1 "1 AN AMERICAN CAREER AND ITS TRIUMPH. THE LIFE AND PUBLIC SERVICES OF JAMES G. ELAINE, WITH THE STORY OF JOHN A. LOGAN S CAREER; TOGETHER WITH THE LIVES OF ALL THE PRESIDENTS AND WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE ; A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL REPUBLICAN CONVENTION : A CLEAR EX PLANATION OF THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF AND FKEE TRADE | A COMPLETE HISTORY OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY WITH THEIR PLATFORMS AND QUESTIONS AT ISSUE, AND TABULARY AND STATIS TICAL MATTER OF INESTIMABLE VALUE. / BV WILLIAM RALSTON BALCH : AUTHOR OF "THE LIFE OF JAMES A. GARFIELD," "GARFIELD S WORDS," "THE MINES, MIXERS AND MINING INTERESTS OF THE UNITED STATES," "THE RED MEN OF AMERICA," "THE PEOPLE S DICTIONARY AND EVERY-DAY ENCYCLOPAEDIA," "A MESSAGE FROM THE SEA," "THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG," ETC., ETC. PROFUSELY ILLUSTRATED. PHILADELPHIA : JOHN E. POTTER AND COMPANY, Copyright, 1884, by WILLIAM RALSTON BALCH. TO THE REPUBLICAN PARTY OF THE UNITED STATES: A PARTY WHOSE NAME IS SYNONYMOUS WITH MUCH THAT IS SUPERBLY CREDITABLE TO THE HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES, THIS VOLUME IS INSCRIBED, IN THE HOPE THAT THE CAREER OF OUR STANDARD-BEARER SHALL IN ITS MANY LESSONS LIGHT THE WAY TO SPLENDID VICTORY. PREFACE. THE Campaign which will distinguish the summer of 1884 will be one that will long live in the history of the United States. The Republican Convention at Chicago gave expression to the wishes of the American people that the real leader of the Republican party should be its actual head. James Gillespie Elaine, in his name, means a Campaign that will be very memorable and illustrious. It will be a Campaign of living issues with live men as leaders there will be no searching in the graves of the dead for light. James G. Elaine has not a wasted fibre in his body ; he is a man abreast of the times and aflame with the spirit of the age. The American people believe in him as a man of the most alert intelligence and the best political equipment in this country, versed in the country s history and familiar with all its political problems. The American people believe in him as a man of warm heart whose sympathies are confined to no class, are crippled by no sectional lines. They believe in him as a man who under stands their needs and will meet every situation victoriously. They believe in him as a man who appreciates the economic issues of the hour; who is devoted to the rigid maintenance of the good faith of the Republic, and who will defend the inter ests of American industry against all attacks whatsoever. In short the nation knows that in nominating James Gillespie (5) O PREFACE. Blaine it has nominated the greatest representative of the greatest Republic on the earth. He enters upon the campaign the candidate of the whole party, a man who believes earnestly in the issues that the Republican party has raised and maintained in this country since 1856. The party finds in their candidate the clearest and most forcible expression of what the Republican party has done and what it hopes to do; and what, under his leadership, it surely will do in the future. Mr. Blaine stands for the best type of American progress. That section of the people who do not choose to indorse him, and who do not propose to vote for him, represents only opposition to the American idea. They stand also for the dogma of free trade and foreign ascendency ; they do not be lieve that the United States should take the position that its greatness and wealth and power entitle it to ; they do not be lieve that the American people should have any protection from the American government they have bled to maintain ; they do not believe that the United States is a nation; in short they do not believe in the very flag whose white stars should fill them with inexcusable enthusiasm, to ever defend it not merely in the hurrahs of the crowd, but in the strong measures that make assertions of value. The very name of the candidate is an inspiration to the voter. That name carries with it great political fame to animate the heart, as is animated the heart of the soldier when led by the battle-scarred hero of an hundred fights. Frankness, sagacity, readiness and courage arc James G. Blaine s weapons. An unstained private life clothes him in a coat of mail a record of a life filled with glorious achievements is his strong buckler. Who would not gladly fight under such a general? James G. Blaine is a man of destiny, a master spirit among PREFACE. 7 his peers, the foremost heart of the times ; and with such a leader the campaign will be one of the most profound and enduring enthusiasm. There was no more brilliant soldier in the war in the earnest ness of his fighting and the honesty of his patriotism than John Alexander Logan, and since the truce of Appomattox there has been no more true and thoroughly staunch advocate of Republican principles in peace than the gentleman whose name completes the national ticket of 1884. Gen. Logan is so thoroughly identified with great victories of armies, of reconstruction and rehabilitation, and he is so positive a character and so forceful, so incorruptible in his personal and public character and services, that there is not the least disparagement when the candidate for the Vice-President is contrasted with the brilliant and aggressive statesman who heads the column. The present Presidential campaign is a re-arising of the American people. The Republican party faces a great question that means the preservation or destruction of the American idea, the deter mination that the Republic shall live, and that its march of progress shall not be impeded by so much even as one great disaster ! CONTENTS. PREFACE 5 CHAPTER I. The ancestr^pf James G. Elaine A grandfather who can be mentioned without an apology The Blaines in the Revolutionary War A coun try squire 13 CHAPTER II. Elaine s boyhood and early days A college career Facing a society Commencement exercises The character of the youth 24 CHAPTER III. Boyhood and early days How a President s career begins The struggles of youth 39 CHAPTER IV. Elaine as a journalist The man at last finds his first mission An anti-slavery apostle Fighting the enemy Thunderbolts of ink A change of base to Portland 51 CHAPTER V. Into politics Delegate to the Convention of 1856 His first speech Mem ber of the Maine Legislature Speaker of the Maine House A ratifi cation meeting 72 CHAPTER VI. Elaine in Congress A new force on the floor of the House The man from Maine begins his record Elected to the Speaker s chair Another graduation, this time to the Senate A marvellous history of activity. . 