories, workshops, large halls, etc.,
and in the very near future will doubtless become a light
in private dwellings.
But, possibly, the most wonderful invention which
has been the result of the inventive conception of Mr.
Edison is the phonograph, a simple apparatus consisting
in its original mechanism of a simple cylinder of hollow
brass, mounted upon a shaft, at one end of which is a
<^rank for turning it, and at the other a balance-wheel,
the whole being supported by two iron uprights. There
is a mouth-piece, as in the telephone, which has a vibrat
ing membrane similar to the drum of a person s ear. To
the other side of this membrane there is a light metal
point or stylus, which touches the tin-foil which is placed
around the cylinder. The operator turns the crank,
at the same time talking into the mouth-piece ; the
membrane vibrates under the impulses of the voice, and
the stylus marks the tin-foil in a manner to correspond
with the vibrations of the, membrane. When the speak
ing is finished the machine is set back to where it started
on the tin-foil, and by once more turning the crank pre
cisely the same vibrations are repeated by the machines.
These vibrations effect the air, and this again the ear,
and the listener hears the same words come forth that
were talked into the instrument. The tin-foil can be
removed, and, if uninjured, the sounds can be reproduced
,at any future date
480 HIDDEN TREASURES.
Different languages can be reproduced at once, and
the instrument can be made to talk and sing at once
without confusion. Indeed, so wonderful is this piece of
mechanism, that one must see it to be convinced. Even
the tone of voice is retained ; and it will sneeze, whis
tle, echo, cough, sing, etc., etc.
Improvements are in progress, notably among which
is an apparatus to impel it by clock work instead of a
crank. The phonograph as yet has never come into
extended use, but its utility is obvious when its mechan
ism is complete ; business men can use it for dictating
purposes, as it is possille to put forty thousand words on
a tin-foil sheet ten inches square.
The invention of any one of the foregoing must have
made for Mr. Edison a world-wide fame, but when it is
remembered that he has already taken out over two
hundred patents, one realizes something of the fertility
of his imagination. Many other inventions are worthy
of note, which have originated at the Menlo Park labra-
tory, but space forbids, although it is safe to predict
that more startling inventions may yet be in store for
an expectant world.
30
U/t?il<? Ot^rs pail.
SUCCESS AND FAILURE,
man, two ways are open before you in life.
X One points to degradation and want, the other, to
usefulness and wealth. In the old Grecian races one only,
by any possible means, could gain the prize, but in the
momentous race of human life there is no limiting of
the prize to one. No one is debarred from competing ;
all may succeed, provided the right methods are followed.
Life is not a lottery. Its prizes are not distributed by
chance.
There can hardly be a greater folly, not to say pre
sumption, than that of so many young men and women
who, on setting out in life, conclude that it is no use to
mark out for themselves a course, and then set them
selves with strenuous effort to attain some worthy end;
who conclude, therefore, to commit themselves blindly
to the current of circumstances. Is it anything surprising
that those who aim at nothing, accomplish nothing in life?
481
482 HIDDEN TREASURES.
No better result could reasonably be expected. Twenty
clerks in a store ; twenty apprentices in a ship-yard ;
twenty young men in a city or village all want to get
on in the world ; most of them expect to succeed. One
of the clerks will become a partner, and make a fortune;
one of the young men will find his calling and succeed.
But what of the other nineteen ? They will fail ; and
miserably fail, some of them. They expect to succeed,
but they aim at nothing ; content to live for the day
only, consequently, little effort is put forth, and they
reap a reward accordingly.
Luck ! There is no luck about it. The thing is
almost as certain as the "rule of three." The young
man who will distance his competitors is he who will
master his business ; who lives within his income, saving
his spare money; who preserves his reputation; who
devotes his leisure hours to the acquisition of knowl
edge ; and who cultivates a pleasing manner, thus gain
ing friends. We hear a great deal about luck. If a man
succeeds finely in business, he is said to have "good luck."
He may have labored for years with this one object in
view, bending every energy to attain it. He may have
denied himself many things, and his seemingly sudden
success may be the result of years of hard work, but the
world looks in and says : "He is lucky." Another man
plunges into some hot-house scheme and loses : "He is
unlucky." Another man s nose is perpetually on the
grind-stone ; he also has "bad luck." No matter if he
follows inclination rather than judgment, if he fails, as
he might know he would did he but exercise one-half
the judgment he does possess, yet he is never willing to
ascribe the failure to himself he invariably ascribes
it to bad luck, or blames some one else.
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 483
Luck ! There is no such factor in the race for
success. Rufus Choate once said, " There is little in the
theory of luck which will bring man success; but work,
guided by thought, will remove mountains or tunnel
them." Carlyle said, "Man know thy work, then do it."
How often do we see the sign: " Gentlemen WILL not ;
OTHERS MUST NOT loaf in this room." True, gentlemen
never loaf, but labor. Fire-flies shine only in motion.
It is only the active who will be singled out to hold re
sponsible positions. The fact that their ability is mani
fest is no sign that they are lucky.
Thiers, of France, was once complimented thus: "It
is marvelous, Mr. President, how you deliver long im
provised speeches about which you have not had time
to reflect." His reply was: "You are not paying me a
compliment; it is criminal in a statesman to improvise
speeches on public affairs. Those speeches I have been
fifty years preparing." Daniel Webster s notable reply
to Hayne was the result of years of study on the problem
of State Rights. Professor Mowry once told the follow
ing story: "A few years ago a young man went into a
cotton factory and spent a year in the card room. He
then devoted another year to learning how to spin; still
another how to weave. He boarded with a weaver, and
was often asking questions. Of course he picked up all
kinds of knowledge. He was educating himself in a
good school, and was destined to graduate high in his
class. He became superintendent of a small mill at
$1,500 a year. One of the large mills in Fall River was
running behind hand. Instead of making money the
corporation was losing. They needed a first-class man
to manage the mill, and applied to a gentleman in
Boston well acquainted with the leading men engaged
484 HIDDEN TREASURES.
in the manufacture of cotton. He told them he knew
of a young man who would suit them, but they would
have to pay him a large salary.
