Presidential Candidates Part 13

R. M. T. HUNTER.

Senator Hunter is a contrast, in almost every one of his traits of character, to Governor Wise. The Governor is voluble--he writes letters thirty columns long upon the condition of the country. Senator Hunter is reticent. The Governor is, say his enemies, rash. Mr. Hunter is cautious and prudent to a fault. Governor Wise, again, is a reformer in his way--Senator Hunter is set down as an "old fogy" in politics. Yet both are Democrats, and agree in essentials, as a matter of course.

Few members of the Senate enjoy to such an extent the respect of the entire body as Mr. Hunter. His manners, his bearing, his style of speaking, and his deportment in social circles, are such as to win him the esteem of all who know him, even in spite of political opposition.

In the Senate, he resembles some quiet unpretending farmer, who might have come up from a rural district, to sit in a State legislature. He dresses plain, is dignified without the least particle of pretension; speaks plainly, slowly, but clearly. Never tries to ride down a political opponent by declamation, but coolly _argues_ the point of difference. During the most exciting debates he keeps his temper, and though in political matters, especially upon the slavery question, he is ultra-southern in his views, he is so watchful, so prudent, so mild in his speech, that he contrives to win the esteem of his northern a.s.sociates, and to be very popular with them.

Mr. Hunter is a native of Ess.e.x County, Va., was liberally educated, and adopted the law as a profession. His first political experience was gained in the Virginian State Legislature, where he remained three years; but in 1837, he was elected to Congress as a member of the House of Representatives, where he remained four years. In 1845, he was relected to Congress, and was made Speaker of the Twenty-sixth Congress. In 1847, he was elected United States' Senator, where he still remains, and has been for years the able Chairman of the Finance Committee.

Mr. Hunter's political views are known to the country at large. He is a southern Democrat, with the views of a southern democratic politician--anti-tariff, of course--anti-homestead law--in the last Congress voting in the Senate against bringing up the bill for consideration. His views on Popular Sovereignty, we will give, shortly, from his own lips. He supported the Lecompton bill through thick and thin, though he did it as he does all his work, in a modest, quiet way, without bl.u.s.ter, or any attempt to intimidate.

In the non-intervention debate of March, 1839, Senator Hunter gave his views of the question under discussion, in the following language:

"It is with extreme reluctance that I say a word on this subject so unhappily sprung up on the appropriation bill, of which I stand here as the guardian, a very insufficient one, as it seems; but the course of the debate has made it necessary for me, in my own vindication, to say a word or two in regard to this Nebraska-Kansas act.

"I differ from the senator from Illinois in regard to the bill, the history of its inception, and what was intended by it. As I understand it, we stood in this position: the southern senators, I believe, almost without an exception, who spoke upon that question--I know I did for one, as I have always done from the time I first made my appearance on this floor--maintained that the South had the right, under the Const.i.tution, of protection of this property in the Territories; on the other hand, senators from the free States denied that right. None of them would vote to give it to us; but there were a portion of the northern democracy who were willing to do this; they were willing to repeal the Missouri restriction, and establish a territorial government there. A bill was immediately drawn which left this right to the territories to legislate for the prohibition of slavery in abeyance. It neither affirmed nor disaffirmed the power of the territorial legislature to legislate upon this subject of slavery; but it provided very carefully and cautiously that any question arising out of it might be referred to the judiciary....

The case then stood thus: whilst the southern men maintained on one side (and I was amongst them) that they had the right to the protection of their property under the Const.i.tution, those from the free States maintained the opposite opinion. There could have been no accord between them on that point; but the southern men, with some objection and reluctance, in order to harmonize, did agree, as the only mode of getting the Missouri Compromise repealed, if the territorial legislature attempted to exercise the power, that the court should decide; and this they could do with perfect consistency, because they provided that whatever powers were delegated to the territorial legislature should be exercised under the Const.i.tution. In their opinion, the Const.i.tution not only prohibited Congress from delegating a power to abolish slavery to the territories, but from exercising it itself. Whilst they maintained that Congress had the power to govern in the territories, they maintained that there was an obligation on Congress, imposed by the equality of the States, that they should not prohibit the inst.i.tutions of one State while they allowed those of another; and that was the mode in which it was pa.s.sed.