78 CHAPTER VII. Mr. Elaine in the Senate A new leaf turned in the great book In the (9) IO CONTENTS. chair of Webster Mr. Blaine as a debater The junior Senator at the front IOO CHAPTER VIII. A Cabinet officer The Premier of the new Administration The greatest influence Elaine s foreign policy His oration on Garfield and resigna- ^ lion I2O CHAPTER IX. Blaine as a politician His speeches on the stump Orations during the campaigns Discussing living issues Leading the voting hosts of Republicans 161 CHAPTER X. Blaine as a historian His ability with the pen His summary of the American conflict The character of Buchanan The negro Pen-por traits of Stanton and Sherman 1 S2 CHAPTER XL Selecting a President The Chicago Convention How the choice came to be made 207 CHAPTER XII. The second day Details and incidents of Tuesday Resolutions and bun combe Manoeuvring for position The permanent chairman 245 CHAPTER XIII. The third day Nominations Speaking for the favorites The platform Great enthusiasm The roars of the galleries 258 CHAPTER XIV. The fourth day and the end Beginning to ballot The attempt to stay the torrent Blaine the winner A night session and Logan 305. CHAPTER XV. Blaine at home Receiving the news of his nomination His residence at Augusta Congratulations of the townspeople An affecting scene \Vhat hisjTcj^ilcJliink of him 330 CHAPTER XVI. iVn sketch of J. (). I thine Hj s peculiarities Some points in Ins career His rcHgious jjrocliyjlV* .\Vliat_is_thought of him in"\Va!lilnffTm His manner 346 CONTENTS. 1 1 CHAPTER XVII. What of the future ? Elaine as a statesman His pojicj^Ajgformer Dis- tributing thejji]^iluSr^A_j)rilixik>n 359 CHAPTER XVIII. The Presidents The men who have occupied the White House George Washington "Old Hickory" Martin Van Buren Garfield and Arthur 368 CHAPTER XIX. The women of the White House Wives of our Presidents A hostess of the Executive Mansion 398 CHAPTER XX. The White House Where the President lives Something about the Ex ecutive Mansion 425 CHAPTER XXI. John Alexander Logan His birth and parentage How the boy began his career Fiery instincts at school The war with Mexico Home from the fight 438 CHAPTER XXII. Civil honors Minister to Mexico Again in Congress Attacking Andy Johnson Defending his old commander Cuba and the Cubans 446 CHAPTER XXIII. The war with the South Logan s patriotism From the halls of Congress to Bull Run At the front In command of a regiment Atlanta to the sea 474 CHAPTER XXIV. John A. Logan at home Mrs. Logan and her cares The work she does for her husband A true helpmeet Justice to correspondents 490 CHAPTER XXV. The great issue of the campaign The tariff What it means to the masses.. 500 CHAPTER XXVI. Electing a President The electoral college Party principles in the past.. . 524 ILLUSTRATIONS PORTRAIT. JAMES G. ELAINE Steel Engraving. BIRTH-PLACE OF JAMES G. ELAINE 21 COLLEGE WHERE JAMES G. ELAINE WAS EDUCATED 27 PHILADELPHIA BLIND ASYLUM 47 PARENTS BURIAL- HLACE 55 BUILDING WHERE I.LAINE WAS EMPLOYED WHILE A JOURNALIST 61 BLAINE AT THE AGE OF 35 79 BLAINE EULOGIZING GARFIELD 135 LINCOLN AND EDMUNDS 209 SCENES AT HOTELS DURING CONVENTION 215 LYNCH AND HENDERSON 225 CONVENTION ASSEMBLED 259 RESIDENCE IN AUGUSTA 331 RESIDENCE IN WASHINGTON 354 RUTHERFORD E. HAYES AND OTHER PRESIDENTS 373 JAMES A. GARFIELD " " " 377 CHESTER A. ARTHUR " " " 393 MRS. WASHINGTON 399 MRS. LINCOLN 411 MRS. GRANT 415 MRS. GARFIELD 419 THE WHITE HOUSE 423 JOHN A. LOGAN. Steel Engraving 439 BATTLE OF CORINTH 479 BATTLE OF PEACH-TREE CREEK 483 MRS. JOHN A. LOGAN 497 MAP SHOWING POLITICAL COMPLEXION OF DIFFERENT STATES f") CHAPTER I. THE ANCESTRY OF JAMES G. ELAINE A GRANDFATHER WHO CAN BE MENTIONED WITHOUT AN APOLOGY THE BLAINES IN THE REVOLUTION ARY WAR A COUNTRY SQUIRE. IT is the fashion in this country of rapid changes and per sonal restlessness to identify a man with the home of his adoption rather than with that of his birthplace. So by com mon consent it has come to be that James Gillespie Elaine is always credited to the State of Maine. Those who live, rise, flourish and die in the village of their nativity are very rare among the public men of the United States. They can be found generally among the rural populations of the older States. Even among these there is an incessant drumming and movement like the swarming of bees from the parent hive which loses its workers every season, as they wander off to new scenes, find new homes and surroundings in some more favored portion of the land. So it often is that an American becomes a part and parcel of that place where he grows to middle age, and from where his fame spreads to the outer world. Among the Argonauts of 49 there was not one pos sibly, that was born upon the gold-covered soil of California. In that wild and pushing band every man brought to the enterprise the steadiness and peculiar characteristics of the far-away States. It is in accordance to this rule of a new country that the 03) 14 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. coming