Jukes-Edwards Part 3

It must be understood that the "family of Jonathan Edwards" includes not only his descendants, but the men who married into the family and whose children became descendants of Mr. Edwards. At first this may not seem the proper interpretation, but there is no other that is legitimate. In the case of the "Jukes" Mr. Dugdale includes in the family both the men and the women who married into the family, but in the case of Mr.

Edwards there is no call to include the women who thus came into the family, and it would have magnified the study needlessly.

Until quite recently there has been no way to discover the standing of married women in American life except as we know the social, scholastic, and professional position of their husbands. In most families a son-in-law becomes a representative factor of a family. Therefore, whenever the "Edwards family" is spoken of it includes the sons-in-law, but it does not include the daughters-in-law, nor does it go beyond Jonathan Edwards to include his brothers and sisters or their descendants.

The "Jukes" had no inherited capacity or training upon which they could safely presume. Their only chance lay in nursing every germ of hope by means of industry and education, through the discipline of the shop, the training of the schools, and the inspiration of the church. Did they appreciate this? Far from it. Instead of developing capacity by training, not one of the 1,200 secured even a moderate education, and only twenty of them ever had a trade, and ten of these learned it in the state prison.

On the other hand, although the Edwards family inherited abundant capacity and character, every child has been educated from early childhood. Not all of the college members of the family have been discovered, and yet among the men alone I have found 285 graduates and a surprisingly large number of these have supplemented the college course with post-graduate or professional study. Just as the "Jukes" have intensified their degeneracy by neglect, the Edwards family has magnified capacity and character by industry and education.

Among the 285 college graduates of the Edwards family there are thirteen presidents of colleges and other higher inst.i.tutions of learning, sixty-five professors of colleges, and many princ.i.p.als of important academies and seminaries. Forty-five American and foreign colleges and universities have this family among the alumni. From this family have come presidents for Yale, Princeton, Union, Hamilton, Amherst, the University of California, the University of Tennessee, the famous Litchfield (Conn.) law school, the Columbia law school, and Andover Theological Seminary. Among these are such men as President Timothy Dwight, Yale, 1794-1817; Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Yale, 1846-71; Timothy Dwight, Yale, 1886-97; Jonathan Edwards (Jr.), Union, 1799-1801; Daniel C. Gilman, Johns Hopkins; Merrill E. Gates, Amherst; and Edwards A.

Park, Andover.

CHAPTER VII

AARON BURR

Undoubtedly some readers are already impatient at the delay in dealing with Aaron Burr. There was a time when it was the fas.h.i.+on to refer to Colonel Burr as sufficiently infamous to prove that heredity was of no appreciable value. As a matter of fact it is rather refres.h.i.+ng to have one upon whom the imagination can play. It simply intensifies the white light of the rest of the record.

Colonel Burr was not a saint after the model presented by his father, the Rev. Dr. Aaron Burr, the G.o.dly president of Princeton; by his grandfather, Jonathan Edwards; or by at least 1,394 of the other members of the family of Mr. Edwards. There is no purpose to give him saintly enthronement, but it may not be amiss to suggest that the abuse of him has been overdone.

Colonel Aaron Burr died at eighty after thirty years of the worst treatment ever meted out to a man against whom the bitterest enemies and the most brilliant legal talent could bring no charge that would stand in the eyes of the law. I have no purpose to lessen the verdict of prejudice, for the study of the Edwards family is all the more fascinating because of one such meteor of error. It must be confessed, however, that a study of the last thirty years of Colonel Burr's life makes one more exasperated with human nature under a political whip than with Colonel Burr's mistake.

At forty-nine Aaron Burr was one of the most brilliant, most admired, and beloved men in the United States. For thirty years his had been a career with few American parallels. He had but one real and intense enemy, and that man had hated him all those years. Alexander Hamilton had never missed an opportunity to vilify Mr. Burr, and his attack had never been resented. Calmly had Aaron Burr pursued his upward and onward course, simply smiling at the vituperation of Hamilton. Could those two men have agreed, they would have been the greatest leaders any nation ever had. Their hatred was as expensive as was that of Blaine and Conklin in after years.

Every age must have a political scapegoat, one upon whose head is placed symbolically the sins of the period, and after he is sent into the wilderness of obscurity it becomes a social and political crime to befriend him. There have been several such in our country's history, and there will be others. Aaron Burr suffered more than any other simply because the glory from which he departed was greater.

On March 2, 1805, Aaron Burr, vice-president of the United States, and president of the senate, retired from the chair two days before his term expired. He made a farewell address, which produced a greater impression upon that body than any other words ever spoken there. Every senator was weeping, and for a long time no one could leave his seat or propose any business. It was a sight for the nation to look upon and wonder. For fourteen years he had been one of the most conspicuous members of that body.

