Autobiography of Seventy Years Part 18

Charles Sumner lacked that quality which enables the practical statesman to adjust the mechanism of complicated statutes.

He had no genius for detail. It would not have been safe to trust him with Appropriation Bills, or Bills for raising revenue. But he was competent to deal with questions of the greatest moment to the State. He knew what are its governing forces. He retained his hold on those forces. He directed them. He caused sound principles of action to take effect in the Government of the State in great emergencies. He converted the people to his opinion. He inspired the people with lofty desires. He accomplished wise public ends by wise means.

He maintained his hold on power in an important time. He took a prominent part in great debates and was the acknowledged leader of one side of the question. He believed that the conscience of the people was a better guide than individual ambitions. He always did the thing he could best do. He did the thing that most needed to be done, the thing most effective at the time, the thing that no other man did or could do. He left to others to do what hundreds of others could do well enough. He contributed largely to the Government of his country, in the most trying period of our history, its motive and its direction. That is a pretty practical contribution to the voyage which furnishes to the steams.h.i.+p its engine and its compa.s.s. His figure will abide in history like that of St. Michael in art, an emblem of celestial purity, of celestial zeal, of celestial courage. It will go down to immortality with its foot upon the dragon of Slavery, and with the sword of the spirit in its hand, but with a tender light in its eye, and a human love in its smile. Guido and Raphael conceived their "inviolable saint,"

Invulnerable, impenetrably armed: Such high advantages his innocence Gave him above his foe; not to have sinned, Not to have disobeyed. In fight he stood Unwearied, un.o.bnoxious to be pained By wounds.

The Michael of the painters, as a critic of genius akin to their own has pointed out, rests upon his prostrate foe light as a morning cloud, no muscle strained, with unhacked sword and unruffled wings, his bright tunic and s.h.i.+ning armor without a rent or stain. Not so with our human champion. He had to bear the bitterness and agony of a long and doubtful struggle, with common weapons and against terrible odds. He came out of it with soiled garments and with a mortal wound, but without a regret and without a memory of hate.

It was fortunate for Sumner and fortunate for the Commonwealth and the country that he had Henry Wilson for his colleague.

Wilson supplied almost everything that Sumner lacked. I cannot undertake to tell the story of his useful life in the s.p.a.ce at my command here. If I were to try I should do great injustice to him and to myself.

He was a very impressive and interesting character, of many virtues, of many faults. His faults he would have been the first to acknowledge himself. Indeed, I do not know of any fault he had that he would not have acknowledged and lamented in a talk with his near friend, or that he would have sought to hide from the people.

The motives which controlled his life from the time when he s.n.a.t.c.hed such moments as he could from this day's work on a shoemaker's bench and studied far into the night to fit himself for citizens.h.i.+p, down to the time when he died in the Vice-President's chamber--the second officer in the Government--and if his life and health had been spared, he very likely would have been called to the highest place in the Government--were public and patriotic, not personal.

He was not without ambitions for himself. But they were always subordinate in him to the love of liberty and the love of country. He espoused the unpopular side when he started in life, and he stuck to it through all its unpopularity.

He was a skilful, adroit, practised and constant political manager. He knew the value of party organization, and did not disdain the arts and diplomacies of a partisan. He carried them sometimes farther, in my judgment, than a scrupulous sense of honor would warrant, or than was consistent with the n.o.ble, frank, lofty behavior which Ma.s.sachusetts and the American people expect of their statesmen. The most conspicuous instance of this was his joining the Know Nothing Party, in whose intolerance he had no belief.

But it was done as an instrument for destroying the existing political parties, which were an obstacle to freedom, and clearing the field for a new one. This object was successfully accomplished, and in its accomplishment Wilson had a large share. But it was, in my judgment, doing evil that good may come. Wilson freely admitted this before he died, and said-- I have no doubt with absolute sincerity--that he would give ten years of his life if he could blot out that one transaction.

He was a very valuable legislator. He was the author of many important measures in the war, during which he was chairman of the Committee on Military Affairs of the Senate, and showed much ability in the way of practical and constructive statesmans.h.i.+p.