Republican President is always spoken of as Elaine, of Maine, when he should be denominated as a Elaine, of Penn sylvania; not only so because he himself was born in the Keystone State, but because his ancestors for generations back have lived and flourished upon the soil of William Penn. If ever there was a man that came from true American stock, that man is James Gillespie Elaine. His genealogical tree is of older growth than many a British peer, and he can not only refer to his grandfather with out an apology, but can point to a great-grandfather who occupied no insignificant position in the early American his tory; to whose ability and energy no little of the success achieved by Washington is due. Among the most esteemed friends of General Washington, and as intimate as that old aristocrat ever allowed a friend to be, was Colonel Ephraim Elaine, a gentleman who possessed all the revolutionary instincts, manners and courtesies, that so strongly placed in contrast the men of 76 as against their surroundings. In our time the type of these men has almost disappeared. It frowns on us from walls of ancestral houses often, it seldom meets us in the walks of life ; the picture- frames contain all the dignified gentlemen with big noses, high-laced collars, and powdered perukes, gazing upon us friv olous mortals of 1884 with something of disdain ! Such a one was Colonel Ephraim Elaine, and when the inspiriting War of Independence burst its clouds, he was one of the first to join the forces of the fatherless country. This Colonel Ephraim Elaine came of Scotch-Irish descent, and was doubtless one of the earlier ones to follow \Villiam Penn on his voyage across the seas. He could have no better stock than this. The Scotch-Irish race has been remarkable for the qualities of mind which win the regard and admiration x HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 1 5 of mankind. Courage, quickness and brilliancy of intellect, which flashes into dark places like a wave of electric light, are common to great Scotch-Irishmen. In Colonel Ephraim Elaine these qualities came at once to the surface in defence of the country in the hour of her first marked peril. During the war of independence Colonel Blaine was ever at Washington s elbow, in the sense of furnishing the Com- mander-in-Chief with the sinews of the campaign, as he held the position of Commissionary General of the Revolutionary Army from 1778 to the close of the struggle in 1783, and previously the rank of a Colonel of the line. The Hon. Fred erick Watts, of Carlisle, Pa., in a recent sketch, thus speaks of Colonel Elaine s services as Commissionary General : " In this great field of patriotic duty Colonel Blaine won a splendid reputation. Through himself and immediate friends, he was able, at different times, when the Continental Treasury was empty, to advance large supplies of money towards pur chasing supplies for the army; and during the terrible winter at Valley Forge, Washington attributed the preservation of his troops from absolute starvation to the heroic and self- sacrificing efforts of Colonel Elaine. The high esteem with which Colonel Blaine was held by Washington and his great patriotic leaders in the revolution was attested by numerous letters from them, official and unofficial, still in possession of Colonel Elaine s descendants in this State. It is yet one of the pleasing local traditions of Carlisle that in 1793, when the Whiskey Insurrection arose in the Western Counties, Presi dent Washington, accompanied by his Secretaries of the Treas ury and War Departments, Hamilton and Knox, on their way to the scene of the trouble, halted for many days at Middle sex as the guests of Colonel Blaine, and while there heard of the dispersion of the insurgents and returned to Philadelphia. Their visit was the occasion of the most lavish hospitality and old-fashioned merry-making, and was long remembered with pleasure by the generation of Carlisle residents who have just passed away." 1 6 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. This service of Colonel Elaine s it is not easy to underesti mate. Acts of this nature, quite as much as exploits on a bat tle-field, entitle a man s name to be chronicled in golden letters in the calendar of cis-Atlantic heroism. Colonel Elaine, by his acts, averted starvation from the patriots army, and supplied the hungry with bread during " the dark winter ; " bread purchased with his own money, and that obtained from his personal friends. No officer of revolutionary fame was more noted for bravery, perseverance and dogged determina tion to surmount obstacles however discouraging. < At the close of the war Colonel Elaine settled at Carlisle, in the Cumberland Valley, a valley which has been the nursery of so many of the Scotch-Irish people of prominence ; and at Carlisle Ephraim Elaine died in 1804. The eldest son of Ephraim Elaine, James, was intended originally to enter upon a political career. As a preliminary educating influence, his father sent him abroad to complete his studies in the wonderful, sterling school of travel. This, prolonged into a residence at some of the delightful courts of Europe, -diverted him from his original purpose, as it has so many of the Americans since, and he abandoned his first and better ambition, choosing the unexciting but pleasurable life of a squire and country gentleman of olden-time type. Pos sessed of ample means, in fact of a fortune at that time con sidered princely, James Elaine gratified his more than gener ous impulses, donating largely, even lavishly, to charity, and providing for those within "the ken of his hospitality with a hand so hospitable as to almost pass into a proverb. In colonial days his squireship was begun at his father s place, in Carlisle, in 1793, when he returned from abroad as^, special bearer of despatches, bringing