Aaron Burr's ultimate ruin was wrought by his colonization experiment in Louisiana. In popular opinion, there was something traitorous in that unsuccessful venture of his. In 1805 Mr. Burr paid $50,000 for 400,000 acres of land which had been purchased of Spain in 1800, before it pa.s.sed to France and then to the United States in 1803. Of the motive of Colonel Burr we must always be ignorant; that he was not guilty of any crime in connection therewith we are certain, for the highest tribunal of the land acquitted him. President Jefferson and the entire political force of the administration were bent upon his conviction, but Chief Justice Marshall, as capable, honorable, and incorruptible a jurist as the country has known, would not have it so. Unfortunately, the brilliant arraignment by William Wirt was printed and read for half a century, while the calm rulings of Chief Justice Marshall never went beyond the court room.

Why did a man of his capabilities, upon retirement from the vice-presidency, attempt, at fifty years of age to start life anew under such unpromising conditions? Because he was suddenly politically and professionally ruined. Ruined because he had killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel. Why did he do it? It is a long story.

To make it intelligent, his life must be reviewed. After a brilliant military career, which began when he was nineteen and left him an heroic colonel, he studied law and practiced in Albany. At the age of twenty-eight he was a leader in the New York legislature, and was chairman of the most important committees, always with the people, against the aristocracy--an unpardonable mistake in those times.

At thirty-four he was attorney-general of the state, and his great decisions were accepted by all other states. At thirty-four he established the Manhattan bank of New York city. He was the only man with the ability or courage to find a way to establish a bank for the people, and the solidity of that inst.i.tution for a hundred years is an all-sufficient vindication of his plan. At thirty-five he was appointed and confirmed as a supreme court judge of New York state, but he declined the honor, and was the same year elected to the United States senate. He was re-elected, serving in all fourteen years.

At the second presidential election Senator Burr received one vote in the electoral college, at the third he received thirty, and in the fourth received seventy-three. Jefferson also received seventy-three and the election was thrown into the house. This was in 1800 and Mr. Burr was forty-years of age. The choice lay with New York, which could be carried by no man but Aaron Burr.

Alexander Hamilton was the leader of the Federalists. He also was of New York. It was a battle of the giants. These two men measured swords.

The presidency of the United States was the prize both parties--the Federalists and the Democrats--were seeking. New York had always been with the Federalists. In this great struggle it went against Hamilton and for Burr. This ended the political career of Hamilton, and would have done so had he lived longer. He was one of America's greatest statesmen, but one of the poorest politicians. No one could get along with him but Was.h.i.+ngton, and when he died the political end of Hamilton came.

Jefferson and Burr each received seventy-three votes for president, and Adams received sixty-five. New York had twelve votes, so that if she had remained with the Federalist candidate Adams, he would have won, seventy-seven to sixty-one. This defeat angered Hamilton beyond endurance. He and Burr had been deadly rivals for thirty years, first for the love of woman, then for military preferment, and later in the political arena. When Burr established the Manhattan bank, Hamilton's brother-in-law, inspired by Hamilton, attacked Burr's motive, with the result of a duel in which neither was harmed.

Notwithstanding Hamilton's greatness, he was always in trouble with men and women. He never ceased his abuse of Burr, whose election as senator angered him. Later, when Burr was the choice of congress as minister to Paris, backed especially by Madison and Monroe, Hamilton succeeded in compa.s.sing his defeat. Again, when Adams had decided upon some important appointment for Burr, Hamilton succeeded in defeating him. This made Burr's promotion to the vice-presidency and his own downfall the more exasperating to Hamilton.

Four years pa.s.sed. Burr won high honor as president of the senate, and the party nominated him for governor of New York with practical unanimity. This was too much for Hamilton, who had nothing to lose by indulging his enmity to the full. The campaign against Burr was one of the basest on record. It was one of vilification. Being vice-president, he was at a disadvantage when it came to conducting the campaign, and he was defeated.

There were many features of this campaign that were peculiarly annoying to Burr, and for the second time in his life he resorted to the duel, and Hamilton was killed. Had Burr died in that hour, history would have a different place for him as well as for Hamilton, but in his death Hamilton was glorified. The most preposterous stories, such as his firing into the air, were invented and believed. The time and the conditions were as bad as they could be for Burr. The North never condoned a duel that ended fatally, and then less than ever. I have no word of apology to offer for the duel. It was weakness, as it always is, and from it came all the ills that befell Aaron Burr.

