HBHiMMHi 
 

MEMOIR 
 
 OF 
 
 GOVERNOR ANDREW, 
 
 personal Jfomtmscenct*. 
 
 BY 
 
 PELEG W. CHANDLER. 
 
 TO WHICH ARE ADDED 
 
 Two HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED LITERARY DISCOURSES, 
 AND THE VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 1880. 
 
t bl 
 
 i u 
 
 Copyright, 1880, 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 UNIVERSITY PRESS: 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE. 
 
PUBLISHERS NOTICE. 
 
 THIS Memoir of GOVERNOR ANDREW was prepared 
 at the request of the Massachusetts Historical Soci 
 ety and appeared in their Proceedings for April, 1880. 
 The publishers have obtained consent to re-print it, 
 and the author has, at their solicitation, added some 
 personal reminiscences. They have also inserted two 
 literary discourses of the Governor which have never 
 been published, for the manuscripts of which they are 
 indebted to the courtesy of his eldest son, John For 
 rester Andrew, Esq. 
 
 OCTOBER, 1880. 
 
 M188330 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 IMMEDIATELY after the death of Governor 
 Andrew, in 1868, the Massachusetts Historical 
 Society took appropriate action, and a member 
 was appointed to prepare a Memoir of our de 
 ceased Associate. The unusual delay in this 
 work has arisen partly from the authoritative 
 announcement that an accomplished writer was 
 collecting materials for an extended biography of 
 the great War Governor, and it seemed best to 
 postpone the sketch for this Society in the hope 
 of being able to make a more satisfactory state 
 ment of Mr. Andrew s life and labors, from the 
 light thrown upon them by a biographer selected 
 by the family, one in every way competent to the 
 work. It is now probable that the Memoir re 
 ferred to will not be published for a considerable 
 time, if at all. Moreover, at the time of Mr. 
 Andrew s death the fires of controversy were still 
 burning, and it was thought that the subject 
 might be treated in a more just and dispassionate 
 way after the lapse of time, when the principles 
 
O PREFACE. 
 
 on which he acted could be better appreciated 
 and the prophetic character of his writings might 
 be tested by time and experience. There was 
 also a natural reluctance on the part of one of 
 his earliest and most constant friends to attempt, 
 in the space usually allowed for matters of this 
 kind, the analysis of a character so remarkable, 
 which should be just to him and loyal to the 
 truth. In the Uffizi Gallery at Florence there 
 is a remarkable bust of Brutus, left unfinished by 
 Michael Angelo. An English scholar explains 
 the fact in some lines indicating that the artist 
 abandoned his labor in despair, because overcome 
 by the grandeur of the subject : 
 
 "Brutum efficisset sculptor, sed mente recursat 
 Tanta viri virtus, sistit, et obstupuit." 
 
 It is with something of this feeling that the 
 sketch just now prepared is submitted to the 
 Society. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PREFACE 5 
 
 MEMOIR n 
 
 PERSONAL REMINISCENCES 75 
 
 ORATION BEFORE THE ATHEN/EAN SOCIETY^OF 
 
 BOWDOIN COLLEGE, SEPTEMBER, 1844 . .145 
 ADDRESS AT THE MAINE FEMALE SEMINARY, 
 
 JULY, 1859 199 
 
 VALEDICTORY ADDRESS BEFORE THE LEGISLA 
 TURE OF MASSACHUSETTS, JANUARY, 1866 239 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 PORTRAIT OF GOVERNOR ANDREW . Frontispiece. 
 
 FAC-SIMILE OF HANDWRITING 24 
 
 BIRTHPLACE 72 
 
 MONUMENT AT HINGHAM 142 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
MEMOIR. 
 
 JOHN ALBION ANDREW, the twenty-first 
 Governor of Massachusetts, was born at 
 Windham, a small town near Portland, in 
 the State of Maine, May 31, 1818. The 
 family descended from Robert Andrew, 
 who came from England to Rowley Vil 
 lage, now Boxford, and died there in 1688. 
 A grandmother of Governor Andrew was 
 the granddaughter of the famous Captain 
 William Pickering, and the mother of her 
 husband was Mary Higginson, a descend 
 ant of Francis Higginson. His grand 
 father was originally a silversmith, and 
 afterward a merchant in Salem, where his 
 son Jonathan, the Governor s father, was 
 born in 1782. The latter was educated in 
 the public schools and became a trader. 
 
12 
 
 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 He left Salem in early manhood for Wind- 
 ham, where he bought a small house, still 
 standing, near the Presumpscot River, and 
 established the business of a general trader, 
 in which he was fairly well successful. He 
 was greatly respected as a citizen, a dea 
 con of the church, a man of substance 
 and of great influence. In 1817 he mar 
 ried, under interesting circumstances, Miss 
 Nancy Green Pierce, of New Hampshire, 
 who was a teacher in the celebrated acad 
 emy at Fryeburg, where Daniel Webster 
 was once employed in the same capacity 
 She was thrown from a horse, and was 
 taken to a tavern in Naples where young 
 Andrew happened to be. An acquaintance 
 there formed resulted in marriage. 
 
 Both of these young people were above 
 the ordinary mark. Jonathan Andrew 
 was a quiet, reticent man, of much intelli 
 gence and a keen perception of the ludi 
 crous. Firm, courageous and resolute, he 
 was at the same time shy, and so unobtru 
 sive as to pass for less than his worth, 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 13 
 
 except to those who knew him well. Of 
 his wife it is almost impossible to speak in 
 terms of exaggeration. She was well edu 
 cated, with great sweetness of temper, and 
 altogether highly prepossessing in appear 
 ance. They had four children, all of 
 whom are now living, except the oldest, 
 John Albion, born May 31, 1818; Isaac 
 Watson, born Aug n, 1819; Sarah Eliza 
 beth, born September 6, 1822; Nancy 
 Alfreda, born May 21, 1824. 
 
 There never was a more united and 
 happy family. The father possessed am 
 ple means for their education, and left his 
 household to the good management of his 
 wife, who was admirable in her domestic 
 arrangements, judicious, sensible, energetic, 
 and a rigid disciplinarian of her children. 
 There was a rare union of gentleness and 
 force in this woman, which made her gen 
 erally attractive, and especially endeared 
 her to all who came under the influence of 
 her character. 
 
 " Her voice was ever soft, 
 Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman." 
 
14 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 She was a fine singer, and had remarkable 
 conversational powers. 1 Their home was 
 the usual resort of the ministers when visit 
 ing or journeying through the town, and 
 in this way the family had excellent oppor 
 tunities for acquiring information from the 
 cultured men of the day. Mr. Andrew 
 disliked to send his children to the public 
 school, but built a schoolhouse on his own 
 land. Mrs. Andrew, who had been in fee 
 ble health for several years, died on the 7th 
 of March, 1832, aged 48. It was a great 
 shock to her husband, who never afterward 
 took much interest in business affairs. He 
 
 1 Mr. Andrew, being naturally quite taciturn, always 
 desired his wife to lead off in conversation. The Gov 
 ernor used to tell with great glee a story which illustrated 
 their different characteristics. The deacon, like all the 
 country traders of that day, dealt in ardent spirits. When 
 the temperance reform was started, his wife entered into 
 it with great interest. She was particularly desirous that 
 he should give up the sale of liquor. For weeks, the chil 
 dren used to hear her, after retiring, lecture their father 
 on the subject with earnest volubility. He kept silent; 
 but at length, one night after a discourse of unusual length 
 and vivacity, told her quietly that he had given up the sale 
 for some months. 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 15 
 
 soon sold out his property in Windham, 
 and removed to a farm in Boxford, in the 
 county where he was born. He died in 
 September, 1849, at the age of 6;. 1 
 
 His oldest son was fitted for college at 
 Gorham Academy, then under the charge 
 of a celebrated teacher, the Rev. Reuben 
 Nason. He entered Bowdoin College, in 
 I 833, where his career was in no way re 
 markable. He is remembered as a bright, 
 genial boy, of curly hair and a somewhat 
 peculiar appearance, short, very thick, and 
 his head and body out of proportion to the 
 lower extremities. He was not adapted to 
 the ordinary college sports, in which he 
 appeared to take very little interest. As a 
 
 1 Jonathan Andrew was devotedly attached to his chil 
 dren ; but, like all shy and taciturn men, he was grave in 
 appearance, and his children had something of the old- 
 fashioned awe and respect in their intercourse with him. 
 In the only letter to him from the Governor which is pre 
 served (1844), he is addressed as " Honored Father," and 
 the signature is " Your dutiful son." The first letter John 
 A. Andrew wrote to his father in college was addressed 
 " Dear Father," and signed, " Yours affectionately." The 
 father sent him word that this was not proper, but that his 
 letters should be addressed as above. 
 
1 6 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 scholar he was among the lowest in the 
 class; he took no part at Commencement. 
 But he was by no means an idler. On the 
 contrary he was constantly occupied in 
 general reading, greatly interested in cur 
 rent literature, and always ready for discus 
 sion, especially of political topics. He was 
 popular among all without any effort to be 
 so, and always so genial, without the least 
 self-consciousness, as to render him an un 
 usual favorite. He was not regarded as 
 dull, very much the contrary; but he 
 seemed to be indifferent to the ordinary 
 routine of college honors possessed of 
 that happy temperament which enabled 
 him then and for many years afterward to 
 pass quietly along without a touch of the 
 emulous jealousies and temptations that 
 wait on the ambitious aspirations of the 
 young as well as the old. 
 
 On coming to Boston, he entered the 
 office of the late Henry H. Fuller, with 
 whom he passed his whole novitiate. It 
 always seemed to me that his character 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. \J 
 
 was much affected by contact with that 
 somewhat remarkable and much misunder 
 stood lawyer. Mr. Fuller was a man of 
 genial temperament, an excellent scholar 
 (second in the class of which Edward 
 Everett was first), of wide reading and ex 
 tensive acquirements, a man who loved 
 young men and assisted them in every 
 way he could ; and also of such marked 
 peculiarities, of such wonderful crotchets 
 and such heroic obstinacy, that he nat 
 urally and especially attracted, and, in some 
 respects, almost fascinated his pupil. The 
 attraction between him and young Andrew 
 was mutual. They became almost like 
 brothers. The student sat at the same 
 desk with the master, entered into all the 
 business affairs of the office, wrote letters 
 from dictation, and was consulted on almost 
 every subject that came up ; so that they 
 seemed, in fact, like one person. Mr. Ful 
 ler had an extensive acquaintance with all 
 sorts of men. He knew the personal his 
 tory of almost every citizen of the town 
 
1 8 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 and of all public characters, living and 
 dead. He had decided opinions, which 
 he never hesitated to pronounce on any 
 suitable occasion. Mr. Andrew, with the 
 curiosity of a young man fresh from the 
 country, took this all in ; but what is re 
 markable, while some of the peculiar traits 
 of the master stuck to the pupil, the latter 
 had decided opinions of his own, especially 
 in regard to American slavery, which were 
 sometimes in ludicrous contrast with those 
 of his senior. Mr. Fuller was a conserva 
 tive of conservatives. He stood by the 
 ancient ways even in the cut of his coat 
 and the shape of his hat ; his ruffled shirt, 
 his white cravat, shirt-collar, and tall bell- 
 crowned hat of real fur, were significant of 
 a past generation. Young Andrew became 
 interested in many of the reform move 
 ments of the day, and was as firm and 
 peculiar in one direction as his friend was 
 in another. 
 
 He did not rise rapidly at the bar. He 
 was a faithful and painstaking lawyer, look- 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 19 
 
 ing up his cases with care and industry, 
 and probably never lost a client who had 
 once employed him. Here, too, he always 
 seemed destitute of ambition that is, in 
 the ordinary meaning of the term. He did 
 his duty and there was an end. It has 
 been said that he was not a learned lawyer. 
 Perhaps in one sense he was not ; he cer 
 tainly was not a legal pedant. There are 
 men who study for the profession with 1 
 great patience and perseverance, who mas 
 ter in the outset its main principles and 
 are thoroughly prepared, so far as books 
 are concerned, for whatever may come. 
 They are veterans almost before they have 
 seen service. There are other men who, 
 from the force of circumstances or their 
 mental characteristics, have not carefully 
 read all the text-books, and are obliged, 
 after coming to the bar, to pick up their 
 law as they need it, raw recruits who 
 will become veterans by actual service, un 
 less picked off in some battle at an early 
 and unexpected stage of their practice. By 
 
20 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. AND RE IV. 
 
 studying their cases, investigating every 
 collateral point and going to the bottom of 
 the matter, they are enabled to master the 
 present difficulties, and, in the course of 
 time, become able and even learned law 
 yers, without the reputation of being so 
 from the fact of early deficiencies. 
 
 Mr. Andrew entered upon the investiga 
 tion of his cases with great zeal and indus 
 try. No man at the bar studied harder. 
 When he tried a cause he meant to gain it 
 if he could. There was no sentimentalism 
 here. He used any proper weapon he 
 could find in the armory of the law; and 
 he liked success even on the most techni 
 cal points. He tried a case with courage, 
 perseverance, spirit, and a dash of old- 
 fashioned but manly temper. Those who 
 have been associated with or opposed to 
 him in the courts know very well that he 
 was a dangerous opponent long before he 
 had much reputation as a lawyer. 
 
 During all these years he was not what 
 is called a student, but was never idle. He 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 21 
 
 entered largely into many of the moral 
 questions of that day; was greatly inter 
 ested in the preaching of James Free 
 man Clarke ; a constant attendant at meet 
 ings and the Bible classes. Occasional lay 
 preaching being the custom of that church, 
 young Andrew sometimes occupied the 
 pulpit and conducted the services to the 
 general acceptance of the people. 
 
 His personal qualities were most attrac 
 tive. Those who admired him at a dis 
 tance loved him on acquaintance. It is 
 difficult for people who did not know him 
 intimately to appreciate or even to under 
 stand the personal magnetism of this man. 
 His respectful deference towards the sex 
 was conspicuous, his love of children in 
 tense ; and there was such an entire sim 
 plicity, unpretending geniality, united to 
 fun and drollery, as to attract everybody 
 to him. Everywhere and at all times he 
 was welcome. He was fond of music. 
 Although without scientific knowledge, 
 he had a good voice and sang with great 
 
22 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 spirit, especially in the old ballads and 
 hymns. It was worth a journey to hear 
 him in Coronation or Dundee, Tamworth 
 or Old Hundred. He was an excellent 
 reader, and was always willing to delight 
 the circle by a repetition of old ballads, or 
 the reading of poems, particularly of Gray s 
 Elegy. 
 
 He was full of wit and anecdote 
 brimful ; not merely of the sort which is 
 found in books and newspapers, or which 
 floats in polite society. In stores and tav 
 erns, in stage-coaches, among the laborers 
 of the corn-field and in haying-time, he 
 had heard the Yankee dialect with all its 
 wit and humor, and he never forgot any 
 thing, especially if it were droll. In his 
 knowledge and appreciation of New Eng 
 land character, of the town system, and of 
 the laws affecting municipal corporations, 
 he greatly resembled the late Chief Justice 
 Shaw, that great magistrate whose grim 
 appearance on the bench gave no token 
 of the warm heart and genial nature he 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 2$ 
 
 actually had, and the love of fun and anec 
 dote which was conspicuous in the social 
 circle, and especially at the Law and Fri 
 day Clubs. 
 
 At the same time, Governor Andrew, 
 although so mirthful and even boyish in 
 social life and in business affairs, was, as the 
 chief executive officer of the Commonwealth, 
 a great stickler for proper forms and cere 
 monies. It was also quite noticeable that in 
 his public speeches he seldom indulged in 
 a humorous strain, or told a story to illus 
 trate a point in his argument. It is not 
 improbable, that, while he gained some 
 thing in dignity, there was a loss in inter 
 est and in the power of illustration, which 
 is possessed by those who are capable of 
 applying homely maxims or humorous sto 
 ries to argumentative discourse. Illustra 
 tion is to logic sometimes what concussion 
 is to pressure in mechanics. The blow of a 
 mallet may drive in a wedge more effectu 
 ally than the weight of many tons. 
 
 On his admission to the bar Governor 
 
24 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Andrew became active in politics, an ener 
 getic and enthusiastic member of the Whig 
 party, often speaking " on the stump," and 
 thoroughly in earnest. Of his interest 
 in the anti-slavery movement, it is neces 
 sary to speak a little more at length. 
 
 From early youth, Andrew was inter 
 ested in all questions affecting the happi 
 ness of the race. At thirteen, he made a 
 speech in a public meeting at Windham, 
 on temperance. While in college, he was 
 constantly discussing the anti-slavery ques 
 tion : and it was at this time (1833) that 
 he sent a work of Mrs. L. M. Child, enti 
 tled " An Appeal in favor of that class of 
 Americans called Africans," to his sisters, 
 with these words written on the fly-leaf:^ 
 
 .<;. ** 
 
 "To my two sisters this little volume is affec 
 tionately presented, with the fervent aspiration 
 that the instruction contained in it, and incul 
 cated by one of the gifted ones of their own sex, 
 may prompt their hearts to pity for the oppressed 
 African, may uproot all prejudice that may be 
 implanted there against those immortal beings, 
 whose only crime is that of being unfortunate 
 

 * 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 2$ 
 
 and having a skin of a darker hue than their 
 own, and may teach them to remember that 
 * of one blood God made all the nations of the 
 
 earth. 
 
 " Your Brother, 
 
 " ALBION." 
 
 In 1859, he was a member of the lower 
 branch of the Legislature, and at once took 
 a prominent and leading position. In 1 860, 
 he was nominated for Governor of the 
 Commonwealth, " by a genuine popular 
 impulse which overwhelmed the old politi 
 cal managers, who regarded him as an in 
 truder upon the arena, and had laid other 
 plans. " When he was nominated as Gov 
 ernor, there were many who voted for him 
 with hesitation, in the fear that a man so 
 radical, so firm and so outspoken, might 
 be unsafe in action. His friends, whether 
 agreeing with him or not, judged him better. 
 They knew his practical sense, and felt sure 
 that whatever rhetorical expressions might 
 have escaped his lips, his action would be 
 safe. Even they were disappointed, how 
 ever, in the immense executive ability he 
 
26 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 displayed from the first hour he entered 
 the State House until he left it. The sim 
 plicity and directness of his action as Chief 
 Magistrate were as remarkable as they were 
 sometimes amusing. He never was de 
 terred by provincial conventionalisms from 
 doing what he thought right, and in the way 
 he deemed best. Formalism or snob 
 bery or red tape never stood in his way a 
 moment. He was a keen observer and 
 understood all the proprieties of his posi 
 tion perfectly well. No one was likely to 
 impose upon him by mere manner, and, 
 while he never intentionally gave offence, 
 it was obvious that he understood the char 
 acter of men very well, whatever might be 
 their style or dress. He found no difficulty 
 in discerning merit, although covered with 
 rags, and a black skin did not alarm him. 
 Indeed, the adverse personal surroundings 
 of men that usually operate against them 
 had precisely the opposite effect on him ; 
 and he was sometimes imposed upon by 
 this very fact. 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 2? 
 
 It is hardly necessary to say, that, at no 
 period since the adoption of the constitu 
 tion was the position of Chief Magistrate 
 of Massachusetts so arduous and responsi 
 ble as at the time of his accession to the 
 office. But he was found equal to the 
 emergency, and early acquired, by general 
 consent, the title of " the great War Gov 
 ernor." This is not the place for any thing 
 more than a general statement of what he 
 did. Nor is it consistent with the usages 
 of this Society to enter into a discussion of 
 controverted political points, in connection 
 with biographical sketches of our deceased 
 associates. 
 
 In his inaugural address (1861), he ad 
 vised that a portion of the militia should 
 be placed on a footing of activity, in order 
 that " in the possible contingencies of the 
 future, the State might be ready, without 
 inconvenient delay, to contribute her share 
 of force in any exigency of public danger " ; 
 and immediately upon being inducted into 
 office, he despatched a confidential messen- 
 
28 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 ger to the Governors of Maine and New 
 Hampshire, to inform them of his determi 
 nation to prepare for instant service the 
 militia of Massachusetts, and to invite their 
 co-operation. His military orders and pur 
 chases of war material subjected him to 
 much ridicule and reproach, but subsequent 
 events fully justified his course, and his 
 acts were looked upon as evidence of re 
 markable foresight. The quiet opposition 
 at the time, however, in the Legislature was 
 very strong, and it came in considerable 
 part from his own political friends. Indeed 
 it is a remarkable fact, that while an unques 
 tionable majority of the people were in his 
 favor, a majority of the Legislature was 
 really opposed to him, although not ventur 
 ing upon any direct collision. A leading 
 member of the House and of the party, at 
 the session of 1862, told me that Governor 
 Andrew ought never again to be a candi 
 date for the office of governor ; that his re 
 election was impossible. His ways were 
 not the ways of politicians ; his methods 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 29 
 
 were not their methods, and he did not 
 count much on their support, or fear the 
 opposition of those who were governed by 
 ideas of mere expediency in emergencies 
 involving principles, and requiring the 
 earnest efforts and unselfish devotion of 
 men who hoped for ultimate success by a 
 firm reliance on truth and justice. He 
 looked with something like contempt and 
 even abhorrence upon all makeshift at 
 tempts at compromise, where the great 
 interests of humanity were to be sacrificed 
 to the pressing emergencies which are the 
 refuge and final destruction of the weak 
 and cowardly. 
 
 He was chosen governor in 1860 and 
 retired from office at the end of 1865. 
 These were years of unexampled interest 
 and importance in the history of the coun 
 try. It soon became clear that the Gov 
 ernor was remarkably well fitted for the 
 new and trying duties of the position. 
 Those who knew him best were of the 
 opinion that, in the ordinary and peaceful 
 
30 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 administration of affairs he mi^ht never 
 
 ^5 
 
 have shown the remarkable ability which 
 he possessed ; and some even maintained 
 that, although he could scarcely have made 
 a failure, he might have passed into history 
 with the crowd of high officials who per 
 form their duties fairly well, but attain no 
 marked prominence in the history and pro 
 gress of human affairs. 
 
 In this man, however, there was a rare 
 union of intellectual ability, enthusiasm, 
 firmness, unflinching courage and undoubt- 
 ing religious faith, which enabled him to 
 meet every trying emergency as it arose, to 
 surmount unexpected difficulties, and to 
 inspire in all who watched him an admi 
 ration that encouraged while it sustained 
 their own efforts in the defence of the 
 great principles on which our government 
 rests. 
 
 It is impossible in this brief sketch to go 
 into much detail as to the Governor s ser 
 vices in these memorable years, but an allu 
 sion to some of the prominent points may 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 31 
 
 be expected. 1 The alacrity with which he 
 met the call of the President for troops, 
 and the energy displayed in sending off 
 the first regiments are well remembered. 
 From the first moment that it became clear 
 there was to be war, he entered into the 
 campaign with all the ardor of his nature. 
 " Immediately," he wrote to President Lin 
 coln, on the 3d of May, " on receiving your 
 Proclamation, we took up the war, and have 
 carried on our part of it, in the spirit in 
 which we believe the Administration and 
 the American people intend to act, namely, 
 as if there was not an inch of red tape in 
 the world." 
 
 He early saw the weakest point of the 
 Confederates, and constantly maintained 
 that a blow should be struck at the institu- 
 
 1 There are in the State House of this Commonwealth 
 more than thirty thousand pages of letters relating to the 
 war, and Governor Andrew s private correspondence occu 
 pies some five thousand pages more. Any adequate ac 
 count of his services can be given only by a complete 
 history of the Civil War. During his administration he 
 sent to the two branches of the Legislature nearly one 
 hundred messages. 
 
32 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 tion which lay at the foundation of all our 
 troubles, by calling the negroes of the 
 South to rally in defence of the flag. 
 Others had doubts, others hesitated, but his 
 vision was clear from the start, and he never 
 wavered. When the first colored regiment 
 was formed, he remarked to a friend, that, 
 in regard to other regiments, he accepted 
 men as officers who were sometimes rough 
 and uncultivated, " but these men," he said, 
 " shall be commanded by officers who are 
 eminently and technically gentlemen" 
 
 It was in January, 1863, that official 
 sanction was given to the raising of colored 
 troops. The Governor obtained in a per 
 sonal interview with the Secretary of War, 
 authority to raise volunteer companies of 
 artillery for duty in the forts of Massachu 
 setts and elsewhere, and such companies of 
 infantry for the volunteer military service 
 as he might find convenient. To this the 
 Governor added with his own hand the 
 words, " and may include persons of Afri 
 can descent organized into separate corps," 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHM A. ANDREW. 33 
 
 to which the Secretary assented. This was 
 the first authorization of an act which 
 caused the greatest excitement everywhere, 
 and struck a heavier blow at the enemy 
 than any before given. One bright May 
 morning the 54th, the equal of the best in 
 the quality, discipline and equipment of the 
 men and the character of the officers, 
 marched down Beacon Street and passed 
 the Governor in review, in presence of fifty 
 thousand men. 1 
 
 In regard to the emancipation of the 
 slaves, Governor Andrew was among the 
 first, as he was the most persistent advo 
 cate of a measure which he considered the 
 greatest blow that could be struck at the 
 enemy, fully justified as a measure of war, 
 and demanded by every consideration of 
 justice and humanity. On this subject he 
 manifested more impatience than on any 
 other, and was greatly discouraged, dis- 
 
 1 Sketch of the Military Life of Governor Andrew, by 
 Colonel Albert G. Browne, Jr., military secretary to the 
 Governor. 
 
 3 
 
34 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 turbed, and even disgusted by the delays 
 at Washington, and the obstructions thrown 
 in the way by those in authority. All this 
 is matter of history ; but an incident oc 
 curred in relation to it, which, so far as I 
 know, has never been in print, and is worth 
 being stated in connection with this sub 
 ject, as it is significant in more respects 
 than one. 
 
 Among; the Governor s friends was a 
 
 O 
 
 young merchant of Boston, and I will let 
 him tell the story in his own way : 
 
 " It was in the summer of 1862, when 
 emancipation was being talked a great deal. 
 We had not had any great successes, and 
 everybody had a notion that emancipation 
 ought to come. One day the Governor 
 sent for me to come up to the State House. 
 I went up to his room, and I never shall 
 forget how I met him. He was signing 
 some kind of bonds, standing at a tall desk 
 in the council chamber, in his shirt sleeves, 
 his fingers all covered with ink. He said, 
 How do you do? I want you to go to 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 35 
 
 Washington. Why, Governor, said I, I 
 can t go to Washington on any such notice 
 as this. I am busy, and it is impossible for 
 me to go. All my folks are serving their 
 country, said he ; and he mentioned the 
 various services the members of his staff 
 were engaged in, and said with emphasis, 
 Somebody must go to Washington. Well, 
 Governor, I don t see how I can. Said 
 he I command you to go. Well, said I, 
 Governor, put it in that way and I shall 
 go, of course. There is something going 
 on, he remarked. This is a momentous 
 time. He turned suddenly toward me and 
 said, You believe in prayer, don t you ? 
 I said, Why, of course. * Then let us 
 pray ; and he knelt right down at the chair 
 that was placed there ; we both kneeled 
 down, and I never heard such a prayer in 
 all my life. I never was so near the throne 
 of God, except when my mother died, as I 
 was then. I said to the Governor, * I am 
 profoundly impressed ; and I will start this 
 afternoon for Washington. I soon found 
 
36 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 out that emancipation was in everybody s 
 mouth, and when I got to Washington and 
 called upon Sumner, he began to talk 
 emancipation. He asked me to go and see 
 the President, and tell him how the people 
 of Boston and New England regarded it. 
 I went to the White House that evening 
 and met the President. We first talked 
 about every thing but emancipation, and 
 finally he asked me what I thought about 
 emancipation. I told him what I thought 
 about it, and said that Governor Andrew 
 was so far interested in it that I had no 
 doubt he had sent me on there to post the 
 President in regard to what the class of 
 people I met in Boston and New York 
 thought of it, and then I repeated to him, 
 as I had previously to Sumner, this prayer 
 of the Governor s, as well as I could remem 
 ber it. The President said, When we 
 have the Governor of Massachusetts to 
 send us troops in the way he has, and when 
 we have him to utter such prayers for us, I 
 have no doubt that we shall succeed. In 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 37 
 
 September the Governor sent for me. He 
 had a despatch that emancipation would be 
 proclaimed, and it was done the next day. 
 You remember the President made procla 
 mation in September to take effect in Janu 
 ary. Well, he and I were together alone 
 again in the council-chamber. Said he, 
 You remember when I wanted you to go 
 on to Washington ? I said, * Yes, I re 
 member it very well. Well, said he, I 
 did n t know exactly what I wanted you to 
 go for then. Now I will tell you what let s 
 do : you sing Coronation, and I 11 join with 
 you. So we sang together the old tune, 
 and also Praise God from Whom All Bless 
 ings Flow. Then I sang Old John Brown, 
 he marching around the room and joining 
 in the chorus after each verse." 
 
 It is proper to say here with emphasis, 
 that, although Governor Andrew was occu 
 pied during his whole term with national 
 affairs, to an extent altogether unusual in 
 Massachusetts, local interests of the Com 
 monwealth were by no means neglected. 
 
38 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 On the contrary, he exercised a careful 
 supervision over all the institutions that had 
 claims upon his time ; and was vigilant in 
 seeing that the laws were promptly exe 
 cuted. He frequently visited the various 
 punitory and charitable establishments, and 
 devoted much time to the examination of 
 all special cases where there were questions 
 in regard to pardons or commutations of 
 sentence. Although strongly opposed to 
 capital punishment, he did not hesitate to 
 sign the death-warrant in cases where there 
 were no special reasons for dispensing with 
 the extreme penalty of the law. A glance 
 at his various messages to the Legislature 
 will show that, although denominated a 
 " War Governor," he was by no means inat 
 tentive to the ordinary duties of his office. 
 The first message of the Governor (Jan. 
 5, 1861) was largely occupied in a discus 
 sion of domestic affairs, the finances of 
 the Commonwealth, Valuation, Agriculture, 
 Banks and Banking, the Usury Laws (ear 
 nestly advocating a change), Mutual Insur- 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 39 
 
 ance Companies, Public Charitable Institu 
 tions, Capital Punishment, Practical Scien 
 tific Institutions, Boston Harbor and Back 
 Bay, Marriage and Divorce, Cape Cod 
 Canal, the Provincial Statutes, the Two 
 Years Amendment, the General Statutes, 
 the provisions of the statutes concerning 
 Personal Liberty, the Pacific Railroad. 
 
 All of these topics were ably treated. 
 He made a powerful argument against that 
 provision of our law preventing the mar 
 riage of a person against whom a decree 
 of divorce had been granted. " This 
 anomaly," he said, " originated many years 
 ago, in certain ecclesiastical theories con 
 cerning the institution of marriage, and 
 was devised by the ecclesiastics themselves. 
 In our own age, the theory upon which the. 
 law enforces the celibacy of a divorced 
 husband or wife is that of punishment for 
 the offence which was the occasion of the 
 divorce." He recommended a change, so 
 that a power could be lodged in some tri 
 bunal to mitigate the hardships of the law, 
 
40 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 according to the circumstances of each 
 case, whatever may have been the cause of 
 the dissolution of the marriage. 
 
 A bill was introduced in accordance with 
 this suggestion, but it met with most vio 
 lent opposition, especially from clergymen 
 in the House of Representatives, and was 
 defeated. At the next session the Gov 
 ernor again referred to the subject, and 
 renewed his recommendation " for such a 
 modification of our laws touching marriage 
 and divorce as shall lodge in some tribunal 
 the power to mitigate the penalty of celi 
 bacy as a consequence of divorce, whatever 
 may have been the cause of the dissolution 
 of the marriage." It was not, however, 
 until 1864 that an act was passed, con 
 ferring power on the Supreme Judicial 
 Court to authorize a party against whom 
 a divorce from the bonds of matrimony, 
 for the cause of adultery, had been granted 
 (except where the party had been convicted 
 of adultery) to marry again. (Acts of 1864, 
 ch. 216.) 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A, ANDREW. 41 
 
 The Governor, in his message (1861), 
 called attention to the propriety of making 
 some change in the usury laws. He al 
 luded to the fact that, in the year 1818, a 
 very able committee, appointed by the 
 British House of Commons, made an elabo 
 rate report recommending a modification 
 of the usury laws. But so strongly were 
 the people opposed to the measure, that 
 more than twenty years elapsed before any 
 favorable action to that end was adopted. 
 At last, in 1839, a law was enacted by Par 
 liament, exempting bills of exchange and 
 promissory notes, not having more than 
 twelve months to run, from the operation 
 of these laws ; and for twenty-one years 
 this enactment had been satisfactory to the 
 British public. He suggested whether a 
 similar change in our own laws might not 
 be wise. Nothing was accomplished at 
 that session, but in 1867 the law in Massa 
 chusetts was altered to a greater extent 
 than had been recommended by Governor 
 Andrew. 
 
4 2 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Governor Andrew was strongly opposed 
 to capital punishment and recommended 
 an alteration of the law in his first message. 
 But, as before remarked, he did not allow 
 his convictions on this subject to interfere 
 with the execution of the law while it was 
 in force, and signed the death-warrant in 
 several cases during his term of office. 
 
 In his second message (1862) he sug 
 gested the expediency of no longer insist 
 ing by statute that each Representative in 
 Congress shall be an inhabitant of the dis 
 trict from which he is elected, declaring 
 such a law to be unconstitutional. 
 