with him a celebrated treaty with a foreign government, since become historic. It was at Carlisle that Ephraim Lyon Elaine was born and HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. I/ reared. At the proper time, at the conclusion of such studies as a private tutor could afford, he, following in his father s footsteps, went abroad to complete his education. His tour, which was entered into with all the zest that youth ful enthusiasm enjoyed, extended not only to Europe and its- great capitals, but was continued into South America, among its ever-warring republics, and to the West Indies. The death of his father was what caused his return. His father was buried at Carlisle. James Elaine, in seeking for investments for the fortune he possessed, was attracted to what is now the western end of the State of Pennsylvania, where he rightly conceived what would some day exist a metropolis of trade. The increasing value of this estate led to the necessity of a more familiar management of it, and decided Ephraim Lyon Elaine to move to it, and there reside. This he did, in 1818, and settled in West Brownsville, in the centre of a great and important tract of land, of which he was largely the lord ; for at that date he had the largest landed possessions of any man of his age in western Pennsylvania. He owned the titles to an estate which, had it been preserved, would to-day have amounted to many millions of dollars. As a single item of that estate, it may interest the reader to recollect that in 1825 Mr. Elaine deeded to the Economites a tract of land on which their town at Pittsburg, with all its improvements and all its wealth, now stands. The price paid was $25,000, for a property whose value to-day, even unim proved, would be more than a princely fortune. Upon the Elaine estate there were large timber tracts on the Allegheny, and equally large tracts on the Monongahela river, at that day of no special value, which now represent large fortunes. As if by a happy accident of fate, James G. Elaine is now possessor of some of the valuable coal prop- 1 8 HON. JAMES C,. lUJUNE. erties almost adjoining the lands of his ancestors. In area it is but a fraction of that which he might have hoped to inherit, but in value it is greater than the whole landed estate of his father fifty years ago. It is not a matter of much interest in political annals, but there are some living who remember that Mr. Elaine s father, no less than his grandfather, was especially noted as a man of elegance of manner and culture. He was, however, possessed of too generous a heart. Keeping open his house and never counting the cost of anything, soon caused a handsome patrimony to dwindle into insignificance. So cramped did this soon make him that he was obliged to seek office in order that the education his ambition dictated his family should have, might be procured within his means. He was determined nothing should stand in the way of fitting out his son for the conflict that was before him. First he became Justice of the Peace, an office by no means to be despised, and later prothonotary (clerk in a district court) of Washing ton county. This necessitated his removal, in 1843, the year in which he was elected, from Indian Hill Farm, where he was then living, to Washington. The office of prothonotary he filled creditably, and with great success. He was extremely popular, being one of the most accomplished and well- informed gentlemen to be met with in Western Pennsylvania. His education and travel combined to make him a desirable companion. His remarkable tact in adapting himself to all classes of society with which he came in contact was one of the secrets of his winning in the then political adventures in which he engaged, and it also made him popular with the entire community in which he lived. He was a man whom even a bashful, shy boy could approach, sure of a kind recep tion and encouraging word. His early years had been some- HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. ig what gay, but marriage and the march of time tempered his exuberant buoyancy into a staunch middle age and an hon ored decadence. This was the father of James Gillespie Elaine, who is so soon to be a ruler of fifty millions of people. Turning to a tenderer subject of recollection, we meet Maria Gillespie, James G. Elaine s mother. The Gillespies were among the most prominent families in the State of Penn sylvania, and the leading spirits of Fayette county. They were ardent and intense Catholics, and made their religion the leading feature of their lives. The most active of them, Neal Gillespie, built the first stone house ever built on the western side of the Monongahela river, in 1778, a house which is still standing, and which was the hospitable mansion on the Gillespie farm. Neal Gillespie, who was always con sidered the smartest man in all the section, had the seal of Nature s nobility stamped upon his brow. The character of his people was well defined in him. They were brave, stal wart, and good men. They were strong in heart as they were stout of limb. The women were handsome, and carried themselves as proudly as though the blood of an hundred earls was coursing through their veins. Neal Gillespie was a large landowner, and his daughter Maria, though imbued with her father s spirit and fire, and though being a true- believing type of her religion, she did not hesitate to accept the hand and name of a Elaine. She was a fine, sterling woman, and a woman, of her time, a fine mother for a great man. Her beauty early in her life passed into a proverb, and is not out of date in Western Pennsylvania to-day. She was a woman of deep piety, and a modest, retiring Christian, who in daily walk and conversation showed the sincerity of her convictions. During her residence in Washington, though SO HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. she