"What salary will he require? 7 "I cannot tell, but I
think you will have to pay him $6,000 a year." "That
is a ]arge sum; we have never paid so much." "No,
probably not, and you have never had a competent man.
The condition of your mill and the story you have told
me to-day show the result. I do not think he would go
for less, but I will advise him to accept if you offer him
that salary." The salary was offered, the man accepted,
and he saved nearly forty per cent, of the cost of making
the goods the first year. Soon he had a call from one of
the largest corporations in New England, at a salary of
$10,000 per year. He had been with this company but
one year when he was offered another place at $15,000
per year. Now some will say: " Well, he was lucky, this
gentleman was a friend who helped him to a fat place."
My dear reader, with such we ha\ e little patience. It is.
evident that this young man was determined to succeed
from the first. He mastered his business, taking time
and going thorough. When once the business was mas
tered his light began to shine. Possibly the gentleman
helped him to a higher salary than he might have ac
cepted, but it is also evident that his ability was mani
fest. The gentleman knew whereof he spoke. The old
proverb that "Circumstances make men" is simply a wolf
in wool. Whether a man is conditioned high or low ; in
the city or on the farm : "If he will ; he will." "They
can who think they can." "Wishes fail but wills pre
vail." "Labor is luck." It is better to make our de
scendants proud of us than to be proud of our ancestry.
There is hardly a conceivable obstacle to success that
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 485
some of our successful men have not overcome : "What
man has done, man can do." "Strong men have wills ;
weak ones, wishes."
In the contest, wills prevail. Some writers would
make men sticks carried whither the tide takes them.
We have seen that biography vetoes this theory. Will
makes circumstances instead of being ruled by them.
Alexander Stephens, with a dwarfs body, did a giant s
work. With a broken scythe in the race he over-matched
those with fine mowing-machines. Will-power, directed
by a mind that was often replenished, accomplished the
desired result.
Any one can drift. It takes pluck to stem an un
favorable current. A man fails and lays it to circum
stances. The fact too frequently is that he swallowed
luxuries beyond his means. A gentleman asked a child
who made him. The answer was: * God made me so
long measuring the length of a baby and I growed
the rest." The mistake of the little deist in leaving out
the God of his growth illustrates a conviction : We, are
what we make ourselves.
Garfield once said: " If the power to do hard work
is not talent it is the best possible substitute for it."
Things don t turn up in this world until some one turns
them up. A POUND of pluck is worth a TON of luck.
Luck is a false light; you may follow it to rnin, but
never to success. If a man has ability which is re-in-
forced by energy, the fact is manifest, and he will not
lack opportunities. The fortunes of mankind depend so
much upon themselves, that it is entirely legitimate to
enquire by what means each may make or mar his own
happiness; may achieve success or bring upon himself
the sufferings of failure.
486 HIDDEN TREASURES.
CONCENTRATION OF EFFORT.
n~\HE man who has no occupation, is in a sad plight:
J[ The man who lacks concentration of effort is worse
off. In a recent test of the power of steel plates, designed
for ship armor, one thousand cannon were fired at
once against it, but without avail. A large cannon was
then brought out. This cannon used but one-tenth as
much powder as did the combined force of the others,
yet, it was found, when the smoke had cleared away,
that the ball had pierced the plate. Ten times the pow
der needed availed naught, because, the law of concen
tration was disregarded.
One of the essential requisites to success is concen
tration. Every young man, therefore, should early as
certain his strong faculties, and discern, if possible, his
especial fitness for any calling which he may choose. A
man may have the most dazzling talents, but if his energies
are scattered he will accomplish nothing. Emerson says:
"A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no
lustre as you turn it in your hand, until you come to a
particular angle ; then it shows deep and beautiful colors."
There is no adaptation or universal applicability in man.
Dryden has said :
"What the child admired,
The youth endeavored, and the man acquired."
Is it not so ? Do we not find Michael Angelo neg
lecting school to copy drawings ? Henry Clay learning
pieces to recite in the barn or corn field ? Yet, as Goethe
says : "We should guard against a talent which we can-
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 487
not hope to practice in perfection. Improve it as we
may, we shall always, in the end, when the merit of the
master has become apparent to us, painfully lament the
loss of time and strength devoted to such botching."
The man who would know one thing well, must have
the courage to be ignorant of a thousand other things,
no matter how attractive they may be, or how desirable
it may seem to try them. P. T. Barnum, the veteran
showman, who has lost several fortunes but risen above
all, paid every dollar of his indebtedness, and is to-day
a millionaire, says in his lecture on The Art of Money
Getting :
"Be a whole man in whatever you undertake. This
wholeness is just what distinguishes the shabby, blunder
ing mechanic from the splendid workman. In earlier
times, when our country was new, there might have
been a chance for the man who gave only one corner of
his brain to his chosen calling, but in these days of keen
competition it demands the most thorough knowledge of
the business, and the most earnest application to bring
success. Stick to your business, and you may be sure that
your business will stick to you. It is this directing your
whole mind and energies at one point, that brings
success.
The first thing a young man should do after select
ing his vocation is to become thoroughly satisfied with
his choice. He must be thoroughly satisfied or he is de
feated at the start. In arriving at this decision he must
bear in mind that if he would find a calling in which all
will be sunshine, where the clouds never darken the
pathway, he must look in some other world for that
calling. On earth there are no such callings to be found.