I do not believe any man in the Senate in his time, not even Sumner, had more influence over his colleagues than he.

There was not a drop of bigotry, intolerance, or personal hatred in him. As you would expect from a man who raised himself from the humblest to the loftiest place in the republic, he was a believer in pure manhood, without respect of persons or conditions.

He was a powerful stump orator. He never made speeches that were quoted as models of eloquence or wisdom. But he knew what the farmer and the mechanic and the workman at his bench were thinking of, and addressed himself always to their best and highest thought. He was a great vote-making speaker.

When Mechanics Hall, in Worcester, or the City Hall was filled to hear Henry Wilson in a close campaign, many men who entered the hall undecided or against him, went away to take earnest part on his side.

He had a good many angry political strifes. But he never bore malice or seemed to keep angry over night. General Butler once wrote him a letter pouring out on his head the invective of which he was so conspicuous a master. Wilson brought the letter into the office of a dear friend of mine in Boston when I happened to be there, handed it to us to read, and observed: "That is a cussed mean letter." I do not think he ever spoke of it or scarcely thought of it again.

But his chief gift and faculty is one which I can hardly think of words to describe fitly. The few of his old friends who are left will understand what I mean. But I can hardly make those who did not know him, or live in his time, comprehend it. That was his rare and unequalled gift of gathering and uttering the sentiment of the people. When new and doubtful matters of pith and moment were to be dealt with, and after a long apparent hesitation, and backing and filling, and what people who did not know him thought trembling in the balance, he would at last make up his mind, determine on his action, and strike a blow which had in it not only the vigor of his own arm, but the whole vigor and strength of the public sentiment which he had gathered and which he represented. He was an ubiquitous person. He would travel all over the State, spending the day, perhaps, in visiting forty shops and factories in the neighborhood of Boston; then take a nine or ten o'clock train at night and go up to Springfield, get in there at two or three o'clock in the morning, call up out of bed some active politician and tell him he had come to sleep with him; spend the night in talking over the matter about which he was anxious until six or seven o'clock in the morning (I do not believe he ever slept much, either with anybody or alone), and then, perhaps, up to Northampton or Greenfield to see some person whom he called Tom, d.i.c.k, or Harry, but who knew the local feeling there; and after a week or two spent in that way, never giving his own opinion, talking as if he were all things to all men, seeming to hesitate and hesitate and falter and be frightened, so if you had met him and talked with him you would have said, if you did not know him well, that there was no more thought, nor more steadiness of purpose, or backbone in him than in an easterly cloud; but at length, when the time came, and he had got ready, the easterly cloud seemed suddenly to have been charged with an electric fire and a swift and resistless bolt flashed out, and the righteous judgment of Ma.s.sachusetts came from his lips.

With all his faults, Peace be to the ashes of Henry Wilson.

He was a leader and a tribune of the people. We do not seem to have such leaders now-a-days. I liked Charles Sumner better.

But it was a great thing for Ma.s.sachusetts, a great thing for human liberty, and a great thing for Charles Sumner himself that he had Henry Wilson as a friend and ally, a disciple and a co-worker.

If Wilson had lived, in my opinion, it is quite likely that he would have been the Republican candidate for the Presidency in 1876, and would have been triumphantly elected. There was a very powerful movement going on all over the country to bring that about. Wilson's hold upon the affection of the people everywhere was very strong indeed.

Wilson became Vice-President of the United States, March 4, 1873. He died two years afterward. I was asked to write the inscription for a tablet placed in the Vice-President's Room in the Capitol by order of the Senate in 1902. It follows here.

IN THIS ROOM HENRY WILSON VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES DIED NOVEMBER 22 1875.

THE SON OF A FARM LABORER, NEVER AT SCHOOL MORE THAN TWELVE MONTHS, IN YOUTH A JOURNEYMAN SHOEMAKER, HE RAISED HIMSELF TO THE HIGH PLACES OF FAME, HONOR AND POWER, AND BY UNWEARIED STUDY MADE HIMSELF AN AUTHORITY IN THE HISTORY OF HIS COUNTRY AND OF LIBERTY, AND AN ELOQUENT PUBLIC SPEAKER TO WHOM SENATE AND PEOPLE EAGERLY LISTENED. HE DEALT WITH AND CONTROLLED VAST PUBLIC EXPENDITURE DURING A GREAT CIVIL WAR, YET LIVED AND DIED POOR, AND LEFT TO HIS GRATEFUL COUNTRYMEN THE MEMORY OF AN HONORABLE PUBLIC SERVICE, AND A GOOD NAME FAR BETTER THAN RICHES.