The bill in itself was, in my opinion, a compromise in which neither sacrificed principles, but left the whole question in abeyance to be decided by the courts without taking from Congress the power to resume jurisdiction, if they should choose to do so afterward. They retained as much good as they could without raising those questions upon which there could have been no accord of opinion.

"Now, sir, I say it never was understood, so far as I had anything to do with the bill, by the southern men who maintained the cla.s.s of opinions of which I am speaking, that they were conferring on the territorial legislature the absolute power to deal with this subject. They did not; but they were secured to vote for a bill which would organize a territorial Legislature which should leave this question in abeyance, and this bill decided nothing, but only provided that the question should go to the courts, to be decided under that jurisdiction.

"Nor did the bill--although everybody consented to strike out the phrase to which the senator from Illinois alludes--nor did the bill ever mean to say that Congress absolutely gave up jurisdiction over the subject. Inasmuch as it was a common point which accomplished good, which repealed what all the branches of the Democracy thought unconst.i.tutional--the Missouri Compromise--they pa.s.sed a bill which did that, without deciding absolutely on other differences of opinion, but merely providing a tribunal to decide them when they should come up."

That Senator Hunter stated the truth in reference to himself is evident from the subjoined quotation from a speech of his, delivered during the discussion of the Kansas-Nebraska act in 1854:

"But it has been often said by those who admit that Congress has the power of governing the territories, that it is a power to be exercised, not in reference to the rights of the States, but in reference to the good and welfare of the people of the territories. Now, if in exercising this power we are to be confined to the single consideration of the good and welfare of the people of the territories, then, I say, the whole subject of government ought to be left to the people of the territories. That is the true American principle. If the only consideration which is to apply to their government be the good and welfare of the people of the territories, then they ought to determine all questions in regard to their domestic inst.i.tutions and laws. But, in my opinion, the government of these territories ought to be administered with the double object of securing the rights of the States as well as those of the people of the territories, and to these last should be given all the rights of self-government which are consistent with the limitation, that they shall not interfere with the equal rights of the States, or violate the provisions of the Const.i.tution. With those limitations, all the power that could possibly be given to the people of that territory, ought to be given to them. All that portion of the power which is to be exercised with a view to their interests, ought to be exercised as they wish it. That, in my opinion, is the true principle.

"I know we have most high, distinguished, and respectable authority for the opinion that the people of the territories have a sort of natural right to exercise all power within those territories. It is not my purpose to raise an issue upon that question. I do not mean to argue it. I do not wish to raise an issue with the friends of this bill, with those whom I am a.s.sisting, and who are a.s.sisting me, to pa.s.s this measure. Nor will I do it unless it should be absolutely necessary, which is not now the case. For, happily, the bill is so framed that it can be maintained, not only by those who entertain such opinions as I have referred to, but by those, also, who entertain opinions like my own. The bill provides that the legislatures of these territories shall have the power to legislate over all rightful subjects of legislation, consistently with the Const.i.tution. And if they should a.s.sume powers which are thought to be inconsistent with the Const.i.tution, the courts will decide that question, whenever it may be raised. There is a difference of opinion amongst the friends of this measure, as to the extent of the limits which the Const.i.tution imposes upon the territorial legislatures. This bill proposes to leave these differences to the decision of the courts. To that tribunal I am willing to leave this decision, as it was once before proposed to be left, by the celebrated compromise of the senator from Delaware (Mr. Clayton), a measure which, according to my understanding, was the best compromise which was offered upon this subject of slavery. I say, then, that I am willing to leave this point, upon which the friends of this bill are at difference, to the decision of the courts."

This position cannot be misunderstood. It is that the Supreme Court may overturn the action of territorial legislatures. But does Senator Hunter advocate, as Governor Wise does, Congressional intervention _to enforce_ the decisions of the Supreme Court? Upon this point he is silent; though, from the language he uses, it is evident enough that as a matter of right he would claim the interference of Congress for this purpose--but, considering the fact that there is not the slightest chance that Congress could ever be brought to vote such protection, he may _as a matter of policy_ relinquish the demand.