When we see Spurgeon, the great London preacher,
488 HIDDEN TREASURES.
swaying the multitudes, we possibly do not remember
the time when, as a poor boy of but eighteen, he begins
preaching on the street corners to a shabby crowd. We
would possibly be willing to partake of the fame
that he may now enjoy, but might object to the pastoral
visiting he is obliged to do each week. We would not
object to the fame of Webster, of Calhoun or of Clay, but
we might think it tedious to work night after night to
obtain the knowledge which brought this fame. Ah !
how many of us would "peter 7 out in a short time?
When one is satisfied with his calling he must work at
it, if need be. day and night, early and late, in season
and out of season, never deferring for a single hour that
which can NOW be done. The old proverb, "What is
worth doing at all is w^orth doing well/ was never truer
than it is to-day.
A certain class are clamoring for a division of the
national wealth. They are like the worthless vagabond
who said to the rich man, "I have discovered that there
is money enough in the world for all of us if it was
equally divided ; this must be done, and we shall all be
happy together." " But," replied the rich man, "if every
body was like you it would be spent in two months, and
what would we then do?" "Oh! divide again; keep
dividing, of course !" And yet a very considerable num
ber of people think this is the solution of the labor prob
lem. The point is, we must distinguish the dividing line
between the rights of property and the wrongs of oppres
sion. Either extreme is fatal. Education is surely the
solution of the labor question.
Listen : Our country is the freest, the grandest, the
best governed of any nation on earth ; yet we spend
yearly nine hundred million dollars for drink, and only
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 489
eighty-live million for education. Thus, while one dol
lar tends to education and wealth, over ten dollars is used
to bring ignorance, degradation, and want. Over ten
times the influence for evil that there is for good. Where
is the remedy? Let Congress, which is supposed to con
trol our interests, legislate against ignorance and for
education. Suppose that nine hundred millions were
yearly used to educate deserving young men and women
in colleges; inaugurated into a " fresh-air fund" for the
children in our large cities who have never been under
its ennobling influence, but who, on the contrary, have
never seen aught but vice and degradation. Nine hun
dred millions in one year. Nine thousand millions in
ten years. How many thousands of young men could
go through college if aided each, $100 per year. If it
were wholly devoted to this purpose nine million young
people could be helped through college in four years in
ten years there would be eighteen or twenty million col*
lege graduates from this source alone, what would be the
result.
Suppose again that the money was devoted to build
ing tenement houses that would be fit for human beings
to live in, look at the wonderful good that could be done.
I am not desirous of giving here a dry temperance
lecture; but the object of this work is to aid others to
success, and if vice and drink were removed there would
be but little need for further advice. Ah ! there lies
the root of the evil. Strike the root, pull it up and
trample it under foot until it is dead. Never allow it to
take root again, and you can reasonably expect to be at
least fairly successful.
This chapter is on "Concentration of Effort". Possibly
some will imagine that we have wandered; not at all, as
490
HIDDEN TREASURES.
we see it. The abolition of these vices tends toward
concentration ; bad habits, of no matter what nature
lead to failure and tend to draw the attention from one s
calling. Then let the young man who would succeed
join his heart, his sympathies, his desires, with the right;
let him live a consistent life; let him lead a strictly
temperate life; let him give his whole influence to
temperance, resting assured that if he puts his purposes
into action that he will succeed in more ways than one.
SELF-RELIANCE.
OF all the elements of success, none is more essential
than self-reliance, determination to be one s own
helper, and not to look to others for support. God never
intended that strong independent beings should be
reared by clinging to others, like the ivy to the oak, for
support.
" God helps those who help themselves," and how true
we find this quaint old saying to be. Every youth should
feel that his future happiness in life must necessarily
depend upon himself ; the exercise of his own energies,
rather than the patronage of others. A man is in a
great degree the arbiter of his own fortune. We are
born with powers and faculties capable of almost any
thing, but it is the exercise of these powers and faculties
that gives us ability and skill in anything. The greatest
curse that can befall a young man is to lean, while his
character is forming, upon others for support.
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 491
James A. Garfield, himself one of the greatest ex
amples of the possibilities in our glorious Republic, once
said :
"The man who dares not follow his own independent
judgment, but runs perpetually to others for advice, be
comes at last a moral weakling, arid an intellectual
dwarf. Such a man has not self within him, but goes as
a supplicant to others, and entreats, one after another,
to lend them theirs. He is, in fact, a mere element of a
human being, and is carried about the world an insignifi
cant cipher, unless he by chance fastens himself to some
other floating elements, with which he may form a
species of corporation resembling a man." The best
capital with which a young man can start in life, nine
times out of ten, is robust health, good morals, fair
ability and an iron will, strengthened by a disposition
to work at some honest vocation.
We have seen in the preceding pages that a vast
majority of our great men started life with these quali
fications and none other. The greatest heroes in battle,,
the greatest orators, ancient or modern, were sons of
obscure parents. The greatest fortunes ever accumu
lated on earth were the fruit of great exertion. From
Croesus down to Astor the story is tne same. The oak
that stands alone to contend with the tempest s blast
only takes deeper root and stands the firmer for ensuing
conflicts ; while the forest tree, when the woodman s axe
has spoiled its surroundings, sways and bends and trem
bles, and perchance is uprooted: so is it with man.
Those who are trained to self-reliance are ready to go out
and contend in the sternest battles of life ; while those
who have always leaned for support upon those around
492 HIDDEN TREASURES.
them are never prepared to breast the storms of life
that arise.
How many young men falter and faint for what they
imagine is necessary capital for a start. A few thousands
or even hundreds, in his purse, he fancies to be about the
only thing needful to secure his fortune. How absurd
is this; let the young man know now, that he is un
worthy of success so long as he harbors such ideas. No
man can gain true success, no matter how situated, un
less he depends upon no one but himself; remember that.