CHAPTER XIV PERSONALITIES IN DEBATE

I have been, in general, enabled to avoid angry conflicts in debate or the exchange of rough personalities. My few experiences of that kind came from attacks on Ma.s.sachusetts, which I could not well avoid resenting. The only two I now think of happened in my first term. In one case, Mr. S.

S. c.o.x of New York, who was one of the princ.i.p.al champions on the Democratic side of the House, a man noted for his wit, undertook to make an attack on the Ma.s.sachusetts Puritans, and to revive the old slander that they had burned witches.

I made some slight correction of what Mr. c.o.x had said but he renewed the attack. I was then comparatively unknown in the House. Mr. c.o.x treated me with considerable contempt, and pointing to Mr. Dawes, who had charge of the bill then under discussion, but who had not given any reply to c.o.x's attack, said, with a contemptuous look at me: "Ma.s.sachusetts does not send her Hector to the field," to which I answered that it was not necessary to send Hector to the field when the attack was led by Thersites. The retort seemed to strike the House favorably, and was printed in the papers throughout the country, and c.o.x let me and Ma.s.sachusetts alone thereafter.

I had a like encounter with Daniel W. Voorhees of Indiana, who was a more formidable compet.i.tor. Mr. Voorhees made the same charge against the people of Ma.s.sachusetts of having burned witches at the stake in the old Puritan time. It was in a debate under the five-minute rule. After reiterating the old familiar slander that the State of Ma.s.sachusetts in her early history had burned witches at the stake, Mr. Voorhees added that in 1854 or 1855 the Know Nothings broke up convents, burned Catholic churches, and would have burned Catholics and Sisters of Charity themselves at the stake within her borders, if they had dared to do so.

I declared both of these charges to be utterly false, and said that no human being was ever burned at the stake in Ma.s.sachusetts for the crime of witchcraft, and though at a time when the whole civilized world believed in witchcraft on the authority of certain pa.s.sages in the Old Testament, the courts of Ma.s.sachusetts did execute some nineteen or twenty persons of both s.e.xes for the alleged crime of witchcraft, it was also true that the people of Ma.s.sachusetts were the first among men to see the error and wickedness of this course; that although late in the following century, many people were condemned for witchcraft in England and on the Continent, the love of justice and the intelligence of Ma.s.sachusetts first exposed that error and wickedness.

I explained that a convent was burned in Ma.s.sachusetts, not in 1854 or 1855 by the Know Nothings, but in 1836, by a mob excited by a rumor that some terrible cruelty had been inflicted upon some young women who had been placed in a convent at Charlestown; that the criminals were arrested, tried and sentenced, and that their crime left no more stain upon the State than any criminal act committed within the limits of any civilized country. In conclusion, I said it did not become the political friends of the men who had burned our soldiers alive at Fort Pillow, or who burned orphan asylums in New York, and hung negroes on lamp posts, to talk of cruelties in a past age.

This retort angered Voorhees beyond endurance, and before I could finish my sentence, he sprang to his feet and cried out in great anger: "Every word the gentleman says is false and he knows it." There was a demand that my words be taken down and that the words of Mr. Voorhees be taken down. That was done. The chairman of the committee, Mr. Ingersoll, brother of the famous Robert G. Ingersoll, declared that the words of Mr. Voorhees were unparliamentary, and ruled that my language was "rather pungent but not unparliamentary."

Whereupon the committee arose amid great laughter, and the transaction ended.

CHAPTER XV THE NATIONAL HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES IN 1869

The House, when I entered it, contained many very able men.

Some of them remained long enough in public life to fill a large and prominent place in the history of the country. Others retired early. I will mention only a few.

I do not think his countrymen have estimated Nathaniel P.