HENRY WILSON.

Henry Wilson was born on the 16th of February, 1812, at Farmington, New Hamps.h.i.+re. His parents being poor, with a large family of children to support by their labor, he, with their consent, at the age of ten years, apprenticed himself to Mr. William Knight, a farmer of his native town, a man remarkable for his industry and habits of rigid economy. He remained with Mr. Knight till the age of twenty-one, and for these eleven years of incessant toil, he received one yoke of oxen, and six sheep. During this period, he was annually allowed to attend the public school four weeks. Throughout these years of unremitting, severe, and scantily-rewarded toil, he devoted his Sabbaths, and as much of his evenings as he could command, to reading.

Too poor to purchase lights, he was forced to read by the dim light of wood fires; and after other members of the family had retired to rest, though weary with the toils of the day, he spent the hours in reading, which they employed in sleep. During his apprentices.h.i.+p, he read more than seven hundred volumes of history and biography, most of which were selected and loaned to him by the wife of the Hon. Nehemiah Eastman, a gentleman who was a member of Congress during the first years of John Quincy Adams' administration. Mrs. Eastman was the sister of Hon. Levi Woodbury, and a lady of rare intelligence. To the judicious kindness of this accomplished lady, who thus early discovered and appreciated his talents, he was indebted for the means of acquiring a fund of solid and useful knowledge, and of forming habits of study and reflection, which have largely contributed to his subsequent success. To Judge Whitehouse, of his native town, he was also largely indebted for the use of many valuable books. Poverty and toil were the companions of his boyhood. His means of mental culture were very limited, and his education, on attaining his majority, was very deficient; yet very few young men at the age of twenty-one were better read in history, especially in the history of the United States, England, and modern France.

After attaining his majority, Mr. Wilson, for eight months, worked on a farm, receiving nine dollars a month.

Hoping to better his condition, in December, 1833, he left Farmington, and, with a pack on his back, made his way, on foot, to the town of Natick, Ma.s.sachusetts, his present residence. Here he hired himself to a shoemaker, who agreed, for five months' service, to teach him the art of bottoming shoes. At the end of six weeks, Mr. Wilson bought his time, and went to work on his own account, at which employment he continued for more than two years, working so hard and incessantly that his health became seriously injured, and he was at length compelled to quit for a time the shoemaker's bench; and in May, 1836, he made a visit to Was.h.i.+ngton, where he remained for several weeks in regular attendance upon the debates in Congress. During his stay at the metropolis, Pinckney's Gag Resolutions were pa.s.sed by the House of Representatives, and Calhoun's Incendiary Publication bill pa.s.sed the Senate by the casting vote of the Vice-President, Martin Van Buren.

The exciting debates to which he listened during this memorable period, and the scenes which he witnessed at Williams' slave-pen, to which he paid a visit, made Henry Wilson an anti-slavery man, and he returned to New England with the fixed resolution to do all in his power to advance the anti-slavery cause, and overthrow the influence of slavery in the nation. How steadily he has adhered to that resolution, his subsequent career bears ample witness.

From Was.h.i.+ngton, Mr. Wilson returned to New Hamps.h.i.+re, and entered Stafford Academy as a student, on the first of July, 1836. In the autumn of that year, he attended the academy at Wolfsborough; and during the winter of 1837, taught school in that town. In the spring of 1837, he entered Concord Academy, where he remained six months.

While there, he was chosen a delegate to the Young Men's Anti-slavery State Convention, before which body he made his first public speech in behalf of freedom. In the autumn, he returned to Wolfsborough Academy, and at the close of the academic term, went again to Natick, Ma.s.s., where he taught school during the winter of 1837-8. He had intended to continue for some time longer at school, and to commence a course of cla.s.sical studies, but the failure of a friend, to whom he had intrusted the few hundred dollars his own hands had earned, left him penniless, and he was compelled to change his plans of life.