Does not history bear us out in this ? We remember the
adage, "Few boys who are born with a silver spoon in
their mouth ever achieve greatness." By this we would
not argue that wealth is necessarily derogatory to the
success of youth; to the contrary, we believe it can be a
great help in certain cases and conditions; but we have
long since discarded the idea that early wealth is a pre
eminent factor in success; if we should give our un
biased opinion, we should say that, to a vast majority of
cases, it is a pre-eminent factor of failure. Give a youth
wealth, and you only too often destroy all self-reliance
which he may possess.
Let that young man rejoice, rather, whom God hath
given health and a faculty to exercise his faculties.
The best kind of success is not that which comes by
accident, for as it came by chance it will go by chance.
The wisest charity, in a vast majority of cases, is help
ing people to help themselves. Necessity is very often
the motive power which sets in motion the sluggish
energies. We thus readily see that poverty can be an
absolute blessing to youth. A man s true position in the
world is that which he himself attains.
How detestable to us is the Briton s reverence of pedi-
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 493
gree. Americans reverence achievement, and yet we
are tending towards the opposite. Witness society, as it
bows with smile and honor to the eight-dollar clerk,
while frowning on the eighteen dollar laborer. This is
wrong ; work is work, and all work is honorable. It is
not only wrong, but disgraceful. It is better to make
our ancestry proud of us than to be proud of our ances
tors. He is a man for what he does, not for what his
father or his friends have done. If they have given him
a position, the greater is his shame for sinking beneath
that position. The person who is above labor or despises
the laborer, is himself one of the most despicable crea
tures on God s earth. He not only displays a dull intel
ligence of those nobler inspirations with which God has
endowed us, but he even shows a lack of plain common
sense.
The noblest thing in this world is work. Wise labor
brings order out of chaos ; it builds cities ; it distin
guishes barbarism from civilization ; it brings success.
No man has a right to a fortune ; he has no right to
expect success, unless he is willing to work for it. A
brother of the great orator, Edmund Burke, after list
ening to one of those eloquent appeals in Parliament,
being noticed as employed in deep thought, was asked of
whom he was musing. He replied : " I have been won
dering how Ned contrived to monopolize all the talent in
the family; but I remember that all through childhood,
while we were at play, he was at study."
Ah ! that s it. The education, moral or intellectual,,
must be chiefly his own work. Education is education,
no matter how obtained. We do not wish to be under
stood as depreciating the usefulness of colleges ; not at
all. But a mere college diploma will avail a young
494 HIDDEN TREASURES.
man but little. As before stated, education, no matter
how obtained, is equally valuable. Study like that of
Webster and Greeley, by New Hampshire pine knots, and
that of Thurlow Weed before the sap-house fire, is just
as valuable, when once obtained, as if it had the sanc
tion of some college president.
The world will only ask, "What can he do ?" and will
not care a fig for any college certificate. The point is ;
if a young man be not endowed by self-reliance and a
firm determination, colleges will avail him nothing; but
if he have these, colleges will push him wonderfully.
Nevertheless, colleges are not essential to success an
educated idiot will never make a statesman. It is said
that when John C. Calhoun was attending Yale College
he was ridiculed for his intense application to his studies.
He replied, "Why, sir, I am forced to make the most of
my time, that I may acquit myself creditably when in
Congress." A laugh followed which roused his Southern
blood, and he exclaimed : "Do you doubt it? I assure
you that if I was not convinced of my ability to reach
the National Capitol as a representative within three
years from my graduation, I would leave college this
\ery day." While there are some things in this speech
that were possibly unbecoming; yet the principle of self-
reliance, this faith in himself, this high aim in life, was
undoubtedly the marked characteristic which brought to
Calhoun his splendid success.
No young man will ever succeed who will not culti
vate a thinking mind. If he is not original in aims and
purposes he will not succeed. Witness the attempt of
others to continue the business of Stewart. They had
not only his experience, but the benefit of his great
wealth ; he succeeded without either they failed with
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 495
both; he was obliged to establish a business they had
the benefit of his great patronage.
It has been said that a lawyer cannot be a merchant.
Why? While a lawyer he thinks for himself: When a
merchant he allows others to think for him. A certain
great manufacturer made "kid" gloves his specialty, and
so well did he succeed that to-day his trade mark im
ports to manufactured ratskins a value incommunicable
by any other talisman. It is a poor kind of enterprise
which thus depends upon the judgment of others. What
can be more absurb than for a man to hope to rank as a
thundering Jupiter when he borrows all his thunder.
Remember that the world only crowns him as truly great
who has won for himself that greatness.
ECONOMY OF TIME,
"Full many a gem, of purest ray serene,
The dark unf athomed caves of ocean bear;
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen,
And waste its sweetness on the desert air."
T_T OW many young men for whom nature has done so
i"l much, "blush unseen," and waste their ability.
Franklin said, "Dost thou love life? Then do not
squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." We
have seen how Franklin used his time. Born the son of
a soap-boiler, lived to become one of our most noted
philosophers, died worth thousands. Advice from such
496
HIDDEN TREASURES.
men carries conviction, for we cannot but feel that our
chances are fully equal to what theirs were.
Gladstone, England s most noted Premier, one said,
"Believe me when I tell you that thrift of time will re
pay you in after-life with usury, but the waste of it will
make you dwindle away until you fairly sink out of ex
istence, unknown, unmourned." Thurlow Weed was so
poor in boyhood that he was of necessity glad to use
pieces of carpet to cover his all but freezing feet; thus
shod he walked two miles to borrow a history of the
French revolution, which he mastered stretched prone
before the sap-fire, while watching the kettles of sap
transformed to maple sugar. Thus was it that he laid the-
foundation of his education, which in after years en
abled him to sway such mighty power at Albany; known
as the "king maker."