never lacked the proper spirit when occasion demanded, in a town peopled by Scotch-Irish Presbyterians and their descendants, and in a time when it required courage to face the issues of life, she always, by her quiet, consistent conduct and conversation, exacted from one and all with whom she came in contact the acknowledgment that she was indeed a Christian. It was such a mother as this who first trained James G. Blaine, and pointed his better nature, guiding his steps toward the ways of a right life. A few years since she passed away, together with her daughter, Mrs. Robert Walker, wife of a naval officer, and leaving no child to carry her fame onward but James Gillespie, her favorite son. These were the parents of James G. Blaine a father generous, kind, intellectual, and a thorough man ; a mother sweet, spirited, with flashing eye, and many of the Christian graces of a true woman. The Gillespie farm, in West Brownsville, to which Ephraim Blaine removed in 1818, was like one of a hundred others of the beautiful farms in Western Pennsylvania. A mansion, large and spacious, with strong stone walls for coolness and warmth, with wide, open windows to let in the sunshine, and a hall with a hearth on which logs burnt with a rustle and roar upon great andirons ; a lawn of small dimensions gar nished by flowers, roomy barns and stables, magnificent trees, while wide, open fields were covered with golden grain, reaching down in gentle slopes to the borders of the blue river beyond. This particular farm, owned by the Gillespies, bordered upon the Monongahela river, which at this point separates the two counties of Fayette and Washington. Brownsville is on the Fayette side and West Brownsville on the Washington side, not far from the old residence of Albert HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 23 Gallatin. It was in this house in West Brownsville, the Gil- lespie mansion the Indian Hill Farm, as it is now known that James Gillespie Elaine was born, on the 3 1st of January, 1830. As soon as it was possible the boy was christened James, for his grandfather, and Gillespie, for his mother, uniting in his name, as he did in his nature, the genial, sturdy virtues of the man with the gentle, refining graces of the woman. CHAPTER II. ELAINE S BOYHOOD AND EARLY DAYS A COLLEGE CAREER FACING A SO CIETYCOMMENCEMENT EXERCISES THE CHARACTER OF THE YOUTH. ^HERE is not much that can be said concerning the life - of the boy from the time when he first opened his eyes upon the world to that in which, somewhat abashed, he en tered upon his college career, which is authentic and which is interesting. The dear dead mother who alone, perhaps, could have related the whims and fancies, the acts and wishes, and the mischief and achievements of his toddling years, has passed away. The boy himself, now a man, does not remember, and there was no prophet then in West Brownsville to chronicle the doings of the youth just started upon his long and event ful march to the Presidency. Anecdotes are of course told of him which throw to-day, perhaps, some light upon his present purposes. Like other human children, he paddled about on the banks of the river, made mud pies, got himself sunburnt, and bothered himself over the snakes, birds and fishes, and the animals of the woods; had his own likes and longings for the natural and the beautiful, and had his own unavoidable pains and aches and mishaps of boyhood days. An old friend says that he remembers a little story about him, which he often heard in days long gone, which shadowed his energy of purpose in after years. When he was but a little toddler, so to speak, some laborers were engaged digging a well on his father s premises. The future statesman (24) HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 2$ was caught one morning peering down into the excavation, and one of the men, with the idea of frightening him and thus preventing him from again putting himself in danger, thrust his shovel toward him and made all sorts of ugly faces. Jim ran away, but only to nurse his anger and await an opportunity for revenge. Venturing to the well a day or two after he had been driven away, he found the men working away at the bot tom. Improving the opportunity, he seized a clod of earth and hurled it with all his little might full at the head of his un suspecting enemy, with the consolatory remark, " There ! take that!" Clod followed clod in fast succession, with accompa nying expletives, until the men were fairly beside themselves with rage and with the fear that the desperate child might take it into his head to use some of the stones lying about him as messengers of wrath more effective than mere lumps of earth. Their shouts, however, brought his mother to the scene, and the little avenger was unceremoniously hustled off to the house. That was the old blood asserting itself. A Gillespie or a Elaine never turned his back upon friend or foe^ After Ephraim Elaine was decorously settled in the prothon- otary s chair and in receipt of the means of giving his son a proper education, young James received his earlier lessons from his father with much additional study conducted under the care of his gentle mother, supplemented and founded upon the course of instruction followed at the village school. [jSome of his time preparatory to going to college wasv passed at the home of his uncle, Thomas Ewing, at Lancaster, Ohio, then secretary of the treasury. It was here that he prepared for college at the age of twelve, in company with Mr. Ewing s son, now Judge Ewing, of Ohio. The two boys were under the care of William Lyons, a brother of the then Lord Lyons and an uncle of the Lord Lyons who was afterwards Eritish 26 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. minister at Washington. It was here on this farm in Lancas ter where young