In the spring of 1838, he engaged in the shoe manufacturing business, in which he continued till the autumn of 1848. During these ten years he annually manufactured from 40,000 to 130,000 pairs of shoes, a large portion of which he sold to southern merchants. One of his southern customers, who owed him more than a thousand dollars, having failed, wrote to him that he could pay him fifty per cent. of his debt, and asked to be discharged. On examining his statement, Mr.

Wilson found that several slaves were included in his a.s.sets. Here was a question to test his anti-slavery professions. Mr. Wilson promptly signed the papers discharging him from all obligations, and wrote to him, never to send him a dollar of the dividend if it included the money received for slaves.

In November, 1839, Mr. Wilson was a candidate for representative to the legislature from the town of Natick, but being a zealous temperance man, and an advocate of the fifteen-gallon law, he was defeated by the opponents of that measure. In the spring of 1840, he took the stump for General Harrison, and during that memorable campaign, made upward of sixty speeches. In 1840, he was married to Miss Harriet M. Howe, of Natick. In 1840, and again in 1841, the people of Natick elected him their representative to the legislature.

In 1842, he was a candidate for the State Senate, for Middles.e.x County, but in that year the Whig ticket was defeated. The next year, however, and in that following, 1844, he was chosen senator.

During the session of 1845, the State was deeply agitated by the discussion of the annexation of Texas. In February of that year, a State convention was called to be held in Faneuil Hall, to protest against the annexation. Mr. Wilson drew up the paper calling the convention, for the signatures of the members of the legislature, and applied to every Whig member for his name. The president of the Senate, Hon. Levi Lincoln, and other Whig members, refused to sign the call. Mr. Abbot Lawrence, Mr. Nathan Appleton, Mr. John Davis, Mr.

Winthrop, and other eminent Whigs also declined to unite in, or to approve the movement. This was the beginning of that division among the Whigs of Ma.s.sachusetts on the slavery question, which resulted in an open rupture in 1848, and finally in the utter overthrow of that great and powerful party in Ma.s.sachusetts.

In September, 1845, Mr. Wilson got up a call for a ma.s.s convention, in Middles.e.x County, to oppose the admission of Texas as a slave State.

The call was responded to by the people, and at an adjourned meeting in Cambridge, over which Mr. Wilson presided, a state committee was appointed, composed of men of all parties, to procure signatures to pet.i.tions against the admission of Texas. Sixty-five thousand names were procured in a few weeks, and Henry Wilson and John G. Whittier were appointed to carry the pet.i.tions to Was.h.i.+ngton.

In the autumn of 1845, Mr. Wilson declined being a candidate for the Senate, and was chosen Representative from the town of Natick. In the legislature he introduced a resolution announcing the unalterable hostility of Ma.s.sachusetts to the further extension and longer existence of slavery in America, and her fixed determination to use all const.i.tutional and legal means for its extinction. In spite of the coldness and opposition of several leading Whigs, this resolution was adopted by ninety-three majority in the House, but was lost in the Senate by four votes. Mr. Wilson made an elaborate speech in its behalf, and Mr. Garrison, in the "Liberator," p.r.o.nounced it the fullest and most comprehensive speech upon the slavery question, ever made in any legislative body in this country. In 1846, Mr. Wilson declined to be again a candidate for the legislature.

In 1843, the officers of the First Regiment of Artillery elected Mr.

Wilson its Major without his knowledge. He accepted the position, and in June, 1846, he was chosen Colonel, and was elected Brigadier General of the Third Brigade in August, which position he continued to hold for five years.

In March, 1848, a Whig district convention was held at Dedham, to nominate a candidate for Congress to fill the vacancy occasioned by the death of John Quincy Adams. Henry Wilson, Horace Mann, and William Jackson, were the leading candidates. After three ballotings Mr.

Wilson declined being considered a candidate, and Mr. Mann was nominated. The convention, at the same time, by an almost unanimous vote, elected Mr. Wilson a delegate to the National Whig Convention.

That the vote was not unanimous was owing to the fact that he had stated in public and in private that if General Taylor should be fixed upon by the Whig party as its candidate, unpledged to the Wilmot Proviso, he not only would not support him, but would do all in his power to defeat him.