Elihu Burritt, a child of poverty, the son of a poor
farmer, the youngest of ten children. He was appren
ticed at eighteen to a blacksmith. He wanted to become
a scholar and bought some Greek and Latin works, carry
ing them in his pocket and studying as he worked at the
anvil. From these he went to Spanish, Italian and
French. He always had his book near him and im
proved every spare moment. He studied seven lan
guages in one single year. Then he taught school one
year, but his health failing, he went into the grocery
business. Soon what money he had was swept away by
losses.
Here we see him at twenty-seven, life seemingly a
failure. Alas ! how many would have given up. He left
New Britain, his native town, walked to Boston, and
from there to Worcester, where he once more engaged
himself at his trade. His failure in business turns his
31
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 487
attention once more to study. He now is convinced as
to the proper course to pursue, his aim is fixed, and he
now sets himself strenuously about the accomplishment
of his purpose. At thirty years of age he is master of
every language of Europe, and is turning his attention
to those of Asia, such as Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldaic. He
is offered by a wealthy gentleman a course in Harvard
University, but prefers to work with his hands while he
studies.
He now begins to lecture, and everybody is eager to
hear the learned blacksmith. After a very successful
tour he returns to the anvil. After this he visits Europe,
becomes the warm friend of John Bright and other
eminent men ; writes books, lectures, edits newspapers,
builds a church and holds meetings himself. He said :
"It is not genius that wins, but hard work and a pure
life." He chose the best associates only, believing that
a boy s companions have much to do with his success in
life. At sixty-eight he died, honored by two hemispheres.
If our readers want further proof as to the result of
improving spare moments, let them study the lives of
such men as Douglass, Lincoln, Grant, Garfield, Elaine,
Cleveland, and others too numerous to mention, and they
will find that they were reared in the lower walks of
life, but by using every available minute they have been
enabled to rise to influence and usefulness. By this
means they have worked the very odds and ends of time,
into results of the greatest value. An hour every day
for ten years, will transform any one of ordinary ability
from ignorance to learning,
Think of it. One hour could be easily improved
each evening, counting three hundred week days to a
year ; in ten years you have spent three thousand golden
498 HIDDEN TREASURES.
hours. If directed toward some specific end, think what
it would accomplish. Then there are the Sundays
devoted to religious knowledge. One of the first things
to be learned by him who would succeed, is ECONOMY
OF TIME. Lost wealth can be replaced by industry ; lost
health by hygiene ; but lost time is gone forever.
The most frequent excuse one hears is: "I have no
time." They cheat themselves with the delusion that they
would like to do this or that, but cannot as they have
no leisure. Dear reader, did you ever think that the
more a person has to do, the more they feel they can do?
Look at the men in our own community who have done
the most for mankind ; are they the wealthy, whose only
duty seems to be to kill time ? No. Almost universally
they are the over- worked class who seem already
burdened with cares. These are the men who find time
to preside at public meetings, and to serve on com
mittees.
It is easier for an over-worked man to do a little more
than for a lazy one to get up steam. A light stroke will
keep a hoop in motion, but it takes a smart blow to start
it. The busy man succeeds: While others are yawning
and stretching, getting their eyes open, he will see the
opportunity and improve it. Complain not that you
have no leisure. Rather be thankful that you are not
cursed with it. Yes, curse it is nine times out of ten.
Think of the young man going to some vile place of
amusement to kill time, then think of that young man
utilizing that hour every night in the acquisition of
knowledge which will fit him for life s journey. Think
also of the money he will save. Leisure is too often like
a two-edged sword; it cuts both ways.
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 499
CAUSES OF FAILURE,
TJ GRACE GREELEY has truly said: "If any man
II fancies that there is some easier way of gaining a
dollar than by squarely earning it he has lost the clew
to his way through this mortal labyrinth, and must
henceforth wander as chance may dictate." Look aboub
you ; how many there are who are determined to share
all the good things of this world without exchanging an
equivalent. They go into business, but are not content
to wait patiently, adding one dollar to another, and thus
rendering to mankind an equivalent for this wealth for
which they are asking. This excessive haste to become
rich is one of the most frequent causes of failure. When
a young man has decided to work with a will, and to
accumulate every dollar he legitimately can he has made
a long stride toward success. We do not deprecate a
desire to be some one in the world, but we do most em
phatically frown upon the desire to get wealth by specu
lation or illicit means. We most earnestly advise all
young men to choose a calling, become thoroughly mas
ter of that calling, then pursue that vocation to success,
avoiding all outside operations. Another man who has
dealt in stocks all his life may be able to succeed, but
your business is to stick to your vocation until, if neces
sary, you fairly wring success from it.
Moses Taylor was a successful merchant, he had long
deposited with the City Bank, and was finally made its
president. The late Commodore Vanderbilt often tried
600 HIDDEN TREASURES.
to induce him to enter into his grand speculations, but
of no avail. At last the crash of 57 came. The bank
ers called a meeting to discuss the situation. One bank
after another reported drafts of from sixty to even ninety
per cent, of their specie. When Mr. Taylor was called
he replied: - The City Bank contained this morning
$400,000 ; to-night we had $480,000." This was the kind
of a bank president such principles made him.
Hardly anything is more fatal to success than a de
sire to become suddenly rich. A business man now
counts his wealth by the thousands, but he sees a grand
chance to speculate. This is a little risky, of course,
but then the old adage : " Never venture, never have."
I admit I may lose, but then all men are subject to loss
in any business, but I am reasonably sure of gaining an
immense amount. Why! what would folks think? I
would be a millionaire. I would do so and so. Thus he
indulges in this sort of reasoning, goes into a business
of which he knows nothing and loses all. Why wouldn t
he? Men who have made a study of that business for
years, and who have amassed a fortune in it, are daily
becoming bankrupt. What an idiot a man makes of
himself when he leaves a calling in which he has been
eminently successful to embark in a calling which is, at
best, uncertain, and of which he knows nothing. Once
for all, let me admonish you : If you would succeed
never enter outside operations, especially if they be of a
speculative nature. Select a calling, and if you stick to
your calling, your calling will stick to you.