 When a bill was reported in the House 
 of Representatives to divide the Common 
 wealth into legislative districts for the 
 choice of Representatives, there was an 
 exciting discussion. Mr. Caleb Cushing 
 and Mr. P. W. Chandler, advocated the 
 course recommended by the Governor, 
 contending that the restrictive clause was 
 clearly unconstitutional, but the act was 
 passed with a clause requiring the people 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 43 
 
 of each Congressional district to limit their 
 choice of Representatives in Congress to 
 an inhabitant of the . district. The Gov 
 ernor vetoed the bill in a message con 
 taining a masterly argument against its 
 constitutionality and expediency. The act 
 was passed over the veto and is now in 
 operation or rather is unrepealed, but has 
 been practically disregarded in several in 
 stances. 
 
 The message of 1863 was naturally and 
 necessarily much taken up with matters 
 connected with the war, but the economical 
 and other special interests of the Common 
 wealth received careful attention. The 
 Harbors and Flats, the Troy and Green 
 field Railroad, Banking and Currency, 
 Pleuro-Pneumonia, Farming, Public Schools, 
 were sensibly considered. There was also 
 an elaborate discussion of the acts of the 
 37th Congress granting to each of the sev 
 eral States a portion of the public domain, 
 " to the endowment, support, and main 
 tenance of at least one college, where the 
 
44 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 leading object shall be, without excluding 
 other scientific and classical studies, and 
 including military tactics, to teach such 
 branches of learning as are related to agri 
 culture and the mechanic arts in such man 
 ner as the Legislatures of the States may 
 respectively prescribe, in order to promote 
 the liberal and practical education of the 
 industrial classes in the several pursuits 
 and professions in life." The apportion 
 ment to each State was, in quantity, equal 
 to 30,000 acres of land for each Senator 
 and Representative in Congress, to which 
 the States were respectively entitled by the 
 apportionment under the census of 1860. 
 The Governor entered upon an elaborate 
 examination of the whole subject, in which 
 he expressed the opinion that the Congres 
 sional grant was exposed to the danger of 
 being divided in each State among sev 
 eral unimportant seminaries instead of 
 being concentrated on one institution of 
 commanding influence and efficiency : 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 45 
 
 "The Act of Congress does not make pro 
 vision sufficient for an Agricultural School of the 
 highest class in each State. Nor would it be 
 possible now to find, disconnected from our col 
 leges and universities, as many men of high 
 talent, and otherwise competent, as would be 
 required to fill the chairs of one such school. 
 But Massachusetts already has in the projected 
 Bussey Institution an agricultural school founded, 
 though not yet in operation, with a large endow 
 ment, connected also with Harvard College and 
 the Lawrence Scientific School. She can, there 
 fore, by securing the grant from Congress, com 
 bining with the Institute of Technology and the 
 Zoological Museum, and working in harmony 
 with the College, secure also for the agricultural 
 student for whom she thus provides, not only the 
 benefits of the national appropriation, but of the 
 Bussey Institution and the means and instrumen 
 talities of the Institute of Technology, as well as 
 those accumulated at Cambridge. The benefits 
 to our State and to our country and to mankind, 
 which can be obtained by this co-operation, are 
 of the highest character, and can be obtained in 
 no other way. The details of the connection of 
 the Bussey Institution with the Scientific School 
 and the College are not yet fully wrought out, 
 but I apprehend that little difficulty would be 
 found in connecting it also with the grant from 
 
46 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Congress, if the gentlemen who may be intrusted 
 by the State with the work will approach it with 
 the perception of the absolute necessity for hus 
 banding our materials, both men and money, and 
 concentrating all our efforts upon making an in 
 stitution worthy of our age and of our people. 
 Its summit must reach the highest level of modern 
 science, and its heads must be those whom men 
 will recognize as capable of planning a great 
 work, and of working out a great plan." 
 
 The message of 1864 was considerably 
 occupied by a consideration of local sub 
 jects affecting the special interests of the 
 Commonwealth, all of which were discussed 
 with an ability and discrimination which 
 showed that they had been carefully exam 
 ined. He recommends the establishment 
 of a military academy, and re-asserts his 
 opinion, expressed the year before in con 
 nection with an agricultural college, that, 
 " the one great and commanding duty and 
 capability of our Commonwealth her 
 way to unchallenged influence and admira 
 tion among the States is the discovering, 
 unfolding, and teaching the secrets of 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 4? 
 
 knowledge and their scientific application 
 to the arts of civilized humanity." 
 
 The recommendation of Governor An 
 drew in regard to the Agricultural College 
 was not acceded to by the General Court, 
 and he thus alludes to the subject in the 
 annual message of 1865 : 
 
 "Although overruled by the better judgment 
 of the Legislature as to the views which I had 
 the honor to present at length in the annual 
 address of 1863, and although I remain more 
 fully convinced than ever, after the reflection of 
 two intervening years, of their substantial sound 
 ness, I have felt it to be my official duty cordially 
 to co-operate in endeavoring to give vitality and 
 efficient action to the college under the auspices 
 determined by the law of its creation. Of all 
 the places offered and possible under the charter, 
 the place selected by the Trustees seemed justly 
 to be preferred, having in view all the relative 
 advantages of each. 
 
 " My own idea of a college likely to be useful 
 in the largest way to the people, most vigorous 
 in its growth, promotive of the progress of thrifty 
 and intelligent farming, productive of scientific 
 and exact knowledge (which is the true basis of 
 
48 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 prosperity), worthy of Massachusetts, and able 
 to command the respect, while it challenges the 
 pride, of her agricultural community, is one 
 perhaps not yet to be realized." 
 
 Whether the course recommended by the 
 Governor, or the one actually adopted for 
 the establishment of an agricultural college, 
 was the best, there is at this day, in the 
 light of the experience we have had, very 
 little doubt. 
 
 While in office Governor Andrew felt 
 obliged to send in no less than twelve veto 
 messages. In ten of these the bills did not 
 pass over his veto. Of the two bills that 
 were passed notwithstanding his veto, one 
 was a Resolve authorizing additional com 
 pensation to members of the Legislature. 
 The other was an Act to divide the Com 
 monwealth into districts for the choice of 
 Representatives in the Congress of the 
 United States, to which reference has been 
 made already, which passed the Senate 
 (1862), notwithstanding his veto, by a vote 
 of 22 to 11, and the House by a vote of 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A.. ANDREW. 49 
 
 137 to 67. It is without doubt unconstitu 
 tional in some of its provisions and they 
 have been in fact disregarded. 
 
 Governor Andrew s character as a man 
 of practical sense was somewhat misunder 
 stood before his election, and even now the 
 error is not entirely cleared, except to those 
 who carefully watched his official acts. 
 When a distinguished judge expressed some 
 alarm at his nomination for fear of his 
 eccentricities, one who knew him well 
 replied, " Yes ; he is an emotional man and 
 a rhetorician ; he may have made some ex 
 travagant remarks, but did any one ever 
 know him to do a foolish thing ? " In point 
 of fact he was one of the most sensible, 
 practical and safe governors we ever had. 
 He showed great sagacity and ability in 
 the treatment of business questions where 
 the interests of the Commonwealth were 
 affected, and his recommendations in regard 
 to all matters relating to social science and 
 the economical welfare of the people were 
 discriminating, sound and just. And so in 
 4 
 
5O MEMOIR OF JOHN A. AX DREW. 
 
 regard to political questions. He was an 
 anti-slavery man from principle. He was 
 thoroughly in earnest in his opposition to 
 the extension of the slave power. While 
 acting with the Whig party of Massachu 
 setts, he never went beyond the line au 
 thorized by regular resolutions of that party 
 adopted time and again. 
 
 In the course of a long discussion of the 
 provisions of the statutes concerning per 
 sonal liberty, in his inaugural address of 
 1 86 1 he says, "In dismissing this topic, I 
 have only to add that, in regard not only to 
 one, but to every subject bearing on her 
 Federal relations, Massachusetts has always 
 conformed to her honest understanding of 
 all constitutional obligations that she has 
 always conformed to the judicial decisions 
 has never threatened either to nullify or 
 to disobey and that the decision in one 
 suit fully contested, constitutes a precedent 
 for the future." 
 
 And further on, while speaking of the 
 state of the country, and condemning in 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. $1 
 
 severe terms the course of President Bu 
 chanan and of some of the Southern States, 
 he says, " And yet, during all the excite 
 ment of this period, inflamed by the heats 
 of repeated Presidential elections, I have 
 never known a single Massachusetts Re 
 publican to abandon his loyalty, surrender 
 his faith, or seal up his heart against the 
 good hopes and kind affections which every 
 devoted citizen ought to entertain for every 
 section of his country. During all this 
 trial-administration of the national govern 
 ment, the people of Massachusetts have 
 never wavered from their faith in its prin 
 ciples or their loyalty to its organization." 
 
 But he fully comprehended at that early 
 time the momentous issue involved, which 
 was, more than the union of these States, 
 even the very existence of a republican 
 government in any country. 
 
 " Upon this issue over the heads of all mere 
 politicians and partisans, in behalf of the Com 
 monwealth of Massachusetts, I appeal directly to 
 the warm hearts and clear heads of the great 
 
52 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 masses of the people. The men who own and 
 till the soil, who drive the mills, and hammer out 
 their own iron and leather on their own anvils 
 and lap-stones, and they who, whether in the city 
 or the country, reap the rewards of enterprising 
 industry and skill in the varied pursuits of busi 
 ness, are honest, intelligent, patriotic, indepen 
 dent, and brave. They know that simple defeat 
 in an election is no cause for the disruption of a 
 government. They know that those who declare 
 that they will not live peaceably within the Union 
 do not mean to live peaceably out of it. They 
 know that the people of all sections have a right, 
 which they intend to maintain, of free access 
 from the interior to both oceans, and from Can 
 ada to the Gulf of Mexico, and of the free use 
 of all the lakes and rivers and highways of com 
 merce, North, South, East, or West. They know 
 that the Union means peace, and unfettered com 
 mercial intercourse from sea to sea and from 
 shore to shore ; that it secures us all against the 
 unfriendly presence or possible dictation of any 
 foreign power, and commands respect for our 
 flag and security for our trade. And they do not 
 intend, nor will they ever consent, to be excluded 
 from these rights which they have so long en 
 joyed, nor to abandon the prospect of the bene 
 fits which Humanity claims for itself by means 
 of their continued enjoyment in the future. 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 53 
 
 Neither will they consent that the continent shall 
 be overrun by the victims of a remorseless cu 
 pidity, and the elements of civil danger increased 
 by the barbarizing influences which accompany 
 the African slave-trade. Inspired by the same 
 ideas and emotions which commanded the frater 
 nization of Jackson and Webster on another 
 great occasion of public danger, the people of 
 Massachusetts, confiding in the patriotism of 
 their brethren in other States, accept this issue, 
 and respond, in the words of Jackson, The Fed 
 eral Union, it must be preserved! " 
 
 After the die was cast, he urged a vigor 
 ous prosecution of the war and insisted on 
 every measure to defeat the Confederate 
 armies that was consistent with the laws 
 of war. He was particularly strenuous in 
 demanding the emancipation of the slaves. 
 On this point, I cannot do better than to 
 quote from the admirable sketch of the 
 Governor by his military secretary during 
 the war, Albert G. Browne, Jr., Esq. 
 
 " Over the bodies of our soldiers who were 
 killed at Baltimore he had recorded a prayer that 
 he might live to see the end of the war, and a 
 
54 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 vow that, so long as he should govern Massachu 
 setts, and so far as Massachusetts could control 
 the issue, it should not end without freeing every 
 slave in America. He believed, at the first, in 
 the policy of emancipation as a war measure. 
 Finding that timid counsels controlled the gov 
 ernment at Washington, and the then commander 
 of the Army of the Potomac, so that there was 
 no light in that quarter, he hailed the action of 
 Fremont in Missouri in proclaiming freedom to 
 the western slaves. Through all the reverses 
 which afterwards befell that officer he never 
 varied from this friendship ; and when at last 
 Fremont retired from the Army of Virginia, the 
 Governor offered him the command of a Massa 
 chusetts regiment, and vainly urged him to take 
 the field again under our State flag. Just so, 
 afterwards, he welcomed the similar action oi 
 Plunter in South Carolina, and wrote in his de 
 fence the famous letter in which he urged, to 
 fire at the enemy s magazine. He was deeply 
 disappointed when the Administration disavowed 
 Hunter s act, for he had hoped much from the 
 personal friendship which was known to exist 
 between the General and the President. Soon 
 followed the great reverses of McClellan before 
 Richmond. 
 
 "The feelings of the Governor at this time on 
 the subject of emancipation are well expressed 
 
MEM 018 OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 55 
 
 in a speech which he made on Aug. 10, 1862, at 
 the Methodist camp meeting on Martha s Vine 
 yard. It was the same speech in which occurs 
 his remark, since so often quoted: 
 
 " I know not what record of sin awaits me in 
 the other world, but this I know, that I was never 
 mean enough to despise any man because he was 
 ignorant, or because he was poor, or because he 
 was black. 
 
 " Referring to slavery, he said : 
 
 " I have never believed it to be possible that 
 this controversy should end, and peace resume 
 her sway, until that dreadful iniquity has been 
 trodden beneath our feet. I believe it cannot, 
 and I have noticed, my friends (although I am 
 not superstitious, I believe), that, from the day 
 our government turned its back on the proclama 
 tion of General Hunter, the blessing of God has 
 been withdrawn from our arms. We were march 
 ing on, conquering and to conquer ; post after 
 post had fallen before our victorious arms ; but 
 since that day I have seen no such victories. 
 But I have seen no discouragement. I bate not 
 one jot of hope. I believe that God rules above, 
 and that he will rule in the hearts of men, and 
 that, either with our aid or against it, he has de 
 termined to let the people go. But the confi 
 dence I have in my own mind that the appointed 
 hour has nearly come makes me feel all the more 
 
56 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 confidence in the certain and* final triumph of 
 our Union arms, because I do not believe that 
 this great investment of Providence is to be 
 wasted. " 
 
 Governor Andrew was inaugurated Jan.- 
 5, 1 86 1. His final term as Governor ex 
 pired Jan. 5, 1866. On that day he deliv 
 ered to the two branches of the Legislature 
 a valedictory address. Without asserting, 
 with one of his biographers, that on this 
 address, " more than on any other produc 
 tion of his pen, rests his claim to the fame 
 of a great statesman," it must be admitted 
 by all that it was worthy of the man and 
 of the occasion. In logical acumen, in 
 clearness of statement, in breadth of view, 
 it is as remarkable as for moderation and 
 firmness. He was able to rise above the 
 plane of party spirit, above his own early 
 and intense feelings on the subject of 
 slavery, and to advocate doctrines as novel 
 to his own friends as they were surprising 
 to his enemies. The time has not yet come 
 when this production can be fairly judged 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. $? 
 
 of, but there are few who will not recog 
 nize the wise and tolerant spirit of his 
 utterance when he said: 
 
 " I am satisfied that the mass of thinking men 
 at the South accept the present condition of 
 things in good faith ; and I am also satisfied that, 
 with the support of a firm policy from the Presi 
 dent and Congress, in aid of the efforts of their 
 good faith, and with the help of a conciliatory 
 and generous disposition on the part of the 
 North, especially on the part of those States 
 most identified with the plan of emancipation, 
 the measures needed for permanent and universal 
 welfare can surely be obtained. There ought 
 now to be a vigorous prosecution of the peace, just 
 as vigorous as our recent prosecution of the war. 
 We ought to extend our hands with cordial good 
 will to meet the proffered hands of the South ; 
 demanding no attitude of humiliation from any ; 
 inflicting no acts of humiliation upon any ; re 
 specting the feelings of the conquered, notwith 
 standing the question of right and wrong between 
 the parties belligerent. We ought, by all the 
 means and instrumentalities of peace, and by all 
 the thrifty methods of industry, by all the recrea 
 tive agencies of education and religion, to help 
 rebuild the waste places, and restore order, 
 
58 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 society, prosperity. Without industry and busi 
 ness there can be no progress. In their absence, 
 civilized man even recedes towards barbarism. 
 Let Massachusetts bear in mind the not unnat 
 ural suspicion which the past has engendered. I 
 trust she is able, filled with emotions of boundless 
 joy, and gratitude to Almighty God, who has 
 given such victory and such honor to the right, 
 to exercise faith in his goodness, without vain 
 glory, and to exercise charity, without weakness, 
 towards those who have held the attitude of her 
 enemies." 
 
 The pecuniary means of Governor An 
 drew were always small. His practice had 
 never been very lucrative, and his long 
 public service effectually broke up the circle 
 of his clients. On retiring from office, he 
 determined to return to the bar, and de 
 clined various honorable and lucrative 
 offices which were tendered to him. He 
 soon entered upon a large practice, and 
 was earning, at the time of his death, at 
 the rate of thirty thousand dollars a year. 
 One of the cases in which he was retained 
 acquired such a prominence, and subjected 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 59 
 
 him to such reproaches as to require some 
 mention here. At the session of the Gen 
 eral Court of Massachusetts, commencing 
 in January, 1867, petitions were presented 
 by upward of thirty thousand legal voters, 
 praying for the enactment of a judicious 
 license law, and for the regulation and con 
 trol of the sale of spirituous and fermented 
 liquors in the Commonwealth. This peti 
 tion was represented by Governor Andrew 
 and by the venerable Linus Child, who 
 called as witnesses a large number of re 
 spectable citizens from every profession 
 and occupation. The hearing occupied 
 more than a month and excited great in 
 terest, partly because it was the first time 
 the subject had received an examination 
 so thorough, but mainly from the fact that 
 there had never been so determined an 
 assault on the prohibitory law, on principle, 
 by men of marked character for ability and 
 high standing. 
 
 Governor Andrew summed up the case 
 in an elaborate argument and attacked the 
 
60 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 doctrine of prohibitory legislation at the 
 root. It is, he argued, only in the strife 
 and controversy of life natural, human, 
 and free that robust virtue can be ob 
 tained, or positive good accomplished. It 
 is only in similar freedom, alike from 
 bondage and pupilage, alike from the pro 
 hibitions of artificial legislation on the one 
 hand, and superstitious fears on the other, 
 that nations or peoples can become thrifty, 
 happy, and great. 
 
 In reply to the position that spirits and 
 wines are so alluring that health and morals 
 require teetotalism as the only safeguard ; 
 that while there is evidence by which many 
 men, otherwise trustworthy, are convinced 
 in favor of a certain temperate dietetic use 
 by some people ; yet, the moral dangers to 
 the mass are such that teetotalism ought not 
 only to be universally volunteered, but that 
 it ought to receive the vindication of the 
 statute-book and the moral support of the 
 Legislature, he said : 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 6 1 
 
 " The whole argument involves one of the 
 oldest of human errors ; so entirely human that 
 it has no shadow of countenance from the reli 
 gion of the New Testament. This world, in 
 which while in the body we must abide, and this 
 body, in which the spirit dwells, have been felt 
 by many philosophers and moralists, both Chris 
 tian and Heathen, to work a sad imprisonment 
 of the celestial spirit. The immaculate purity 
 of the spirit, soiled by any indulgence of the 
 gross and material body, recedes from all human 
 passion, and oftentimes from all intercourse with 
 this tempting, dangerous, material world, to which 
 alone in the temptation of a simple fruit, hang 
 ing on one of the trees of Eden, is due our whole 
 experience of woe and the awful mystery of evil. 
 The Church has always been tolerant, the Church 
 of Rome has sometimes been too indulgent, of 
 this mysticism ; while some of the Protestant 
 sects, as well as of the societies in the Roman 
 Church, have made it their vital principle. But 
 it had its original expression in Oriental philoso 
 phy, not in Christianity, nor even in Judaism. 
 
 " When our Saviour came to the Jews, He 
 found them mainly in these sects or divisions, 
 the Pharisees and the Sadducees. The latter, 
 relatively small, maintained the law as written by 
 Moses, denying the traditions of the Elders. 
 They were rich, educated and influential, but 
 
62 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 cold, hard and unspiritual. The Pharisees were 
 devoted to their religion, professed to live meanly, 
 to despise delicacies, to venerate the Elders. 
 But many of them, with ostentatious prayers, 
 sacrificed the heart of humanity on the altar of 
 ceremonious and hollow sanctity. Besides these, 
 were the Essenes. They were very few, and were 
 sincere, but narrow. 
 
 " Doubtless recruited from the sect of Phari 
 sees they held rather to their general views, 
 which had an ascetic tendency. But, in a spirit 
 of devout, self-denying, mystic yearning after 
 God, they sought him in the ecstasies of con 
 templation, through exile, poverty and want ; 
 instead of facing the world, bearing its social 
 burdens, risking its evils, temptations and woes." 
 
 " The Messiah accepted the recognition and 
 the baptism of John. But though He did this 
 honor to the prophet, and accepted his emblem 
 of the inward purifying of the soul, and of the 
 spiritual and celestial character of his own 
 coming, (as contrasted with some fierce appari 
 tion of triumphant wrath,) the Saviour immedi 
 ately made clear his own disagreement with the 
 dogmas of the Essenes, and the notions of asceti 
 cism. 
 
 " Soon after his baptism, there was a marriage- 
 feast. Invited to attend, He joined the festivity. 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 63 
 
 In compliance with the wishes of his Mother, the 
 wine having failed, Jesus, by miracle, changed 
 water into wine, and sent it to the master of the 
 feast. * Thus Jesus performed his first miracle 
 at Cana, in Galilee, and manifested his glory * 
 By these two actions, of emphatic significance, 
 that is, by attending the marriage-feast and 
 making the wine, our Lord, with the utmost 
 publicity, placed himself in unequivocal antago 
 nism to the asceticism of Nazarite and Essene, 
 prevented his baptism from being mistaken for 
 any profession of adhesion to the sect, the dog 
 mas, or the practices of John ; sanctioned the 
 domestic tie, which the Essene contemned ; the 
 use of the beverage, which the Nazarite rejected; 
 and the friendly enjoyment of innocent festivity. 
 " On no other theory can we understand the 
 meaning of his joining the feast, or working the 
 miracle. In the very hour of festivity the dread 
 ful future of his Passion was presented to his 
 soul. He sympathized with the social joy of 
 others ; but He was sad himself. Nor can we 
 regard the miracle as wrought either to display 
 his power, or simply for the hilarity of the feast. 
 It would be to degrade the character of our Lord, 
 and imagine motives to which He never yielded 
 in the use of his heavenly gifts. If we perceive 
 
 1 Gospel of St. John, ch. 2, v. 1 1. Norton s translation. 
 
64 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 in his conduct the evident testimony He bore 
 against opinions sincerely held by John, but of 
 which He would not even seem to be the adhe 
 rent, we shall better understand the spirit of the 
 occasion, and the true character of our Lord, and 
 we shall learn what Paul, the apostle, learned 
 perhaps from the story of the same miracle (while 
 Peter needed its revelation in vision), that * The 
 kingdom of God is not meat and drink 
 
 " Had Jesus been accessible to ordinary mo 
 tives, He would have adopted, or at least indulged, 
 asceticism. It would have given Him a party 
 at the beginning of his career. It would have 
 belped Him to defy, or to puzzle, the Pharisees, 
 and to turn their weapons. But He was absorbed 
 in the infinite purpose of a mission which included 
 all human nature, all times, all places, and all 
 circumstances of men." 
 
 This argument subjected him to great 
 abuse and even vilification ; but nothing he 
 ever did afforded him greater satisfaction 
 than his action in this matter. The State 
 election, a week after his death, completely 
 revolutionized the policy of the Common 
 wealth and vindicated his position, although 
 it could not protect him from the slander- 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 65 
 
 ous attacks of malignant philanthropy, for 
 a course which he conscientiously adopted, 
 and which was sustained and approved by 
 many of the ablest and best men in the 
 community. 
 
 Mr. Andrew died suddenly, on the 3Oth 
 of October, 1867, of apoplexy. On the 
 previous day he had been engaged in court. 
 After tea some gentlemen called for a legal 
 consultation. He suddenly complained of 
 want of air in the room and endeavored to 
 open a window. He staggered and was 
 helped to the sofa, when he made earnest 
 efforts to speak. A pencil was handed to 
 him, which he vainly tried to use. He 
 lingered in unconsciousness till the next 
 evening at half-past six, when he died in 
 the arms of his only brother, Isaac, who 
 was in the act of raising him in bed to 
 assist his breathing. The body was laid in 
 Mount Auburn, but was subsequently re 
 moved to the old burial-place in Hingham, 
 where a fine statue has been erected over 
 his grave. 
 
 5 
 
66 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. AND RE IV. 
 
 The death of Governor Andrew pro 
 duced a great sensation throughout the 
 country, and was suitably noticed by 
 numerous public meetings. The bar 
 meeting in Boston was presided over by 
 Henry W. Paine, and was addressed by 
 Richard H. Dana, Jr., George S. Hillard 
 and others. 1 
 
 So many writers and speakers have un 
 dertaken to delineate his character that 
 nothing new remains to be said. Mr. 
 Parke Godwin, at a meeting in the city 
 of New York, happily summed it up in 
 these few words : " Simple as a child in 
 his manners ; gentle as a woman in his 
 affections ; earnest as the enthusiast in his 
 
 1 The writer of this sketch has made free use in it of 
 his own remarks on that occasion. In 1865, a committee 
 was appointed to procure a statue of Edward Everett, 
 and five hundred subscribers contributed to this fund 
 $33,000. After procuring a statue and a full-length por 
 trait, a large sum remained. Of this, $10,000 were ap 
 propriated for a statue of John A. Andrew, in marble 
 to be placed in the State House. Thomas Ball was 
 selected as the artist, and the statue was unveiled Feb. 
 14, 1871. 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 6? 
 
 persuasions of truth ; and steadfast as the 
 martyr to his own interior faith ; he was 
 yet prudent, moderate, and wise, as the 
 statesman, in his action." And Mr.- Wil 
 liam M. Evarts well expressed the feelings 
 of those who knew the Governor most inti 
 mately : " We do not err at all when we 
 say and feel that, up to the time of his 
 death, to human observation, he had been 
 preparing himself and gaining that opin 
 ion of mankind, that fame which after death 
 is superior to power in life, which was to 
 enable him to fill a greater, a wider, and a 
 more useful part in the future of our coun 
 try." 
 
 Of this remarkable man it may be truly 
 said, that he was fortunate in the circum 
 stances of his life and in those of his death. 
 The son of parents of very different but 
 extraordinary traits, his early training was 
 under influences of the best kind, while 
 there was never a jar in this happy family, 
 which was a fair representative of the best 
 in New England. 
 
68 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 There was no lavish expenditure in the 
 education of the oldest son ; but he had 
 every advantage that he desired, was always 
 fairly well supplied with money, and never 
 had to endure the mortifications and trials 
 of those who are obliged to obtain the 
 means for their own education. His dis 
 position was so fine, his spirits so equal, his 
 temperament so hopeful, and his general 
 health so good, that the carking cares and 
 petty trials and vexations which impede the 
 course or make wretched the early life of 
 many men, were never his portion. All 
 this should be a consolation to those who 
 study his history and regret their own defi 
 ciencies when compared with such an ex 
 ample. Governor Andrew was fortunate 
 in living at a time when his peculiar talents 
 could be used to such vast advantage in 
 public affairs. It is a cheap and not un 
 common criticism of successful public men, 
 that at other times and under other circum 
 stances they would have made no mark. 
 But " there s a divinity that shapes our 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 69 
 
 ends." In great emergencies the man 
 finally appears who is fitted to take the 
 lead, and, under Providence, conduct affairs 
 to a successful result. To say that any 
 remarkable character is fitted for a particu 
 lar epoch is merely to admit, what all reli 
 gious men believe, that there is a guiding 
 Hand above and beyond all human trans 
 actions. There has also been much unprof 
 itable discussion as to what constitutes a 
 great man, and whether true greatness and 
 goodness can be distinct. The dispute is 
 a matter of definitions. But all must agree 
 that a successful man in the ordinary mean 
 ing of the term may be neither great nor 
 good. 
 
 Governor Andrew was successful beyond 
 the lot of most men in the worldly under 
 standing of the term, and he was at the 
 same time a good man in the best and 
 highest sense. And his great success was 
 in kind and degree such as would not have 
 been predicted until it came. He was not 
 an orator, when judged by the highest 
 
70 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 standards, for he lacked the early culture 
 which is essential to one who aspires to 
 the noble distinction implied by that term. 
 But he was an impressive and persuasive 
 speaker of considerable power. He was 
 not a polished writer, from the same defect ; 
 for his rhetoric was often faulty, and he had 
 never had the highest training in this re 
 gard. But there was a charm about some 
 of his productions that few men of culture 
 could fail to appreciate. Nor was he a 
 statesman in the sense that Chatham and 
 Burke and Bolingbroke were statesmen. 
 Nor a great lawyer in the sense that Web 
 ster and Pinkney and Marshall were great 
 lawyers. He died at the age of Webster 
 when he made the speech against Hayne 
 in the Senate of the United States. It is 
 more than probable that if Governor An 
 drew had lived he would have taken rank 
 among the highest in the profession. 
 
 And yet this man was a great instrumen 
 tality in the most important and grandest 
 controversy that is recorded in history. 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 7 I 
 
 With the civil war his name will always be 
 identified. As the great " War Governor " 
 he will always be known. In what then 
 did his greatness consist? The answer is 
 and always must be, "In his character" 
 He w r as most emphatically what Milton 
 calls a square and constant mind. He 
 stands to-day the embodiment and repre 
 sentative of manliness, simplicity, truthful 
 ness, justice, of all the qualities which go 
 to make up the spiritual substance of our 
 being, which is all we can take with us when 
 we leave this world, and which will never 
 cease to influence those who may occupy 
 the places we now occupy, and who may 
 try to do the works that are set before us 
 to do. 
 
 Mr. Andrew was married Christinas eve 
 ning, December, 1848, to Miss Eliza Jane, 
 daughter of Charles Hersey, of Hingham. 
 They had four children living at the time 
 of his death, John Forrester, born Nov. 
 26, 1850; Elizabeth Loring, born July 29, 
 
7 2 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 1852; Edith, born April 5, 1854; Henry 
 Hersey, born April 28, 1858. The family 
 still occupy the home in Charles Street, 
 Boston, where he died. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 
 
THE request to write some personal reminiscences, of 
 Governor Andrew has been acceded to with considerable 
 hesitation. Whoever undertakes a labor of this sort sub 
 jects himself to the imputation of giving importance to 
 trifles of no public interest. But such things, when they 
 aid in reproducing a life-like image of a noble and dis 
 tinguished character, are worth recording. In this hope 
 the following has been prepared. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 
 
 MY acquaintance with Governor Andrew 
 commenced at college, where we were not 
 at all intimate, as I preceded him by three 
 years. When I had nearly completed my 
 novitiate at No. 4 Court Street, in Bos 
 ton, Andrew, who had recently graduated 
 (1837), made his appearance at the office 
 of Hubbard & Watts, where an old school 
 mate and life-long friend, Cyrus Woodman, 
 was studying law, and asked if he knew 
 any lawyer who would take him as a stu 
 dent. Mr. Woodman thought of Henry 
 H. Fuller, the senior member of the firm 
 of Fuller & Washburn, and going at once 
 to their office on the northerly side of State 
 Street, opposite the Old State House, in 
 troduced his friend to Mr. Fuller. After 
 
76 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 some pleasant talk Mr. Fuller kindly con 
 sented to receive him, and there he began 
 his law studies a few weeks later, in the 
 early days of November. The affectionate 
 intimacy of these two men, so utterly dif 
 ferent in tastes, appearance and character, 
 was one of the things to be seen in order 
 to be appreciated. 
 
 I was then living at the excellent board 
 ing-house of Mrs. Ann Blodgett, in How 
 ard Street (now a small hotel called the 
 Woodbine), and Andrew came there to 
 reside. We occupied adjoining rooms ; 
 neither of us aspired to first-class accommo 
 dations in the house, such as the decently 
 paid clerks in shops could afford, and espe 
 cially the gallant militia colonel, who sat 
 at the head of the table and occupied the 
 best room. We enjoyed the attic story. 
 My own room was no room at all, but a 
 mere closet, with just space enough for a 
 small bed (I think there was a bureau; 
 there certainly was a wash-stand) and a 
 chair. It had no window whatever, but an 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 7/ 
 
 opening into the entry that served for air 
 and such light as could get in by way of 
 the sky-light. It was called the " Captain s 
 Office," from a supposed resemblance to 
 that apartment on steamboats. 
 
 Our mutual friend, Mr. Woodman, who 
 early left what his friends deemed the 
 certain prospect of honorable success in 
 Boston, for a prosperous business life in 
 the West, occupied the larger room of 
 the same attic, lighted by a window in 
 the roof, which could be raised at one 
 end. He gladly offered to share this ap 
 artment with his friend, who as gladly 
 accepted the offer. The expense to each 
 was thereby lessened, not an unimportant 
 consideration at that time. On the whole, 
 I preferred the windowless room at the 
 same cost, with single blessedness. 
 
 We three were favorites of the landlady, 
 and always fared well at the table. She 
 was doubtless conscious that the rooms we 
 occupied were not in great demand, and 
 so desired us to remain. Taking a mate 
 
78 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 myself at the respectable age of twenty- 
 one, I left the attic and the house ; but 
 Andrew remained there several years, and 
 my closet was soon taken by a young 
 student who has since made himself a 
 leading member of the profession. 1 
 
 On his admission to the bar, Mr. An 
 drew took an office at No. 19 Court 
 Street, occupying the same room with Mr. 
 N. T. Dow, an able but somewhat eccen 
 tric lawyer, who was afterwards associated 
 with Mayor Prince, and is now deceased. 
 