Blaine met his first real contact with politics in the sense that politics were everywhere about him, and it was upon this farm that he passed many of his delightful days, to which his memory goes back with fervent reminiscence. In the summer of 1843 Ephraim Elaine s decision to send his son to Washington College at that time an institution of considerable reputation, and the institution within the portals of which Mr. Blaine was sure of procuring for his son that in telligence necessary tp effect a perfect life was consummated. The boy s training was completed, and in November of that } year he entered the freshmen class. During the four years between that time and his graduation on the 25th day of Sep- , tember, 1847, young Blaine s career is much more of an open book through his own and the memories of his classmates a book each page of which is a delight. The ages of his com panions ranged from fourteen to nineteen, and they were chiefly Pennsylvanians, with a few from the adjoining States of Virginia and Ohio a class of more than average ability, as its course and subsequent history proved. In the greater part of four years that we find the lad a student at Washington College, his life was marked by ear nestness of purpose and the direct intention to profit to the utmost by his opportunities. The college course was not what to-day would be considered a thorough academic train ing, but for the time and resources of the college it was not only creditable but complete. From the great commoner s classmates I have gathered the jewels of their recollection in order to place in mosaic James G. Blaine s career at a time when it first began to attract attention. He entered college, passing the examination creditably, one HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 29 of twenty-five, and with the same happy readiness that to-day wins your friendship, he soon possessed that of the boys. To the new-comers and the freshmen, Jim Elaine was always a hero. To them he was uniformly kind ; ever ready to assist and advise them, and to make smooth and pleasant their initiation into college life. His handsome person; his ready sympathy and prompt assistance ; his frank and generous nature, and his brave, manly bearing, made him the best known, the best loved, and the most popular boy at college. He was the arbiter among younger boys in all their disputes, and the authority with those of his own age on all questions. He was a natural student, excelling pre-eminently in math ematics and English branches, showing also good work in the dead languages of the classics. Mathematics without question were to him a pleasure. He threw into the pursuit of them all the ardor of a budding enthusiasm. He delighted in the close reasoning ; the subtle logic ; the inevitable and invinci ble proofs of which the problems and positions were suscep tible. He enjoyed a sort of personal satisfaction in the triumph of a mathematical principle, as though he, its demon strator, was also its inventor. He was always perfect in mathematical recitations, and was the idol of his teacher, . Professor Aldrich. Possessed of an extraordinary memory and great quickness of apprehension, he was able to take strong hold of the subjects he studied and retain them. One peculiar trait of his character as then formed, and which he constantly exhibited, was perfect self-reliance. While others might follow the ordinary beaten tracks, he took delight in getting out of them. Notably so when one warm sunny afternoon in May, 1846, at a recitation in mathematics, he stood before his class, and having drawn the figure on the blackboard, he was proceeding to prove the proposition it contained when he was interrupted by the professor. 3O HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. " James, you are not following the mode of proof of the author." To which the lad, with quick, earnest tones, replied : " What does it matter if I can demonstrate the principle of the proposition in some other way than he has done ? " The boys laughed ; Professor Aldrich had no answer for the bold innovator, who, amid deep awakened interest, continued his demonstration and proved the proposition and his right to a new demonstration. Such originality of thought and ability to lead, a showing that he was able to reach a result by his own ingenuity, and by some other than the beaten way that marked this occasion is the same characteristic that so often since has amazed and captured the great audience of the United States his fellow-citizens. Jim Elaine possessed the faculty of always making a good showing in his classes, and even when not entirely prepared, his quickness and apparent familiarity with his lessons would carry him safely through. And when such an occasion did occur, it required shrewder professors than Washington College boasted of having to detect his deficiencies. This prominence in his class was conceded by his classmates to be due to his talents and industry, and occasioned, therefore, no jealousy nor hatred of him, a fact that can be the more easily appreci ated when it is remembered that while Euclid presented no difficulties not even the old bugbear pons asinornm to Jim Blaine, Tacitus was equally a friend of the young student; he was thoroughly familiar with the Greek poet. Fond of literature for the delightful insight it gave him into the companionship of great minds, and the deep vista of other worlds than were visible from Brownsville, he readily de voured such books as the college library afforded, and the rooms of the various societies contained. This was a matter HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 3! of delight to the rapidly expanding mind of the boy, and the highways and by-ways of Shakespeare ; the fine philosophy of Bacon ; the rare pages of Ben Jonson ; the lighter fancies of Oliver Goldsmith mingled their