Frequent changes of business is another cause of
failure, but we have treated this subject quite thoroughly
elsewhere in this work. Therefore it seems to us that
to add more here would be superfluous. True it is that
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL, 501
some men have succeeded who have seemingly drifted
about. Dr. Adam Clark has said : "The old adage about
too many irons in the fire conveys an abominable lie.
Keep them all agoing poker, tongs and all." But Dr.
Clark seems to forget that the most of the people who
try to follow his advice, either burn their fingers or find
their irons cooling faster than they can use them. We
cannot all be Clarks if we try. and to follow this method
the most of us will fail ; but we can, by following one
line of procedure, at last bring success.
Extravagance of living is another prolific cause of
bankruptcy. A man imagines that by hiring a horse
and driving in the park he will show people that he is
as good as the neighbor who drives his own horse. He
deludes himself with the idea that this sort of extrava
gance will, in the eyes of his fellow-men, place him on
an equal footing with millionaires.
Dr. Franklin has truly said: "It is not our own eyes,
but other people s, that ruin us." It has been said that
the merchant who could live on five hundred a year, fifty
years ago, now requires five thousand. In living, avoid
a "penny wise and pound foolish" custom. A man may
think he knows all about economy and yet b<3 ignorant
of its first principles. For instance, a business man may
save every imaginable piece of writing paper, using all the
dirty envelopes that come in his way. This he does in
stead of using a neat letter head and clean paper, at a
slight additional cost, and vast gain in the influence
which such a letter carries over the other. Some years
ago a man stopped at a farm house over night. After
tea he much desired to read, but found it impossible
from the insufficient light of one candle. Seeing his
dilemma, the hostess said: "It is rather difficult to read
502 HIDDEN TREASURES.
here evenings; the proverb says, You must have a ship
at sea in order to be able to burn two candles at once."*
She would as soon have thought of throwing a five dollar
bill into the fire as of setting the example of burning two
candles at once. This woman saved, perhaps, five or six
dollars a year, but the information she thus denied her
children would, of course, out-weigh a ton of candles.
But this is not the worst of it.
The business man, by such costly stinginess, consoles
himself that he is saving. As he has saved a few dollars
in letter paper, he feels justified in expending ten times
that amount for some extravagance. The man thinks
he is a saving man. The woman is a saving woman, she
knows she is a saving woman. She has saved five or
six dollars this year in candles, and so feels justified in
buying some needless finery, which could gratify nothing
but the eye. She is sure she understands economy, yet
she starves the mind to clothe the body in finery. She
is something like the man who could not afford to buy
more than a penny herring for his dinner, yet hired a,
coach and four to take it home. Saving by retail and
wasting by wholesale. Nowadays we use kerosene and
thus our light is both good and cheap, but the principle
remains.
Wear the old clothes until you can pay for more;
never wear clothes for which you owe anyone. Live on
plainer food if need be. Greeley said: "If I had but
fifty cents a week to live on, I d buy a peck of corn and
parch it before I d owe any man a dollar/ The young
man who follows this principle will never be obliged to
live on parched corn. How few people keep an itemized
account of their expenses. Spendthrifts never like to
keep accounts. Buy a book; post in it every night your
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 503
daily expenditures in the columns; one headed " Neces
saries, 7 the other "Luxuries," and you will find that the
latter column will be at least double the former. In
deed, in some cases it will exceed it ten times over.
It is not the purchase of the necessaries of life that
ruin people, but the most foolish expenditures which we
imagine necessary to our comfort. Necessary to our
comfort; Ah ! what a mistake is that, as many a man
will testify who is perpetually dunned by uneasy credit
ors. It is the sheerest kind of nonsense, this living on
credit. It is wicked. Yet a gentleman recently told
the writer that he personally knew a clergyman who
had been preaching for years on a salary exceeding seven
hundred dollars per year, and of late on twelve hundred
per year ; yet, this man of the gospel to-day owes his
college debts. A man loaned him money to go through
school, and he has never been " able" to repay that money,
although he has practiced the most "rigid economy."
Stuff ! this man knows nothing of the first principles
of economy. In my opinion, there are many clergymen
who will have to answer for the sin of extravigance :
There are many more who will have to answer for the
sin of slothfulness. The Bible says: "Six days shalt
thou labor and do all thy work." Ah ! there is a part of
the commandments too often skipped flippantly over.
Many a clergyman would be horrified if asked to do any
labor on the seventh day ; but would be equally horrified
if accused of sinning by attending to a foreign business,
thereby neglecting to do all his labor during the six
other days.
God gives us ample time to do our work, and it is a
sin to leave any of it undone. God expects a man to
choose some calling, and He also expects that man to
504 HIDDEN TREASURES.
master that calling, and He expects him to do his utmost
to excel in that calling. No clergyman can spend four
clays out of a week in some foreign work, and in the two
remaining days thoroughly prepare himself for the Sab
bath work. For two reasons: One is, he disregards the
law of concentration, divides his mind and thoughts;
hence, loses force and influence. The other, that God
does not approve of other than our best effort.
This preacher will occupy one hour in preaching a
twenty-five minute discourse, and then complain because
people are not interested in his sermons. We do not
justify Sabbath-breaking, nor a lack of religious interest,
but the preacher who is unwilling to take any responsi
bility upon himself for such a state of things is lacking
somewhere. We speak of the clergyman simply as illus
trative of our idea in this matter. The same rule applies
to the lawyer, physician, or merchant the mechanic,
artist or laborer. If I was a day laborer building a stone
wall I d study my work and push it so vigorously that I
would soon be, if not the best, at least one of the best
workmen anywhere to be found. Strive to be an author
ity. Wasted opportunity; there is the root of thousands
of failures.