 1 Mr. Benjamin H. Currier, for a long time assistant 
 clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court, and now, at the age 
 of more than fourscore years, an active practitioner at 
 the bar, had a room in this attic. He got into the habit 
 of singing the old psalm tunes in concert with Andrew. 
 As they occupied different rooms and both had good 
 lungs, their efforts were not conducive to sleep by those 
 inmates of the house who enjoyed a morning nap, and 
 who got more of Coronation, St. Martyn s, Dundee, China, 
 and so forth, than they bargained for. Our landlady 
 kept her boarders well in hand, and remonstrated one 
 morning at the breakfast-table with Currier, who was the 
 older of the two offenders, in a decided manner. But he 
 stood by his guns, and closed the animated debate by an 
 emphatic declaration, " I will sing praises Jo my God in 
 the morning as long as I live ! " 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 79 
 
 But on the first of October, 1842, he became 
 associated with Mr. Fuller as partner, on 
 the invitation of the latter, and so con 
 tinued until he removed to No. 4 Court 
 Street in 1846, where he occupied a room 
 with Mr. T. P. Chandler until his election 
 as governor. 
 
 His progress at the bar was slow: his 
 youthful appearance and apparent indiffer 
 ence to success were not in his favor. But 
 whatever business was intrusted to his 
 hands was faithfully done ; and he early 
 manifested great interest in the poor who 
 had legal rights or remedies to be cared 
 for, and especially in those who were 
 charged with crime. No one who had a 
 "hard case," with no money to pay for legal 
 assistance, was ever turned away from his 
 office for that reason ; and no one however 
 guilty was denied whatever assistance his 
 case was fairly entitled to receive. 
 
 A disposition and a reputation of this 
 sort will bring clients enough, such as they 
 are. Nor can any one outside of the pro- 
 
80 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 fession justly appreciate how much good 
 may be done by listening to the stories 
 of the poor who are charged with crime, 
 and by carefully investigating the circum 
 stances of cases which to a casual observer 
 have nothing but evil about them. " 1 
 thank God," a lawyer once exclaimed to 
 Andrew, " that there is one man at the bar 
 to look out for the poor devils of criminals 
 who are guilty enough and have no friends 
 and no money." 
 
 At the same time, such a reputation as 
 that of Andrew had its inconveniences, 
 not only for himself but for his neighbors. 
 After he removed to No. 4 Court Street, 
 the entry seemed occasionally to be full of 
 miserable-looking wretches who were wait 
 ing for admission to his room. It made no 
 difference to him. He bore the comments 
 of other lawyers on his ragged crowd with 
 entire equanimity. He did not defend the 
 crime, or take the criminal to his heart ; 
 but he was always determined that a poor 
 man convicted of an offence should have 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 8 1 
 
 no greater punishment than he really de 
 served ; and that he should not be con 
 demned for want of assistance to bring out 
 every thing in his favor that could be 
 proved. 
 
 There is a remarkable instance, among 
 others, of his voluntary interposition, where 
 a man was convicted in Boston of piracy. 
 Andrew had never spoken to him in his 
 life; he was not of counsel at the trial, nor 
 did he know any person related to the 
 prisoner in any way. But he quietly de 
 voted some weeks to preparation ; went to 
 Washington at his own expense without 
 fee or reward or the hope of any, and 
 pressed upon the attorney-general and the 
 President (Buchanan) those considerations 
 which he deemed proper to be considered 
 in support of the application for executive 
 clemency. The man s life was saved. 
 
 He was employed a good deal in divorce 
 cases, especially on behalf of the weaker 
 sex. One of his sympathetic temperament 
 would be easily as well as deeply affected 
 
 6 
 
82 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 by the circumstances ordinarily attending 
 such a business. An injured woman 
 especially if she were poor, and more espe 
 cially if she were interesting in manner 
 would secure his most earnest efforts at 
 once. It must be confessed that in these 
 cases he was sometimes grossly deceived 
 by the fair sex, and the guilt which was as 
 plain as possible to others had no existence 
 in his opinion. Nor could he always re 
 press his indignation that others did not 
 agree with him. 
 
 In a somewhat notorious case of this 
 sort, it was my fortune to represent the 
 injured husband where my friend was 
 counsel for the wife. After the trial had 
 proceeded a day or two, my associate and 
 I desired to avoid the scandalous publicity 
 of a further hearing; and as there was con 
 clusive evidence of the woman s guilt, we 
 sent him word, and offered to make an 
 arrangement by which that fact need not 
 come out. He regarded this as a sort of 
 bluff, and was in the highest degree indig- 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 83 
 
 nant, sending back defiance in strong lan 
 guage, in which there were some pretty 
 robust expressions that he would not have 
 used in a Sunday-school address. " Tell 
 your master," he shouted in conclusion to 
 the astonished messenger, " I am not afraid 
 of him and all his crew." After a long 
 trial the decision was against him, but I 
 doubt if he was ever convinced of its 
 justice. 
 
 He gradually came into a different prac 
 tice, where he was employed by rich clients 
 in the management of important interests 
 both civil and criminal. He " got up " his 
 cases with great care and patience, made 
 elaborate preparation, and displayed an 
 ability and pertinacity which must have 
 secured him a high position in the pro 
 fession. Indeed, at the time of his death 
 he was doing a lucrative and successful 
 business. 
 
 Owing to a lack of early habits of appli 
 cation, it was difficult for him to sit down 
 to hard work ; and it was amusing to see 
 
84 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 him with his coat off in the midst of a 
 pile of books digging out the legal roots 
 with the painstaking effort of one to whom 
 such study was not congenial, all the while 
 telling stories and indulging in jocose re 
 marks. But he had a manly courage, 
 united to great pertinacity of purpose, and 
 never left a point until he had thoroughly 
 mastered it, although it cost him far more 
 labor than it does those whose minds are 
 early disciplined by earnest application to 
 the prescribed studies of school and college. 
 So certain it is, that young men who 
 waste their early years in idle pursuits must 
 pay a penalty in the future, if their ambi 
 tion is roused and they attempt to accom 
 plish any grand purpose or desire success 
 of a permanent kind. Andrew took low 
 rank in his class at college. He was not 
 in a certain sense idle, for he was a great 
 reader; but he never applied himself like 
 a man who "meant business" to the studies 
 set before him, and he felt the neglect in 
 all his after life. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 85 
 
 It is worthy of remark, that, as his busi 
 ness increased, he was retained in some 
 important cases involving grave questions 
 of constitutional law. The untiring efforts 
 he made, and the careful investigations 
 which these cases required, trained and 
 fitted his mind for the trying emergencies 
 in which he was afterwards placed, so that 
 he showed an aptitude and a familiarity 
 with certain subjects, which the ordinary 
 practitioner does not usually possess. He 
 defended the parties indicted at Boston for 
 rescuing the fugitive slave, Burns ; he de 
 fended the British consul on a charge of 
 violating the neutrality laws during the 
 Crimean war ; he argued the petition for a 
 writ of habeas corpus to test the legality of 
 the imprisonment of the Free-state officers 
 of Kansas at Topeka. He was largely con 
 cerned in the preparation of a defence of 
 John Brown in Virginia. These and other 
 important cases (among them a defence 
 of the slave yacht " Wanderer," against 
 forfeiture), involving principles of interna- 
 
86 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 tional and interstate law, received careful 
 examination at his hands, and brought forth 
 fruit an hundred-fold in subsequent years. 
 
 In politics, he was an ardent and even an 
 enthusiastic member of the Whig party 
 from the start. On this point, his master 
 in the law, Mr. Fuller, doubtless exercised 
 some influence over him. He believed in 
 the traditions, the principles and the policy 
 of this great party; and he believed that by 
 and through it the grand reforms he hoped 
 to see would be ultimately accomplished. 
 
 He was also an anti-slavery man, an ad 
 vocate of all measures that could be consti 
 tutionally adopted in relation to slavery. 
 He was a warm personal friend of Mr. 
 Garrison, but did not approve his methods, 
 and was shocked by his asperities and in 
 discriminate denunciation of slaveholders ; 
 for he thought it was possible to hate slav 
 ery without hating every slaveholder, and 
 to abolish it without destroying the Union. 
 In a letter to Mr. Garrison, as late as 1860, 
 he declared that he had often been pained 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 8/ 
 
 at the unremitting and frequently unjust 
 assaults by abolitionists on men whom he 
 greatly respected, and whose services in 
 the cause of national and impartial liberty 
 he highly prized. " My fidelity," he added, 
 " to the existing institution of government, 
 its charters, its organization, and the duties 
 of its citizenship, is, ever has been, and, 
 I doubt not, will always be unshaken." 
 
 After the nomination of Fremont in 
 1856, he came to me and expressed much 
 regret at the threatened disruption of the 
 Whig party in Massachusetts. He de 
 clared that if the approaching Whig con 
 vention in Massachusetts would put a good 
 ticket in the field, and take no action against 
 the election of Fremont for president, he 
 and his political friends would sustain the 
 nominations and so strive to keep the 
 grand old party alive in the Common 
 wealth. An effort was made in this direc 
 tion, but some of the prominent leaders 
 were so opposed to the course that noth 
 ing could be effected. Resolutions were 
 
88 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 reported by George S. Hillard, advocated 
 by J. Thomas Stevenson, and adopted, 
 signifying a preference for the candidate 
 already nominated by the meanest political 
 party (Native American) ever known in 
 this country. This course was intended as 
 a declaration of war against Andrew and 
 all who acted with him. The record of 
 that convention is a singular and interest 
 ing one to read now, in view of the cata 
 clysm that came so soon. 
 
 The Whig party of Massachusetts went 
 down with colors flying, and the political 
 waters closed over the gallant ship and 
 most who were on board. Many of those 
 who had remained with the organization 
 up to this time were disheartened at the 
 course pursued, and their chagrin was in 
 tensified by the fact, that the accomplished 
 scholar and eminent statesman who pre 
 sided at the convention set his face like 
 flint against any compromise. They com 
 plained that it was only necessary for the 
 Whig party to carry out its own resolu- 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 89 
 
 tions, adopted time and again in conven 
 tions and in the General Court, to save its 
 organization and power in Massachusetts. 
 They were charmed with the eloquence 
 that portrayed the glories of the Constitu 
 tion. They agreed to all the praises that 
 were lavished on its Great Defender. They 
 admired the courage that would assault 
 the anti-slavery hosts which were gather 
 ing with an apparently irresistible force. 
 But they felt some of them like the 
 French General Bosquet, who said of the 
 charge of the Light Brigade at Balaklava, 
 u It was magnificent, but it was not war ! " 
 As a political manager, Mr. Andrew was 
 not a success. He was personally popular 
 all his life and with all sorts of people ; but 
 when it came to matters of principle he 
 was too straightforward, square and em 
 phatic, to suit those who would like to 
 accommodate their principles to special 
 emergencies. Moreover, he was the most 
 obstinate of men when he took a position, 
 and singularly destitute, in a ward caucus, 
 
90 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 of that tact which is at once effective with 
 the promiscuous crowd and those who are 
 clothed in purple and fine linen. It is 
 amusing and eminently suggestive to look 
 back on those days of small things, when 
 Sumner and Andrew and others like them 
 would try in vain to accomplish something 
 at the primary meetings. 
 
 There was at one time great excitement 
 about the Boston schools, when Horace 
 Mann had his controversy with the school 
 committee. At No. 4 Court Street, we 
 wished to have Charles Sumner chosen a 
 member of the committee in old ward four, 
 where he resided. Anticipating the diffi 
 culty of obtaining the nomination of one 
 who had so little popularity with the peo 
 ple, and who uttered such pronounced 
 opinions in regard to Mr. Mann, consider 
 able preparation was made for the contest. 
 Andrew lived in that ward and was relied 
 on to manage the affair. It was a wretched 
 failure, and the candidate who afterwards 
 became so distinguished was severely 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 91 
 
 snubbed by his own neighbors. Sumner 
 was present, and I think not much sur 
 prised ; although, as an intimate friend of 
 Mr. Mann, he earnestly desired the place. 
 But the indignation of John A. Andrew 
 was great. In giving an account of the 
 meeting, he wound up with this remark, in 
 order to contrast Sumner s magnanimity 
 with that of one of his opponents, " There 
 was " (a disagreeable Cambridge grad 
 uate, who had an office in the street and 
 affected to despise Sumner, and who has 
 long since passed out of sight and mem 
 ory), " he did all he could against Sumner, 
 and the latter voted for him as one of the 
 ward inspectors ! " 
 
 Mr. Andrew never seemed to have any 
 ambition for public office. I hardly know 
 by what influences he was induced to go 
 to the lower house of the Legislature for 
 1858. But there could not have been a 
 more propitious time for the exhibition of 
 his peculiar talents, and for a popular ap 
 plication of his political principles. The 
 
92 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 great question of the session was the re 
 moval of Edward G. Loring from the office 
 of Judge of Probate, which, it was alleged, 
 he held in violation of a statute of the 
 Commonwealth, rendering it incompatible 
 with the office of United States commis 
 sioner. Mr. Loring in that capacity had 
 ordered the surrender of the fugitive slave 
 Burns. 
 
 By an act of the Legislature of 1855, it 
 was declared that certain offices under the 
 government of the United States are in 
 compatible with offices of honor, emolu 
 ment and trust in this Commonwealth. 
 Acting on this provision, the General 
 Court had several times by address re 
 quested in vain the removal of Judge Lor 
 ing from office. When the subject came 
 up again in 1858, Mr. Andrew entered 
 upon the discussion with characteristic 
 zeal and enthusiasm. On the other side 
 was Caleb Cushing, one of the ablest par 
 liamentarians our country has produced; a 
 man thoroughly versed also in the princi- 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 93 
 
 pies of international law, of great logical 
 acumen, of immense erudition, cool, calm, 
 inflexible in purpose and of a most persua 
 sive eloquence. In learning, legislative 
 experience, thorough scholarly discipline, 
 and a familiar knowledge of all distin 
 guished writers on international and con 
 stitutional law, there was no equality 
 between the two combatants. But on this 
 particular subject of slavery and the rela 
 tions of the States as affected by that insti 
 tution, the young legislator was a match 
 for the older one ; and he was so thoroughly 
 in earnest and so in accord with the pre 
 vailing sentiments of a majority of the 
 people, that he won a comparatively easy 
 victory and became at a bound the acknowl 
 edged leader of the House. Few men 
 ever made a great reputation so suddenly 
 and held it during life. 
 
 Governor Banks, on presentation of the 
 address, ordered Mr. Loring s removal. 
 After the message was read, Mr. Gushing 
 denounced the act in severe terms, declar- 
 
94 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 ing that Judge Loring was the first judicial 
 officer in this country to be a victim to the 
 execution of his sworn duty to the Consti 
 tution, according to his conscientious con 
 victions, and prognosticated that the next 
 blow would be struck at the judicial and 
 constitutional independence of the Su 
 preme Court of the United States. This 
 brought Andrew to his feet, who made a 
 short speech which was received with the 
 greatest enthusiasm. 
 
 At the close of the session, he was 
 offered a seat on the bench of the Supreme 
 Judicial Court, which he declined, and he 
 also refused to permit his name to be sub 
 mitted to the convention of his party as a 
 candidate for the nomination of Governor. 
 " But in 1860, notwithstanding this absti 
 nence from official life, he was nominated 
 for Governor by a genuine popular impulse 
 which overwhelmed the old political mana 
 gers, who regarded him as an intruder upon 
 the arena, and had laid other plans." 
 
 My personal intimacy with him did not 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 95 
 
 cease on his elevation to the chair of state. 
 For some time we had not been in accord 
 on political matters, so far as they were 
 affected by the anti-slavery agitation. We 
 had a good many discussions and some 
 warm ones on these and kindred topics ; but 
 they never affected our personal relations. 
 When the war was actually begun, all minor 
 differences disappeared, and the whole com 
 munity was soon united in one purpose to 
 preserve the Union. I was in the Legis 
 lature the second and third years after he 
 was inaugurated as Governor; and my per 
 sonal observation justifies the statement 
 of Colonel Browne, that, in his conduct as 
 Governor, Mr. Andrew s " independence of 
 partisan control alienated from him all the 
 trading politicians, and would have broken 
 down an ordinary man in caucuses and 
 conventions, but he possessed a strength 
 which was independent of small political 
 managers. They were always against him; 
 and the influence of almost all the old lead 
 ers of his party was against him, also, from 
 
96 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the day he was first named as Governor." 1 
 So strong was this influence in the Legis 
 lature, that it was at one time almost fatal 
 to any measure if it were known that he 
 desired it, and occasionally the aid of a 
 well-known war Democrat was relied on to 
 introduce or advocate bills, so that it might 
 not be supposed that the executive took 
 any especial interest in them. 
 
 This is a convenient place for the re 
 mark, that the Governor was fortunate in 
 securing the services as military secretary 
 of his intimate friend, Albert G. Browne, 
 Jun., Esq., a gentleman of first-class ability, 
 highly educated, a good lawyer, and a rad 
 ical abolitionist. Colonel Browne had 
 wonderful powers of endurance : he never 
 seemed to be fatigued, or worried, or anxi 
 ous. He understood the Governor better 
 than any other man living, and they worked 
 in together famously ; so harmoniously, in 
 fact, that to see them on opposite sides of 
 
 1 Browne s Sketch of the Military Life of Governor 
 Andrew. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 97 
 
 the table in the Governor s room, one might 
 sometimes be almost in doubt which was 
 the chief executive officer of the Common 
 wealth. 
 
 The value of Colonel Browne s services 
 in those trying times was inestimable, and 
 they were fully appreciated by his distin 
 guished friend, although he himself never 
 paraded them before the public, or ap 
 peared to regard them as anything remark 
 able. He was subsequently appointed by 
 Governor Bullock reporter of the decisions 
 of the Supreme Judicial Court, and held 
 the office several years. It should be added 
 that the Sketch of Governor Andrew by 
 his military secretary is the best account 
 of him that exists. Nothing can be more 
 accurate and life-like than the following: 
 
 "The arrangement of the private executive 
 rooms at the State House was unchanged during 
 the whole of the Governor s administration. It 
 was faulty in many respects, and a few simple 
 changes in it, enabling him to seclude himself, 
 would have saved him from much care and an 
 noyance. They were on the same floor with the 
 7 
 
9 8 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 Council Chamber, and were reached through a 
 long and narrow corridor which led into an ante 
 chamber. Out of this the Governor s apartment 
 opened directly, with no intervening room. It 
 was a low-studded chamber, perhaps twenty-five 
 feet square, lighted by two windows opening 
 westward. In the centre was a massive square 
 table, on the side of which, facing the door of the 
 antechamber, the Governor had his seat. Di 
 rectly opposite him, at the same table, sat his 
 secretary. At a desk near one of the windows 
 was the place of an assistant secretary. The 
 chairs and sofa were very plain and covered with 
 green plush. The large bookcases along the 
 northern wall, empty at the beginning of his 
 administration, became filled before the end of it 
 with more than two hundred volumes of the cor 
 respondence conducted under his immediate di 
 rection. A large mirror, with a heavily carved 
 black-walnut frame surmounted the mantel, gas- 
 fixtures projecting from among the carving ; and 
 on these during the first year of the war, while 
 Massachusetts was arming and equipping her 
 own troops, he was accustomed to hang speci 
 mens of shoddy clothing or defective accoutre 
 ments, labelled with the names of the faithless 
 contractors, thus publicly exposed to the indig 
 nation of the hundreds of visitors who frequented 
 the room. His only means of seclusion was to 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 99 
 
 retreat into a room beyond the antechamber, 
 from which there was no other outlet than the 
 door of entrance, which was of solid iron. Every 
 frequenter of the State House may remember 
 seeing him, after being pestered beyond endur 
 ance, hasten across the antechamber into this 
 room, where he would bolt and bar out the wait 
 ing crowd until he could finish some urgent work 
 demanding freedom from the interruptions to 
 which he was subject in his own apartment. 
 Once behind that iron door, he was free ; and it 
 was the only place in the whole building where 
 he was secure from intrusion. 
 
 " His patience, however, under all manner of 
 interruption was marvellous. Now and then it 
 would give way in little acts of nervousness, such 
 as pulling unconsciously at a bell-rope which 
 hung over his table, or insisting on the immedi 
 ate attendance of an old and favorite clerk from 
 the Adjutant-General s office who had been dead 
 a year or more. By some curious psychological 
 process, when the Governor had been especially 
 vexed at anything which went wrong in that 
 office, he more than once forgot the old gentle 
 man s death, and sent down stairs for him." 
 
 u In those five years of his administra 
 tion," says the military secretary, " he 
 tasted the cares and sorrows, the hopes 
 
100 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 and joys, and concentrated the labors of a 
 century of ordinary life ; and such an ex 
 perience aggravated his tendency to the 
 disease which at last was fatal. No soldier 
 struck by a rebel bullet on the battle-field 
 died more truly a victim to the national 
 
 cause." 
 
 It was touching to see how often the 
 Governor vainly sought some actual se 
 clusion and rest from engrossing cares. 
 He w r as tried almost beyond endurance 
 when suffering from the severe headaches 
 to which he was constitutionally subject. 
 Of a Sunday morning, he would come 
 down to my house, take his breakfast of 
 the Yankee dish of baked beans and brown 
 bread, and late in the forenoon make his 
 way " across lots " over the unfrequented 
 streets of the Back Bay in season to hear 
 the sermon of James Freeman Clarke. 
 But on working-days there seemed no 
 respite. If he remained at the State 
 House, there could of course be no real 
 seclusion. If he went to his own home, 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. IOI 
 
 the door would be besieged by an importu 
 nate crowd. If he took a room at a hotel, 
 the fact would soon be known, and there 
 could be no peace after that. On one 
 occasion, when greatly suffering from head 
 ache, he sought the house of a friend where 
 he was very intimate. There was no one 
 at home, the servant said. Well, then, he 
 would go upstairs and lie down. When 
 the lady of the mansion came in from her 
 morning calls, she was greatly astonished 
 and somewhat amused to find the Governor 
 of the Commonwealth fast asleep on her 
 bed. 
 
 Colonel Browne remarks that the Gov 
 ernor " in his military appointments never 
 asked what were the political associations 
 of the candidates, provided only they were 
 loyal men. General Butler, whom he des 
 ignated to the command of the Massachu 
 setts militia sent to rescue Washington in 
 1 86 1, had been the candidate of the Breck- 
 enridge party for Governor, in opposition 
 to himself." 
 
102 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 " Provided only they were loyal men? It 
 was on this ground that he rejected the 
 services of Caleb Gushing. He had pri 
 vate information, which he considered re 
 liable, of Cushing s stimulating Virginia 
 into secession in the spring of 1861 during 
 a visit to Richmond, and entertained a 
 general distrust of his loyalty. But this 
 distinguished citizen was soon afterwards 
 employed by the State Department at 
 Washington ; and he went to South Caro 
 lina, just before the firing on Fort Sumter, 
 on a confidential mission at the sugges 
 tion of judges of the Supreme Court of the 
 United States. 
 
 On his tender of services, the Governor 
 acted with great promptitude. The cor 
 respondence on this subject is preserved in 
 the archives of the Commonwealth. 
 
 NEWBURYPORT, April 25, 1861. 
 SIR, I beg leave to tender myself to you, in 
 any capacity, however humble, in which it may 
 be possible for me to contribute to the public 
 weal in the present critical emergency. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 103 
 
 I have no desire to survive the overthrow of 
 the government of the United States ; I am 
 ready for any sacrifice to avert such a catastro 
 phe ; and I ask only to be permitted to lay down 
 my life in the service of the Commonwealth and 
 of the Union. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, 
 
 C. GUSHING. 
 His Excellency JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 Governor of the Commonwealth. 
 
 COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS, 
 EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, 
 
 BOSTON, April 27, 1861. 
 Hon. CALEB GUSHING, 
 
 SIR, Under the responsibilities of this hour, 
 remitted both as a man and a magistrate to 
 the solemn judgment of conscience and honor, 
 I must remember only that great cause of con 
 stitutional liberty and of civilization itself re 
 ferred to the dread arbitrament of arms. And 
 I am bound to say that although our personal 
 relations have always been agreeable to myself, 
 and notwithstanding your many great qualities 
 fitting you for usefulness ; yet your relation to 
 public affairs, your frequently avowed opinions 
 touching the ideas and sentiments of Massachu 
 setts ; your intimacy of social, political and sym 
 pathetic intercourse with the leading secessionists 
 
104 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 of the Rebel States, maintained for years, and 
 never (unless at this moment) discontinued, 
 forbid my finding you any place in the council or 
 the camp. I am compelled sadly to declare that, 
 were I to accept your offer, I should dishearten 
 numerous good and loyal men, and tend to de 
 moralize our military service. How gladly I 
 would have made another reply to your note of 
 the 25th inst, which I had the honor to receive 
 yesterday, I need not declare, nor attempt to 
 express the painful reluctance with which this is 
 written. 
 
 Faithfully your obedient servant, 
 
 JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 Governor. 
 
 Mr. Cushing s letter was accompanied by 
 the following: 
 
 [Unofficial.] 
 
 NEWBURYPORT, April 25, 1861. 
 DEAR SIR, I pray you not to regard the ac 
 companying proffer in any light other than that 
 of earnest solicitude on my part to discharge my 
 duty to our common country. Permit me to 
 assume that in our past political relations, as cer 
 tainly as in our personal ones, there has been 
 nothing to forbid me to make, or you to receive, 
 such a proffer at the present time. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. IO5 
 
 You alone are able to judge whether in the 
 scope of official duties, there is anything to 
 assign to me to do. If there be, or not, I pray 
 you to say so to me in all sincerity, in order that, 
 having thus placed myself at your discretion, I 
 may, if not needed directly by you, then decide 
 according to my own judgment what to under 
 take. 
 
 I am, very respectfully, 
 
 C. GUSHING. 
 Governor ANDREW. 
 
 Mr. Gushing was a good deal touched 
 by this affair, and spoke of it with more 
 feeling than he usually exhibited in matters 
 personal to himself. He told me he should 
 make a formal reply to the Governor s let 
 ter, or place among his papers a statement 
 which would be his justification in the 
 future. That he did neither may be attrib 
 uted, perhaps, to a consciousness that he 
 had used strong expressions in regard to 
 secession, or he may have been consoled 
 by the confidence which was reposed in his 
 present loyalty by eminent persons at 
 Washington. 
 
IO6 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Governor Andrew more often made mis 
 takes in regard to men than measures. 
 This arose in part from his sympathetic 
 nature : for, although no one who knew 
 him could suppose for a moment that he 
 would appoint a personal friend to a posi 
 tion for which he considered him incompe 
 tent or not the best fitted, he was some 
 times so attracted by certain prominent 
 characteristics as to overlook deficiencies ; 
 and, on the other hand, he was sometimes 
 so shocked by glaring faults as to be 
 unable to appreciate excellences which 
 were obvious to others. His tendency 
 was so strong to protect and even favor 
 the oppressed or those who were under a 
 cloud, and even those who were criminal, 
 that he would go far out of his way and 
 strain a point to assist them. Some of 
 his friends occasionally thought that he 
 acted unreasonably in this regard. 
 
 There was the case of Green, who was 
 convicted and sentenced to be hung for 
 one of the most cool, dastardly, and cruel 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. IO/ 
 
 murders for money ever recorded in the 
 annals of crime. The Governor was op 
 posed to capital punishment, but understood 
 the proprieties of his position too well to 
 nullify the existing law. He ordered the 
 execution of Desmarteau in 1861, of Her- 
 sey in 1862, and of Callender in 1863. But 
 he made up his mind that Green was not 
 properly tried, and he never changed that 
 opinion. It was extraordinary to see with 
 what pertinacity he followed the matter. 
 He refused to sign the warrant for execu 
 tion during his term of office, and there 
 most men would have left the case. Not 
 so with him. He pursued his successor 
 for a commutation of sentence, and ap 
 peared before the executive council. He 
 prepared a legal argument for the court 
 and did all he could to influence the press. 
 I always supposed that his personal inter 
 views with the convict in prison operated 
 very strongly. He was full of the subject 
 and would talk about it for hours. " Every 
 body," he once exclaimed, "who has seen 
 
108 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Green knows that he is not fit to be hung ! " 
 This was perhaps the real point. He re 
 garded the culprit as a weak, feeble, half 
 witted boy, not a proper subject for the 
 gallows. 
 
 A friend once told him that he had seen 
 a man frequently coming out of the State 
 House, whom they had both known and 
 respected for years, but whose conduct the 
 friend had been professionally called upon 
 to investigate. The party had been crim 
 inally false in a trust and admitted it, al 
 though he had done what he could to 
 make restitution, and professed great sor 
 row. The Governor flushed up as he 
 heard the story, and exclaimed : " Well, I 11 
 trust him. I am going to appoint him to 
 an office." Reasons were given why he 
 ought not to be trusted, but the more they 
 were urged, the firmer the Governor was 
 that the man should have another chance. 
 
 A young man was appointed to a some 
 what confidential position in the State 
 House, who had been pardoned out of 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 1 09 
 
 prison by the President of the United 
 States on Andrew s solicitation, in which 
 he was aided by Edward Everett. The 
 young convict was extremely useful, but 
 kept up his crooked ways in a degree 
 until a formal remonstrance was made to 
 the Governor. The latter said if he 
 turned him off he would go straight to 
 destruction, and preferred the responsibil 
 ity of his disreputable practices to his 
 utter ruin. But the official s conduct be 
 came so bad at last that he was dis 
 charged. 
 
 It was of this person that a witty vaga 
 bond, whom the Governor always be 
 friended, once said to a clerk in the State 
 House: "John [the governor] is trying 
 to make something of Blank, but he can t. 
 I tell you that the man who is imprisoned 
 for a long term for stealing and gets par 
 doned out, and when he goes away steals 
 the jail syringe, has got it in him to steal!" 
 It should be said of the author of this re 
 mark that he never did anything worse 
 
HO MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 than get drunk, but he was very bad indeed 
 in this respect, and was once imprisoned 
 for the offence in the same jail with the 
 young man above referred to. Subse 
 quently when he was at the Washingto- 
 nian Home, the Governor sent him some 
 money by " Blank." But he refused to 
 take it, and wrote to the Governor request 
 ing him to send it by some one else, as he 
 was trying to reform, and proposed to cut 
 all his state-prison acquaintances. 
 
 It should be stated here, that while the 
 Governor was disposed to overlook a per 
 son s bad antecedents in the hope of a 
 reform, and always desired to " give him 
 another chance," he could not be persuaded 
 to do a public injustice, by the appointment 
 of men to positions for which they were not 
 in his judgment competent. He had firm 
 ness enough when occasion called for it. 
 
 When a certain officer desired promo 
 tion, and great efforts were made by his 
 friends in his behalf, the Governor was sat 
 isfied that he was not the man for the place: 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. Ill 
 
 he had made careful inquiries. Many citi 
 zens came to the State House to ask for 
 the commission: "The Irish would en 
 list under this man." It was of no use. 
 Later, a large delegation of leading men 
 came in a body, resolved to get the com 
 mission. They labored with the Governor 
 two hours. He was courteous, but firm. 
 They withdrew into an anteroom for con 
 sultation, and soon after returned with this 
 suggestion : " If we go home and come to 
 morrow and bring old Governor Lincoln 
 with us, and he will indorse this man, will 
 you commission him ? " The Governor rose 
 up, and bringing his fist down on the table, 
 said : " Gentlemen, if he was as good a sol 
 dier as Julius Caesar, and you should bring 
 an angel from heaven to indorse him, know 
 ing what I do, I would not commission 
 him!" 
 
 The same remark as to the Governor s 
 partial or imperfect judgment of men may 
 be applied in a larger way to his course in 
 regard to the nomination of President 
 
112 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Lincoln the second time. He was very 
 active in the movement in 1864 to dis 
 place the President. The secrecy with 
 which this branch of the Republican poli 
 tics of that year has been ever since envel 
 oped .is something marvellous ; there were 
 so many concerned in it. When it all 
 comes out, if it ever does, it will make a 
 curious page in the history of the time. The 
 signal for the abandonment of the move 
 ment was first made in a speech by Mr. 
 Chase, in accordance with the general opin 
 ion of the " conspirators," that it was inex 
 pedient to press it further after the Demo 
 cratic proceedings at Chicago. Governor 
 Andrew lived long enough to see the error 
 of all this. Indeed, after the re-nomination 
 of Lincoln he was engaged to speak in be 
 half of his re-election to mass meetings in 
 many of the principal towns in New York. 
 This is no place for a discussion of the 
 reasons for the anti-Lincoln movement ; but 
 it is only just to say, that the reports from 
 Washington in 1863 did impute a frivolity 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 113 
 
 of language and demeanor in the Presi 
 dent, which could not but offend many 
 earnest men, and were artfully used by 
 eminent persons in Washington to create 
 dissatisfaction. There was a characteristic 
 anecdote related, which had no especial 
 tendency to render the President popular 
 at the State House in Boston. 
 