varied influences with the greater histories and the more modest story of the young Republic. jTo the tale of 1776 and the early days of his country s" career young Blaine lent more than a willing ear, and was never tired of the story of how large a part his great grandfather had played in that sad yet glorious drama. The taste for history, too, founded a solid taste in literature that has ever since continued to such excellent advantage, and notably makes brilliant the pages of " Twenty Years of Con gress." ^ Washington College, like similar institutions, sustained two literary societies, the " Washington" and the " Union," which were the pride of the college. There was between them always a keen and honorable rivalry. The canvass for new members at the opening of each term of college was very lively. New students were buttonholed on every street cor ner, at every boarding-house, or " fort," as it was termed, by some one of the ardent Unionists or Washingtonians. Jim Blaine was an ardent and energetic adherent of the " Washing ton," and made an admirable canvasser for recruits. He was always alert, and succeeded in winning many converts. It was here that he first displayed his remarkable aptitude as a presiding officer, and he displayed it in a way thoroughly characteristic. \ Having been elected archon, or president, he committed Cushing s Manual to memory before his installa tion, and calmly astonished his most intimate friends by the perfect ease and promptness with which he made his decisions and their absolute correctness. (_Hjs membership in Washing ton demonstrated that he was a natural debater, not a wran- 32 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. gler, but a reasoning disputant, who delighted in convincing his opponent, if possible, that he was wrong. Political sub jects in those days were his chief delights, and his arguments with one or two staunch Democrats among the students are not yet forgotten by his classmates. At this period youi.g Elaine was tall and well developed for a boy of his years. He was never fond of the rough games played by the students, football being apparently one of his aversions ; yet, when he occasionally could be induced to take part in the game, he would acquit himself as well with his feet as he did elsewhere with his head. Indeed, in athletic sports he was less of a leader than in any other place, seeming to be willing to concede superiority to others in those accomplish ments which could be of no benefit in future life beyond lay ing the foundation for a good physique, of which he seemed conscious he was even then fully possessed. His ambition to excel never slept, yet it never led him into doing anything which could possibly injure a fellow-student The selfishness which is necessary to make one try to excel was not with him of the kind to work a wrong on another. He was never so much wrapped up in himself that he could not concede a full measure of praise to a successful classmate, and acknowledge his merits in a just and proper manner, and to this sense of justice was added a strong and never-swerving spirit of forgiveness. Such qualities naturally drew the boys to him. That per sonal magnetism which draws and binds friends to one s self o was a marked feature in his character. While never a fop, he was always neat in his dress, never appearing in the street or in class in disordered attire. He was fond of young ladies society, but never neglected his studies to indulge in that pleasure. The idea that young Blaine was bashful or timid HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 33 in the company of young ladies was never correct, and in the happy days beside the Monongahela there was no boy in the town who could make himself more agreeable during the long, white winter evenings or in a ramble over the summer hills, clad in all the glorious verdure of the woods. And young Elaine s popularity among the young ladies of Washington was but the echo of his popularity everywhere. His obedience to the rules of the institution made him popu lar with the faculty, especially its president, the Rev. David McConaughy, D.D., the honored and faithful pastor of the Presbyterian Church at Washington, the church young Elaine attended every Sabbath morning. It can be said of him, as perhaps of few others that have passed through college, that he carefully guarded his habits, and left college as he entered it, without any stain upon his name, and without having been guilty of those excesses that sometimes leave their imprint in after life because of habits formed that were hard to get rid of. It can be also truly said of him that he was, although sur rounded by considerable temptation, strongly temperate, and that he rather prided himself upon the fact that he would not touch intoxicating liquor of any kind. In his intercourse with his classmates he was polite and gentlemanly ; always main taining a certain self-respect, he commanded admiration, was careful not to wound their feelings, and left them at the close of his college life without an enemy among the number. He graduated with honor to himself, and left behind him a repu tation for integrity, good behavior, and scholarship which few students attain. Among those who assisted in shaping the now budding mind of the observant boy was Miss Mary Ann Graves, Mrs. Matilda Dorsey, Mr. Albert G. Boothe, Mr. John V. Gibbon, 34 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. and Solomon Phillips. Mr. Elaine was under these teachers at various times and for various terms, beginning with the use of letters and the formation of the simple words of his boy hood vocabulary, and ending with reading, writing and arith metic, and such studies as were preliminary to those afterward conducted by Mr. Lyons. His age during these studies ranged from ten to twelve. Mr. Blaine graduated on the 25th