A recent paper states that nine-tenths of our young
lawyers fail from lack of study. Here is a thought for
the clergyman who thinks he should have a better place.
Of course there are circumstances to be considered, but
the man of determination bends circumstances to his will.
A man imagines himself capable of filling a higher place
than he does. He imagines himself a Webster, a Lin
coln, a Garfield, a Spurgeon but vainly waits for cir
cumstances to favor his deserved promotion. Look at
Spurgeon; was he picked up bodily and placed in the
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 505
pulpit he now stands upon ? No, but he was full of the
Holy Ghost, and without thought of what he deserved
began preaching in the street. Was Talmage placed in
the Tabernacle because he was of real inferiority to
other preachers. No; but he was original, he borrowed
from no one, he did his best, he fits the notch in which
he is placed. Did people get down on their knees to
Beecher, begging him to occupy Plymouth church?
They recognized the necessity of concentration ; and,
although you see them in other fields, at times, still it
was not until they had mastered their first undertaking.
Elihu Burritt mastered over forty different languages by
taking one at a time.
The writer, in early youth, learned a lesson which
has ever been of inestimable benefit to him. The next
lessons would begin Fractions, something we never had
taken. We began to glance through that part of the
book, and soon became thoroughly convinced that we
should never be able to master their intricacies, at once
becoming despondent. Coming home at night, he spoke
of his discouragement, when his father set to work
explaining the first principles. Thus, step by step, the
stubborn principles were mastered, and to-day, if there
is any part of Arithmetic in which he excels it is in
Fractions.
" Never cross bridges until you come to them." A
man should plan ahead, but he should be hopeful not
confident should never borrow trouble, and must avoid
all extremes. Another cause of failure is : The habit of
endorsing without security. No one should ever endorse
any man s paper without security or an equivalent. I
hold that no man has a right to ask you to endorse his
paper unless he can either endorse for you or give good
506 HIDDEN TREASURES.
security. Of course there are cases where a brother, who
is young and cannot give security, can be helped into
business ; but his habits must be his security, and his
duty is to have made his previous life a guarantee of his
ability to safely conduct the business. But even in suck
cases a man s first duty is to his family, and he should
never endorse, even a brother s paper, to a greater
amount than he feels that he could reasonably lose.
A man may be doing a thriving manufacturing busi
ness another man comes to him and says : " You are
aware that I am worth $20,000, and don t owe a dollar ;
my money is all locked up at present in my business,
which you are also aware is to-day in a flourishing con
dition. Now, if I had $5,000 to-day I could purchase a
lot of goods and double my money in a few months.
Will you endorse my note for that amount " ? You re
flect that he is worth $20,000, and, therefore, you incur
no risk by endorsing his note. Of course, he is a neigh
bor ; you want to accommodate him, and you give him
your name without taking the precaution of being
secured. Shortly after he shows you the note, canceled,
and tells you, probably truly, that he made the profit
expected by the operation. You reflect that you have
done him a favor, and the thought makes you feel good.
You do not reflect, possibly, that he might have failed
for every dollar that he was worth, and you would have
lost $5,000. You possibly forget that you have risked
$5,000 without even the prospect of one cent in return.
This is the worst kind of hazard. But let us see by
and by the same favor is again asked, and you again
comply; you have fixed the impression in your mind
that it is perfectly safe to endorse his notes without
security. This man is getting money too easily. All he
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 507
has to do is take the note to the bank, and as either yon
or he are considered good for it, he gets his cash. He
gets the money, for the time being, without an effort.
Now mark the result : He sees a chance for speculation
outside of his business a temporary investment of only
$10.000 is required. It is sure to come back even before
the note is due. He places the amount before, and you
sign in a mechanical way.
Being firmly convinced that your friend is perfectly
responsible, you endorse his notes as a matter of course.
But the speculation does not develop as soon as was.
expected. However, "it is all right; all that is needed
is another $10,000 note to take up the former one at the
bank." Before this comes due the speculation turns out
a dead loss. This friend does not tell you that he has
lost one-half his fortune he does not even tell you that
he has speculated at all. But he is now thoroughly ex
cited, he sees men all around making money we seldom
hear of the losers " he looks for his money where he
lost it." He gets you to endorse other notes at different
times upon different pretenses until suddenly you are
aware that your friend has lost all his fortune and all of
yours. But you do not reflect that you have ruined him
as well as he has ruined you.
All this could have been avoided by your GENTLE
MANLY but BUSINESS-LIKE BEARING on the start. If you
had said : "You are my neighbor, and of course, if my
name will be of use to you at the bank, you can have it.
All I ask is security. I do not at all distrust you, or your
plan, but I always give security when I ask such a
favor and I presume that you do." If you had simply
asked security he could not have gone beyond his tether,
and, possibly, very likely would not have speculated at
508 HIDDEN TREASURES.
all. What the world demands is thinking men. Let
justice rule in all business transactions. How many men
would not waste another man s property, but would
waste that which belongs to his family ! Ah ! we want
more men who will recognize family demands for justice,
as well as other people s demands men who have the
brains to comprehend that it is possible to cheat their
own family as well as their neighbor.
Another frequent cause of failure is a neglect of one s
business. There are many causes for this. One thing is
certain, a man will attend to his business in proportion
to the amount of interest he has in that business. This
applies to all vocations, either in the professions, busi
ness, or manual labor. If we see a man playing checkers
day after day in some corner-store, although the game
itself may be no harm, still it is wrong for that man to
waste valuable time.