 The Legislature had been famous for 
 passing resolutions against slavery. After 
 the war began, the patriotic spirit of mem 
 bers soon showed itself in the same ten 
 dency. But there were some who thought 
 the time for this sort of thing had passed, 
 and everything offered was referred to a 
 committee who brought in a resolve in the 
 fewest words possible. A friend of the 
 Governor, who also held an official posi 
 tion, desired to present it personally to the 
 President. It was accordingly written on 
 parchment, with the great seal annexed, 
 and plenty of red tape. Arrived in Wash 
 ington, the messenger by appointment met 
 the President at eleven o clock the next 
 
 8 
 
114 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 day, to present this resolve of the Com 
 monwealth of Massachusetts. The Chief 
 Magistrate of the nation sat in an arm- 
 
 o 
 
 chair, with one leg over the elbow, while 
 the emissary of Massachusetts presented 
 the parchment with a little speech. The 
 President took the document, slowly un 
 rolled it, and remarked in a quaint way, 
 " Well, it is n t long enough to scare a fel 
 low " ! It is not remarkable that the Mas 
 sachusetts official said as he left the room, 
 " That is certainly an extraordinary person 
 to be President of the United States! " 
 
 After Governor Andrew had renewed his 
 practice at the bar, he was retained as 
 counsel for upwards of thirty thousand 
 petitioners for the enactment of a judicious 
 license law. In his famous argument be 
 fore the committee, he only expressed the 
 honest convictions he had entertained for 
 years. He used wine himself, and most 
 heartily despised the prevailing hypocrisy 
 as to its use by others. As Governor, he 
 would have brought the subject of a license 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 115 
 
 law before the Legislature, and urged some 
 practical legislation in opposition to the 
 principle of absolute prohibition, but for 
 a fear that it might be the occasion of 
 divided counsels in regard to the great and 
 absorbing subject of the war. He did 
 not hesitate to utter his views with entire 
 distinctness in private, and nothing gave 
 him greater satisfaction than his efforts 
 before the committee of the Legislature, 
 where he appeared as counsel. 
 
 He knew that this course would sub 
 ject him to reproach ; but probably he 
 never did suppose men would go to the 
 length of charging him with being himself 
 an intemperate person, as foul a slander 
 as was ever uttered about a public charac 
 ter. He knew too well, from his inter 
 course with the poor and the unfortunate, 
 the enormous evils of intemperance, to ad 
 vocate any legislation which he supposed 
 would tend to its increase ; and in his own 
 case he had that absolute self-control which 
 rendered him safe from this and similar 
 
Il6 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 temptations. He had profound respect for 
 all who abstained absolutely from the use 
 of wine, either on their own account or for 
 example to others ; but he demanded equal 
 respect for his own discretion, and no per 
 sonal considerations could restrain him 
 from a full and free expression of his opin 
 ions. 
 
 The first time he ever spoke in public 
 was at the age of fourteen, and on the 
 subject of temperance. The circumstances 
 were peculiar, and are well described by 
 his brother Isaac in a letter to a friend. 
 It is worth copying here: 
 
 " It has often been alluded to in print, but the 
 particulars have never been correctly given ; at 
 least in no account that I have ever seen. Believ 
 ing that you will be glad to know the circum 
 stances connected with that address, I will relate 
 them. When we resided in Windham, Maine, at 
 our old birthplace, there was a temperance soci 
 ety organized. Whether Albion s name was upon 
 the roll or not I do not now remember. Perhaps 
 not, as he was at that time a mere boy. The 
 president of the society was a very worthy Free- 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 1 1 / 
 
 will Baptist clergyman by the name of Shaw. 
 One of the most prominent men in the society 
 was Mr. Josiah Little, a neighbor of ours, and a 
 nephew to Dr. Timothy Little, the celebrated sur 
 geon of Portland at that time. 
 
 " Previous to holding one of their meetings, 
 which was appointed for a Sabbath afternoon, the 
 officers of the society and some others wanted to 
 get my brother to make some remarks in the 
 meeting. Though he was at this time, as I have 
 already said, but a boy, and one whom they had 
 all known from his birth, they had such confi 
 dence in his abilities that they felt satisfied he 
 could speak to the purpose if called upon to try. 
 Having obtained father s consent, Mr. Little 
 spoke to Albion about it. Having learned that 
 his father was willing, Albion readily agreed to 
 accede to their wishes. It was a pleasant after 
 noon when the meeting was held, and there was 
 a full attendance. The people were much inter 
 ested in the temperance cause, and the house 
 was well filled. The place of meeting was the 
 Free Meeting House, as it was called. This 
 house was not far from Horsebeef Falls on the 
 Windham side of the river, and less than a mile 
 from my father s. Albion took his seat with the 
 audience near the rear of the house, and a little 
 to the speaker s right. After the president of 
 the society had delivered his address and some 
 
118 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 others had spoken upon the subject, Albion was 
 called upon to make some remarks. I well re 
 member the time, place and scene. Occupying 
 a seat close behind him, I had a good chance to 
 hear as well as watch him. He rose to his feet 
 cool, calm and collected, with the dignity of a 
 man and the modesty of a child, and began. 
 Commencing with the child who is early taught 
 to partake of alcoholic drinks, and following him 
 along his downward career, he pictured his 
 wretched end. In contrast to this was shown the 
 onward and upward life of those who early re 
 solved upon a life of temperance ; and to illus 
 trate this point he directed his hearers to look 
 upon some eminent men whose names he gave 
 them. 
 
 " The company was held almost spell-bound. 
 Such an address from a mere child. Elder Shaw 
 afterwards said to my father: Albion beat us 
 all. 1 It was good. Had this speech come from 
 some mature man, it would have been highly 
 creditable to him : how much more to a boy of 
 about fourteen years of age ! Though forty years 
 have passed away since that occurrence, I can dis 
 tinctly see in my mind s eye that short, fat, chub 
 by, curly-headed little fellow, as he stood in the 
 old meeting-house, and with such earnestness and 
 eloquence, gesticulating with his right arm, advo 
 cated the cause of temperance and besought the 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 119 
 
 young as well as the old to beware of strong 
 drink. That meeting-house is gone. The officers 
 of the old temperance society have long since 
 passed away. Worthy men they were, and worthy 
 of being held in grateful remembrance ; and they 
 as well as all who heard him, remembered with 
 love and respect the youthful orator, who gave 
 his first public address on that beautiful Sabbath 
 afternoon. 
 
 " You, who knew him so well, know that the 
 expectations in regard to him, raised so early, 
 were not disappointed, except by his premature 
 death." 
 
 Perhaps the two most notable things 
 about Governor Andrew were his religious 
 fervor and his mirthfulness. He was gen 
 erally familiar with the Bible and studied 
 portions of it very carefully. The hymns 
 of Dr. Watts he seemed to know by heart. 
 In the early days in Boston, nothing gave 
 him greater satisfaction than the Bible in 
 structions of James Freeman Clarke. He 
 was especially interested in the epistles of 
 Paul, and used frequently to enlarge, at my 
 house, upon the teachings of his pastor at 
 the vestry. His faith was deep and ear- 
 
I2O MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 nest, without a touch of cant, for he spoke 
 on religious subjects with the same ease 
 and freedom that he did on any others, and 
 never indulged in a didactic strain. 
 
 One time late in the night, as we were 
 returning in a carriage from a country cau 
 cus, where we had made speeches, a dis 
 cussion arose on the subject of prayer. He 
 spoke emphatically of the childlike simpli 
 city of the early Christians in asking and 
 expecting certain specific results from sup 
 plication to God. He alluded to the great 
 comfort it was to him to lay out the whole 
 case, in the full belief that it would be in 
 some way effective. " I want," he said, " to 
 tell the story in my own way, although I 
 know it is impossible for me to give any in 
 formation to the Almighty." 
 
 At the bar meeting after his death, 
 George S. Hillard, a political opponent but 
 life-long friend, declared that he " never 
 knew a man whose daily life and conversa 
 tion embodied the teachings of the Saviour 
 as laid down in Holy Writ more than his. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 121 
 
 He never knew a man who left this world 
 with less of the stain of sin than he." Rich 
 ard H. Dana at the same meeting said : 
 " He could not be deflected from the course 
 of duty by any of the temptations which 
 address themselves to the weaknesses of 
 public men. His morality was not a graft 
 of later years upon an ordinary stock; it 
 was not sweet water gathered into a vase, 
 nor the accumulations of a large reservoir ; 
 but it was a fountain of living water, spring 
 ing up from the depths of his nature. The 
 foundations of his character were laid deep 
 and strong." 
 
 His pastor, Mr. Clarke, has frequently 
 given public testimony to the religious 
 character of his parishioner and to the value 
 of his services in the church. His heart 
 was in this thing. He gave more time and 
 devotion in this direction than will ever be 
 known in this world; for many of his works 
 were as quiet and unostentatious as they 
 were earnest and effective. Numerous in 
 stances might be mentioned of the depth 
 
122 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 of his interest in a religious life. Here is 
 one that has a touch of the romantic. 
 
 On the last day of the year, the Gov 
 ernor was once hard at work in the State 
 House till near midnight. No one else 
 but the messenger was in the building; 
 without was a driving storm. The Gov 
 ernor suddenly dropped his pen, looked at 
 his watch and said, " It is twenty-five min 
 utes to twelve. Do you know that at this 
 time, down at Father Taylor s church, they 
 are praying out the year ? Now if you can 
 get a conveyance in time, you and I will 
 go down and help them." They got down 
 in time. Father Taylor clapped his hands, 
 and gave other expressions of his gladness 
 at the Governor s visit; and the speech 
 which Andrew made to the audience. hud 
 dled into that little church, from the de 
 scription of a person who was present, was 
 one of the most moving, pathetic and elo 
 quent he ever made in his life. 
 
 Of his disposition, Colonel Browne truly 
 says, it was more than cheerful : it was 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 123 
 
 merry. He had many and severe trials, 
 much to weigh upon his spirits ; but, even in 
 the saddest moods and sometimes when in 
 physical pain and suffering, a humorous 
 remark or a good story affected him pleas 
 antly at once, his countenance would lighten 
 up, and he would seldom fail to do his share 
 in repartee or kindred anecdote. There 
 seemed to be no end to the stories he could 
 tell. He enjoyed them himself and his loud 
 ringing laugh was really inspiring. 1 
 
 1 One night at the theatre, many years ago, his laugh 
 ter at the acting of Collins, the Irish comedian, was so 
 uproarious as to attract general attention. The construc 
 tion put by sombre critics on the famous line, 
 
 " And the loud laugh that speaks the vacant mind," 
 
 that loud laughter is a trait of inane or empty minds is 
 exploded. A mind free from care is what the poet meant 
 in the opinion of a great English humorist and sound 
 critic ; although it must be admitted that laughter and 
 bright smiles and even humorous sallies may sometimes 
 conceal a sadness which lies deep in the heart, a fact that 
 has not escaped the attention of a minor poet : 
 
 " I often smile to hide the tear I shed ; 
 As when the jester s bosom swells, 
 And mournfully he shakes his head, 
 We hear the jingling of his bells." 
 
124 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 He was a mimic of considerable power, 
 and, having a retentive memory, could 
 repeat whole passages from the arguments 
 of lawyers or the sermons of ministers in 
 the precise manner of the speakers. His 
 occasional imitations of characters in the 
 remote towns of Maine were very droll. It 
 made no difference where he was or who 
 was present, he would work himself into an 
 excitement that startled those who were not 
 familiar with his style in this regard. 
 
 In this matter he acted on principle, as 
 well as in obedience to the impulses of his 
 nature. He never omitted on suitable oc 
 casions an effort to inspire others with his 
 own sunny and hopeful views of life and 
 duty. Some of the main causes which 
 combined to increase the perils of New- 
 Englanders from drunkenness he declared, 
 on a public occasion, to be a " hard climate, 
 much exposure, few amusements, a sense of 
 care and responsibility cultivated intensely, 
 and the prevalence of ascetic and gloomy 
 theories of life, duty and Providence." 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 125 
 
 Solemn citizens, who did not quite ap 
 prove of such fun in the Governor of the 
 Commonwealth, would look very grave. 
 Sometimes their astonishment was the 
 most amusing thing of all, reminding one 
 of the declaration of a good man who was 
 amazed at the development of unexpected 
 traits in a neighbor : " We are fearfully and 
 wonderfully mixed." 1 
 
 It must not be inferred that he was frivo 
 lous or vulgar in this overflow of his exu 
 berant spirits ; ^till less, that he ever used 
 his power to brmg ridicule or contempt 
 
 1 It must be confessed, too, that in the trials and em 
 barrassments of those days, especially in regard to matters 
 where there was inefficiency or neglect of duty, the Gov 
 ernor would occasionally give a place to vigorous exple 
 tives not found in the New England Primer. But the 
 circumstances were always such, that it is safe to say 
 these expressions formed no part of the Recording Angel s 
 page. Indeed, they were entirely out of the Governor s 
 line ; but, when resorted to, they were chosen and applied 
 with the skill of a veteran, and were used with such fervor, 
 and fitted so well, that, as Longfellow says of Miles Stan- 
 dish :- 
 
 " Sometimes it seemed a prayer, and sometimes it sounded 
 like swearing." 
 
126 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 upon others. Although often ready to ex 
 claim, 
 
 " Mirth, admit me of thy crew," 
 
 no man was more mindful of the feelings 
 of others, or a greater stickler for the 
 proprieties of official position or for the 
 respect due to sacred things. One who 
 knew him well, in view of his many-sided 
 character, declared that he was a delight 
 ful combination of Jupiter and Pick 
 wick ! The cloud-compelling Jove ! yes. 
 But Pickwick ? The gentle cockney had 
 no sense of humor ! 
 
 It is stated elsewhere in this volume, 
 that the home of Governor Andrew s father 
 was the usual resort of ministers when 
 visiting or journeying through the town. 
 These men were not only the best edu 
 cated people of the day in that region, 
 but were, as a rule, remarkably cheerful. 
 Generally settled for life and thus assured 
 of their support, they had a cheerful bear 
 ing and a practical sense of humor which 
 was often in remarkable contrast with the 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. I2/ 
 
 doctrines they taught in the pulpit : they 
 held a position and had an influence which 
 can scarcely be appreciated at this day. 
 
 Always welcome guests, tradition says it 
 was good to see them especially when 
 there were several together before the 
 huge blazing fire in the best room of a 
 farmer s house, where a mug of flip or a 
 glass of something that had made a voy 
 age from the West Indies, and cider ad 
 libitum, were not at all out of the way, and 
 perhaps contributed somewhat to the quiet 
 mirth of the evening. 1 
 
 From early association with men like 
 these, Andrew got something of his hu 
 mor, many of his clerical anecdotes, and a 
 portion of his familiarity with the Bible and 
 
 1 They were all politicians, free and outspoken, and 
 generally in the time of the embargo and war, Federalists. 
 On one occasion, when General Fessenden, father of the 
 senator and a leader of the party, delivered a Fourth of 
 July oration in New Gloucester, Parson Moseley read with 
 an unction which showed whom he alluded to, the hymn 
 commencing : 
 
 " Break out their teeth, Almighty God ! 
 Those teeth of lions dyed in blood ! " 
 
128 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the hymn-book ; nor could one of his 
 observing character fail to be interested in 
 the earnest piety, sincere devotion to duty, 
 and manly bearing of these servants of 
 God. 
 
 His mirthfulness was increased by con 
 tact with the people. In no part of the 
 world is there a keener sense of humor 
 than among the rural population of Maine. 
 Before the temperance reform, this was 
 more marked than at the present time ; 
 owing to the fact, in part, that there are 
 fewer occasions for its exercise. The 
 country store is no longer a place where 
 the people congregate of an evening and 
 take a social glass. The village inns have 
 almost disappeared ; and the workmen do 
 not now " knock off " at eleven o clock in 
 the forenoon and at four in the afternoon 
 for a glass of grog and a pipe. 
 
 He must be a bold man who should 
 express a wish for the return of those 
 old times, with all the attendant evils of 
 drunkenness, poverty and crime. The far- 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 12Q 
 
 mers of to-day are prosperous: some of 
 them are rich. They toil and moil. They 
 sow and reap and gather into barns, and 
 are eminently respectable. But still the 
 fact remains, that the rural population are 
 by far less cheerful than they were in 
 the days referred to. The love of fun is 
 in them ; and the young men, who find 
 little on the farms to satisfy this affection, 
 are discontented and seek the cities, where 
 there are harmless amusements they can 
 not find at home, and a freedom denied 
 them in the country towns. The farms 
 are deserted by youth to an extent that is 
 almost appalling, and the next generation 
 will find many of them lying waste or occu 
 pied by a foreign population. 
 
 Whoever strives to correct this gloomy 
 tendency of the people is building better 
 than he knows, and doing more for society 
 than those can appreciate who think the 
 chief end of man is to " live like a hermit 
 and work like a horse," in order to gain 
 riches or fame or power, and transmit to 
 
 9 
 
130 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 posterity a name which is covered with the 
 odor of respectability and nothing more. 
 
 Governor Andrew did his full share to 
 counteract this tendency to gloom and 
 despair. His daily life was a plea for cheer 
 fulness. Always in sympathy with the 
 misfortunes of others ; always ready to as 
 sist the poor, the sick, and even the guilty, 
 he had no respect for morbid sorrows, and 
 no patience with doctrines that called for 
 vengeance rather than pity for the wicked. 
 
 Mirthfulness is often a marked trait in 
 large natures, and is a wonderful aid to those 
 who are oppressed with care and anxiety, 
 or whose daily avocations impose a heavy 
 and constant strain on the mental powers. 
 Nor is it inconsistent with dignity of char 
 acter, or even with a certain austerity 
 shown by those in official stations when 
 thoroughly in earnest. One of the greatest 
 magistrates who ever sat on the bench 
 was occasionally so harsh in manner as to 
 astonish as well as exasperate the bar, and, 
 after metaphorically cuffing everybody he 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 131 
 
 could reach, would go home so the tra 
 dition goes and romp with the children, 
 playing "tag," or "catch as catch can," and 
 dancing " till the gunpowder ran out of 
 the heels of his boots." 1 
 
 The anecdote is quite familiar of a fa 
 mous theologian who was rolling on the floor 
 with his grandchildren, and seeing through 
 the window that a brother of the cloth was 
 approaching the house, exclaimed : " Stop ! 
 there s a fool coming." 
 
 Those who attended the <. B. K. din 
 ners at Cambridge forty years ago, when 
 reporters were rigidly excluded, know very 
 well how men of real distinction can play 
 when they set out for a good time. The 
 
 1 Those members of the bar who never saw the late 
 Chief Justice Shaw, except in his regimentals and on the 
 war path, may find it difficult to believe that at the bar- 
 dinner given in honor of his appointment, about half a 
 century ago, he sang the fine old melody of the " Unfor 
 tunate Miss Bailey." Still more difficult may be the belief, 
 that, from diffidence or some error in the pitch, he fairly 
 broke down ! After the festivities had proceeded some 
 time, he rose and said, " Mr. President, I move for a re 
 hearing in re Bailey" which was granted amidst great 
 applause. 
 
132 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 loud, hilarious laughter of Judge Story, the 
 classical hits of Everett, the keen edge 
 of Judge Sprague s blade, the pithy points 
 of Professor Parsons, the broad humor of 
 Judge Warren, and the saturnine wit of 
 Simon Greenleaf, 1 are things to be remem 
 bered. It was Home Tooke who declared 
 that a "keen perception of the ludicrous is 
 one of the greatest blessings of life." Gov 
 ernor Andrew found it so, and the love of 
 fun was a family trait. 
 
 It is something like thirty-five years since 
 I was at the old Andrew homestead in Box- 
 ford. They had organized a lyceum in the 
 village, and Andrew was to deliver the 
 
 1 When omnibuses were the only public conveyances 
 between Cambridge and Boston, there was an old and big 
 driver named Morse, whom everybody knew. At one of 
 the 4>. B. K. dinners, Governor Kent of Maine was speak 
 ing of his gratification in coming back to the college, and 
 especially that he found Morse still on top of his omnibus. 
 Professor Greenleaf immediately cried out, " Mors est com- 
 munis omnibus." Judge Story sprung to his feet and de 
 clared it the best impromptu thing he had ever heard at 
 that table. But there was a report current among the 
 outside barbarians that the Judge and Mr. Everett used 
 to rehearse for these occasions. 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 133 
 
 opening lecture. It was an event in the 
 town. The whole family with invited 
 guests proceeded to the fearfully heated 
 school-house, which was filled by an ex 
 pectant crowd. 
 
 After a considerable delay, the presid 
 ing genius, whose mental and physical 
 joints seemed never to have been unlim- 
 bered, arose, and with patronizing sternness 
 addressed the orator of the evening thus : 
 " You may now begin " This was the 
 whole introduction ; and he did begin, 
 while a broad smile illuminated his face at 
 the sudden and remarkable manner in 
 which he was precipitated upon the au 
 dience. After lecture, we drove home in 
 the cold and bracing air, about as full of 
 fun as mortals can be, and there spent an 
 evening not easy to be forgotten. There 
 was cider, the inevitable doughnuts, and all 
 the Yankee " fixings," with a blazing fire 
 that it is good to think about. What a 
 time it was ! What shouts of laughter at 
 our own jokes ! How we egged each other 
 
134 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 on for " more ; " while Deacon Jonathan 
 Andrew sat in the chimney-corner by him 
 self, with his hand over his face, but the 
 latter all aglow with the mirth he tried to 
 conceal. 
 
 And the stories ! I am not on oath, and 
 may be mistaken as to which of them were 
 told then and there. After passing the 
 grand climacteric, these reminiscences of 
 story-telling get slightly " mixed." It is 
 almost a privilege of old age to repeat an 
 anecdote if it be a good one to the 
 same auditors, and none but an inconsider 
 ate person will make known the fact, pro 
 vided always that the narrator is of fair 
 repute, and his tale is not very long, and 
 is reasonably good. Nor is it quite fair 
 for the young and handsome to remark of 
 a story under such circumstances, that it 
 was in the American Almanac forty years 
 ago, or is as old as Faneuil Hall. Still 
 less, to spoil the effect by alluding to a 
 difference in the statement of facts in the 
 present narration and one formerly made; 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 135 
 
 as, for instance, in calling the horse red 
 now and formerly black. The precise color 
 is not usually material. 
 
 One of the stories referred to I am sure 
 of; for it was in the lecture, and related to 
 good Parson Eaton, formerly of that parish. 
 One of his church attributed his rare 
 popularity to the fact that he never said 
 anything in the pulpit about politics or 
 religion ! Then there was an account of 
 the little girl who undertook to climb a 
 high fence and fell. She was caught by 
 her clothing until help came and she was 
 rescued from her perilous condition. In 
 speaking of her escape to a bachelor 
 friend, the child concluded : " I should 
 certainly have lost my life but for Provi 
 dence, and my drawers " ! 
 
 Then there was the conversation be 
 tween two little Sunday-school scholars : 
 " There are two things," said one, " which 
 I despise, one is Sunday ; the other is 
 death." Here was an illustration of the 
 possible value of a warm temper under 
 
I3 6 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 peculiar circumstances. Parson Miltimore 
 was " gifted in prayer," and was always re 
 lied upon to open county conferences and 
 so forth. He got tired of it at length, 
 and formally insisted that younger men 
 should assume this duty. At the next 
 meeting of the associated churches, he was 
 purposely late. They waited for him, and 
 he went up the pulpit stairs at a somewhat 
 accelerated pace. After the prayer was 
 over, a venerable brother remarked to him : 
 " Brother Miltimore, you always pray well ; 
 but never, I think, so well as when you are 
 a little mad ! " 
 
 So, also, Parson Parrish of Byfield was 
 greatly gifted in prayer. One remarkably 
 pleasant Sunday, after a long drought, he 
 prayed long and earnestly for rain. Soon 
 after the services were ended, it began to 
 rain to the great inconvenience of the good 
 people, who had brought no umbrellas. 
 Two farmers were hurrying along the road, 
 thoroughly drenched, when one of them 
 remarked : " Well, the minister certainly is 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 137 
 
 powerful in prayer." "Yes," said the other 
 testily, shaking the rain from his coat, 
 " but he lacks judgment" 
 
 Then there was the incipient Governor s 
 own account of the fugitive slave, whose 
 Sunday-school teacher was instructing him 
 in Bible history. He was greatly aston 
 ished at the story of Jonah in the whale s 
 belly, but admitted that if it was in the 
 good book it must be true. But, when 
 told the next Sunday of Daniel in the lions 
 den, he declared that if that was in the 
 same Bible, " darned if he believed the fish 
 story now ! " 
 
 Then there was the fighting parson, 
 whom one of his parishioners asked to 
 preach from Matthew v. 39 : " Whosoever 
 shall smite thee on thy right cheek turn 
 to him the other also." " Certainly, he 
 would the next Sunday." And there was 
 a great crowd to hear how one of his 
 temperament would treat such a subject. 
 After giving out the text, he said the 
 meaning was very clear and the doctrine 
 
138 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 satisfactory. " If a man smite thee on 
 the right cheek, it may have been a mis 
 take ; it may have been in sudden passion 
 and repented of at once. You should 
 bear it and turn to him the other cheek in 
 order to learn what his intention is. But 
 
 9 
 
 if he smites you again, let him have it ; 
 for there is no Scripture against that ! " 
 
 All this may be regarded by some as 
 trifling, but to the sober-minded and sen 
 sible, anything which tends to illustrate 
 the characteristics of this happy New Eng 
 land family, and the influences under which 
 Governor Andrew passed his early youth, 
 will be of interest in forming an estimate 
 of his character and career. When an 
 elaborate and adequate biography of this 
 eminent magistrate is written, these pecu 
 liar traits must have their place. 1 
 
 1 Of Chief Justice Parsons, who was denominated 
 in his own day the Giant of the Law, and whom Mr. 
 Justice Story once declared to be "a head and shoulders 
 taller than any other man in the State," his son and 
 biographer says : " If ever any man loved fun and frolic, 
 he did. He laughed easily and heartily, although often 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 139 
 
 His life was not an eventful one up 
 to the time when the country was con 
 vulsed by civil war, and then the nation as 
 well as individuals lived an age in a few 
 years. In this grand drama he was a 
 central figure, and never came short of 
 public expectation in whatever position he 
 was placed. The weaknesses and infirm 
 ities of the race were his, but when the 
 time for action came, they disappeared to 
 as great an extent as falls to the lot of hu 
 manity. 
 
 He was really a great man. His early 
 negotiation of all the incongruous elements 
 of Massachusetts society into a solid and 
 powerful opposition to the South, so that 
 
 with his mouth shut and silently; he loved to laugh and 
 to make others laugh, and knew how to do it. Nothing 
 do I remember better than the hours of chat and laugh 
 ter, the very many such hours, the gay dinners, the 
 simple but festive suppers, which, as they come now before 
 my recollection, seem to me full of unrestrained frolic. 
 The fashion in that day was more tolerant of anecdote and 
 fun of all kinds, in conversation and at all times, than it is 
 now. Innumerable are the stories which have come to 
 me of my father s sayings and doings in the way of jest, 
 in all the periods of his life." 
 
I4-O MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 we had no discord at home, was a marvel 
 lous achievement. So was his courage 
 marvellous in prohibiting the Federal gov 
 ernment from arbitrary arrests in the 
 Commonwealth till after the Habeas Corpus 
 Suspension Act was passed. So was the 
 influence marvellous which he exerted upon 
 the country and upon the authorities at 
 Washington, in clearly showing the true 
 nature of the contest in which we were en 
 gaged, and in securing the adoption of the 
 measures necessary for its successful ter 
 mination ; so was the sagacity he exhibited 
 in making so few mistakes in the thousands 
 of official appointments which were thrown 
 upon him under new and trying circum 
 stances ; so was the magnanimity dis 
 played in his valedictory address, consider 
 ing the time when it was delivered. 
 
 Mr. Edwin P. Whipple, who was early 
 selected as the most competent person to 
 write the biography of Governor Andrew, 
 and who to this end examined critically his 
 whole private and official correspondence, 
 
PERSONAL REMINISCENCES. 141 
 
 of more than thirty thousand pages, de 
 clares to me that he could discover noth 
 ing in his most private notes which was 
 not honorable. " Under the microscope 
 nothing could be detected even when pas 
 sions were raging the fiercest, which had 
 the least taint of envy, jealousy, meanness, 
 bigotry, or any unworthy feeling." The 
 general impression he derived from look 
 ing over the whole correspondence was, 
 that Governor Andrew " ranked among 
 the purest, the most generous, the most 
 magnanimous, the most unselfish and pa 
 triotic statesmen of the world." 
 
 At the same time, he was the most un 
 conventional of men. He was simple in 
 his tastes, natural in his appearance and 
 conduct, and had a gentleness and a youth 
 ful artlessness of character united with a 
 lion heart in courage. 
 
 " His armor was his honest thought, 
 And simple truth his utmost skill." 
 
 He passed more than twenty years in an 
 arduous profession, and never earned more 
 
I4 2 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 than enough for the decent and comforta 
 ble support of his family. He devoted his 
 best years to the country, and lost his life 
 in her service. His highest ambition was 
 to do his duty in simple faith and honest 
 endeavor. Of such a character the well- 
 known lines of Sir Henry Wotton are emi 
 nently applicable : 
 
 "This man was free from servile bands 
 
 Of hope to rise, or fear to fall ; 
 Lord of himself, though not of lands, 
 And having nothing, yet had all." 
 
BURIAL-PLACE AND MONUMENT, HINGHAM. MASS. 
 
ORATION 
 
 DELIVERED BEFORE THE 
 
 ATHENIAN SOCIETY OF BOWDOIN 
 COLLEGE. 
 
 SEPTEMBER, 1844. 
 
ORATION. 
 
 IT has fallen to me, my brethren of the 
 Athenaean Society, to utter the words of 
 welcome, at this recurrence of our annual 
 festival. 
 
 Our Alma Mater has opened her arms 
 once more, and enfolds us now together 
 again, in the embrace of old and kindly 
 recollections, of warm and hearty greetings, 
 of young friendships matured or revived, 
 of manly and hopeful and generous faith 
 in each other and in our literary home. 
 Some of us are allowed to revisit her at 
 each return of our college thanksgiving ; 
 some of us only meet around the family 
 board at longer intervals, to find the nurs 
 lings, the children of the flock, grown 
 strong and stalwart men ; to perceive the 
 
 10 
 
146 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 lines deepening upon the countenances, 
 and the locks growing thin and frosty on 
 the brows of the elders ; to witness how 
 care and time and labor, how the toil of 
 life, the burdens of the heart, the discipline 
 of worldly conflict, how joy and sorrow, 
 disappointment and success, health and 
 disease, a quiet or a troubled spirit, have 
 each left their traces behind them, marked 
 on the cheek, in the expression of the eye, 
 moulded into the frame, visible each in the 
 port and bearing of the man; speaking 
 each in the very tones of the voice. 
 
 But, whether seldom or frequent may be 
 our mutual interviews, their great purpose 
 and usefulness must be forever the same. 
 Aside from the sympathies and finer senti 
 ments of the heart, which may and should 
 be thus strengthened and protected ; be 
 yond the awakening of emotions of min 
 gled sweetness and regret far, oh, very 
 far beyond the revisitings of early memo 
 ries, and the rekindling of early associations, 
 is the wisdom that they may teach the 
 
ORATION. 147 
 
 wisdom, not merely nor mainly of thoughts 
 and opinions suggested by each others 
 lips, but the wisdom of compared experi 
 ence, the wisdom born of the reflections 
 the day will crowd upon us the wisdom, 
 " uttered not, yet comprehended." 
 
 I know not what the introspection of 
 others may reveal to them. I doubt not, 
 however, that, with all the variety of cir 
 cumstance, with all the peculiarity of tem 
 perament and character to be found among 
 us here, there are certain great, leading, and 
 distinctive impressions that belong to the 
 experience of us all. I speak now, rather 
 to my own cotemporaries, to the scholars 
 here met whose minds may be supposed to 
 have the most sympathy with my own, and 
 to whom I may, for all reasons, with the 
 more propriety, speak. There must be a 
 feeling, a conviction, that the world is some 
 what different from the dream of the boy ; 
 somewhat more real in its exactions ; some 
 what less so in its rewards. There must 
 be some plain and unrelenting facts, stand- 
 
148 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 ing stiffly before the gaze of every one that 
 were quite unforeseen the morning that last 
 saw him joining the muster at early prayers 
 in the chapel. The bell that broke his slum 
 bers and destroyed the visions of his sleep 
 was not more potent to dispel the sweet 
 creations of an untroubled mind, shut 
 out by kind forgetfulness from all thought 
 of care, than the " bell of time," as day by 
 day it has been sounding out the hours, has 
 proved its power to awaken the mind from 
 its repose of happy and confident anticipa 
 tion, to scatter the well-woven plans of 
 hope, speculating blindfold, yet buoyant 
 and satisfied. 
 
 He has learned little from life to whom 
 the wrestling of a half dozen years against 
 the waves of that great and turbulent sea 
 into which the young man leaps so heartily, 
 when the days of his novitiate are over, 
 has not brought some new sense of duty, 
 of responsibility, and of obligation to the 
 time he lives in, the people among whom 
 he dwells, on account of which he must ask 
 
ORATION. 149 
 
 for no compensation now, for the privilege 
 of fulfilling which he must even give some 
 thing himself. He has found, unless his 
 life has been a blank, and his soul has ex 
 isted shut in from all communion with 
 the instructing testimonies of all events, 
 both within and without himself, that the 
 mystery of life can find no solution; that 
 the wants of his nature can find no corre 
 sponding good, that its struggles are the 
 vain toil of a cheated mind; or else, he 
 has learned, that he began to breathe the 
 air of Heaven, and grew to man s estate, 
 and studied books, and communed with 
 men and nature, and pored over wearisome 
 volumes, and read with eager eyes the 
 pleasant ones, that he recited lessons, 
 and stood, day after day, chalk in hand, by 
 a blackboard, marched solemnly to chapel, 
 and skipped gladly to the commons ; that 
 he lived some certain years in a college, 
 and, on a given day, received a puzzling 
 parchment, with a ribbon and seal, from 
 venerated hands, in a crowded meeting- 
 
15 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 house, with divers forms and ceremonies ; 
 that he has been styled by his neighbors, 
 Reverend, or Doctor, or Esquire ; that he 
 has joined in the open and anxious compe 
 tition of full grown men, on that broad 
 arena of strife, where the earth is all un 
 bounded before him, where mankind are 
 his classmates and his competitors; that, 
 in a word, he is born and lives, as one actor 
 in a great and mysterious drama, the end 
 of which is unrevealed, the control of which 
 he holds not, the scenes of which are hourly 
 changing, where all parts are assigned, 
 where none may justly call himself stage- 
 manager or star, but where each must act 
 his part as he learns it on the stage, and 
 forget himself in the character he plays. 
 