When General Taylor was nominated, and the Wilmot Proviso voted down by the Whig National Convention, in June, 1848, General Wilson, and his colleague, Hon. Charles Allen, denounced the action of the convention, and left it. Gen. Wilson then got up a meeting of a few northern men, which was held in the evening, to consider what steps should be taken.

Gen. Wilson called the meeting to order, and after stating its purposes, moved the appointment of a committee to call a convention of the opponents of the Slave Power. The committee was accordingly appointed, and united with others in calling the Buffalo Convention, which nominated Mr. Van Buren and Mr. Chas. Francis Adams.

In the summer of 1848, General Wilson purchased the "Boston Republican" a free-soil newspaper, which he edited from January, 1849, to January, 1851, during which two years he gave his whole time to the free-soil cause, and spent more than seven thousand dollars of his own property, in the support of the newspaper, whose continued existence was deemed essential to the welfare of the party of which it was the organ. In 1849, he was chosen chairman of the Free-soil State Committee, in which capacity he acted for four years. In the fall of 1849, a coalition was formed between the free-soilers, and the Democrats of Middles.e.x County, for the election of senators, and General Wilson was pressed by both parties to stand as a candidate for the Senate, which he steadfastly refused to do. He was, however, in that year, chosen a representative from the town of Natick. When the legislature met, he was unanimously nominated by the free-soilers, as their candidate for Speaker. During the session, he was in his seat every day, always attentive to business.

After Mr. Webster made his seventh of March speech, an effort was made to instruct him to vote for the doctrines embodied in the resolutions pending before the legislature; but the proposition was resisted, and voted down by the Whig majority. General Wilson told the House that the people would repudiate that speech, and the men who indorsed it, and that at the coming election, the men who had deserted the cause of freedom would be crushed by the people. This prediction, which was received with defiance by the Whig leaders, was fulfilled, and no one in Ma.s.sachusetts contributed more to its fulfillment than the man who made it.

In the summer of 1850, General Wilson called together, at the Adams House in Boston, the State Committee, and the leading men of the free-soil party, to the number of about seventy. He stated to the meeting that the people would make a coalition; that it would be successful if the committee would aid it; that Mr. Webster's seventh of March speech could be rebuked; the Fillmore administration condemned; a free-soiler sent to the United States Senate in place of Mr. Webster for the long term; and an anti-compromise Democrat for the short term; and in short, that by a coalition, Ma.s.sachusetts could be placed in such a position that the anti-slavery men could control her policy. After a debate of five hours, in which Messrs. Marcus Morton, Samuel h.o.a.r, J. G. Palfrey, C. F. Adams, R. H. Dana, Jr., and others took part, the meeting declined to sanction the coalition, only nine gentlemen, and they the youngest present, advocating the coalition.

The people, however, made it, in spite of the disapprobation of the eminent men, and the State was carried against the Whigs, and Geo. S.

Boutwell made Governor, and Charles Sumner and Robert Rantoul sent to the United States Senate.

In 1850, General Wilson was unanimously nominated for senator from Middles.e.x County by the free-soil and Democratic conventions, and elected by twenty-one hundred majority. When the legislature met, he was chosen President of the Senate. In 1851, he was relected and again chosen president. While President of the Senate, he was made Chairman of the Committee to welcome President Fillmore to Ma.s.sachusetts, and also Chairman of the Committee to welcome Kossuth.

In 1852, he was a delegate to the free-soil National Convention at Pittsburg, and was selected to preside over that body, and also made Chairman of the National Free-soil Committee. In the same year, he was unanimously nominated for Congress by the free-soilers of the eighth district, and, although the majority against the free-soilers in that district exceeded seventy-five hundred, he failed of an election by only ninety-three votes. A large portion of the free-soilers desired him that year to be a candidate for Governor, and most of the coalition Democrats likewise desired his nomination. In a public letter he peremptorily declined to be a candidate, notwithstanding which he received more than a third of the votes of the Free-soil State Convention at Lowell.

In March, 1853, General Wilson was elected to the Const.i.tutional Convention by the town of Berlin, and also by his own town of Natick.