Banks at his true value. When he left office at the ripe age of seventy-five a public service ended surpa.s.sed in variety and usefulness by that of few citizens of Ma.s.sachusetts since the days of John Adams. He bore a great part in a great history.

Men who saw him in his later life, a feeble, kindly old man, with only the remains of his stately courtesy, had little conception of the figure of manly strength and dignity which he presented when he presided over the Const.i.tutional Convention in 1853, or took the oath of office as Governor in 1858. He raised himself from a humble place, unaided, under the stimulant of a native and eager desire for excellence. He was always regarded by the working people of Ma.s.sachusetts as the type of what was best in themselves and as the example and representative of the great opportunity which the Republic holds out to its poorest citizens and their children. He was a natural gentleman, always kindly and true. From this trait and not because of a want of fidelity to his own convictions he found as warm friends among his political opponents as among his political a.s.sociates.

Gen. Banks was Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations in 1869. He was then beginning to lose somewhat his oratorical power and the splendid qualities which made him so important a force in the history of Ma.s.sachusetts and of the country.

But still on fit occasions he showed all his old vigor and brilliancy. When the delegation gave a dinner to William B. Washburn on his election as Governor Banks presided. He kept up a running stream of eloquence and wit as he introduced the different speakers and punctuated their remarks with interjections of his own, which I have never known equalled, though I have attended many like occasions. Banks was a man of humble origin.

He used to be known as the Waltham Bobbin Boy. He worked in his boyhood and youth in a factory in Waltham. He had very early a pa.s.sion for reading. When Felton was inaugurated President of Harvard, Banks was Governor. As is the custom, he represented the Commonwealth and inducted the new President into office. There were famous speakers at the Dinner,-- Daniel Webster, old Josiah Quincy, Edward Everett, Dr. Walker, Winthrop, and Felton himself. But the Governor's speech was the best of the whole. He described the time of his poverty in his youth when he used to work in a mill five days in a week, and on Sat.u.r.day walk ten miles to Boston to spend the day in the Athenaeum Library and ten miles back at night.

He told how he used to peer in through the gate as he pa.s.sed Harvard College with an infinite longing for the treasures of learning that were inside. That refined and fastidious audience was stirred by an unwonted emotion.

The older public men of Ma.s.sachusetts did not take very kindly to Banks. He was a man of the people. He was sometimes charged, though unjustly, with being a demagogue. He sometimes erred in his judgment. But he was a man of large and comprehensive vision, of independence, and exerted his vast influence with the people for high ends. He might justly be called, like the negro Toussaint, L'Ouverture,--The Opener. His election as Governor extracted the people from the mire of Know Nothingism.

His election as Speaker of the Ma.s.sachusetts House of Representatives was part of the first victory over the Whig Dynasty which had kept the State, contrary to its best traditions, in alliance with slavery. His election as Speaker of the United States House of Representatives was the first National Republican victory. His taking a little slave girl on a cannon during the War in his march through the Shenandoah Valley was hailed throughout the country as an omen that the War would not end until slavery was abolished. He rendered a special service to the Commonwealth and to the cause of good learning which I think never would have been accomplished without his personal influence. When Aga.s.siz had been in this country but a few years he seriously contemplated going back to Europe. It was understood that he would stay if a sufficient fund could be raised to enable him to prosecute his researches here and to establish a museum where his collections could be cared for and made useful to science. There was a meeting in Boston to see about raising the fund. The Governor was invited to attend. The gentlemen present spoke rather doubtfully of the prospect of success. Governor Banks was asked what he thought the Commonwealth would do. He replied: "The Commonwealth will give a hundred thousand dollars." The Legislature had been of late years economical, not to say n.i.g.g.ardly, in such matters. Governor Banks's declaration was received with entire incredulity. One gentleman present said that he was very much discouraged by what His Excellency had said. If he had said some moderate sum there might have been hope that it would be given, but it was utterly hopeless to expect that any such extravagant sum as that would be contributed by the State. The gentleman seemed to be well warranted in what he said. The three colleges, Harvard, Amherst and Williams, had united in an application for one hundred thousand dollars shortly before. It was supported by the eloquence of Edward Everett and the authority of Mark Hopkins and President Hitchc.o.c.k. Harvard was then so poor that they had not money to spare when they wanted to move the pulpit from the end to the side of the Chapel. But the application was denied.