 I care not how great may have been the 
 success, as we measure it in the street ; I 
 make no account of the brilliant rewards 
 that a man may have been allowed to call 
 his own : the result is as inevitable as the 
 edict of death, that the scholar, perhaps 
 more than most men, must find that there 
 
ORATION. 151 
 
 is something to get which success does not 
 give him, something to gain, which the 
 rewards of wealth and eminence do not 
 command. The secret of it all is felt by 
 all men ; it is understood and appreciated 
 by a few. Some facts are learned ; but the 
 great doctrine they enfold is inoperative 
 upon the heart. We see it in the listless- 
 ness and discouraged inactivity of one who 
 has found life harder, and success more 
 difficult than he dreamed it in his college 
 visions. We see it in the unsatisfied coun 
 tenance and murmured complaint of 
 another, whose march has been triumph 
 over all those misfortunes which we fear 
 the most, into whose lap plenty has 
 poured the contents of her horn, and upon 
 whose brow fame has bound her laurels. 
 We see it all over society, in the pages of 
 unhopeful books and newspapers; in the 
 light and hard habits of money-getting, in 
 that notable absence of hearty enthusiasm 
 that makes our lives. 
 
 I do not speak in the language of com- 
 
152 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 plaint. I look upon the world with no dis 
 tempered eye, but the truth, known to 
 us all, may well enough be confessed. It 
 is worth the utterance, for it points to some 
 thing which is no misfortune in nature. It 
 is the witness of something great, lofty, and 
 elevating in duty, in capacity, and in des 
 tiny, which, when perceived and grasped, 
 shall be the cure of what is wrong, the 
 creator of a new order in the individual 
 and in society. 
 
 It is the highest office of scholarship 
 to observe what is, and to inquire what 
 ought to be. Whoso has any other phi 
 losophy has not read, as yet, the title-page 
 of that mysterious volume the Almighty 
 has placed in his hands, the leaves of which 
 are turned over, whether he will or no, be 
 fore his face, open to his study, inviting 
 his care. And in the few suggestions which 
 I shall have the honor now, with great def 
 erence to submit, connected mainly with 
 the position of the younger class of our 
 brethren, touching the practical aims of 
 
ORATION. 153 
 
 American scholars, I shall assume its 
 truth. 
 
 What is the existing position of our 
 young men as they embark on their voyage 
 for life, masters of themselves, and 
 what should it be ? With what views and 
 purposes, and in what pursuit do they com 
 mence and prosecute their enterprise ? and 
 what exchange do they propose to them 
 selves in return for the argosies they bear 
 off upon the seas ? If I were to give a 
 name to the greatest cause of evil to the 
 individual, and of inefficiency to his influ 
 ence in the world, for all good and noble 
 things, that now pervades the ranks of 
 American scholars, by which I mean all 
 those to whom courtesy grants the title, 
 I should call it, the want of a devoted en 
 thusiasm. 
 
 The character of later times, the whole 
 tone of the thrifty and calculating civiliza 
 tion of the nineteenth century, has con 
 tributed not a little to divest every pursuit 
 and all the vocations of society of that/m? 
 
154 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 and hearty and generous self -forgetf illness, 
 upon which the birth of great enterprises, 
 and the accomplishment of mighty and 
 brilliant deeds, that alone give to the world 
 a history, depend no more than the moral 
 elevation and private happiness of every 
 individual man. We labor to live, and we 
 live to labor. To buy and to sell ; to in 
 crease our store ; to swell our comforts and 
 to enlarge our wealth, is the nation s strug 
 gle and the people s toil. Not to say, that 
 in these things, even, we are more selfish 
 than our grandfathers ; this better outward 
 man ; these fairer fields ; these palaces of 
 luxury, and these frequent dwellings of 
 competence and ease, have taught forget- 
 fulness of hard and rugged days when men 
 suffered and denied themselves, that they 
 might earn all this for us. We are in ad 
 vance of our fathers in a thousand things. 
 Nay, the world has grown wiser, and better, 
 too, I doubt not, in every step of its pro 
 cession, but the very advantages that old 
 experience has given us ; the very con- 
 
ORATION. 155 
 
 quests that time and effort have made for 
 the race over sin and folly, have brought 
 with them new necessities and fresh perils 
 for society. The simple and inartificial 
 relations of men to each other, have given 
 way to the elaborate and more involved 
 connections of greater wealth, higher in 
 tellectual culture, and an advanced social 
 condition. The heart and the life of the 
 young scholar feels this want of enthusi 
 asm, as an element of social life, more than 
 he knows, infinitely more than I can tell. 
 His aims are controlled by it, his profession 
 is selected by it, his mode of life grows up 
 under it, and his influence, his influ 
 ence, that which is at once his wealth and 
 his responsibility, is warped and enfeebled, 
 and but too frequently perverted by it. 
 
 We hear much of a generous spirit of 
 emulation, but we hear little of the highest 
 ambition. It is everywhere held that one 
 should, if possible, out-do his neighbor, but 
 how little do we feel that we should make 
 the most of ourselves. Our life is indi- 
 
156 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 vidual self-interest carried out, almost to 
 the last analysis. And though we can pre 
 sent the spectacle of a wonderful progress 
 as compared to the days when myriads 
 lived for the glory of a monarch, when the 
 man was the victim of the State, when there 
 were no citizens, but only serfs and sol 
 diers ; yet these conditions had their rec 
 ompense, to which we must and shall 
 have something to correspond, without 
 which our progress is only outward and 
 superficial. The difference is a great one 
 in degree, but not very remarkable or 
 prominent in kind between the barbarian 
 who gives up his will and his conscience 
 to a despotic leader, and follows, in blind 
 submission, the standard of a warrior chief, 
 and risks himself upon the field of stricken 
 battle, to gain his portion in the spoils of 
 war; and the free citizen, who boasts of 
 his right of suffrage, and the independent 
 tenure of his lands, but thinks it right 
 to lie down before an unsanctified public 
 opinion, for the sake of what, by such good 
 
ORATION. 157 
 
 policy, he may make out of the unsuspi 
 cious and the feeble. 
 
 The subject of a despotism, in a dark 
 age, with all his indifference to the tender 
 and the humane, is excited and stimulated 
 to no insignificant degree of manly ardor, 
 by the mere sentiment of loyalty one 
 which long outlives the decays of time and 
 often survives the structures of Reform. 
 There is the blind enthusiasm, too, of pa 
 triotism, that leads men of some periods 
 and nations to cast to the winds fortune, 
 life, and even glory itself, for the sake of 
 their country. There is the pride of the 
 clan, the rivalship of states, there is zeal 
 for some form of religious faith, a burning 
 desire to witness the triumph of some 
 thing, to which the heart has been wedded, 
 to gain which, no sacrifices are deemed too 
 costly. How the spirit leaps within us, as 
 we read the stories of bravery and self- 
 devotion, which have created the fame of 
 heroes, and made bad enterprises romantic, 
 and bad men respectable. These forms of 
 
158 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 social life that wheel the mass around some 
 central head, whether it be the monarch, 
 the hero, or something more abstract ; and 
 those states of society in which personal 
 prowess and defiance of personal danger 
 are counted high among the virtues of a 
 man, in training them to live and act zeal 
 ously for something entirely apart from 
 private acquisition, build up an element 
 of enthusiasm, in a people s character, that 
 fits them for great emergencies, and fur 
 nishes the nation with an invincible spirit 
 for the pursuit of any good the people 
 may have wisdom enough to work for ; 
 while, on the other side, the elevation in 
 political rights, and in social importance, 
 of all the classes of society, while it does no 
 more than justice to the individual, does as 
 much, in one view of the matter, to refine 
 upon human selfishness, as it does to vin 
 dicate the claims of the subject against the 
 encroachments of the despot or the state. 
 In just so far as this progress is the fruit 
 of generous devotion to principles, with the 
 
ORATION. 159 
 
 truth and beauty of which we have become 
 enamored, in just so far do we escape the 
 evil : but, when we lose sight of the ideal, 
 the abstract; when we fight for a principle, 
 only for its application to ourselves, in just 
 so far do we degrade ourselves, and tend 
 to perpetuate human wrongs under altered 
 forms and with fresher strength. The 
 tendency to elevate the individual and the 
 tendency to extreme utilitarianism, as they 
 always move side by side with each other, 
 making selfishness in every man s bosom a 
 kind of resulting force out of the two, are 
 and have been, during the nineteenth cen 
 tury, acting strongly in concert, mould 
 ing and controlling its civilization. And 
 though the rectifying causes are also at 
 work, it is only too plain that those parts 
 of society that succeed in getting the most 
 advantage from existing institutions are 
 quite too careless of their brethren, and 
 feel all too much their own individual im 
 portance to labor any farther than what a 
 good worldly policy counsels, for the final 
 
I6O MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 triumph of all the interests of humanity. I 
 admit that there is much downright love 
 of principle, and much hearty labor, both 
 here and abroad, for the good of man ; but 
 the idea of utility is, for the sake of utility 
 itself, too much at the bottom of it all, and 
 reform of the grosser abuses prevails but 
 little faster than the political economists 
 can be convinced that the public wealth 
 will be increased by it the next year ; and 
 the craftsman, the tradesman, the mer 
 chant, and the speculator can feel safe 
 from any possible danger to prices or de 
 rangement to the markets. From the 
 man that digs his living out of an oyster- 
 bed, to the capitalist who lolls from ten 
 o clock in the morning till dinner time in 
 insurance offices and at directors boards, 
 and eats his dinner till sundown and di 
 gests it when he can, and so up and down, 
 through all the gradations of social life 
 between the two, does this worshipping of 
 utility prevail. In one country you must 
 do nothing which will, by any possibility, 
 
ORATION. l6l 
 
 disturb the three estates of the realm; in 
 another you must hold still, lest you have 
 the royal prerogative ; or, if no other evil 
 can be feared, then he must be quiet lest 
 he frighten the royal children ; while, here 
 at home, we have to dodge where we can, 
 in order to preserve the influence of our 
 political party, our religious denomination, 
 or to prevent the shaking of some outward 
 institution profanely styled an ark of safety. 
 The safest way for all moralists and states 
 men, too, is to imitate the sagacious caution 
 of the clergyman of whom it was said by 
 his deacon that he was the pattern of min 
 isters, as he never meddled with politics or 
 religion in the pulpit. 
 
 It is well that a spirit of rugged inde 
 pendence should hold its unshaken seat 
 in the breast of every freeman ; that he 
 should look out well that none should rob 
 him of his bread, or of his chance of gain 
 ing it. It would be a noble thing if every 
 man would refuse to vote for a measure, 
 until convinced by facts and reasoning; 
 
1 62 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 but it would be infinitely nobler and better 
 if he would always vote, accordingly, when 
 convinced that a measure is right, instead 
 of waiting to find whether it will be popu 
 lar or politic. Some things must be taken 
 for granted : they must be believed a pri 
 ori ; and, without that, you destroy all the 
 freshness and beauty of goodness, and all 
 the vitality of faith. If you break loose 
 from loyalty, and dethrone your king, you 
 must fall back upon patriotism, and act 
 under love of country, as your ruling senti 
 ment ; if you outgrow that, and value your 
 country for what it gives you, and think it 
 hard to fight her battles unless you eat her 
 bread, then you must take a step higher 
 than patriotism, unless you would descend 
 to one even lower than loyalty, and must 
 become a philanthropist ; you must love 
 your neighbor as yourself, and find a neigh 
 bor wherever you find a man. I bring no 
 railing accusation against this era when I 
 say that the principle of loyalty and the 
 sentiment of patriotism as mere unreason- 
 
ORATION. 163 
 
 ing impulses have grown less and less ; 
 while the wider sentiment, that true and 
 more noble impulse of philanthropy, has 
 failed to approach quite so fast as they 
 have receded. Apply, if you choose, the 
 test. Will a man do and suffer as much 
 for his neighbor as the subject would have 
 done for his liege ? Will the voice of 
 humanity plead as effectually in our hearts, 
 as would our country s call, even in these 
 calculating times ? Will it stir them up to 
 deeds of self-devotion, and make us glad to 
 live or count it glorious to die to vindicate 
 the wrongs of others ? 
 
 Say, is it not true that, as you hear less 
 and less of the trumpet s music, you feel 
 less and less of that ardent, impulsive, and 
 glowing fervor of soul, in which the great 
 and brave of every age have forgotten fear, 
 despised self-interest, and abandoned them 
 selves in a cause ? 
 
 Out of this intense individualism grows 
 a narrow, personal ambition, that breeds 
 much of the failure to be found in our 
 
164 MEMOIR OF JOHX A. ANDREW. 
 
 learned professions. As the field is open 
 to all, we go, each alone, into the conflict, 
 and we fight, each man for himself. The 
 success of one is not merged in the success 
 of many, in the triumph of any particular 
 banner: he has no standard by whose fate 
 his own is to be determined ; no leader 
 whose waving plume is his own bright ori- 
 flamme. No dread of common danger, no 
 hope of united glory, link our hearts to 
 gether, save our political parties, and our 
 religious sects, and our philanthropic soci 
 eties, our interest in which forms, after all, 
 but a mere trifling infusion of sentiment 
 and motive compared to the entire compo 
 sition of our ruling purposes : we live and 
 toil and die alone. If, in surveying the 
 ground upon which our energies are to be 
 expended, we see no bristling array of 
 forces standing, in regular battle order, to 
 meet and oppose our advance, neither do 
 we see a host of fellow-soldiers, who greet 
 our accession to their ranks with wel 
 come cheers. The only remedy, and it is 
 
ORATION. 165 
 
 one which, to a good extent, the recupera 
 tive energies of the race are constantly 
 supplying the result towards which the 
 whole course of Providence is pointing 
 which is the genius of the Christian relig 
 ion, is the modification of all forms of 
 antagonism and combat, and the substitu 
 tion, in their stead, of an universal union. 
 In that result, is the great destiny of schol 
 arship to be realized, and towards the pro 
 duction of it must genius and learning 
 and the highest gifts of human culture con 
 tribute. The young man must abandon 
 the mere purpose of personal distinction. 
 If he lives for himself, all the chances are 
 against his realizing the dreams of his am 
 bition ; if he prevails, he has not purchased 
 contentment and peace, though he has ex 
 pended all the wealth of his being. 
 
 Do not imagine me, while I advocate a 
 spirit of enthusiasm, to commend fanati 
 cism; while I would fix some limits to indi 
 vidual self-concern, to strike at individual 
 liberty or effort; while I believe in some- 
 
1 66 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 thing nobler than utility, to connive at 
 recklessness ; while I would check self-con 
 ceit, to neglect wisdom. I would have 
 enthusiasm, thoughtful and considerate ; 
 I would have philanthropy begin at the 
 individual, as the centre of a circle, and 
 radiate outward to the remotest circumfer 
 ence of humanity ; and I would have devot- 
 edness to the highest theories practically 
 applied ; I would have that wisdom, of 
 which it was said by the son of Sirach, 
 " She is more moving than any motion ; 
 for she passeth, and goeth through all 
 things, by reason of her pureness. For 
 she is the breath of the power of God, and 
 a pure influence flowing from the glory of 
 the Almighty ; therefore, can no defiled 
 thing fall into her. For she is the bright 
 ness of the everlasting light, the unspotted 
 mirror of the power of God, and the image 
 of his goodness. And being but one she 
 can do all things, and, remaining in herself, 
 she maketh all things new, and in all ages, 
 entering into holy souls, she maketh them 
 friends of God and prophets." 
 
ORATION, 167 
 
 I contend for those motives and forms 
 of action, which, while they shall never 
 fetter the activity of the higher sentiments 
 of the intellectual and spiritual being, shall 
 do no wrong to what we call common sense 
 and practical skill. 
 
 The genuine man, who feels the worth 
 of life, is illustrated somewhat to my mind 
 by the brave and gallant general. He does 
 not march out, by himself, in sheer reck 
 lessness of what darts and rifle-balls can 
 do ; he does not stand, for the sake of prov 
 ing his temerity, upon an open eminence, 
 and challenge all the marksmen of the foe 
 to hit him, if they can; but when the hordes 
 of Xerxes are pouring down for conquest, 
 and some one must command the pass at 
 Thermopylae, there he goes, and there he 
 stands, in spite of every peril, the leader of 
 the forlornest hope. 
 
 Such have always been the philosophers, 
 the reformers, the teachers, the heroes of 
 the race. Socrates had no ambition to die 
 by hemlock ; but rather than embrace the 
 
1 68 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 casuistry of the Sophists, rather than 
 abandon his teachings, or compromise the 
 virtues of his character, he drained the 
 poison, and closed his eyes forever. Lu 
 ther was not in love with the rigors of 
 collision with the tremendous power of 
 Rome ; but as his awakened spirit led him 
 through storm and trial, on his road to the 
 fulfilment of Truth and Duty, he cast aside 
 all fear of man and defied the Vatican. 
 
 " Half-battles were the words he said, 
 
 Each born of prayer, baptized in tears, 
 And routed by him, backward fled 
 The errors of a thousand years." 
 
 So, too, Lafayette, that bright example of 
 the most generous and hearty and glorious 
 enthusiasm in modern political history ; 
 think you that the gifts of fortune, rank, 
 and domestic bliss, which, all combined, 
 lacked the power to chain him to the soil 
 of France, while the voice was echoing in 
 his ears, think you that all these had no 
 charm for him ? But, though gifted with 
 a moderation that frowned upon all ex- 
 
ORATION. 169 
 
 cesses, with a calm self-command that was 
 never moved, though liberty tempted to 
 license, and zeal was transformed, in other 
 minds, to fury, he spurned them all, to be 
 the friend and soldier of Washington. 
 How full of meaning and of consolation 
 are histories such as these ! How do they 
 vindicate the right and exalt virtue, and 
 justify principle! Who is there so drunk 
 and mad with the idea of momentary glory, 
 who is there, whose low ambition, satis 
 fied with the gewgaws of an hour, would 
 not rather be Lafayette than Napoleon ? 
 Who would buy the imperial throne on 
 which the Man of Destiny sat his day, and 
 exchange for it that lofty seat in the grati 
 tude of two nations,- and in the admiration 
 of the world, won by Lafayette, in a life of 
 self-sacrifice and devotion to his principles? 
 Nay, judging by any worldly standard 
 merely, was it more glorious to tumble 
 from the giddy height of unjust dominion, 
 and die a prisoner and an exile upon a 
 rock in the sea, than to have lingered in 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the dungeon of Olmutz, a captive and a 
 martyr to Liberty, with the protecting 
 sympathies of mankind for a support, to 
 come forth, at last, to a higher and prouder 
 triumph than this world ever saw before, 
 and to guide the destinies of his dear 
 France in her next hour of trial ? One 
 more great and immortal spectacle of the 
 enthusiasm I defend was exhibited in the 
 pilgrimage of the Plymouth Puritans: I 
 mean no disparagement to the devotedness 
 of others, to any of the examples of mod 
 ern heroism, that the earlier history of our 
 continent presents, but there are few 
 stones in the annals of mankind so pathetic, 
 so heroic, as theirs. When we compare the 
 feebleness of their resources, the insignifi 
 cance of their numbers, their poverty and 
 isolated condition, both from the helps and 
 sympathies of the world, with their uncon 
 querable zeal, their meek submission, their 
 bold and undaunted energy, and their hum 
 ble and trusting piety ; when we contrast 
 their first impressions upon the tablets that 
 
ORATION. I/I 
 
 record the doings of the race with the re 
 sults that have followed the landing of the 
 " Mayflower," we may well pause, in our 
 careers of selfishness, and gain strength 
 from their exemplary lesson in the majesty 
 of enthusiastic virtue. Oh ! was not that 
 a great landmark on the coast of time, when 
 the benignant and faithful Carver, the ven 
 erable, gray -headed Brewster, the dignified 
 and amiable Bradford, the youthful and 
 gifted Winslow, the great heart of man 
 hood, the holy truth of woman s love and 
 childhood banished from the soft lap of 
 home, standing on a lonely rock, on a 
 savage shore, their hopes on Heaven, the 
 martyrs of conscience, the founders of a 
 state, triumphant over all dismay, 
 
 " They shook the depths of the desert gloom 
 With their hymns of lofty cheer." 
 
 The youthful and aspiring scholar finds 
 little in our communities to encourage him 
 to imitate histories such as these. That 
 part of society with which he has the readi 
 est contact, and whose influence he feels 
 
172 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the most, are quite too comfortable, their 
 carpets are too soft, their suppers too good, 
 and their ideas too much governed by " the 
 main chance " to encourage the free scope 
 of his ardor. If he would not accept a 
 good call ; if he would not marry a rich 
 wife, with a good opportunity ; if he would 
 not keep quiet about any odd notions he 
 held, rather than risk a loss or patronage, 
 how many there are in society, who would 
 doubt whether what he exhibited as his 
 degree were not the certificate that ought 
 to carry him to the lunatic asylum instead 
 of an academical diploma ! 
 
 This age has, nevertheless, a larger sym 
 pathy with the advance guard of progress ; 
 for the leaven of Christian morals has more 
 thoroughly penetrated it. But, when was 
 there a time that the very institutions of 
 government and society did not provide 
 for and encourage that very impulse in 
 human nature of which we are speaking ? 
 There has been the cloister, or the con 
 vent, for one ; there has been the distant 
 
ORATION. 173 
 
 pilgrimage for another; the wearing pen 
 ance and the midnight vigil for a third. 
 And there has been war, in all its fasci 
 nating pomp and crime, with its elegant 
 amenities occasionally relieving its unnat 
 ural barbarities, the field and the camp, 
 for the realization of many a vision of 
 glory. 
 
 But, passing from this branch of the sub 
 ject, let me explain what I mean by what 
 should be the aims and pursuits of the 
 American scholar, the mode in which he 
 must be at once enthusiastic and practical. 
 He must be a man of thought and of deep 
 convictions. A man is what he believes, 
 he is the embodiment of what he feels to 
 be true, the living witness and exemplar 
 of his faith. I do not undertake to point 
 out his creed, but only to say, that he must 
 believe something, and act as if he believed 
 it to be true. He must not be a bigot; 
 but he has no right to be a doubter. He 
 must be open to new convictions, and to 
 the modification of old ones ; but he must 
 
1/4 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 find some great principles which are ever 
 permanent, and judge his opinions by these 
 as his standards. 
 
 He must look with a grateful counte 
 nance upon the past, but he must look with 
 hope upon the future. "We are not," says 
 one of the leading minds of our country, 
 " to hand down the world just as we found 
 it." This idea should possess itself of 
 every American scholar ; and he should 
 seek to learn what duty it assigns to him. 
 The men who gave immortal renown to 
 the 4th July in 1776, did not believe that 
 all human wisdom and prowess could do for 
 human liberty was exhausted some five 
 hundred years before, when the British 
 barons wrested from the reluctant John, 
 at Runnymede, the great forest charter of 
 British rights ; and forthwith they framed a 
 declaration of independence. The found 
 ers of our government thought well, no 
 doubt, of the famous edict of Nantes, by 
 which, under the first Bourbon, the gal 
 lant Henry of Navarre, the bleeding and 
 
ORATION. 1/5 
 
 hunted Huguenots found a period of repose 
 from the pangs of persecuting zealots ; but 
 they still believed it to be reserved for 
 themselves to frame a republican constitu 
 tion. They were masters of the thought, 
 that to every time belongs a duty and a 
 destiny. 
 
 But the tendency of our minds is now 
 quite largely towards the belief that the 
 days for heroism are over. The belief is 
 not universal. It is not true, and it will 
 not last. There is yet to be an era of 
 moral heroism that shall challenge, by its 
 devotedness, the best days of the martyrs ; 
 and it shall be unstained by blood, uncon 
 trolled by worldly policy. It shall carry 
 no sword but truth, no torch but the light 
 of its own bright influence. It shall bring 
 no tears but those of penitence ; it shall 
 break no ties but those of bondage. It is 
 the duty of the scholar to perceive and to 
 know the signs of his age. He is bound 
 to sympathize with its wants and to stand 
 a sentinel upon its watch-towers. He has 
 
1/ MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 no right to repose under the shadows of 
 the past ; to eat his bread and drink his 
 wine ; and take, listlessly, the goods that 
 fortune has provided for him. He has 
 been favored by communion with the 
 minds of sages and philosophers ; he has 
 drank from the wells of science ; he has 
 furnished himself from the records of hu 
 man experience, and has established, by 
 the aid of books and reflection, a mysteri 
 ous telegraphic union between the thought 
 and the history of the past, and his own 
 soul. But the philosophers did not think 
 for him only. Sages did not write merely 
 to fill his mind with truth ; the poets have 
 not sung, to give him, only, the music of 
 their lays ; history was not written for the 
 amusement of his study: the sufferings 
 and the triumphs of humanity have no 
 restricted office. The true scholar is the 
 servant of his neighbors: he is bought with 
 a price ; he is paid by the best wealth of 
 all ages, of which he has collected a part, 
 whose storehouses he cannot exhaust, and 
 
ORATION. 177 
 
 from which he may gather without hin- 
 derance. 
 
 It is no arrogance to assert that, were 
 the aims of all our young men who be 
 come yearly candidates for the learned 
 professions sufficiently single and well- 
 directed, not only would the standard of 
 excellence in them all be immeasurably 
 elevated, but the prosperity, the happiness, 
 and the moral tone of society itself would 
 be renewed. Who does not know what an 
 amount of power (all the more efficient, 
 because voluntarily bestowed) rests always 
 in their hands ; how they teach weekly 
 in our pulpits, and how widely their opin 
 ions are respected; how they control our 
 schools and universities ; how they are 
 heard by our firesides, in our caucuses and 
 conventions ; how they act through the 
 press ; how they crowd our halls of legisla 
 tion, and sit upon our benches of justice. 
 Were they educated, and gifted with all 
 these means of influence and power, only 
 that they might gain a living, and be written 
 
 12 
 
178 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 of in the newspapers ? The Indian hunter 
 gets the first, by chasing buffaloes and trap 
 ping game. A juggler or a rope-dancer 
 will make more of a figure in print than 
 they can. The elegant author may be 
 noticed in the magazines ; but the man 
 who can ride four horses at once, without a 
 saddle or a bridle, will stare at you, in mam 
 moth capitals, from every corner of the high 
 way. The writer of a useful book may walk 
 through Broadway or Washington Street, 
 and ten men shall not know him ; but 
 a nimble figurante will be cheered by a 
 crowded theatre. But you say that your 
 influence and respectability among your 
 neighbors is beyond all comparison with 
 rewards like these. And why ? If you 
 value fame so highly, why not do that by 
 which you may get before the largest 
 number in the quickest way ? If you are 
 anxious to be rich, why not learn to per 
 form an Ethiopian dance better than any 
 artiste now on the boards, and make your 
 fortune at once by it ? The answer is 
 
ORATION. 1/9 
 
 ready: We want not cheers; we want re 
 spect: we seek not notoriety; we would 
 have an honest fame : we don t care to be 
 stared at as curiosities; we wish to be hon 
 ored as men : we value ready cash ; but 
 we would get it by some worthy and useful 
 means. 
 
 Then there is something better than 
 applause, something richer than gold. I 
 accept the doctrine : and I ask that the ob 
 jects of pursuit among American scholars 
 shall be placed higher than the highest 
 merely conventional excellence ; that its 
 rewards shall be measured by their abso 
 lute worth, and not by their price in the 
 market. 
 
 There must always be some who are 
 advocates of opinions in advance of their 
 neighbors, of society in general. Until the 
 world has grown old, and until mankind 
 has " burnt out," and this round earth has 
 become useless as a place of discipline, there 
 must be the desire for change, the thirst 
 for realizing a higher life, in the forms and 
 
180 MEMOIR OF JOILY A. ANDREW. 
 
 institutions of society. You cannot help 
 it if you would. You would contradict all 
 the purposes of the race, if you did. This 
 fact the scholar should comprehend and 
 feel, and of it let him never be afraid. He 
 should avail himself of its advantages, and 
 help to give tone and direction to the 
 movement spirit of his time. He should 
 study the tides of human thought ; he 
 should watch the breezes of human im 
 pulse; he should fathom those mysterious 
 undercurrents of life upon which society 
 is forever borne onward. Its life-principle 
 is Truth, and Truth should be the bright 
 object of his devotion. He should be its 
 hearty student and its faithful witness. 
 But " let none imagine," says the most 
 eloquent and profound of American essay 
 ists, "let none imagine that its chosen 
 temple is an uncultivated mind, and that 
 it selects as its chief organs the unlearned. 
 It is indeed appointed to carry forward 
 mankind ; but not as concerned and ex 
 pounded by narrow minds, not as darkened 
 
ORATION. 181 
 
 by the ignorant, not as debased by the 
 superstitious, not as subtilized by the vi 
 sionary, not as thundered out by the intol 
 erant fanatic, not as turned into drivelling 
 cant by the hypocrite. It requires for its 
 full reception, and powerful communication, 
 a free and vigorous intellect." All that is 
 generous and expansive in learning, all 
 that is profound and sublime in philoso 
 phy, should be seized anxiously by the 
 scholar, and contributed to the work of 
 progress. If he neglects his own cultiva 
 tion, and does not strive to master all the 
 problems and assist in the development of 
 whatever truth may bear practically upon 
 the interests of society, think you that the 
 debt he owes can ever be repaid ? Let 
 him not suppose that the discussion of 
 vexing and dangerous topics will cease, 
 because the more educated are in general 
 silent upon them. It cannot be. No cry 
 comes up from the wilderness, that does 
 not proceed from some precursor of good. 
 It behooves him to listen to and to catch 
 
1 82 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the first intimation of movement, to find 
 out from what point it starts ; to learn 
 what is its basis, in the real wants of hu 
 manity, and to co-operate with all earnest 
 minds, in giving to it efficiency and useful 
 ness. Let him be silent, and the very 
 stones will cry out for him. Let the pul 
 pit be dumb, when human sin is the 
 subject, the ministers of religion will be 
 denounced as the ministers of Satan, and 
 the altars of the Christian faith will be 
 avoided as the altars of Belial. Let the 
 statesman speak peace, when there is none ; 
 let him deprecate unwelcome discussion 
 of questions intricate in statesmanship and 
 troublesome in national affairs ; let him 
 avoid the issues that time and the evolu 
 tions of events have made up for him: and, 
 while he is tampering with the people s 
 patience and trying to make policy look 
 like principle, he will find that the hasty 
 and the excited will break loose, and even 
 the cool and self-controlled will become 
 inflamed; and they will curse him, and his 
 
ORATION. 183 
 
 policy, and the constitution itself together. 
 But let him have faith enough in the truth 
 and in man to suffer no covert motives to 
 control his public conduct, and he will 
 learn that the old Hibernianism, that " the 
 best way to avoid danger is to face it 
 plump" is not the paradox it may seem. 
 
 I think that one error is about old 
 enough now to be abandoned. I mean 
 the idea that so conveniently associates the 
 theorist with the marplot, and commends 
 the mere tactician as your truly practical 
 man. There is surely nothing worthy a 
 scholarlike mind in this. It has no phi 
 losophy in it, and, of consequence, no wis 
 dom or truth. It is a popular idea in party 
 politics, but it is one against which our 
 young men should plant themselves for 
 ever. If you have no theory, you have 
 no plan ; and if you have no plan, you 
 have no thought, and can be governed by 
 no definite purpose. It has prevailed so 
 much, both at home and abroad, in affairs 
 of state, that the most stupid barrenness 
 
1 84 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 has often imposed its jugglery upon the 
 people, and called it sagacious policy. 
 Look at the two great political parties in 
 England, for example. How little do the 
 great principles at the bottom of the two 
 find themselves consistently applied by the 
 party leaders. The Tory contents himself 
 with preserving the ancient forms, and is 
 consoled by the mummy of an old insti 
 tution, after he has suffered the life to die 
 out of it ; while the reforming Whig is 
 silenced by a mere piece of political mech 
 anism which will wear out in the usinsf. 
 
 o 
 
 The best hopes of enlightened conserva 
 tism and of national reform, whether it be 
 in politics or morals, grows from the same 
 parent stock. And the mistiness that 
 shades the opinions, the uncertainty that 
 paralyzes the efficiency, of parties would be 
 no longer the reproach of so many public 
 organizations, were there more of that far- 
 reaching sagacity, furnished by well-consid 
 ered principles, steadily adhered to. Men 
 would understand each other better, would 
 
ORATION. 185 
 
 find less that they doubted in each other s 
 motives, as they saw each other s doctrines 
 the more clearly, and would build up a 
 mutual respect, when they learned to com 
 prehend this faith. They would find a 
 solid basis for discussion, grow less bigoted 
 as to measures ; nay, they would unite in 
 theory where they now believe themselves 
 to differ. 
 