Then there are pool and billiards. How many young
men have been ruined for life, and possibly eternally
damned, just by beginning a downward course at the
billiard room. There is a peculiar fascination in the
game of pool or billiards which cannot be described.
Of course it is only a game for the cigars yes, that s it ;
one habit leads to another. The young man who smokes
goes in and in one evening s fun, "wins" fifteen or
twenty cigars. He argues that he has got smoking ma
terial for two or three days or a week for nothing, but
listen : He plays pool for ten cents a game. If he beats,
his opponent pays ; if his opponent beats, he pays. Each
game is distinct by itself, and has no bearing on any
previous game. Now, if you play and win two out of
three games right straight along, you aresbeadily losing.
Every game you lose is ten cents gone that you can
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 509
not possibly win back. If you play twenty-five games,
(and it won t take long for good players to do that in an
evening), and you win two out of three, you will then
be out at least eighty cents. If you win twenty-four
out of the twenty-five, you would be out ten cents.
Don t you see that the percentage is against the player.
You never heard of a man making anything playing
pool or billiards unless he was in the business. You
have personally seen many young men working by the
day who admit that they have spent from $100 to $1,000
during the three to five years they had played. Now,
why is it some succeed while others fail ?
There is one thing that nothing living ever naturally
liked except a vile worm, and that is tobacco ; yet, how
many people there are who cultivate this unnatural
habit. They are well aware that its use does harm. It
is a harder job to learn it than to learn to like castor
oil, yet they will persist in it until they learn to long for it.
Young lads regret that they are not men ; they would
like to go to bed boys and wake up men. Little Charlie
and Harry see their fathers or uncles smoke, if not, then
they see somebody s father or uncle puffing along the
street, " taking comfort," and they think that is one of
the essentials of being a man. So they get a pipe and
fill it with tobacco, and as the parents, instead of per
sisting until they gain their affections, slowly teaching
them to detest wrong, fly to pieces and say, "I will whip
you if I see you doing that again." So little Charlie
and Harry get out behind the barn and light up. By
and by Charlie says, " Do you like it, Harry" ? And that
lad dolefully replies, " Not very much ; it tastes bitter."
Presently he turns pale and soon offers up a sacrifice on
the altar of fashion. But the boys stick to it, and at
510 HIDDEN TREASURES.
last conquer even their appetites, learning to prefer their
quid to the most delicious peach.
I speak from personal knowledge, for I have seen the
time that I never felt prouder than when behind a five
or ten cent cigar or meerschaum. But that time is passed
with me, and I never see a poor clerk going along the
street puffing a cigar which he must know he can ill-
afford to buy, but I think of what a man once said in
speaking of a cigar : " It is a roll of tobacco with fire on
one end and a fool on the other." One cigar excites the
desire for another, hence the habit grows on a person.
These remarks apply with ten fold force to the use of
intoxicants. No matter how bountifully a man is blessed
with intelligence, if the brain is muddled, and his judg
ment warped by intoxicating drinks, it will simply be
impossible for him to succeed, to his utmost bounds, at
least.
Orators for years have told you of the degradation
and want that the "social glass" brings us to. Stories
innumerable have been told of husbands leaving all they
loved in this world to satisfy these unnatural desires.
One habit indulged leads to another. We have seen how
even the " innocent" habit of smoking may have an in
fluence in deciding a young man to take the next step.
Once in the billiard room it is not hard to see how the
young can be led on to drink, first one thing, then
another. We will say nothing of cards. Card-playing,
gambling, is only the natural result of these other evils,
that is, they tend that way, they go with it and it goes
with them. Where one is found you will often find the
other.
The coroner can tell you more about the results of
bad habits than I can. To those who to-day may be so
WHY SOME SUCCEED WHILE OTHERS FAIL. 511
unfortunte as to be under the fascination of any habit,
let me say that you can overcome that habit, and learn
to detest it, too. Young man, you desire to be rich and
succeed, but you disregard the fundamental principles
of success hence fail. Why wouldn t you ? You might
as well expect to build a fine house without a foundation.
You desire to gain wealth, yet you spend twenty cents
every day on one extravagance or another, which, with
interest, would amount to over $19,000 at the end of
fifty years. There is food for thought for you. When
you again wish to yourself that you were rich, and then
take ten cents out of your pocket in the shape of a cigar,
and proceed to burn it up, just let the thought pass
through your mind, " What a fool I make of myself every
day."
A man recently told the writer that he spent one
dollar every day in treating and smoking. He is an ice
dealer in New York City, and has done a good business
for thirty years. I cannot say how long he has been
spending this dollar a day, but I do know that one dollar
earned each day, with interest, will make a man worth
over $475,000 within fifty years. There is enough wasted
by the average person within twenty-five years to make
any family well off. The pennies are wasted in the de
sire to get the dollars. The dollars are not half so es
sential to success as the pennies. The old saying :
" Honesty is the best policy/ is surely true in more ways
than one. There is more ways than one to succeed in
this world.
A man may succeed in National honor, and yet have
little of this world s goods. Many a Congressman, who
has but little money, who sometimes feel the need
of money, would not exchange places with a Rothschild.
512 HIDDEN TREASURES.
But it is not necessary to be either a Rothschild or a
Webster, in order to succeed. It is a question in my
mind, whether that man, who has lived wholly for self r
is happy, even though he be rich as Croesus or as honored
as Demosthenes.
Therefore let us not entirely lose sight of the funda
mental law of success. "Do unto others as you would
have them do to you." "Put yourself in his place."
What is success ? It is doing our level best. It is the
making the most of our abilities. If we do not do this
we both sin, and lose the goal of earthly happiness.
" And is it too late.?
No! for Time is a fiction, and limits not fate.
Thought alone is eternal. Time thralls it in vain.
For the thought thatsprings upward and yearns to regain.
The pure source of spirit, there is no Too LATE."
I
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