Censure him all you choose, and then look at the conditions of his childhood and wonder that he lived to fifty years of age before the lack of early care brought forth its fruit. Aaron Burr received as good an intellectual and moral legacy as any one of the 1,400 of the Edwards family. His father and mother, grandfather and grandmother would have given him as good an environment and training as any one of them enjoyed, but--his father died before he was two years old, and his mother, grandfather, and grandmother died when he was two years old, and he and his sister, four years old, went to live with his oldest uncle, Timothy Edwards, who was only twenty. This uncle was also bringing up two younger brothers aged eight and thirteen, and three young sisters.

While Timothy Edwards made an eminently worthy citizen and reared a family of n.o.ble sons and daughters, he was not prepared at nineteen to support so many younger children and give a two-year-old boy the attention that he needed.

At twelve years of age Aaron Burr went to college, and after this time he never had even the apology of a home, indeed he never had a home such as his nature demanded. There are three pictures of the child which satisfy me that the right training would have enabled Aaron Burr to go into history as the n.o.blest Roman of them all.

At four years of age he was at school, where the treatment was so severe that he ran away from school and home and could not be found for three days.

At seven years of age he was up in a cherry tree when a very prim and disagreeable spinster came to call, and he indulged in the childish luxury of throwing cherries at her. She sought "Uncle Timothy," who took the seven-year-old child into the house, gave him a long and severe lecture, offered a long prayer of warning, and then "licked me like a sack."

At ten years of age he ran away from the severity of his uncle, and went to New York and s.h.i.+pped as cabin boy. His uncle followed him, and when the little fellow saw him he went to the top of the masthead and refused to come down until his uncle agreed not to punish him. It is easy to see that his uncle aroused in him all the characteristics that should have been calmed, and gave him none of that care which father or mother would have provided him.

At twelve he entered Princeton, and graduated with honors at sixteen.

College life had its temptations, but he conducted himself with unusual decorum, and upon graduation went to study with an eminent clergyman.

Apparently he expected to enter the ministry, but the theology of Dr.

Bellamy did not commend itself to him, and even less did the spirit with which the theologian met his queries, so that for the remaining sixty odd years of life he would not talk about theology. Here was a brilliant lad, fresh from college, with the inheritance of Burr and Edwards, who might have been led into a glorious career, but was instead repelled, and went back to his uncle's home, with no profession and no plan for life, with no one to advise him.

The battle of Bunker hill aroused Burr to patriotic purpose, and, though but nineteen, he started for Cambridge to enlist. He was stricken with fever, however, and before he was recovered he heard of Arnold's proposed expedition to Quebec, and, though he had better be in bed, he took his musket and walked to Newburyport, 30 miles, in season to s.h.i.+p with the troops. Two men were there ahead of him awaiting his arrival with instructions from his uncle to bring him back to New Jersey. This was too much for young Burr, who did not recognize the right of his uncle to interfere, and he expressed his mind so vigorously as to command the admiration of the soldiers and arouse the fears of the two messengers, who returned without him. This was the last of his uncle's interference. Who that reads of the childhood life of this orphan can wonder that he lacked patience under the severe reverse of political fortune at fifty years of age? That he is the one ill.u.s.trious exception among the 1,400 need cause no surprise.

CHAPTER VIII

CONTRASTS

It has already been emphasized that the Jukes always mingled blood of their own quality in their descendants, and that the Edwards family has invariably chosen blood of the same general tone and force. Who can think for a moment that the Jukes would have remained on so low a level if the Edwards blood had been mixed with theirs, or that the Edwards would have retained their intellectual supremacy if they had married into the Jukes. The fact is that in 150 years the Jukes never did mingle first-cla.s.s blood with their own, and the Edwards family has not in 150 years degenerated through marriage.

It is pre-eminently true that a mighty intellectual and moral force does plough the channel of its thought and character through many generations. It would be well for any doubter to study the records of thoroughbreds in the animal world. The highest record ever made for milk and b.u.t.ter was by an animal of no family, and she was valuable only for what she could earn. None of her power went to her offspring. She was simply a high-toned freak, but an animal with a clean pedigree back to some great progenitor is valuable independently of individual earning qualities.

No more would any one claim that the Jukes would not have been immensely improved by education and environment, or that the Edwards family could have maintained its record without education, training, and environment.

The facts show that the Jukes first, last, and all the time neglected these advantages, and that the Edwards family, with all its intermarrying, has never neglected them.