 The true scholar is the apostle of Hope; 
 his voice is like that of the great-hearted 
 Lars Anders in that splendid romance so 
 full of truth and natural pathos which has 
 lately come to us from the North. 
 
 " Yes, I will preach of Hope ; I will speak of 
 it in dungeons and prisons ; I will shout it in 
 the ears of the dying malefactor ; I will sound 
 it to the other side of death. I will cry into 
 boundless eternity, Hope ye, hope ye ! " 
 
 But Hope is not blind. It hopes because 
 it perceives a prospect; or, rather, we hope 
 because of what we see and know, because 
 of a deep foundation in truth, upon which 
 hope sits naturally, smiling and secure. 
 
1 86 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 He, then, who would be a useful friend to 
 his country must be a thorough and brave 
 student of principles, upon which alone 
 policy can find a basis, which alone can 
 furnish to hope a permanent foundation. 
 Anybody can be an alarmist, a croaker. 
 We never need to send abroad for Balaams 
 to curse our Israel : we have a plenty of 
 such prophets with no inspiration. But 
 we need wise men, to whom a present mist 
 shall not appear an endless night ; who 
 shall not torment us with evil forebodings, 
 because of some momentary exigency, and 
 scare us out of our comfort and our growth 
 at every eclipse of the moon. We want 
 statesmen to whom those mighty laws are 
 familiar, those invisible powers are known, 
 by which the world is controlled and hu 
 man destiny evolved; who shall not mis 
 take the tides for a flood, the beautiful and 
 conservative eccentricities of nature for 
 dissolution of the world. 
 
 In what I say of the influence and re 
 sponsibility of the learned professions, I 
 
ORATION. IS/ 
 
 mean to make no assumptions on the one 
 hand, no comparisons, invidious, on the 
 other. I mean, however, to insist strenu 
 ously upon the great duty of their members 
 to make their peculiar advantages of po 
 sition the means of promoting the widest 
 good. You must be true to your own 
 mind, or you cannot be true to human 
 nature. If you do not respect yourself and 
 your own convictions, you have no rever 
 ence worth the bestowing for others. If 
 you do not stand by the rights of the indi 
 vidual mind, represented in yourself, you 
 are untrue to man, and faithless to the 
 universal heart of humanity. There is no 
 bondage worse than the spiritual slavery 
 of the few to the majority ; and there is 
 nothing more useless or more cowardly. 
 It is, after all, no compliment to majorities 
 to pretend to be convinced when the votes 
 are counted against you. Public opinion 
 is made up of individual convictions. If 
 you must yield your convictions to the 
 public, every other man must, when the 
 
1 88 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 vane changes, relinquish his also, and thus 
 all the value of public sentiment is de 
 stroyed. It becomes a weathercock and 
 phantom. It is one thing to submit grace 
 fully when you are beaten, but it is quite 
 another to run away without a fight. He 
 is unfit to be the object of popular regard 
 who bows to the dictation of old authority 
 or to the voice of the people, until he is 
 convinced by reasons before which his mind 
 naturally gives way. Let every man, of 
 whatever capacity, be free; and the aggre 
 gate mass makes a free people : nor can 
 you compose a body of freemen from any 
 different materials; you can make freedom 
 in no other way. It is an insult to the 
 people to tell them they are always right ; 
 nobody will believe you, if you do. Every 
 man knows himself to be sometimes wrong. 
 No man places implicit confidence in the 
 infallibility of his neighbors, and the doc 
 trine of the infallibility of the people can 
 find no basis in the practical sense of man 
 kind. Moreover, individuals change; and 
 
OR A TION. 1 89 
 
 as they go over from one side to another, 
 so majorities sway from one extreme in the 
 arc of opinion to the opposite : so that, this 
 deference to majorities, if it were not the 
 boldest, hollowest flattery, would be the 
 most contemptuous and impudent sarcasm. 
 As one of the people myself, I say that 
 we are oftener wrong than otherwise, and 
 so we have the right to be. 
 
 There is, also, an opposite condition of 
 mind with which one may any day come 
 in contact, a perverse unbelief in any 
 thing but forms and institutions. There 
 are not a few to whom a constitutional 
 government is still a mere experiment, 
 to whom republicanism seems almost like 
 stealing the thunder from Jupiter. Noth 
 ing looks safe and natural that does not 
 trudge along under the protection of crown 
 and mitre. All generous impulse, and 
 everything hearty and spontaneous, is 
 frightful and disorganizing. 
 
 The American scholar should stand 
 equally far from those sycophantic fawners 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 upon the multitude, and these scared chil 
 dren of dusty traditions. The present 
 should be his stand-point ; he may gather 
 wisdom from every age, but the future is 
 inevitable. There he is bound, there he 
 must go. He cannot retard the car of 
 time ; let him beware how he clogs the 
 wheels of human progress by his super 
 stitions on the one hand or his dema- 
 gogism on the other. Let him hold fast 
 the maxim of a great and a contemplative 
 mind, " Progress, the growth of power, is 
 the end and boon of liberty." Combining 
 individual independence of thought with 
 reverence for the rights of all minds ; en 
 thusiasm and true devotion to his own 
 faith with practical sagacity, he will learn 
 to make scholarship something more than 
 picking the dry bones of antiquated lore, 
 he will find in it the means of comprehend 
 ing and reproducing the living thoughts it 
 expresses and preserves. Something bet 
 ter than the stepping-stone to popular dis 
 tinction he will make it the Servant of 
 
ORATION. 191 
 
 Truth. And wherever his lot is cast in 
 life, whatever his sphere of control, he 
 will help to build up in the people a deeper 
 faith, more profound and abiding convic 
 tions, a frank and self-possessed independ 
 ence, the freest and heartiest toleration. 
 And wherever one may be found whose 
 purposes and efforts have an elevation like 
 this, him do I hail as the true, the model 
 scholar. He may have earned no reputa 
 tion among men, for the variety or singu 
 larity of his learning; he may have shrunk, 
 always, from the blaze of public positions, 
 nor tempted the dangerous highways that 
 lead to fame ; he may be no book-maker, 
 no poet, no orator, but he is better than 
 all these if he is an honest searcher for the 
 truth, and the faithful witness of what he 
 knows. He is the genuine scholar, in 
 spired by the true enthusiasm. He is the 
 practical man, the benefactor of the people. 
 He is strengthened by all good influences, 
 and resists, with equal vigor, the seductions 
 of ease and the alluring bait of ambition. 
 
192 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 The man stands before the scholar. Say 
 what we will of high attainments, of dis 
 tinguished position, of professional emi 
 nence ; exalt and defend learning and 
 literature and science, as you will ; let it 
 be forever remembered that none of these, 
 nor all these combined, can make a MAN. 
 They may be added to a man, but they are 
 not him. 
 
 All these may be the "guinea s stamp, 
 The marts the gold, for a that" 
 
 Indeed, in this country, it can hardly be, 
 that there are any who may, as a class, in 
 strictness and by comparison with the 
 rest of the world be called scholars. 
 Learning is too widely diffused to allow 
 the mantle of scholarship to settle down 
 upon the shoulders of any given order in 
 society. Our best scholars are not always 
 the bearers of professional or literary titles, 
 and those who have them are not always 
 scholars. Let us be grateful that it is so. 
 Learning should be like genius, having no 
 intimation of any aristocracy. It should 
 
ORATION. 193 
 
 go to Jmman nature, unmindful of acci 
 dent or circumstance ; as the sweet muse 
 of poetry visits alike the peasant Burns, 
 toiling on the cold and rugged heaths of 
 Scotland, and the youthful and titled By 
 ron, bearing the honors of a noble house. 
 The highest intellectual culture, to be 
 availing, must develop the man. You may 
 hang about yourself all the ornaments that 
 artifice can devise, you may trick out your 
 scholarship with all the best finery of learn 
 ing, you may become the admiration of 
 artists and the wonder of the unskilful, 
 but, stopping there, you will have done 
 nothing that the world will thank you for, 
 nothing for gratitude, nothing for memory. 
 But plant deep in the foundations of eter 
 nal truth, educate and bring out all within 
 you, by which you are united in the great 
 sympathies of a common nature and a 
 common destiny, with the loftiest and the 
 comeliest of the human brotherhood, and 
 you shall not die. You shall live in grate 
 ful hearts after the proudest monumental 
 13 
 
194 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 marbles have crumbled away. You shall 
 erect for yourself a memorial of joy that 
 will be sweet to you in the declivity of 
 years, and shall comfort you, " in the tra 
 vail of mortality." 
 
 Faith ! faith in man and faith in God ; 
 this, this is the secret of true enthusiasm. 
 It is this which has embalmed thought, and 
 given immortality to genius. Go where 
 you will, to all literatures, whether of 
 Christendom or of Heathendom, and there 
 you will find it so. Where is the cynic, 
 the doubter, the sceptic, who has contrived 
 to grapple to himself the hearts of men ? 
 He may have glittered in the courts of 
 princes, he may have shone in the saloons 
 of gayety, but the humblest believer in 
 any religion, the untrumpeted worshipper 
 of any thing divine is more noble and 
 more beloved. Scepticism and unbelief in 
 those great ideas, moulded now into one, 
 and now into another form of religious 
 faith, have no place in the literature that 
 has come to us from those who have found 
 
ORATION. 195 
 
 the master-key to human hearts, who have 
 marshalled the progressive tread of ages. 
 But religion has given to the productions 
 of those who have drawn inspiration from 
 her sacred fountains, the leaven of eternal 
 truth, and has imparted to them of her 
 own eternity. Here let us rest at last. 
 Christianity, the true, the perfect, the last 
 revelation to the human soul, makes her 
 commanding appeal to us all, as men, and 
 as scholars. And we are feeble as well as 
 false if we refuse to bow down before her. 
 To what purpose is culture if it rise not 
 above the earth we tread upon ? Of what 
 avail is learning if we are ignorant of that 
 science, toward which all philosophy has 
 been struggling, and of which Christianity 
 is the teacher? 
 
 Let the lips of the orator be touched 
 with a living coal from off the altar of the 
 Lord. Let the poet breathe the airs of 
 Palestine, once vocal with the music and 
 the harp of David ; let the philosopher be 
 instructed by the profound metaphysics of 
 
196 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Paul; let the whole man be purified by the 
 simple, the sublime revelation of the Gos 
 pel. We may do something then, but not 
 otherwise. For power, and learning, and 
 wisdom, and eloquence can do nothing 
 alone. A man with leather-girdled loins 
 will come up from the wilderness, and 
 wake the slumbering echoes of all Judea, 
 and the heartless formalist, the wily Phari 
 see, and the learned rabbi shall tremble 
 before him. For God can choose the weak 
 things of the world to confound the strong, 
 and foolish things of the world to con. 
 found the wise ; aye, and things that are 
 not, to set at nought the things that are. 
 
ADDRESS 
 
 AT THE CLOSE OF THE SCHOOL YEAR 
 
 OF THE 
 
 MAINE FEMALE SEMINARY. 
 
 GORHAM, JULY, 1859. 
 
ADDRESS. 
 
 FIVE-AND-TWENTY years have enrolled 
 themselves on the records of the irrevoca 
 ble past since I in all the inexperience 
 and trembling hope of early boyhood 
 passed out of the portals of what was then 
 known, widely and honorably known, as 
 the Gorham Academy, to join my class in 
 the wider sphere and maturer studies of 
 the college. From the single, intellectual 
 and moral guidance of that noble-hearted 
 and kindly-stern old man, whose earnest 
 eye and deep-toned voice, and whose fig 
 ure, bent by too absorbing devotion to his 
 work and books, are among the inefface 
 able memories of a life-time; hence I de 
 parted, no more to come again, save as a 
 pious pilgrim to a shrine, where linger 
 
200 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 tender and holy recollections, winning back 
 the willing feet of manhood to stand awhile 
 in love and reverence where once they 
 danced in the earlier years. 
 
 I look upon the well-known faces and, 
 dwellings of the village, and recognize the 
 features of a familiar landscape, preserved 
 in the eye not only by the force of their 
 original impression, but as retouched by 
 now and then a flying visit and a hasty 
 summary and survey of their changes. 
 The walks, the play-grounds, the daily 
 ascent to school, the quiet nooks, where 
 friendly trees defended us from the sum 
 mer s sun, the very dust of summer and 
 the snow-drifts of the winter, as well as the 
 dear companions of those innocent and 
 more careless days, some whose friend 
 ship during all these years has rendered 
 life more worth the living, and some whose 
 memories make the " silent land " itself 
 fragrant and beautiful, come back with 
 me to-day, and we seem to re-visit together 
 and to hold a fond reunion. 
 
ADDRESS. 201 
 
 The intervening years become a dream ; 
 so many seasons, with their birds and fruits ; 
 so many storms and so many fertilizing 
 showers ; so many experiences of life and 
 death ; of hope and disappointment ; so 
 many heavy hours, when the flesh was 
 weary and the whole head sick ; so many 
 strong and gallant days when we stood up 
 in the current of the heady fight, when the 
 battle-axe was but a feather, for heart and 
 hand were both so strong ; so many fore 
 bodings have been unrealized and so many 
 mercies have been spent ; the fathers have 
 passed away and their sons have grown 
 gray with years and cares. And, yet, as 
 the river sweeping by leaves no trace upon 
 its banks of sand, as the ripple melts away 
 into the mirrored surface of the pool, as 
 the earth mother of us all is young 
 and shows no scars of time, so does the 
 benignant Providence smooth down the 
 roughness of our lives, tempering all things 
 by such merciful adjustment, that the aged 
 heart is warm and the heart of manhood is 
 
202 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 fresh with youth. I look about upon the 
 fathers and upon those, my own cotempo- 
 raries, who still remain, and with this 
 pause of memory, gratitude and reverence, 
 I own the lapse, the breaches and the bless 
 ings too of time, and pay my humble 
 tribute to the friends who taught and led 
 my childhood and added to its happiness 
 and peace and hopes. 
 
 To you, to whom this hour belongs, 
 whose right it is to claim the thought and 
 effort of the occasion, I know I do not 
 need to excuse this moment of delay. Nor 
 indeed do I either think or feel that any 
 cold and formal teaching of the brain, or 
 that any didactic sermonizing were it ever 
 so faultless or ever so true in its doctrine, 
 style, or logic would be the service with 
 which I might best illustrate the office of 
 such an anniversary. 
 
 At the close of an annual period of aca 
 demic study, when some are leaving these 
 abodes for new, or for older homes, for 
 duties more solitary, active and responsi- 
 
ADDRESS. 2O3 
 
 ble ; when all are making a rest, making a 
 period or a term, in the progress of life 
 and its education ; at this moment, when 
 sensitive natures feel so much ; when the 
 hopeful paint so brilliantly the images of 
 all they fancy in what remains to come ; I 
 would that I might speak not circu- 
 itously through the understanding, but 
 directly to you, yourselves. 
 
 I know something of what lies unspoken, 
 and but very rarely spoken to, in the in 
 most of your souls. In the clearer and 
 more thoughtful moments of all your lives, 
 I know there are moods of thought and 
 feeling, when duty, when the grand possi 
 bilities that are open to us all, when the 
 ideal of a noble life, the visions of a truth 
 and beauty, such as even the instruction 
 of -bards cannot tell in word, and such as 
 only saints and heroes have made actual, 
 possess and hold you. 
 
 It is to those best moments I wish I had 
 the gift to speak, so that they might not 
 end in the mere luxury of reverie, but 
 
204 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 might rise up to the solemn beauty of 
 stern and high resolve, so that the dull 
 prose of actual homely cares might not 
 dissolve that poetic charm, leaving only a 
 few tears and vain regrets, half real and 
 half romantic, as the poor remains of what 
 might have been a perpetual feast with the 
 immortals. Those are the hours of your 
 visitation ; then it is that the gateways of 
 the celestial and eternal city are opening 
 for you ; the winged ones are fluttering 
 around you, and the influx of wisdom and 
 love from the Lord himself, through all 
 these better thoughts and visions, comes 
 in to strengthen, warm and regenerate. 
 Sometimes in books we find the story of 
 our own lives as those lives are told in the 
 hours when life is thus transfigured before 
 us ; sometimes in history, sometimes in 
 fiction, when poetry paints a life, the poet 
 himself could imagine but never led. 
 Sometimes in men and women whom we 
 know, we see and recognize traits ; and 
 sometimes but more rarely characters, 
 
ADDRESS. 205 
 
 filled out and rounded up, which seem to 
 be the originals of our own best aspiration. 
 And, then, feeling that what we scarcely 
 dared to hope is not only possible to the 
 contemplation, but is already a fact of real 
 life, we are sometimes encouraged by per 
 ceiving how possible indeed is a true and 
 noble character; and more often, perhaps, 
 dismayed by the desolate distance at which 
 we halt behind. 
 
 Then, too, we come to know (because we 
 feel that it is true) that it is not what we 
 say, nor what we do, but what we are, by 
 which we are most truly known to God ; 
 by which we are most truly judged by our 
 own examination of ourselves ; by which 
 we are felt from the centre to the circum 
 ference of each one s sphere. 
 
 Character; or what we are. That is 
 what colors and gives tone and purpose 
 to what we do and what we say ; that 
 speaks in the voice, looks out from under 
 the eye-lids, smiles or curls on the lip, 
 blushes in the cheek, clenches or un- 
 
206 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 bends the hand, flushes or calms the 
 brow. 
 
 It is this which makes the plain man 
 look noble, and the proud man mean. It 
 is this which makes some countenances a 
 benediction when they pass, and some vis 
 ages hard, sour, and insignificant. I want 
 no letter of introduction to accompany a 
 noble man, or a sweet and genuine woman. 
 The certificates are impertinent which tes 
 tify on paper to what is written on the 
 speaking brow, and lip and eye, and cheek, 
 which veil but do not hide the translucent 
 soul. Do you talk of the sway or influ 
 ence of some great person ; call it, if you 
 please, some powerful leader of a party in 
 the State ; some strong-willed, clear-minded 
 leader of a sect ; of some woman, who 
 leads the fashion of her town ; or better 
 still, directs the tone and quality of social 
 custom there; or better still, is felt in the 
 thought and culture of its circle ? Do you 
 tell me that you are not captivated, nor 
 won over to reverence or love either the 
 
ADDRESS. 2O7 
 
 one or the other of them ? And, do you 
 ask, where is the title-deed to this magnifi 
 cent power, that you do not see it ? I tell 
 you that the power and all the power 
 they hold, or ever had, perhaps you yield 
 to as much as any others do. They may 
 be strong, but narrow ; real forces in the 
 direction, government, and growth of 
 States and social circles ; but good only in 
 the absence of those who would be better. 
 Or look again, lest you be dazzled by an 
 apparent power, which is not real. There 
 is an influence essentially of the man ; and 
 so there is an influence only accidental to 
 him. 
 
 In the absence of a natural, providen 
 tial leader, like Moses, like Caesar, like 
 Washington, people sometimes choose an 
 official leader, who best represents the 
 average of the prejudices and ignorance 
 of all. But when he is chosen, he is rec 
 ognized only as one of the parts of the 
 great social machine, which must be kept 
 in its motion ; not as the talismanic name, 
 
2O8 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the brave heart, the clear, sound head, the 
 true, devoted friend of all ; the represen 
 tative of their best thought, their best 
 culture, their highest aim, and their pro- 
 foundest faith. 
 
 The queen-bee is not created by the 
 votes in a ballot-box. She presides be 
 cause she is a Queen. She is a centre of 
 an influence as subtle as it is resistless, 
 and as significant and beautiful as it is real 
 and true. 
 
 Let who will be Pope, by the suffrages 
 of the Cardinals, wearing the triple crown, 
 scattering formalistic benedictions and pre 
 tending to be the Peter of the Church ; 
 when Ignatius Loyola comes, smitten 
 with a burning, quenchless zeal, possessed 
 by his idea, and alive with a faith that sees 
 no mountain too large, no sacrifice too 
 great, it is Loyola, not the Pope, who 
 rules, though he wears no crown. It is 
 Loyola who gives success and power, and 
 is the Rock, though he does not claim the 
 successorship of Peter. 
 
ADDRESS. 2O9 
 
 Leo X. may fulminate from the Seven 
 Hills, affect the attributes of him whose 
 vicar he claims to be, may bind and loose 
 on earth, and pretend to bind and loose in 
 Heaven. Kings may bow down, and the 
 Christian world stand in awe of him. But 
 a monk arises, in a distant University of 
 Germany ; he is one man against the mul 
 titude; a learned and pious man against 
 the mighty spiritual and temporal poten 
 tates of the great States of Europe. The 
 prejudices and accumulated opinions of 
 one thousand years stand up behind the 
 vast array of powers and men. But Luther 
 stands almost alone, planted on the truth 
 he saw, and the faith he knew, and the 
 invincible truth, represented and testified, 
 in the person of a man, whose very voice 
 and style and mien were the distinct em 
 bodiment of earnest, certain and defiant 
 conviction, vitalizing, informing and creat 
 ing a character equal to the emergency, 
 fitting the man himself to the hour he 
 came, revealed to Rome, to Christendom, 
 
 14 
 
210 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 and to Humanity, the unconquerable 
 hero of an irresistible and imperishable 
 reform. 
 
 Victoria, covered by the imagined ma 
 jesty with which a loyal people invest a 
 Queen, whose dominions belt the globe, 
 perhaps quite as worthy as a matron 
 as she is grand by her regal position, is, 
 to the unsophisticated heart, as she surely 
 must and will be in the long history of the 
 hereafter, a pale and ineffectual fire, when 
 we contrast with her accidental greatness, 
 the Heaven-elected Florence Nightingale. 
 Birth, and the ordinances of a State, made 
 the one a British Queen. CHARACTER 
 made the other oh, how much more 
 than royal, an almost peerless woman. 
 Elizabeth Fry, Mary Ware, Dorothea Dix, 
 and Harriet Ryan, I name a few con 
 spicuous examples from a catalogue, all 
 more or less illustrious, which your mem 
 ory will fill up, such as these are the 
 bright examples which decorate, while they 
 bless humanity of the character I mean. 
 
ADDRESS. 211 
 
 That greatness which is good, and that 
 goodness which is also great, do not con 
 stitute a marble statue, in which one critic 
 may point out the powerful proportions of 
 herculean strength, and another suggest 
 the perfection of Apollo s manly beauty. 
 That character at which I have hinted, but 
 am not vain enough to believe my words 
 can fitly describe, is not a picture in 
 which you may study the beauty of its 
 coloring, the accuracy of its delineation, 
 the truth of its outline, or the harmony 
 of its effect. It is as much more than a 
 statue, it is as much more than a paint 
 ing, as Nature is more and better than 
 Art. 
 
 CHARACTER, in the sense I mean when 
 I have spoken of these powerful and beau 
 tiful persons, is open to the acquisition of 
 us all; not less in the cool sequestered 
 vale than on the giddy heights of conspic 
 uous greatness. 
 
 You may achieve it, as well as all they 
 who out of weakness were made strong, of 
 
212 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 whom the world was not worthy, who 
 through faith have subdued kingdoms, and 
 obtained the promises. 
 
 For I have named these only for illus 
 tration. The qualities which we admire 
 in the prophetic heart, the cosmopolitan 
 genius, the universal culture and the inten 
 sity of thought, will, and feeling, of the 
 Hungarian statesman and orator, Louis 
 Kossuth ; the brilliant daring, the lion- 
 hearted independence, the clearness of 
 conception joined to the intrepidity and 
 skill of execution, which have astonished 
 Europe in the exploits of the Italian 
 patriot and hero, Joseph Garibaldi, all, all 
 lie, whether as rudiments of character, or 
 as possibilities of accomplishment, in every 
 man. 
 
 I have seen, I think, a heroism as real 
 and as poetic in humble men, who had no 
 history, and hardly claimed to hope for a 
 tombstone or an epitaph. I have heard an 
 eloquence as touching to the heart and as 
 stirring to the blood, as any which ever 
 
ADDRESS. 213 
 
 inspired armies on the eve of battle, or 
 senates in great emergencies of nations ; 
 eloquence from as pure fountains of crys 
 tal thought and feeling, albeit the men 
 and women who spoke have never had a 
 name in the schools of rhetoric, will never 
 be reported in any printed page. And I 
 have seen a devotedness, as true to high 
 ideals of the purest chivalry, as any I have 
 read of in the books that testify of fame. 
 
 I own that I almost lose my patience, 
 and find it hard to maintain the grace of 
 charity, when I hear the croaking of those 
 who with eyes which see nothing but 
 faults, and ears which hear nothing but 
 confusion, are permitted to walk on God s 
 green earth, to enjoy the society of man 
 and the providence of Heaven, and who 
 see no beauty and no good. Bad, indeed, 
 as some men become in the deep selfish 
 ness of their cold, inhuman hearts, I have 
 scarcely come to know one, who did not 
 reveal some better traits than even his 
 friends had told me of. 
 
214 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 No ; believe them not. Be not deceived 
 by the comparisons and contrasts seen in 
 the conditions, opportunities, and original 
 qualities of different men. Judged by any 
 standard erected here on earth, they may 
 seem to be wide, hopelessly wide, apart. 
 But place your point of observation in the 
 Heavens, where the Infinite One, who 
 knoweth and loveth all, stands and sur 
 veys us here ; and the infinite distance 
 at which we all are from him, dwarfs all 
 human differences, so that we may begin 
 to comprehend what is meant by seeing 
 as we are seen, and knowing as we are 
 known. 
 
 No ; and therein is the longing of your 
 better hours after the realization of truth 
 and beauty, after the highest good, in your 
 own lives, a prophecy as well as a desire of 
 the heart. Because, what in the parlance 
 of the world we call greatness, success, 
 prosperity, wealth, power, position, are only 
 the accidents or opportunities, of which 
 noble and genuine men and women avail 
 
ADDRESS, 215 
 
 themselves, when they come to them. 
 These things, which I have called the 
 accidents or opportunities of a man, may 
 shift and scatter like the autumn leaves. 
 They may desert him utterly, and leave 
 him as bare and poor and desolate as Lear. 
 But they have not deprived him of himself, 
 nor of any thing essentially his; not of 
 one real gift, nor one element of his real 
 greatness. 
 
 How much finer do we sometimes see 
 the quality of persons show itself, when 
 sudden calamity has unhorsed them and 
 driven them to their feet, when they are 
 enabled to find in themselves, and to 
 develope openly, the great qualities of 
 patience, resignation, and personal inde 
 pendence ; of thrift and economy, of in 
 dustry and the capacity of usefulness, of 
 cheerful dignity in the face of narrow 
 means and altered circumstances. How 
 much all of us become indebted to those 
 who reveal the fragrance of a character, 
 made more winning, more loving, and 
 
2l6 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 more brave and peaceful, by being thrown 
 back upon itself and its trust in God. 
 
 It is easy to be grand on great occa 
 sions. In an army of 180,000 men, just 
 led by Napoleon for the relief of Italy, how 
 many there were, of each of whom it might 
 have been said as of Murat, He was the 
 bravest of the brave. How few, indeed, 
 disclosed in fight the lack of personal, 
 physical courage and endurance, which we 
 recognize as the heroism of the field. 
 In the perilous edge of battle, where it 
 raged the hottest, they poured in streams 
 of thousands and ten thousands, a human 
 torrent, rising, surging, melting, gathering, 
 receding and swelling up again, like a 
 stream encountering the rocks and head 
 lands that impede its current. The col 
 umns stagger and fall before the awful 
 storms of leaden rain and iron hail ; and 
 warriors unhorsed, and dead and dying, 
 cover all the ground. For every man who 
 falls another comes, springs to the breach, 
 supplies his place, courts for himself the 
 
ADDRESS. 217 
 
 same caress of death, and in the frenzy 
 of the fight becomes a living miracle of 
 self-forgetfulness, and of the triumphant 
 heart and will of man. The courage of 
 battle is the rule, while cowardice on the 
 field is the comparatively rare exception. 
 
 But though I confess to a swelling of 
 the heart, to a quickening of the pulse, 
 when I read the story of such scenes as 
 every battle-field presents, proving the 
 grand capacity of self-abnegation there is 
 in every man ; and how men will lose 
 themselves in any cause ; and how the 
 intoxication of mere vulgar glory will ab 
 sorb every passion, even the instinctive 
 love of life, I confess I perceive that 
 those, too, are occasions when it is easy to 
 be great. 
 
 I turn to a poor young man, a con 
 script of France. He has followed the 
 imperial standard across the Alps, leaving 
 at home a mother straining her weary eyes 
 after the fortunes of her boy. His heart 
 was warm and his hope was high. But 
 
218 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the waves of sorrow have overwhelmed 
 him. Wounded on the field of victory, he 
 is carried bleeding and faint, after hours 
 of unalleviated pain, into a crowded hos 
 pital, where by the hands of the regimental 
 surgeon, he who began the day strong and 
 brave, proud in the vigor of his manhood, 
 is left the maimed wreck of what he was. 
 In his dreadful and sickening sense of 
 desolation, the home and the mother re 
 turn to him. But he remembers them 
 not to vex himself with unmanly, vain re 
 grets ; not to make his torment worse by 
 adding to his fever and distress by useless 
 longings. 
 
 No ; but he first indites a cheerful letter 
 to the mother, who might hear of his fall, 
 without hearing that his life was spared, 
 and supports her aged and maternal heart 
 by such words as these : " Mother, the sur 
 geon of my regiment has just taken off my 
 leg. I have always been used to having it, 
 and it was cruel to part ; but, mother, we 
 will not worry about its loss. You know, 
 
ADDRESS. 219 
 
 when I am at home again, you will always 
 have me by your side, to join you at your 
 table." Poor boy ! Brave, noble boy ! 
 Noble in that beautiful affection which 
 made him cheerful for a mother s sake; 
 noble in that serenity of courage, which, 
 looking aloft, had caught the spirit, if not 
 the formal word, of " Faith, which casts 
 anchor upwards, where storms do never 
 domineer." That was a bravery which 
 outvies the madness of the field. 
 
 I doubt not that in the annals of many 
 a New England village there are incidents 
 of as real nobleness and refinement of 
 character as any which decorate the lives 
 of grand, historic personages, less conspic 
 uous, less demonstrative, perhaps, but in 
 quality and in kind, the same. 
 
 A man that looks on glasse, 
 
 On it may stay his eye ; 
 Or, if he pleaseth, through it passe, 
 
 And then the heav n espie. 
 
 All may of thee partake ; 
 
 Nothing can be so mean, 
 Which with his tincture (for thy sake) 
 
 Will not grow bright and clean. 
 
22O MEMOIR OF JOHN A, ANDREW. 
 
 A servant with this clause 
 
 Makes drudgerie divine ; 
 Who sweeps a room as for thy laws, 
 
 Makes that and th action fine. 
 
 And I doubt not the meanness and 
 ignobleness of many, even of those whose 
 advantages of talent and culture had en 
 titled the world to expect of them useful 
 and exemplary lives. 
 
 I have endeavored, in these hasty reflec 
 tions, to encourage you: ist. To rever 
 ence the Good that speaks within you. 2d. 
 To believe in the possibility of a life which 
 shall satisfy the best aspirations. 3d. To 
 recognize all times, places and conditions, 
 as equally real, if less conspicuous oppor 
 tunities of moral greatness. 
 
 And now I pray you to let me, in per 
 haps a little more practical and simple 
 method, speak in direct application to that 
 most interesting part of this day s audi 
 ence, for whom the sympathies of the hour 
 are all enlisted. I have avoided, young 
 ladies, the language of didactic morality, 
 of theologic instruction. I have used 
 
ADDRESS. 221 
 
 words of the broadest significance, speak 
 ing of human life and hopes, duties and 
 capacities, desiring to transcend all boun 
 daries of opinion and strike home to honest 
 hearts. 
 
 I have trusted myself to address the 
 heart of ardent and ingenuous youth, from 
 a standpoint of thought with which I feel 
 sure honest and hopeful minds will sym 
 pathize. And, do not mistake me, I am 
 not talking in the sense of romance. I 
 have been paying no tribute to fancy, have 
 not been indulging day-dreams, nor rever 
 ies. I believe in character, as a real thing, 
 an essence and a power. 
 
 Of all your education, the highest object 
 is to establish that. Education is not an 
 accumulation of facts ; it is not a system of 
 philosophy. It is not language, nor math 
 ematics. Education aims to furnish the 
 means and materials by which the mind 
 shall ascertain and cultivate its relations to 
 all truth and all duty. And be sure that 
 you have had but a cramped and unnatural 
 
222 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 growth, have studied with mistaken views 
 and false aims, if the acquisition of the 
 facts of history, the truths of nature, the 
 results of learning, have not enriched your 
 souls, enlarged your scope of thought, 
 deepened your insight, given you a better 
 hope, a fairer grace and culture of the 
 heart than you had before. 
 
 We consult a dictionary ; we study a 
 science, we roam through libraries, culling 
 here and there a fact, or a flower of 
 thought. We find what we wish, and we 
 leave behind the books, and care, perhaps, 
 little for them, more. We have mastered 
 the book ; and the thought of the writer 
 has passed into the mind and become a 
 part of ourselves. Not so with our ac 
 quaintance with a refined, cultivated, edu 
 cated friend or neighbor. Such a character 
 is always fresh, fragrant and new. It 
 grows with every day ; all the experiences 
 enrich it, all the cares of life tend to 
 develope it, all studies enlarge it. Even 
 deprivations and disappointments strike 
 
ADDRESS. 223 
 
 its roots deeper down towards the eternal 
 centre. Conversation feeds it, contempla 
 tion and conflict both strengthen it, and 
 the trials of life sanctify it. 
 