Banks relied in his somewhat sonorous fas.h.i.+on: "You need not trouble yourself, Sir. The Commonwealth will give a hundred thousand dollars." And she did. This was followed by the grant, under Banks's influence, for the endowment of the Boston Inst.i.tute of Technology, large grants to the colleges and grants to some of the endowed schools.

General Banks's statue should stand by the State House as one of the foremost benefactors of the great educational inst.i.tutions of the Commonwealth, and as an example of what a generous ambition can accomplish for the humblest child in the Republic.

Governor Boutwell, who is still living, became a member of President Grant's Cabinet in March, 1869, and remained in the House only a day or two of the spring session which lasted about ten days. He was succeeded in the following December by George M. Brooks, who had been my friend from early boyhood.

He would in my judgment have had an eminent political career if he had remained in public life, but for his great modesty.

He never seemed to value highly anything he accomplished himself.

But his sympathy and praise were always called out by anything done by a friend. I think Brooks took much more pleasure in anything well done or well said by one of his colleagues than in anything of his own. He was a man of an exceedingly sweet, gracious and affectionate nature, loving as a child, yet as men of such natures often are, thoroughly manly. He was incapable of any meanness or conscious wrong-doing. He had a very pleasant and ready wit. The people of Middles.e.x County, especially of Concord, were very fond of him, and would have kept him in public life as long as he desired.

But his heath was not good in Was.h.i.+ngton. The climate of the place and the bad air of the House were unfavorable. He did not fancy very much the strife and noise of that turbulent a.s.sembly. So he gladly accepted an appointment to the office of Judge of Probate of Middles.e.x County which was absolutely suited to him. He administered that important office to the entire satisfaction of the people until his death. I think George Brooks's smile would be enough to console any widow in an ordinary affliction.

William Barrett Washburn, afterward Governor and Senator, was Chairman of the Committee on Claims.

He is one of the best recent examples of a character whose external manifestations change somewhat with changing manners and fas.h.i.+ons, but the substance of whose quality abides and I believe will abide through many succeeding generations.

He was a New England Puritan. He brought to the service of the people a purity of heart, a perfect integrity, an austerity of virtue which not so much rendered him superior to all temptation as made it impossible to conceive that any of the objects of personal desire which lead public men astray could ever to him even be a temptation.

There were few stronger or clearer intellects in the public service. His mind moved rapidly by a very simple and direct path to a sound and correct result in the most difficult and complicated cases. The Chairmans.h.i.+p of the Committee on Claims was then with two or three exceptions the most important position in the House. He spoke very seldom and then to the point, stating very perfectly the judgment of a clear-headed and sound business man. But his opinion carried great weight. He was universally respected. Every man felt safe in following his recommendation in any matter which he had carefully investigated.

Congress was beset by claims to the amount of hundreds and hundreds of millions, where fraud seemed sometimes to exhaust its resources, where, in the conflict of testimony, it was almost impossible to determine the fact, and where the facts when determined often presented the most novel and difficult questions of public law and public policy. Mr. Washburn's dealing with these cases was the very sublimity of common sense. He very soon acquired the confidence of the House so completely that his judgment became its law in matters within the jurisdiction of his committee. I became acquainted with him, an acquaintance which soon ripened into cordial friends.h.i.+p, when I entered the House in the spring of 1869.

I think I may fairly claim that it was the result of what I said and did that he was agreed upon by the opponents of General Butler as their candidate for Governor, and was Butler's successful antagonist.

Beneath his plain courtesy was a firmness which Cato never surpa.s.sed. Upon a question of morality, or freedom or righteousness there was never a drop of compromise in his blood. He could not be otherwise than the constant foe of slavery, and the constant friend of everything which went to emanc.i.p.ate and elevate the slave. It was his good fortune to record his vote in favor of all the three great amendments to the const.i.tution, and to be the supporter, friend and trusted counsellor of Abraham Lincoln.