He was not absent from the convention for an hour during the session, and the journal and report of the debates show the active part taken by him in its transactions. During the temporary illness of the president, Mr. Banks, he was chosen president _pro tem_. In September, 1853, he was nominated by the Free Democratic State Convention, as candidate for the office of Governor. Out of six hundred votes cast by the convention, he received all but three. At the time he was nominated, men of all parties conceded the probability of his election. But the letter of Caleb Cus.h.i.+ng, denouncing, in behalf of the administration, the coperation of Democrats and free-soilers in State affairs--the bitter hostility of conservatism toward the new const.i.tution, and the Irish vote against it--all contributed to overthrow the State reform party, and to defeat General Wilson and his friends.

When the proposition was made in 1854 to abrogate the Missouri Compromise, the country was profoundly excited, and the opponents of slavery extension in all parties hoped to bring about the union of men who were ready to resist the slave-power. Believing that the time had come to effect the union of men who were opposed to the Kansas Nebraska Act, Gen. Wilson labored with unflagging zeal to accomplish that result, and for that end he visited Was.h.i.+ngton, in May, and consulted with the opponents of the bill, to repeal the prohibition of slavery in Kansas and Nebraska. Returning home, he avowed in the Free-soil State Convention, a.s.sembled in Boston on the 31st of May, the readiness of the free-soilers to abandon their organization, everything but their principles, to bring about the union of men who were ready to crush out the members from the North who had betrayed the people, and to sustain the faithful men of all parties who had been true to principle, and who were ready to resist hereafter the policy of the slavery propagandists. Speaking for the men of the free-soil party, he said they "were ready to go into the rear;" if a forlorn hope was to be led, they would lead it; they would toil; others might take the lead, hold the offices, and win the honors. The hour had come to form one great Republican party, which should hereafter guide the policy and control the destinies of the Republic.

A State Convention was called at Worcester on the 10th of August, with the view of uniting the people in one organization, and Gen. Wilson addressed the people in all sections of the State in favor of the fusion, in which he a.s.sured men of all political creeds that the men of the free-soil party would gladly yield to others the lead and the honors; all they asked was the acceptance of their doctrines of perpetual hostility to the aggressive policy of the slave power. But the leaders of the Whig party in Ma.s.sachusetts, then in the pride of power, resisted all attempts to unite the people, and the convention at Worcester, on the 10th of August, failed to accomplish that decided result. Gen. Wilson, and other members of the free-soil party at this convention, again avowed their desire for union, for the sake of the cause of freedom, and their readiness to yield to men of other parties, everything but principle. The people desired fusion, and in spite of the efforts of the Whig leaders, they rushed into the councils of the American organization to effect that object. Gen.

Wilson, finding that all efforts to unite the people in the Republican movement had been defeated by men who had personal ends to secure, urged his friends to unite in that rising organization, liberalize its platform and action, and make it a party for freedom. With the view of bringing about harmonious action among men who desired to unite the people, he accepted the nomination of the Republican party for Governor, and exerted every effort to conciliate and bring together men in favor of organizing a great party of freedom. Some of his political friends doubted the wisdom of his policy, as they did in 1850 the wisdom of the coalition with the Democrats; but that coalition placed Rantoul and Sumner in the Senate of the United States, and this union largely contributed to the influence of anti-slavery men, enabling them to choose a delegation to Congress, of true men, a majority of whom were free-soilers, and to elect the most radical anti-slavery legislature ever chosen in America.

In the elections of 1854, the Americans had in the free States coperated with men of other parties in opposition to the pro-slavery policy of the Administration. But in November of that year, a national council a.s.sembled at Cincinnati, and through the management of southern men, anxious to win local power, and corrupt and weak politicians from the North, hungry for place, the American organization was placed in an equivocal att.i.tude on the slavery question. The work of treachery to freedom commenced, and men who had labored to combine the opponents of slavery in one organization, as Gen. Wilson had done, were marked for swift destruction, and men who were ready to compromise away the cause of freedom, were to be the trusted leaders of the now nationalized American party.