 Look within, my friends. Judge ye for 
 yourselves whether your idea of the edu 
 cation of the school has thus embraced and 
 filled out your ideal of a womanly life. 
 
 Christina, Queen of Sweden, the daugh 
 ter of the immortal Gustavus Adolphus, 
 herself one of those meteoric persons who 
 seem to have been made for the bene 
 fit of biographers and to puzzle honest 
 people, speaking of her own remorseless 
 industry, says, " the men and women who 
 waited on me were quite in despair, for 
 I gave them no rest night nor day." And 
 such was her incessant mental activity 
 that she acquired the reputation of im 
 mense learning. She was reputed to have 
 rapidly and thoroughly mastered Greek, 
 Latin, most of the modern languages, his 
 tory, philosophy, mathematics, geography, 
 astronomy, divinity and moral duties, as 
 
224 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 interpreted by John Matthias, a pious, 
 earnest man, from Luther s Catechism and 
 the best authors. But, adds one who has 
 sketched her character, the duty of rever 
 encing her mother, the tender, loving wife 
 and faithful widow of the great Gustavus, 
 was not, it would seem, included, for so 
 pained, offended at last, became the dis 
 consolate lady, with the conduct of Chris 
 tina, that she fled in secret to Denmark, 
 declaring that she preferred begging her 
 bread elsewhere, to the state of queen- 
 mother at her own daughter s court. That 
 she had great capacity, we know, although 
 we would not receive for gospel truth the 
 exaggeration and bombast of the courtier 
 who described her as " born with the head 
 of a Machiavel, the heart of a Titus, the 
 courage of an Alexander, and the elo 
 quence of a Tully." 
 
 Her father, lion of the North and bul 
 wark of the Protestant faith, had fallen at 
 the battle of Lutzen, in Upper Saxony. 
 Sweden, thought to have been, by the 
 
ADDRESS. 225 
 
 fall of Gustavus, hurled from her place 
 among the nations, and the cause of scrip 
 tural truth, struck down in the person of 
 its most powerful champion, were both 
 deemed to have been saved and restored 
 by the prophetic advice of the veteran 
 Chancellor, Oxenstiern, who proposed the 
 immediate enthronement of Christina, then 
 only six years of age, and her recognition 
 as the Queen of Sweden. 
 
 Amid the general joy the baby queen 
 was placed upon the throne of the great 
 Protestant warrior. And Sweden and the 
 faith were declared in her person to have 
 found salvation. 
 
 At sixteen years old, she openly presided 
 in the Senate, and a French ambassador 
 says she was " incredibly powerful therein." 
 At eighteen she governed, without any 
 check, as a monarch of absolute power. 
 
 But she was imperious, arbitrary, and 
 
 self-willed ; she exhausted all her grand 
 
 resources of occupation and amusement. 
 
 At one time the most violent supporter of 
 
 15 
 
226 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 letters and literary men ; at another she 
 forswore them all, insulted and degraded 
 scholars and philosophers with indignities 
 and meanness not to be borne ; abused 
 her friends, berated all her sex, betrayed 
 her mission both as a queen and a woman ; 
 and in twenty-two years after her ascent to 
 the throne, quitted it in satiety and dis 
 gust, abdicated in favor of Charles Augus 
 tus, the Crown Prince of Sweden, left 
 the kingdom with her private treasures, 
 recanted the faith of her father and the 
 doctrines of the Reformation, was admitted 
 into the Church of Rome, and, after that, 
 describes her own employment, in a private 
 letter, in terms like these : 
 
 " I eat well, sleep well, study a little, chat, 
 laugh, see French and Italian plays, and pass my 
 time in agreeable dissipation. I hear no sermons, 
 and utterly despise all orators. As Solomon 
 says, all wisdom is vanity ; everyone ought to 
 live contentedly, eat, drink, and be merry." 
 
 She lived without a conscience, and she 
 halted at no crime. 
 
ADDRESS. 227 
 
 Such is the outline of the story and life 
 of a great and powerful princess, on whom 
 nature and accidental position had lavished 
 the noblest gifts ; on whom the highest 
 hopes of religion and the State reposed ; 
 whose vigorous health, commanding abili 
 ties, fondness and fitness for labor, and 
 whose opportunities of instruction had 
 enabled her to become celebrated for her 
 acquirements in many of the departments 
 of learning. With many royal qualities, as 
 well as a royal station, she became, at the 
 best, but a splendid ruin. 
 
 Elizabeth Gurney (afterwards Mrs. Fry), 
 was on her father s side the daughter of an 
 ancient English family, and was, through 
 her mother, descended from Robert Bar 
 clay, the early apologist of Quakerism. 
 John Gurney, her father, was a man of 
 great respectability and large wealth. Her 
 mother was beautiful, gifted and good. 
 Elizabeth was four years old when her 
 family removed from their residence to 
 Earlham Hall, about two miles from Nor- 
 
228 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 wich, a stately old mansion, once belonging 
 to the Verulam family, commanding a 
 scene of great natural beauty in a wooded 
 park, by the silver stream of Wensum. 
 Her father not belonging to the class 
 known as plain Quakers, and being a rich 
 man, his family were never, in any discipli 
 nary sense, formal or rigid " Friends." She 
 was taught music, dancing, drawing, and 
 other ornamental accomplishments. She 
 was quite a proficient in operatic music, 
 and greatly delighted in the amusement of 
 dancing, in which, by her vivacity and 
 grace, she easily excelled. 
 
 She never disclosed any fondness for the 
 toils of study, and seemed to dislike the 
 routine of lesson learning and recitation, 
 gained no celebrity as a scholar, either by 
 any exhibition of native talent, or by any 
 industry in the search of knowledge. 
 
 She was conscious of having a keen 
 relish for admiration and light amuse 
 ments, and naively said, after having seen 
 the Prince of Wales at the opera: "I do, 
 
ADDRESS. 229 
 
 I own, love grand company ; " and at an 
 other time ingenuously admits, " I do love 
 a piece of scandal." 
 
 One morning, in 1804, when Elizabeth 
 Fry was scarcely twenty-four years old, a 
 party of Quaker friends visited the misera 
 ble quadrangular enclosure, in Newgate 
 Jail, where some three hundred female 
 prisoners were herded together, in squalor, 
 filth, and all external signs of misery. 
 They were many of them profane, obscene, 
 and drunken. But, without regard to age, 
 or the quality of their offences, and with 
 out regard to the fact whether they were 
 convicted felons, or only suspected persons 
 detained for trial, the poor creatures stood 
 there together under one common curse of 
 social outlawry, poverty and shame. 
 
 " They are utterly irreclaimable, be 
 assured; sunk in depravity and crime 
 beyond the power of rescue," declared an 
 officer of Newgate, to a suggestion of one 
 of the " Friends," in behalf of these poor 
 sisters of sin and misfortune. The Chris- 
 
230 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 tian churches and people of England, 
 of that England " whose flag had braved a 
 thousand years, the battle and the breeze," 
 on whose empire the sun never sets, whose 
 naval and military power, whose com 
 mercial influence, and whose literature, 
 science and jurisprudence, outshone the 
 splendors of any other land in any age, 
 and whose church establishment and dis 
 senting clergy combined, presented an 
 array of scholars and divines, unsurpassed 
 in the history of the Protestant faith, were 
 helpless and powerless to give a ray of 
 hope to the poor and wretched whom the 
 Master had most especially commanded 
 them to visit and succor. " Thou dost not 
 surely mean, that they are beyond the 
 power and the reach of God ? " exclaimed 
 Elizabeth Fry, in a voice singularly sweet 
 by nature, and with her peculiarly clear, 
 thrilling tone. 
 
 A few days afterwards the youthful 
 matron, now in the fulness of her woman 
 hood, tall, fair and graceful, then a " plain 
 
ADDRESS. 231 
 
 Quaker," but still richly habited in the 
 costume of her sect, reappeared at New 
 gate, asked to be admitted to the quadran 
 gle and to be left there alone with the 
 female prisoners. Astounded at the re 
 quest, the Governor and all the officials of 
 Newgate, chaplain included, endeavored 
 to dissuade the beautiful missionary from 
 encountering the disgusting contact, the 
 dangerous and hopeless task. " I am in 
 the hands of God, and in his fear I feel no 
 other." Her character, her social position 
 as a gentlewoman, her persistent firmness, 
 overcame the officials, and she entered. 
 From the words of the Saviour she read 
 aloud out of the open book. The sweet 
 promise, the tender invitations of grace, 
 fell on the ears of women who knew God 
 and Christ only as words with which to 
 intensify a curse, or only as dim memories 
 of a buried hope. 
 
 The pathetic tone of that charming 
 voice, and her beautiful countenance, lit 
 up by heavenly love, seemed to make her 
 
232 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW, 
 
 the embodiment in flesh of the sublime 
 chanty she taught. 
 
 The tumult of beggary, audacity and 
 folly, which saluted her approach, subsided, 
 as she read. The magnetism of love 
 leaped from her serene and pious heart to 
 theirs. They stay their Babel cries to 
 catch the accents and the words of so 
 much tenderness. The quenchless spark 
 of the Divine was fanned by Heaven s own 
 breath, and warmed in those poor hearts 
 anew. "Hush" (when some slight noise 
 disturbed again the current of her reading), 
 " Hush," exclaimed a woman with glitter 
 ing eye and fevered cheek, " the angels 
 have lent her their voices." 
 
 Six years before, Mrs. Fry, then the gay 
 and beautiful Elizabeth Gurney, listened 
 at Norwich to William Savery, a Quaker 
 preacher from America, who bore earnest 
 and solemn testimony of the dangers that 
 beset those " who wander from the simple, 
 safe path of self-denial." She went home 
 weeping in her carriage. William Savery 
 
ADDRESS. 233 
 
 saw her at her father s home, at Earlham 
 Hall, and pointed her to a future career of 
 usefulness and true nobility in the love of 
 God and her fellowmen. 
 
 " Strange, indeed, that it should be said 
 to me that I may prove sight to the blind, 
 speech to the dumb, and feet to the lame. 
 Can it be?" Yes, Elizabeth, and more, 
 far more, than these ; thou shalt be soaring 
 wings to sinking hearts and heavy-laden 
 souls, bearing them up from the clouds and 
 pestilence of earth to the peace of Heaven. 
 
 You know her long and self-denying life, 
 commanding respect and winning love ; a 
 bright example of womanhood, by the 
 purity and beauty of a character as simple 
 and unaffected as any poet ever dreamed 
 of in sylvan life, and as steadfast as the 
 rock of truth she stood on. The humble, 
 the poor, and the prisoner, loved her as 
 their friend ; the highest in the land gave 
 to her the homage of their unaffected 
 admiration. In the sixty-seventh year of 
 her age, she breathed out her spirit, with 
 
234 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 a smile on her lips, as if an angel had 
 kissed them, whispering in death : " It is 
 a strife, but I am safe." 
 
 Contrast the life and the words of Chris 
 tina, the proud and talented Swedish queen, 
 with the life, and the peaceful parting words 
 of Elizabeth Fry, and remember the selfish 
 ness of the one, and the self-devotion of the 
 other. 
 
 The character of Christina was formed 
 on the pattern of a vain-glorious, self- 
 seeking and absorbing egotism; Elizabeth 
 Gurney was recalled in her girlhood to 
 the " simple, safe path of self -denial " by 
 the inspiring earnestness of the Quaker 
 preacher. 
 
 Whether in the pursuits of learning, of 
 power, of fame or pleasure, Christina was 
 the proud, imperious queen, and the heart 
 less epicurean. Elizabeth conquered her 
 young frivolities, cleared and concentrated 
 her intellectual powers by purifying her 
 heart and reposing her soul on immor 
 tality. 
 
ADDRESS. 235 
 
 There is no mystery in a true and noble 
 life. " The word is very nigh unto thee. 
 It is in thy heart." Be true to the highest 
 good you know ; stand fast by the teach 
 ing and the warning of your best and 
 tenderest hours. In the quiet of the study, 
 in the whirl of social life, in the engross 
 ment of daily toils, in the absorption of 
 domestic cares, in the relations of the fire 
 side, of the neighborhood and of society, 
 still be faithful and true, speaking little of 
 duty, but doing much. There is a secret 
 in every soul, between itself and God. 
 Guard it as the vestal fire. 
 
 It is your assurance of usefulness and 
 peace for ever. In quietness and confi 
 dence, with smiling face and cheerful, 
 hearty voice, pass on from duty to duty, 
 through all the cares and trials of your lot. 
 Affect no singularities of speech or style. 
 Be catholic, charitable, amiable, firm and 
 free. Forbid no man nor woman. Let 
 each exorcise sin and slay the adversary in 
 his own way. Life is too short, and the 
 
236 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 field is too white, for debate among the 
 reapers. Forget the words applause and 
 fame. You shall win more than popular 
 ity ; you shall command the sweet rewards 
 of Love. 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS 
 
 TO THE 
 
 TWO BRANCHES OF THE LEGISLATURE. 
 JANUARY 5, 1866. 
 
ON retiring from office, Governor Andrew delivered 
 the following address to the General Court of Massachu 
 setts ; "the sentiments and logic of which he maintained, 
 without qualification, to the day of his death ; and by 
 which he expressed a wish that his title to fame in the 
 history of his country should be determined." Of this 
 memorable scene an eye-witness says : " Who that was 
 present can forget that last day in office ? He invited to 
 his rooms a large number of his friends to go in with him 
 and hear the address. There you saw together a remark 
 able company. There were men and women of all ages ; 
 from Levi Lincoln, then eighty-four years of age, to little 
 boys and girls. Side by side were old abolitionists and 
 old conservatives, orthodox men and radicals those who 
 had never met before in one room in their lives." 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 
 
 Gentlemen of the Senate and the 
 
 House of Representatives : 
 
 THE people of Massachusetts have vin 
 dicated alike their intelligence, their pat 
 riotism, their will, and their power; both 
 in the cultivation of the arts of Peace, and 
 in the prosecution of just and unavoidable 
 War. At the end of five years of Execu 
 tive administration, I appear before a Con 
 vention of the two Houses of her General 
 Court, in the execution of a final duty. 
 
 For nearly all that period, the Common 
 wealth, as a loyal State of the American 
 Union, has been occupied, within her sphere 
 of co-operation, in helping to maintain, by 
 arms, the power of the nation, the liberties 
 of the people, and the rights of human na 
 ture. 
 
24O MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Having contributed to the Army and the 
 Navy including regulars, volunteers, sea 
 men, and marines, men of all arms and 
 officers of all grades, and of the various 
 terms of service an aggregate of one 
 hundred and fifty-nine thousand one hun 
 dred and sixty-five men ; and having ex 
 pended for the war, out of her own Treasury, 
 twenty-seven million seven hundred and 
 five thousand one hundred and nine dol 
 lars, besides the expenditures of her cities 
 and towns, she has maintained, by the un 
 failing energy and economy of her sons and 
 daughters, her industry and thrift, even in 
 the waste of war. She has paid promptly, 
 and in gold, all interest on her bonds, 
 including the old and the new, guarding 
 her faith and honor with every public credi 
 tor, while still fighting the public enemy; 
 and now, at last, in retiring from her ser 
 vice, I confess the satisfaction of having 
 first seen all of her regiments and batteries, 
 (save two battalions,) returned and mus 
 tered out of the Army ; and of leaving her 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 24! 
 
 treasury provided for, by the fortunate and 
 profitable negotiation of all the permanent 
 loan needed or foreseen with her finan 
 cial credit maintained at home and abroad, 
 her public securities unsurpassed, if even 
 equalled, in value in the money market of 
 the world by those of any State or of the 
 Nation. 
 
 I have already had the honor to lay be 
 fore the General Court, by special message 
 to the Senate, a statement of all affairs 
 which demand my own official communi 
 cation. And it only remains for me, to 
 transfer, at the appropriate moment, the 
 cares, the honors, and the responsibilities 
 of office, to the hands of that eminent and 
 patriotic citizen, on whose public experi 
 ence and ability the Commonwealth so 
 justly relies. 
 
 But, perhaps, before descending, for the 
 last time, from this venerable seat, I may 
 be indulged in some allusion to the broad 
 field of thought and statesmanship, to 
 
 which the war itself has conducted us. 
 16 
 
242 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 As I leave the Temple where, humbled 
 by my unworthiness, I have stood so long, 
 like a priest of Israel sprinkling the blood 
 of the holy sacrifice on the altar I 
 would fain contemplate the solemn and 
 manly duties which remain to us who sur 
 vive the slain, in honor of their memory 
 and in obedience to God. 
 
 The Nation having been ousted by 
 armed Rebellion of its just possession, and 
 the exercise of its constitutional jurisdic 
 tion over the territory of the Rebel States, 
 has now at last, by the suppression of the 
 Rebellion, (accomplished by the victories 
 of the national arms over those of the 
 Rebels,) regained possession and restored 
 its own rightful sway. 
 
 The Rebels had overthrown the loyal 
 State Governments. They had made war 
 against the Union. The government of 
 each Rebel State had not only withdrawn 
 its allegiance, but had given in its adhesion 
 to another, viz., The Confederate Govern 
 ment, a government, not only injurious 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 243 
 
 by its very creation, but hostile to, and in 
 arms against, the Union, asserting and ex 
 ercising belligerent rights, both on land 
 and sea, and seeking alliances with foreign 
 nations, even demanding the armed inter 
 vention of neutral powers. 
 
 The pretensions of this " Confederacy " 
 were maintained for some four years, in 
 one of the most extensive, persistent and 
 bloody wars of History. To overcome it 
 and maintain the rights and the very exist 
 ence of the Union, our National Govern 
 ment was compelled to keep on foot one 
 of the most stupendous military establish 
 ments the world has ever known. And 
 probably the same amount of force, naval 
 and military, was never organized and in 
 volved in any national controversy. 
 
 On both sides there was war, with all its 
 incidents, all its claims, its rights and its 
 results. 
 
 The States in rebellion tried, under the 
 lead of their new Confederacy, to conquer 
 the Union ; but in the attempt they were 
 themselves conquered. 
 
244 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 They did not revert by their rebellion, 
 nor by our conquest, into " Territories." 
 They did not commit suicide. But they 
 rebelled, they went to war ; and they were 
 conquered. 
 
 A " territory " of the United States is a 
 possession, or dependency, of the United 
 States, having none of the distinctive, con 
 stitutional attributes of a State. A terri 
 tory might be in rebellion ; but not thereby 
 cease to be a territory. It would be prop 
 erly described as a territory in rebellion. 
 Neither does a State in rebellion cease to 
 be a State. It would be correctly de 
 scribed, a State in rebellion. And it would 
 be subject to the proper consequences of 
 rebellion, both direct and incidental, 
 among which may be that of military gov 
 ernment, or supervision, by the nation, 
 determinable only by the nation, at its own 
 just discretion, in the due exercise of the 
 rights of war. The power to put an end 
 to its life is not an attribute of a State of 
 our Union. Nor can the Union put an 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 24$ 
 
 end to its own life, save by an alteration of 
 the National Constitution, or by suffering 
 such defeat, in war, as to bring it under 
 the jurisdiction of a conqueror. The na 
 tion has a vested interest in the life of the 
 individual State. The States have a vested 
 interest in the life of the Union. I do 
 not perceive, therefore, how a State has 
 the power by its own action alone, with 
 out the co-operation of the Union, to de 
 stroy the continuity of its corporate life. 
 Nor do I perceive how the National Union 
 can by its own action, without the action 
 or omission of the States, destroy the con 
 tinuity of its own corporate life. It seems 
 to me that the stream of life flows through 
 both State and Nation from a double 
 source ; which is a distinguishing element 
 of its vital power. Eccentricity of motion 
 is not death ; nor is abnormal action or 
 ganic change. 
 
 The position of the rebel States is fixed 
 by the Constitution, and by the laws, or 
 rights, of war. If they had conquered the 
 
246 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Union, they might have become indepen 
 dent, or whatever else it might have been 
 stipulated they should become, by the 
 terms of an ultimate treaty of peace. But 
 being conquered, they failed in becoming 
 independent, and they failed in accomplish 
 ing anything but their own conquest. They 
 were still States, though belligerents 
 conquered. But they had lost their loyal 
 organization as States, lost their present 
 possession of their political and representa 
 tive power in the Union. Under the Con 
 stitution they have no means nor power 
 of their own to regain it. But the exigency 
 is provided for by that clause in the Fed 
 eral Constitution in which the Federal 
 Government guarantees a republican form 
 of government to every State. The regu 
 lar and formal method would be, therefore, 
 for the National Government to provide 
 specifically for their re-organization. 
 
 The right and duty, however, of the 
 General Government, under the circum 
 stances of their present ease, is not the 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 247 
 
 single one of re-organizing these disorgan 
 ized States. The war imposed rights and 
 duties, peculiar to itself, and to the rela 
 tions and the results of War. The first 
 duty of the Nation is to regain its own 
 power. It has already made a great ad 
 vance in the direction of its power. 
 
 If ours were a despotic government, it 
 might even now be thought that it had 
 already accomplished the re-establishment 
 of its power as a government. But, ours 
 being a republican and a popular govern 
 ment, it cannot be affirmed, that the proper 
 power of the government is restored, until 
 a peaceful, loyal and faithful state of mind 
 gains a sufficient ascendancy in the rebel 
 and belligerent States, to enable the Union 
 and loyal citizens everywhere to repose 
 alike on the purpose and the ability of 
 their people, in point of numbers and ca 
 pacity, to assert, maintain and conduct 
 State Governments, republican in form, 
 loyal in sentiment and character, with 
 safety to themselves and to the national 
 
248 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 whole. If the people, or too large a por 
 tion of the people, of a given rebel State, 
 are not willing and able to do this, then 
 the state of war still exists, or at least, a 
 condition consequent upon and incidental 
 thereto exists, which only the exercise on 
 our part of belligerent rights, or some of 
 their incidents, can meet or can cure. The 
 rights of war must continue until the ob 
 jects of the war have been accomplished, 
 and the nation recognizes the return of a 
 state of peace. It is absolutely necessary 
 then for the Union Government to pre 
 scribe some reasonable test of loyalty to 
 the people of the States in rebellion. It is 
 necessary to require of them conformity to 
 those arrangements which the war has 
 rendered, or proved to be, necessary to the 
 public peace, and necessary as securities 
 for the future. As the conquering party, 
 the National Government has the right to 
 govern these belligerent States meanwhile, 
 at its own wise and conscientious discre 
 tion, subject: ist. To the demands of 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 249 
 
 natural justice, humanity and the usages 
 of civilized nations. 2d. To its duty under 
 the Constitution, to guarantee Republican 
 governments to the States. 
 
 But there is no arbiter, save the people 
 of the United States, between the Gov 
 ernment of the Union and those States. 
 Therefore the precise things to be done, 
 the precise way to do them, the precise 
 steps to be taken, their order, progress and 
 direction, are all within the discretion of 
 the National Government, in the exercise, 
 both of its belligerent, and its more strictly 
 constitutional, functions, exercising them 
 according to its own wise, prudent and just 
 discretion. Its duty is not only to restore 
 those States, but also to make sure of a 
 lasting peace, of its own ultimate safety, 
 and the permanent establishment of the 
 rights of all its subjects. To this end, I 
 venture the opinion that the Government 
 of the United States ought to require the 
 people of those States to reform their Con 
 stitutions, 
 
250 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 1. Guaranteeing to the people of color, 
 now the wards of the Nation, their civil 
 rights as men and women, on an equality 
 with the white population, by amendments, 
 irrepealable in terms. 
 
 2. Regulating the elective franchise ac 
 cording to certain laws of universal appli 
 cation, and not by rules merely arbitrary, 
 capricious and personal. 
 
 3. Annulling the ordinances of Seces 
 sion. 
 
 4. Disaffirming the Rebel Debt, and 
 
 5. To ratify the anti-slavery amendment 
 of the United States Constitution by their 
 legislatures. 
 
 And I would have all these questions, 
 save the fifth the disposition of which is 
 regulated by the Federal Constitution put 
 to the vote of the People themselves. We 
 should neither be satisfied with the action 
 of the conventions which have been held, 
 nor with what is termed the " loyal vote." 
 We want the popular vote. And the rebel 
 vote is better than the loyal vote, if on the 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 2$\ 
 
 right side. If it is not on the right side, 
 then I fear those States are incapable at 
 present of re-organization ; the proper 
 power of the Union Government is not 
 restored ; the people of those States are 
 not yet prepared to assume their original 
 functions with safety to the Union ; and 
 the state of war still exists; for they are 
 contumacious and disobedient to the just 
 demands of the Union, disowning the just 
 conditions precedent to re-organization. 
 
 We are desirous of their re-organization, 
 and to end the use of the war power. But 
 I am confident we cannot re-organize po 
 litical society with any proper security : 
 i. Unless we let in the people to a co 
 operation, and not merely an arbitrarily 
 selected portion of them. 2. Unless we 
 give those who are, by their intelligence 
 and character, the natural leaders of the 
 people, and who surely will lead them by- 
 and-by, an opportunity to lead them now. 
 
 I am aware that it has been a favorite 
 dogma in many quarters, " No Rebel Vot- 
 
252, MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 ers? But it is impossible in certain 
 States to have any voting by white men, if 
 only " loyal men " i. e., those who con 
 tinued so, during the rebellion, are per 
 mitted to vote. This proposition is so 
 clear that the President adopted the expe 
 dient of assuming that those who had not 
 risen above certain civil or military grades 
 in the Rebel public service, and who had 
 neither inherited nor earned more than a 
 certain amount of property, should be 
 deemed and taken to be sufficiently harm 
 less to be intrusted with the suffrage in 
 the work of re-organization. Although 
 there is some reason for assuming that the 
 less conspicuous and less wealthy classes 
 of men had less to do than their more 
 towering neighbors in conducting the 
 States into the Rebellion and through it 
 still I do not imagine that either wealth 
 or conspicuous position, which are only the 
 accidents of men, or at most, only external 
 incidents, affect the substance of their 
 characters. I think the poorer and less 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 2$$ 
 
 significant men who voted, or fought, for 
 " Southern Independence " had quite as 
 little love for " the Yankees," quite as much 
 prejudice against " the Abolitionists," quite 
 as much contempt for the colored man, 
 and quite as much disloyalty at heart, as 
 their more powerful neighbors. 
 
 The true question is, now, not of past 
 disloyalty, but of present loyal purpose. 
 We need not try to disguise the fact, that 
 we have passed through a great popular 
 revolution. Everybody in the Rebel States 
 was disloyal, with exceptions too few and 
 too far between to comprise a loyal force, 
 sufficient to constitute the State, even now 
 that the armies of the Rebellion are over 
 thrown. Do not let us deceive ourselves. 
 The truth is, the public opinion of the 
 white race in the South was in favor of the 
 rebellion. The colored people sympa 
 thized with the Union cause. To the ex 
 tent of their intelligence, they understood 
 that the success of the South meant their 
 continued slavery ; that an easy success of 
 
254 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. AND RE IV. 
 
 the North meant leaving slavery just where 
 we found it; that the War meant, if it 
 lasted long enough their emancipation. 
 The whites went to war and supported the 
 war, because they hoped to succeed in it; 
 since they wanted, or thought they wanted, 
 separation from the Union, or " Southern 
 Independence." There were, then, three 
 great interests there were the Southern 
 whites, who as a body, wished for what 
 they called " Southern Independence " ; 
 the Southern blacks, who desired emanci 
 pation ; the people of the " loyal States " 
 who desired to maintain the constitutional 
 rights and the territorial integrity of the 
 Nation. Some of us in the North had a 
 strong hope, which by the favor of God 
 has not been disappointed, out of our de 
 fence of the Union to accomplish the deliv 
 erance of our fellow-men in bondage. But 
 the "loyal" idea included emancipation, 
 not for its own sake, but for the sake of 
 the Union if the Union could be saved, 
 or served, by it. There were many men 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS, 2$$ 
 
 in the South besides those known as 
 loyal who did not like to incur the re 
 sponsibility of war against the Union ; or 
 who did not think the opportune moment 
 had arrived to fight " the North " ; or in 
 whose hearts there was " a divided allegi 
 ance." But, they were not the positive 
 men. They were, with very few excep 
 tions, not the leading minds, the courage 
 ous men, the impressive and powerful 
 characters, they were not the young and 
 active men. And when the decisive hour 
 came, they went to the wall. No matter 
 what they thought, or how they felt, about 
 it ; they could not stand or they would not 
 stand certainly they did not stand, 
 against the storm. The Revolution either 
 converted them, or swept them off their 
 feet. Their own sons volunteered. They 
 became involved in all the work and in all 
 the consequences of the war. The South 
 ern people as a people fought, toiled, 
 endured, and persevered, with a courage, a 
 unanimity and a persistency, not outdone 
 
256 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 by any people in any Revolution. There 
 was never an acre of territory abandoned 
 to the Union while ft could be held by 
 arms. There was never a Rebel regiment 
 surrendered to the Union arms until resist 
 ance was overcome by force; or a surrender 
 was compelled by the stress of battle, or 
 of military strategy. The people of the 
 South, men and women, soldiers and civil 
 ians, volunteers and conscripts, in the army 
 and at home, followed the fortunes of the 
 Rebellion and obeyed its leaders, so long 
 as it had any fortunes or any leaders. 
 Their young men marched up to the can 
 non s mouth, a thousand times, where they 
 were mowed down like grain by the reapers 
 when the harvest is ripe. Some men had 
 the faculty, and the faith in the Rebel 
 cause, to become its leaders. The others 
 had the faculty and the faith to follow 
 them. 
 
 All honor to the loyal few ! But I do 
 not regard the distinction between loyal 
 and disloyal persons of the white race, re- 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 
 
 siding in the South, during the rebellion, 
 as being, for present purposes, a practical 
 distinction. It is even doubtful whether 
 the comparatively loyal few (with certain 
 prominent and honorable exceptions), can 
 be well discriminated from the disloyal 
 mass. And since the President finds him 
 self obliged to let in the great mass of the 
 disloyal, by the very terms of his proclama 
 tion of amnesty, to a participation in the 
 business of re-organizing the Rebel States, 
 I am obliged also to confess that I think 
 to make one rule for the richer and higher 
 rebels, and another rule for the poorer and 
 more lowly rebels is impolitic and unphilo- 
 sophical. I find evidence in the granting 
 of pardons, that such also is the opinion of 
 the President. 
 
 When the day arrives, which must surely 
 come, when an amnesty, substantially uni 
 versal, shall be proclaimed, the leading 
 minds of the South, who by temporary 
 policy and artificial rules had been, for the 
 while, disfranchised, will resume their in- 
 17 
 
258 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 fluence and their sway. The capacity of 
 leadership is a gift, not a device. They 
 whose courage, talents, and will entitle them 
 to lead, will lead. And these men not 
 then estopped by their own consent or par 
 ticipation, in the business of re-organiza 
 tion may not be slow to question the 
 validity of great public transactions enacted 
 during their own disfranchisement. If it 
 is asked, in reply, " What can they do ? " 
 and "What can come of their discontent?" 
 I answer, that while I do not know just 
 what they can do, nor what may come of 
 it, neither do I know what they may not 
 attempt, nor what they may not accomplish. 
 I only know that we ought to demand, and 
 to secure, the co-operation of the strongest 
 and ablest minds and the natural leaders 
 of opinion in the South. If we cannot 
 gain their support of the just measures 
 needful for the work of safe re-organiza 
 tion, re-organization will be delusive and 
 full of danger. 
 
 Why not try them? They are the most 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 259 
 
 hopeful subjects to deal with, in the very 
 nature of the case. They have the brain 
 and the experience and the education to 
 enable them to understand the exigencies 
 of the present situation. They have the 
 courage, as well as the skill, to lead the 
 people in the direction their judgments 
 point, in spite of their own and the popular 
 prejudice. Weaker men, those of less ex 
 perience, who have less hold on the public 
 confidence, are comparatively powerless. 
 Is it consistent with reason and our knowl 
 edge of human nature, to believe the 
 masses of Southern men able to face about, 
 to turn their backs on those they have 
 trusted and followed, and to adopt the lead 
 of those who have no magnetic hold on 
 their hearts or minds ? Re-organization in 
 the South demands the aid of men of great 
 moral courage, who can renounce their own 
 past opinions, and do it boldly ; who can 
 comprehend what the work is, and what 
 are the logical consequences of the new 
 situation ; men who have interests urging 
 
260 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 them to rise to the height of the occasion. 
 They are not the strong men from whom 
 weak, vacillating counsels come ; nor are 
 they the great men from whom come coun 
 sels born of prejudices and follies, having 
 their root in an institution they know to 
 be dead, and buried beyond the hope of 
 resurrection. 
 
 Has it never occurred to us all, that we 
 are now proposing the most wonderful and 
 unprecedented of human transactions ? 
 The conquering government, at the close 
 of a great war, is about restoring to the 
 conquered rebels not only their local gov 
 ernments in the States, but their represen 
 tative share in the general government of 
 the country ! They are, in their States, to 
 govern themselves as they did before the 
 rebellion. The conquered rebels are, in 
 the Union, to help govern and control the 
 conquering loyalists ! ! These being the 
 privileges which they are to enjoy, when 
 re-organization becomes complete, I de 
 clare that I know not any safeguard, pre- 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 26 1 
 
 caution, or act of prudence, which wise 
 statesmanship might not recognize to be 
 reasonable and just. If we have no right 
 to demand guarantees for the future; if we 
 have no right to insist upon significant 
 acts of loyal submission from the rebel 
 leaders themselves ; if we have no right to 
 demand the positive, popular vote in favor 
 of the guarantees we need ; if we may not 
 stipulate for the recognition of the just 
 rights of the slaves, whom, in the act of 
 suppressing the rebellion, we converted 
 from slaves into freemen, then I declare 
 that we had no right to emancipate the 
 slaves, nor to suppress the rebellion. 
 