The Jukes were notorious law breakers, while the Edwards family has furnished practically no lawbreakers, and a great array of more than 100 lawyers, thirty judges, and the most eminent law professor probably in the country. James Bryce in his comments upon America places one of this family at the head of legal learning on this continent. This was Theodore William Dwight, LL.D., born in New Haven, July 18, 1822; graduated from Hamilton College, 1840; professor there 1842-58. In 1858 he went to Columbia College, organized the law school and was its president for thirty-three years.

Some of the most eminent official city attorneys of Philadelphia, New York and Chicago have been found in this family. Ex-Governor Hoadley, of Ohio, a descendant of Jonathan Edwards, is now the head of perhaps the leading law firm of New York City or of the country. When one studies the legal side of the family it seems as though they were instinctively and chiefly lawyers and judges. It simply means that whatever the Edwards family has done it has done ably and n.o.bly. There is no greater test of intellectual majesty than that which the practice of law puts upon a man. When James Bryce pays his grand tribute to Dr. Theodore W.

Dwight, president of Columbia College law school, it signifies more intellectually than to have said that he was president of the United States.

None of the Jukes had the equivalent of a common school education, while there are few of the Edwards family that have not had more than that.

Few were satisfied with less than academy or seminary if they did not go to college. There is not a leading college in the country in which their names are not to be found recorded. They have not only furnished thirteen college presidents and a hundred and more professors, but they have founded many important academies and seminaries in New Haven and Brooklyn, all through the New England states, and in the Middle, Western, and Southern states. They have contributed liberally to college endowments. One gave a quarter of a million as an endowment for Yale.

In Yale alone have been more than 120 graduates. Among these are nearly twenty Dwights, nearly as many Edwards, seven Woolseys, eight Porters, five Johnsons, four Ingersolls, and several of most of the following names: Chapin, Winthrop, Shoemaker, Hoadley, Lewis, Mathers, Reeve, Rowland, Carmalt, Devereaux, Weston, Heermance, Whitney, Blake, Collier, Scarborough, Yardley, Gilman, Raymond, Wood, Morgan, Bacon, Ward, Foote, Cornelius, Shepards, Bristed, Wickerham, Doubleday, Van Volkenberg, Robbins, Tyler, Miller, Lyman, Pierpont, and Churchill, the author of "Richard Carvel," is a recent graduate. In Amherst at one time there were of this family President Gates and Professors Mather, Tyler, and Todd. Wherever found they are leaders even in college faculties.

Those who know what Gates, Mather, Tyler, and Todd have stood for as president and professors of Amherst will appreciate what Jonathan Edwards' blood has done for this college.

Of the Jukes, 440 were more or less viciously diseased. The Edwards family was healthy and long lived. Of the eleven children of Mr. and Mrs. Edwards, four lived to be more than seventy years of age,--seventy-three, seventy-five, seventy-seven and seventy-nine,--and three others were fifty, fifty-six, and sixty-three. Only one died unmarried, none died in childhood. The record for health and longevity continues through every generation. They have also done much to alleviate the sufferings of mankind. There have been sixty physicians, all marked men. Dr. Richard Smith Dewey was an eminent surgeon in the Franco-Prussian war, having charge of the Prussian hospital at Hesse Ca.s.sel. Dr. Sereno Edwards Dwight was a physician and surgeon in the British regular army. The physicians of the family have had important connection with insane asylums and hospitals. The legislative action of New York, by which the first insane asylum of the state was built, was largely the result of a physician of this family. The medical superintendent of the Illinois state insane asylum was another of the family. Eminent names in the medical annals of San Francisco, Chicago, Detroit, New York, Boston, and other cities can be traced to Jonathan Edwards.

The Jukes neglected all religious privileges, defied and antagonized the church and all that it stands for, while the Edwards family has more than a 100 clergymen, missionaries, and theological professors, many of the most eminent in the country's history. America has had no more brilliant preachers and theologians than some of those that bear the names of Edwards, Dwight, Woolsey, Park, Ingersoll. There have been no more noted missionaries than this family has sent for faithful and successful work in Asia Minor, India, Africa, China, Hawaii, and the South Sea islands. Dwight's famous five volumes on theology are a product of a worthy descendant of Jonathan Edwards. Edwards A. Park, the longtime head of Andover theological seminary, whose vigor of thought, keenness of logic, and pulpit power are unsurpa.s.sed, was a descendant of Mr. Edwards. The family has furnished several army chaplains and one eminent chaplain of the United States senate. They have made many churches prominent for the vigor of their pulpit utterances. The famous Second church, Portland, Park street church of Boston, and many in New Haven and other Connecticut cities and towns as well as many churches in the Middle and Western States owe much to the descendants of Mr. Edwards.