 It may be asked : Why not demand the 
 suffrage for colored men, in season for 
 their vote in the business of re-organiza 
 tion ? My answer is I assume that the 
 colored men are in favor of those measures 
 which the Union needs to have adopted. 
 But it would be idle to re-organize those 
 States by the colored vote. If the popular 
 vote of the white race is not to be had in 
 
262 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 favor of the guarantees justly required, then 
 I am in favor of holding on just where 
 we now are. I am not in favor of a sur 
 render of the present rights of the Union 
 to a struggle between a white minority 
 aided by the freedmen on the one hand, 
 against a majority of the white race on the 
 other. I would not consent, having res 
 cued those States by arms from secession 
 and rebellion, to turn them over to anar 
 chy and chaos. I have, however, no doubt 
 none whatever of our right to stipu 
 late for colored suffrage. The question is 
 one of statesmanship, not a question of 
 constitutional limitation. 
 
 If it is urged that the suffrage question 
 is one peculiarly for the States, I reply : so 
 also that of the abolition of slavery ordina 
 rily would have been. But we are not now 
 deciding what a loyal State, acting in its 
 constitutional sphere, and in its normal re 
 lations to the Union, may do ; but what a 
 rebel, belligerent, conquered State must do, 
 in order to be re -organized and to get back 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 263 
 
 into those relations. And in deciding this, 
 I must repeat that we are to be governed 
 only by Justice, Humanity, the Public 
 Safety, and our duty to re-organize those 
 conquered, belligerent States, as we can 
 and when we can, consistently therewith. 
 
 In dealing with those States, with a view 
 to fulfilling the national guarantee of a re 
 publican form of government, it is plain, 
 since the nation is called upon to re-organ 
 ize government, where no loyal republican 
 State Government is in existence, that it 
 must, of absolute necessity, deal directly 
 with the People themselves. If a State 
 government were menaced and in danger 
 of subversion, then the nation would be 
 called upon to aid the existing government 
 of the State in sustaining itself against the 
 impending danger. But the present case 
 is a different one. The State Government 
 was subverted in each rebel State more 
 than four years ago. The State, in its 
 corporate capacity, went into rebellion ; 
 arid as long as it had the power, waged 
 
264 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 and maintained against the nation rebel 
 lious war. There is no government in 
 them to deal with. But there are the peo 
 ple. It is to the people we must go. It 
 is through their people alone, and it is in 
 their primary capacity alone, as people, 
 unorganized and without a government, 
 that the nation is capable now of dealing 
 with them at all. And, therefore, the gov 
 ernment of the nation is obliged, by the 
 sheer necessity of the case, to know who 
 are the people of the State, in the sense of 
 the National Constitution, in order to know 
 how to reach them. Congress, discerning 
 new people, with new rights, and new 
 duties and new interests (of the nation it 
 self even), springing from them, may right 
 fully stipulate in their behalf. If Congress 
 perceives that it cannot fulfil its guarantee 
 to all the people of a State, without such a 
 stipulation, then it not only may, but it 
 ought to, require and secure it. The guar 
 antee is one concerning all, not merely a 
 part of the People. And, though the gov- 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 26$ 
 
 ernment of a State might be of republican 
 form, and yet not enfranchise its colored 
 citizens ; still the substance and equity of 
 the guarantee would be violated, if, in ad 
 dition to their non-enfranchisement, the 
 colored people should be compelled to 
 share the burdens of a State government, 
 the benefits of which would enure to other 
 classes, to their own exclusion. A re 
 publican form of government is not of 
 necessity just and good. Nor is another 
 form, of necessity, unjust and bad. A 
 monarch may be humane, thoughtful and 
 just to every class and to every man. A 
 republic may be inhumane, regardless of, 
 and unjust to, some of its subjects. Our 
 National government and most of the State 
 governments were so, to those whom they 
 treated as slaves, or whose servitude they 
 aggravated by their legislation in the in 
 terest of Slavery. The Nation cannot 
 hereafter pretend that it has kept its 
 promise and fulfilled its guarantee, when 
 it shall have only organized governments 
 
266 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 of republican form, unless it can look all 
 the people in the face, and declare that it 
 has kept its promise with them all. The 
 voting class alone those who possessed 
 the franchise under the State Constitutions 
 were not the People. They never were 
 THE PEOPLE. They are not now. They 
 were simply the Trustees of a certain 
 power, for the benefit of all the people, 
 and not merely for their own advantage. 
 The nation does not fulfil its guarantee by 
 dealing with them alone. It may deal 
 through them, with the people. It may 
 accept their action as satisfactory, in its 
 discretion. But, no matter who may be 
 the agents, through whom the nation 
 reaches and deals with the people, that 
 guaranty of the National Constitution is 
 fatally violated, unless the nation secures 
 to all the people of those disorganized 
 States the substantial benefits and advan 
 tages of A GOVERNMENT. We cannot hide 
 behind a word. We cannot be content 
 with the "form" The substance bargained 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 267 
 
 for is a Government. The " form " is also 
 bargained for, but that is only an incident. 
 The people, and all the people alike, must 
 have and enjoy the benefits and advantages 
 of a government \ for the common good, the 
 just and equal protection of each and all. 
 
 But, What of the policy of the Presi 
 dent ? I am not able to consider his future 
 policy. It is undisclosed. He seems to 
 me to have left to Congress alone the ques 
 tions controlling the conditions on which 
 the rebel States shall resume their repre 
 sentative power in the Federal Govern 
 ment. It was not incumbent on the Presi 
 dent to do otherwise. He naturally leaves 
 the duty of theoretical reasoning to those 
 whose responsibility it is to reach the just 
 practical conclusion. Thus far the Presi 
 dent has simply used, according to his 
 proper discretion, the power of commander- 
 in-chief. What method he should observe 
 was a question of discretion ; in the ab 
 sence of any positive law, to be answered 
 by himself. He might have assumed, in 
 
268 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the absence of positive law during the 
 process of re-organization purely mili 
 tary methods. Had that been needful, it 
 would have been appropriate. If not nec 
 essary, then it would have been unjust and 
 injurious. It is not just to oppress even 
 an enemy, merely because we have the 
 power. In a case like the present, it would 
 be extremely impolitic, and injurious to 
 the nation itself. Bear in mind, ours is not 
 a conquest by barbarians, nor by despots ; 
 but by Christians and republicans. The 
 commander-in-chief was bound to govern 
 with a view to promoting the true restora 
 tion of the power of the Union, as I at 
 tempted to describe it in the beginning of 
 this address ; not merely with a view to 
 the present, immediate control of the daily 
 conduct of the people. He deemed it wise, 
 therefore, to resort to the democratic prin 
 ciple, to use the analogies of republicanism 
 and of constitutional liberty. He had the 
 power to govern through magistrates, under 
 military or under civil titles. He could 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 269 
 
 employ the agencies of popular and of rep 
 resentative assemblies. Their authority 
 has its source, however, in his own war 
 powers as commander-in-chief. If the 
 peace of society, the rights of the govern 
 ment, and of all its subjects, are duly main 
 tained, then the method may justify itself 
 by its success as well as its intention. If 
 he has assisted the people to re-organize 
 their legislatures, and to re-establish the 
 machinery of local State government ; 
 though his method may be less regular 
 than if an act of Congress had prescribed 
 it, still, it has permitted the people to feel 
 their way back into the works and ways of 
 loyalty, to exhibit their temper of mind, 
 and to " show their hands." Was it not 
 better for the cause of free government, of 
 civil liberty, to incur the risk of error in 
 that direction, than of error in the opposite 
 one ? It has proved that the national gov 
 ernment is not drunk with power; that its 
 four years exercise of the dangerous rights 
 of war has not affected its brain. It has 
 
2/0 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 shown that the danger of despotic central 
 ism, or of central despotism, is safely over. 
 
 Meanwhile, notwithstanding the trans 
 mission of the seals to State magistrates 
 chosen by vote in the States themselves ; 
 notwithstanding the inauguration, in fact, 
 of local legislatures, the powers of war re 
 main. The commander-in-chief has not 
 abdicated. His generals continue in the 
 field. They still exercise military func 
 tions, according to the belligerent rights of 
 the nation. What the commander-in-chief 
 may hereafter do, whether less or more, 
 depends, I presume, in great measure on 
 what the people of the rebel States may 
 do or forbear doing. I assume that, 
 until the executive and legislative de 
 partments of the national governments 
 shall have reached the united conclusion 
 that the objects of the war have been 
 fully accomplished, the national declaration 
 of peace is not, and cannot be made. 
 
 The proceedings already had, are only 
 certain acts in the great drama of Re- 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 2Jl 
 
 organization. They do not go for noth 
 ing; they were not unnecessary; nor do 
 I approach them with criticism. But they 
 are not the whole drama. Other acts are 
 required for its completion. What they 
 shall be, depends in part on the wisdom of 
 Congress to determine. 
 
 The doctrine of the President that in 
 the steps- preliminary to re-organizing a 
 State which is not, and has not been theo 
 retically cut off from the Union he must 
 recognize its own organic law, antecedent 
 to the rebellion, need not be contested. I 
 adhere, quite as strictly as he, to the logi 
 cal consequences of that doctrine. I agree 
 that the Rebel States ought to come back 
 again into the exercise of their State func 
 tions and the enjoyment of their represen 
 tative power by the action and by the 
 votes, of the same class of persons, namely, 
 the same body of voters, or tenants of 
 political rights and privileges, by the votes, 
 action or submission of whom, those States 
 were carried into the rebellion. 
 
2/2 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 But, yet, it may be, at the same time, 
 needful and proper, in the sense of wise 
 statesmanship, to require of them the am 
 plification of certain privileges, the recog 
 nition of certain rights, the establishment 
 of certain institutions, the re-distribution 
 even of political power to be by them 
 accorded and executed through constitu 
 tional amendments, or otherwise as ele 
 ments of acceptable re-organization ; and 
 as necessary to the re-adjustment of po 
 litical society in harmony with the new 
 relations, and the new basis of universal 
 freedom, resulting from the Rebellion 
 itself. If these things are found to be 
 required by wise statesmanship, then the 
 right to exact them, as conditions of re 
 storing those States to the enjoyment of 
 their normal functions, is to be found, just 
 where the Nation found the right to crush 
 the Rebellion and the incidental right of 
 emancipating Slaves. 
 
 Now, distinctions between men, as to 
 their rights, purely arbitrary, and not 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 2/3 
 
 founded in reason, nor in the nature of 
 things, are not wise, statesmanlike, nor 
 " Republican," in the constitutional sense. 
 If they ever are wise and statesmanlike, 
 they become so, only where oligarchies, 
 privileged orders and hereditary aristocra 
 cies are wise and expedient. 
 
 There are two kinds of Republican 
 government, however, known to political 
 science, viz. : Aristocratic Republics and 
 Democratic Republics, or those in which 
 the government resides with a few persons, 
 or with a privileged body, and those in 
 which it is the government of the People. 
 I cannot doubt that nearly all men are 
 prepared to admit that our governments 
 both State and National are constitu 
 tionally democratic, representative repub 
 lics. That theory of government is ex 
 pressly set forth in the Declaration of 
 Independence. The popular theory of 
 government is again declared in the pre 
 amble to the Federal Constitution. The 
 Federal government is elaborately con- 
 
 18 
 
2/4 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 structed according to the theory of popu 
 lar and representative government, and 
 against the aristocratic theory, in its 
 distinguishing features. And, in divers 
 places, the Federal Constitution, in set 
 terms, presupposes the democratic and 
 representative character of the govern 
 ments of the States ; for examples, by 
 assuming that they have legislatures, that 
 their legislatures are composed of more 
 than one body, and by aiming to prevent 
 even all appearance of aristocratic form, 
 by prohibiting the States from granting 
 any title of nobility. In his recent mes 
 sage to Congress, President JOHNSON 
 affirms " the great distinguishing principle 
 of the recognition of the rights of man" 
 as the fundamental idea, in all our govern 
 ments. " The American system," he adds, 
 in the same paragraph, " rests on the asser 
 tion of the equal right of every man to life, 
 liberty and the pursuit of happiness, to 
 freedom of conscience, to the culture and 
 exercise of all his faculties." 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 2~$ 
 
 But, is it pretended that the idea of a 
 government of the People, and for the 
 People, in the American sense, is inclusive 
 of the white race only, or is exclusive of 
 men of African descent ? On what ground 
 can the position rest? 
 
 The citizenship of free men of color, 
 even in those States where no provision of 
 law seemed to include them in the cate 
 gory of voters, has been frequently dem 
 onstrated, not only as a legal right, but as 
 a right asserted and enjoyed. 
 
 Nay more ; both under the confedera 
 tion, and in the time of the adoption of the 
 Constitution of the United States, all free 
 native born inhabitants of the States 
 of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New 
 York, New Jersey, and North Carolina, 
 though descended from African slaves, 
 were not only citizens of those States, but 
 such of them as had the other necessary 
 qualifications, possessed the franchise of 
 Electors on equal terms with other citizens. 
 And even Virginia declares, in her ancient 
 
276 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 Bill of Rights, "that all men having 
 sufficient evidence of permanent common 
 interest with, and attachment to the com 
 munity, have the right of suffrage." 
 Wherever free colored men were recog 
 nized as free citizens or subjects, but were, 
 nevertheless, not fully enfranchised, I think 
 the explanation is found, not in the fact of 
 their mere color nor of their antecedent 
 servitude, but in the idea of their possible 
 lapse into servitude again of which con 
 dition their color was a badge and a con 
 tinuing presumption. The policy of some 
 States seems to have demanded that 
 Slavery should be the prevailing condition 
 of all their inhabitants of African descent. 
 In those States, the possession of freedom 
 by a colored man has therefore been 
 treated as if that condition was only ex 
 ceptional and transient. But, wherever 
 the policy and legislation of a State were 
 originally dictated by men who saw 
 through the confusion of ideas occasioned 
 by the presence of Slavery, there we are 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 
 
 enabled to discern the evidence of an un 
 clouded purpose (with which the American 
 mind always intended to be consistent), 
 viz. : The maintenance of equality between 
 free citizens concerning civil RIGHTS, and 
 the distribution of PRIVILEGES, according to 
 capacity and desert, and not according to 
 the accidents of birth. And now that 
 Slavery has been rendered for ever im 
 possible within any State or Territory of 
 the Union, by framing the great natural 
 law of Universal Freedom into the organic 
 Law of the Union, all the ancient disa 
 bilities which Slavery had made appar 
 ently attendant on African descent, must 
 disappear. 
 
 Whatever may be the rules regulating 
 the distribution of political power among 
 free citizens, in the organization of such a 
 republican government as that guaranteed 
 by the National Constitution, descent is 
 neither /the evidence of right, nor the 
 ground of disfranchisement. 
 
 The selection of a fraction or class, of 
 
2/8 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the great body of freemen in the Civil 
 State, to be permanently invested with its 
 entire political power (selected by mere 
 human predestination, irrespective of merit) 
 that power to be incommunicable to the 
 freemen of another class the two classes, 
 of rulers and ruled, governors and gov 
 erned, to be determined by the accident of 
 birth, and all the consequences of that ac 
 cident to descend by generation to their 
 children seems to me to be the estab 
 lishment of an hereditary aristocracy of 
 birth, the creation of a privileged order, 
 inconsistent both with the substance and 
 the essential form of American republican 
 ism, unstatesmanlike and unwise ; and (in 
 the rebel States), in every sense, dangerous 
 and unjust. 
 
 To demand a certain qualification of 
 intelligence is eminently safe, and consists 
 with the interests and rights of all. It 
 is as reasonable as to require a certain 
 maturity of age. They who are the rep 
 resentatives of the political power of 
 
VALE DIG TOR Y A DDR ESS. 2 79 
 
 society, acting not only for themselves, but 
 also for the women and children, who too 
 belong to it; representing the interests of 
 the wives, mothers, sisters, daughters, in 
 fant sons, and the posterity of us all, ought 
 to constitute an audience reasonably com 
 petent to hear. And, since the congrega 
 tion of American Voters is numbered by 
 millions, and covers a continent, it cannot 
 hear with its ears all that it needs to know ; 
 but must learn intelligently much that it 
 needs to know, through the printed page 
 and by means of its eyes. The protec 
 tion of the mass of men against the de 
 ceptions of local, demagogues, and against 
 their own prejudices hereafter as well 
 as the common safety calls for the re 
 quirement of the capacity to read the 
 mother tongue, as a condition of coming 
 for the first time to the ballot-box. Let 
 this be required at the South, and immedi 
 ately the whole Southern community will 
 be aroused to the absolute necessity of 
 demanding free schools and popular edu- 
 
280 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 cation. These are, more than all things 
 else, to be coveted, both for the preserva 
 tion of public liberty, and for the tem 
 poral salvation of the toiling masses, of 
 our own Saxon and Norman blood, whom 
 alike with the African slave, the oppres 
 sion of ages has involved in a common 
 disaster. 
 
 I think the wisest and most intelligent 
 persons in the South are not ignorant of 
 the importance of raising the standard of 
 intelligence among voters ; nor of extend 
 ing the right to vote, so as to include those 
 who are of competent intellect, notwith 
 standing the recent disability of color. 
 There is evidence that they are not un 
 willing to act consistently with the under 
 standing, example, and constitutional pre 
 cedents of the fathers of the Republic ; 
 consistently with the ancient practice of 
 the States, coeval with the organic law of 
 the nation, established by the very men 
 who made that law, who used and adopted 
 the very phrase, "a republican form of 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 28 1 
 
 government," of the meaning of which 
 their own practice was a contemporary 
 interpretation. But if the conquering 
 power of the nation, if the victorious arm 
 of the Union is paralyzed ; if the federal 
 government, standing behind the ramparts 
 of defensive war, wielding its weapons, 
 both of offence in the hour oif struggle, 
 and of diplomacy in the hour of triumph, 
 is utterly powerless to stipulate for the 
 execution of this condition ; then I confess 
 I do not know how the best and wisest in 
 the South will be enabled, deserted and 
 alone, to stand up on its behalf, against the 
 jealousy of ignorance and the traditions of 
 prejudice. 
 
 If the measures I have attempted to 
 delineate are found to be impracticable, 
 then Congress has still the right to refuse 
 to the Rebel States re- admission to the 
 enjoyment of their representative power, 
 until amendments to the Federal Constitu 
 tion shall have been obtained adequate to 
 the exigency. Nor can the people of the 
 
282 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 rebel States object to the delay. They 
 voluntarily withdrew from Congress ; they 
 themselves elected the attitude of disunion. 
 They broke the agreements of the consti 
 tution : not we. They chose their own 
 time, opportunity and occasion to make 
 war on the Nation, and to repudiate the 
 Union. They certainly cannot now dic 
 tate to us the time nor the terms. Again, 
 I repeat, the just discretion of the nation 
 exercised in good faith towards all 
 must govern. 
 
 The Federal Union was formed, first of 
 all, "to establish justice? " JUSTICE," in 
 the language of statesmen and of jurists, 
 has had a definition, for more than two 
 thousand years, exact, perfect, and well 
 understood. 
 
 It is found in the Institutes of Jus 
 tinian, 
 
 " Constans et perpetua voluntas, jus suum cuique tri- 
 
 buendi." 
 "The constant and perpetual will to secure TO EVERY 
 
 MAN HIS OWN RIGHT." 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 283 
 
 I believe I have shown that under our 
 federal Constitution, 
 
 1. All the people of the rebel States 
 must share in the benefits to be derived 
 from the execution of the national guaran 
 tee of republican governments. 
 
 2. That our " republican form of gov 
 ernment " demands " The maintenance of 
 equality between free citizens concerning 
 civil RIGHTS, and the distribution of PRIVI 
 LEGES, according to capacity and desert, and 
 not according to the accidents of birth? 
 
 3. That people " of African descent," 
 not less than people of the white race, are 
 included within the category of free sub 
 jects and citizens of the United States. 
 
 4. That, in the distribution of political 
 power, under our form of government, 
 " DESCENT is neither the evidence of right, 
 nor the ground of disfranchisement" so 
 that 
 
 5. The disfranchisement of free citizens, 
 for the cause of " descent or for any reason 
 other than lawful disqualification, as by 
 
284 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 non-residence, immaturity, crime, or want 
 of intelligence, violates their constitutional 
 rights. 
 
 6. That, in executing our national guar 
 antee of republican government to the 
 people of the rebel States, we must secure 
 the constitutional, civic liberties and fran 
 chises of all the people. 
 
 7. That we have no right to omit to 
 secure to the new citizens, made free by 
 the Union, in war, their equality of rights 
 before the law, and their franchises of 
 every sort including the electoral fran 
 chise according to laws and regulations, 
 of universal, and not of unequal and capri 
 cious, application. 
 
 We have no right to evade our own 
 duty. We must not, by substituting a 
 new basis for the apportionment of repre 
 sentatives in Congress, give up the just 
 rights of these citizens. Increasing the 
 proportion of the political power of the 
 loyal States, at the expense of the disloyal 
 States, by adopting their relative numbers 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 285 
 
 of legal voters, instead of their relative 
 populations while it might punish some 
 States for not according the suffrage to 
 colored men would not be justice to the 
 colored citizen. For justice demands, "for 
 every man HIS OWN right? 
 
 Will it be said that, by such means, we 
 shall strengthen our own power in the 
 loyal States, to protect the colored people 
 in the South ? If we will not yield to 
 them justice now, on what ground do we 
 expect grace to give them "protection " 
 hereafter ? 
 
 You will have compromised for a con 
 sideration paid in an increase of your 
 own political power your right to urge 
 their voluntary enfranchisement on the 
 white men of the South. You will have 
 bribed all the elements of political sel 
 fishness, in the whole country, to com 
 bine against negro enfranchisement. The 
 States of the rebellion will have no less 
 power than ever in the Senate. And the 
 men who hold the privilege of electing 
 
286 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 representatives to the lower house, will 
 retain their privilege. For the sake of 
 doubling the delegation from South Caro 
 lina, do you suppose the monopoly of 
 choosing three members would be surren 
 dered by the whites, giving to the colored 
 men the chance to choose six ? Nay : 
 Would the monopolists gain any thing by 
 according the suffrage to the colored man ; 
 if they could themselves only retain the 
 power to dictate three representatives, and 
 the colored people should dictate the 
 selection of the other three ? 
 
 The scheme to substitute legal voters, 
 instead of population, as the basis of rep 
 resentation in Congress, will prove a delu 
 sion and a snare. By diminishing the 
 representative power of the Southern 
 States, in favor of other States, you will 
 not increase Southern love for the Union. 
 Nor, while Connecticut and Wisconsin 
 refuse the suffrage to men of color, will 
 you be able to convince the South that 
 your amendment was dictated by political 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 287 
 
 principle, and not by political cupidity. 
 You will not diminish any honest appre- 
 hension at extending the suffrage, but you 
 will inflame every prejudice, and aggravate 
 discontent. Meanwhile, the disfranchised 
 freedman, hated by some because he is 
 black, contemned by some because he has 
 been a slave, feared by some because of 
 the antagonisms of society, is condemned 
 to the condition of a hopeless pariah of 
 a merciless civilization. In the commu 
 nity, he is not of it. He neither belongs 
 to a master, nor to society. Bodily pres 
 ent in the midst of the society compos 
 ing the State, he adds nothing to its 
 weight in the political balance of the na 
 tion ; and therefore, he stands in the way, 
 occupies the room and takes the place, 
 which might be enjoyed as opportunities 
 by a white immigrant, who would contrib 
 ute by his presence to its representative 
 power. Your policy would inflame ani 
 mosity and aggravate oppression, for at 
 least the lifetime of a generation, before 
 
288 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 it would open the door to enfranchise 
 ment. 
 
 Civil society is not an aggregation of 4 
 individuals. According to the order of 
 nature, and of the Divine economy, it is 
 an aggregation of families. 
 
 The adult males of the family vote; 
 because the welfare of the women and 
 children of the family is identical with 
 theirs ; and it is intrusted to their affection 
 and fidelity, whether at the ballot-box or 
 on the battle-field. But, while the voting 
 men of a given community represent the 
 welfare of its women and children, they do 
 not represent that of another community. 
 The men, women and children of Massa 
 chusetts, are alike concerned in the ideas 
 and interests of Massachusetts. But, the 
 very theory of representation implies that 
 the ideas and interests of one State are not 
 identical with those of another. On what 
 ground, then, can a State on the Pacific, or 
 the Ohio, gain preponderance in Congress 
 over New Jersey or Massachusetts by 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 289 
 
 reason of its greater number of males, 
 while it may have even a less number of 
 people ? The halls of legislation are the 
 arenas of debate, not of muscular prowess. 
 The intelligence, the opinions, the wishes, 
 and the influence of women, social and 
 domestic, stand for something for much 
 in the public affairs of civilized and 
 refined society. I deny the just right of 
 the Government to banish woman from 
 the count. She may not vote, but she 
 thinks ; she persuades her husband ; she 
 instructs her son. And, through them, at 
 least, she has a right to be heard in the 
 government. Her existence, and the ex 
 istence of her children, are to be con 
 sidered in the State. 
 
 No matter who changes ; let Massachu 
 setts, at least, stand by all the fundamental 
 principles of free, constitutional, republican 
 government. 
 
 The President is the tribune of the Peo 
 ple. Let him be chosen directly by the 
 popular election. The Senate represents 
 
 9 
 
290 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 the reserved rights and the equality of the 
 States. Let the Senators continue to be 
 chosen by the Legislatures of the States. 
 The House represents the opinions, inter 
 ests, and the equality of the People of each 
 and every State. Let the people of the 
 respective States elect their representa 
 tives, in numbers proportional to the num 
 bers of their people. And let the legal 
 qualifications of the voters, in the election 
 of President, Vice-President, and Repre 
 sentatives in Congress, be fixed by a uni 
 form, equal, democratic, constitutional rule, 
 of universal application. Let this fran 
 chise be enjoyed "according to capacity 
 and desert, and not according to the acci 
 dents of birth" 
 
 Congress may, and ought, to initiate an 
 amendment granting the right to vote for 
 President, Vice-President and Representa 
 tives in Congress, to colored men, in all 
 the States, being citizens and able to read, 
 who would by the laws of the States where 
 they reside, be competent to vote if they 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 2QI 
 
 were white. Without disfranchising exist 
 ing voters, it should apply the qualification 
 to white men also. And, the amendment 
 ought to leave the election of President 
 and Vice-President directly in the hands of 
 the People, without the intervention of 
 electoral colleges. Then the poorest, hum 
 blest and most despised men, being citi 
 zens and competent to read, and thus 
 competent, with reasonable intelligence, 
 to represent others, would find audience 
 through the ballot-box. The President, 
 who is the Grand Tribune of all the Peo 
 ple, and the direct delegates of the People 
 in the popular branch of the National 
 Legislature, would feel their influence. 
 This amendment would give efficiency to 
 the one already adopted, abolishing Slavery 
 throughout the Union. The two amend 
 ments taken together, would practically 
 accomplish, or enable Congress to fulfil, 
 the whole duty of the nation to those who 
 are now its dependent wards. 
 
 I am satisfied that the mass of thinking 
 
MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 men at the South accept the present con 
 dition of things in good faith ; and I am 
 also satisfied that with the support of a 
 firm policy from the President and Con 
 gress, in aid of the efforts of their good 
 faith, and with the help of a conciliatory 
 and generous disposition on the part of the 
 North especially on the part of those 
 States most identified with the plan of 
 emancipation the measures needed for 
 permanent and universal welfare can 
 surely be obtained. There ought now to 
 be a vigorous prosecution of the Peace, 
 just as vigorous as our recent prosecution 
 of the War. We ought to extend our 
 hands with cordial good-will to meet the 
 proffered hands of the South; demanding 
 no attitude of humiliation from any ; in 
 flicting no acts of humiliation upon any ; 
 respecting the feelings of the conquered 
 notwithstanding the question of right and 
 wrong, between the parties belligerent. 
 We ought, by all the means and instru 
 mentalities of peace, and by all the thrifty 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS, 293 
 
 methods of industry ; by all the re -creative 
 agencies of education and religion, to help 
 rebuild the waste places, and restore order, 
 society, prosperity. Without industry and 
 business there can be no progress. In 
 their absence, civilized man even recedes 
 towards barbarism. Let Massachusetts 
 bear in mind the not unnatural suspicion 
 which the past has engendered. I trust 
 she is able, filled with emotions of bound 
 less joy, and gratitude to Almighty God, 
 who has given such Victory and such 
 Honor to the Right, to exercise faith in 
 his goodness, without vain glory, and to 
 exercise charity, without weakness, towards 
 those who have held the attitude of her 
 enemies. 
 
 The offence of War has met its appro 
 priate punishment by the hand of War. 
 
 In this hour of Triumph, honor and 
 religion alike forbid one act, one word, of 
 vengeance or resentment. Patriotism and 
 Christianity unite the arguments of earthly 
 welfare, and the motives of Heavenly in- 
 
2Q4 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 spiration, to persuade us to put off all 
 jealousy and all fear, and to move forward 
 as citizens and as men, in the work of 
 social and economic re-organization each 
 one doing with his might whatever his 
 hand findeth to do. 
 
 We might wish it were possible for 
 Massachusetts justly to avoid her part in 
 the work of political re-organization. But, 
 in spite of whatever misunderstanding of 
 her purpose or character, she must abide 
 her destiny. She is a part of the Nation. 
 The Nation, for its own ends, and its own 
 advantage, as a measure of war, took out 
 of the hands of the masters their slaves. 
 It holds them, therefore, in its hands, as 
 freedmen. It must place them somewhere. 
 It must dispose of them somehow. It can 
 not delegate the trust. It has no right to 
 drop them, to desert them. For by its 
 own voluntary act, it assumed their guar 
 dianship, and all its attendant responsibili 
 ties, before the present generation, and all 
 the coming generations, of mankind. I 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 295 
 
 know not how well, nor how ill, they might 
 be treated by the people of the States 
 where they reside. I only know that there 
 is a point beyond which the Nation has no 
 right to incur any hazard. And while the 
 fidelity of the Nation need not abridge the 
 humanity of the States ; on the other hand 
 our confidence in those States cannot be 
 pleaded before the bar of God, nor of his 
 tory, in defence of any neglect of our own 
 duty. 
 
 Let their people remember that Massa 
 chusetts has never deceived them. To her 
 ideas of duty and her theory of the Gov 
 ernment, she has been faithful. If they 
 were ever misled or betrayed by others 
 into the snare of attempted secession, and 
 the risks of war, her trumpet at least gave 
 no uncertain sound. She has fulfilled her 
 engagements in the past, and she intends 
 to fulfil them in the future. She knows 
 that the re-organization of the States in 
 rebellion carries with it consequences, 
 which come home to the firesides and the 
 
296 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 consciences of her own children. For, as 
 citizens of the Union, they become liable 
 to assume the defence of those govern 
 ments, when re-organized, against every 
 menace, whether of foreign invasion or of 
 domestic violence. Her bayonets may be 
 invoked to put down insurgents of what 
 ever color; and whatever the cause, 
 whether rightful or wrongful, which may 
 have moved their discontent. And, when 
 they are called for, they will march. If 
 she were capable of evading her duty now, 
 she would be capable of violating her obli 
 gations hereafter. If she is anxious to 
 prevent grave errors, it is because she 
 appreciates, from her past experience, the 
 danger of admitting such errors into the 
 structure of government. She is watchful 
 against them now, because in the sincere 
 fidelity of her purpose, she is made keenly 
 alive to the duties of the present, by con 
 templating the inevitable responsibilities 
 of the future. 
 
 In sympathy with the heart and hope of 
 
VALEDICTORY ADDRESS. 297 
 
 the nation, she will abide by her faith. 
 Undisturbed by the impatient, undismayed 
 by delay, " with malice towards none, with 
 charity for all ; with firmness in the right, 
 as God gives us to see the right," she will 
 persevere. Impartial, democratic, consti 
 tutional liberty is invincible. The rights 
 of human nature are sacred ; maintained 
 by confessors, and heroes, and martyrs ; 
 reposing on the sure foundation of the 
 commandments of GOD. 
 
 " Through plots and counterplots ; 
 Through gain and loss ; through glory and disgrace ; 
 Along the plains where passionate Discord rears 
 Eternal Babel ; still the holy stream 
 Of human happiness glides on ! 
 
 There is ONE above 
 Sways the harmonious mystery of the world." 
 
 Gentlemen : For all the favors, unmer 
 ited and unmeasured, which I have en 
 joyed from the people of Massachusetts ; 
 from the councillors, magistrates and offi 
 cers by whom I have been surrounded in 
 the government ; and from the members 
 
298 MEMOIR OF JOHN A. ANDREW. 
 
 of five successive Legislatures ; there 
 is no return in my power to render, but 
 the sincere acknowledgments of a grate 
 ful heart. 
 
 University Press : John Wilson & Son, Cambridge. 
 
THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE 
 STAMPED BELOW 
 
 AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN 
 THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY 
 WILL INCREASE TO SO CENTS ON THE FOURTH 
 DAY AND TO $1.OO ON THE SEVENTH DAY 
 OVERDUE. 
 
 
 
 REC D Li 
 
 MAY 17 65 -3PM 
 
 
 
 JUNlO 6bC 
 
 
M188330 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY 
 
.,..