of September, 1847, at the age of seventeen years and eight months, with the full approval of the faculty of his college, which consisted of: Rev. David McConaughy, D.D., LL. D., President; Rev. Wil liam P. Alrich, D. D., Professor of Mathematics; Richard H. Lee, Professor of Belles Lettres; Rev. David Ferguson, Pro fessor of Languages; Rev. Nicholas Murray, Professor of Languages ; Rev. Robert Milligan, Professor of English Lit erature ; John L. Gow, Esq., Professor of Municipal Law ; James King, M. D., Professor of Physiology and Hygiene. The following is the programme of the Commencement Exercises, with the names of his classmates : ANNUAL COMMENCEMENT OF WASHINGTON COLLEGE, PA. Wednesday, September^, 1847. GRADUATING CLASS. Andrew Barr, John H. Hampton, Edward B. Neely, George Baird, R. C. Holliday, William M. Orr, James G. Blaine, John G. Jacob, Samuel Power, Josiah C. Cooper, Richard H. Lee, William H. M. Pusey, George D. Curtis. John V. LeMoyne, T. Wilson Porter, raomas Creighton, La Fayctte Markle, Huston Quail, R. C. Colmery, C,. H. Miller, Robert Robe, Cephas Dodd, J. R. Moore, J. A. Rankin, Hugh W. Forbes, William S. Moore, James H. Smith, Alexander M. Gow, Robert J. Munce, John H. Storer, John C. Hervey, M. I . Morrison, Alexander Wilson. 33. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 35 MA TRI ALMM SIMUS HO NOR I. ORDER OF EXERCISES. Music Prayer Music. 1st. Latin Salutatory John C. Hervey, Brooke County, Va. Music. 2d. English Salutatory and Oration. . . .James G. Elaine, West Brownsville, Pa. Music. 3d. Greek Salutatory T. W. Porter, Fayette County, Pa. Music. 4th. Oration The Sword and the Plough J. G. Jacob, Wellsburgh, Va. Music. 5th. Oration Byron Huston Quail, Union Valley, Pa. Music. 6th. Oration The Era of Napoleon La Fayette Markle, Mill Grove, Pa. Music. 7th. A Poem The Collegian G. D. Curtis, Grove Creek, Va. Music. 8th. Oration Moral Warfare J. R. Moore, Wellsville, O. Music. 9th. Oration Poverty Useful in the Development of Genius R. C. Colmery, Hayesville, O. Music. loth. Oration The American Boy E. B. Neely, Washington City, D. C. Music Conferring of Degrees Music. I ith. Valedictory . . William M. Orr, Wayne County, O. Music. BENEDICTION. As will be seen from the programme, the honor of the class was divided between John C. Hervey, who had the Latin ora tion ; Thomas Porter, who had the Greek oration ; and James G. Blaine, who took the oration in English. This was the class, augmented by seven since the Freshman year, and con taining many who in after years rose to positions of distinction and honor in the country. If Mr. Blaine pauses to-day to look at his old class mates what does he see ? Alexander M. Gow became Presi dent of Dickson College, Illinois ; John H. Hampton, of Pittsburgh, rose to distinction at the bar of Pittsburgh, where he still resides. John B. Lemoine studied law and moved to Chicago, where he became eminent in his profession, and for some time was a member of Congress. J. R. Moore was 36 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. called to be President of Morgantown College, in West Vir ginia. William S. Moore became the editor of a paper in Washington, Pa., and after having studied law, served several terms in Congress with credit to himself and to his constitu ents. W. H. M. Pusey took up his residence in the State of Iowa, " grew up with the country," and is now a resident of Council Bluffs, having been highlysuccessful in commercial life, the honors of which were followed by his being sent to the Senate of his State, and promoted thence to the floor of the House of Representatives at Washington. William M. Orr, of Orrville, Ohio, also studied law, and became distin guished in his profession. Alexander Wilson, of Washington, Pa., too, professed the discipleship of Coke and Blackstone, and is now, and has been for many years, among the foremost lawyers of the Washington County bar. John C. Harvey died at Wheeling, West Virginia, a short time since, while holding the office of Superintendent of Public Schools of that city. Professor E. B. Neely also chose the difficult task of educa tion, as did James Gillespie Blaine, and sought the great West. He now holds the office of Superintendent of Public Schools at St. Joseph, Missouri. Mr. Lafayette Markle was also possessed of the fever of assisting the world, and chose the thorny paths of journalism. He now directs the fortunes of a newspaper at Nyack, New York. Thomas Porter died many years ago at Waynesburg, Pa., after having conducted with ability and distinction a newspaper of Democratic pro clivities. These were the associates of Jim Blaine, and the credit of succeeding of leading where they led is not to be rated a small one. These men to-day are profoundly elated over the success of classmate Blaine. They have watched with great interest and with much pride his gradual elevation to the high position HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 37 and honors that he now sustains, knowing full well that under no circumstances could he ever be anything different to them than Jim Blaine. They do not forget him, and he remembers them as keenly as though the saddened years had not inter vened between their present paths of 1846 and the havens of 1884. A few years ago in a little town in Ohio during the excite ment of a wild- political tempest, Senator Blaine, of Maine, was advertised to make a political speech. A number of old Washington students living within a few miles of the place assembled, and were waiting with eager, flashing faces and high-beating hearts, his arrival at the station. The orator, in charge of a committee, on the way to the hotel, discovered the party. Breaking away from his escort he was in the middle of it in a twinkling. " How are you Tom, John, Bob, Alec, George?" to which they equally and heartily adding, " How are you, Jim ? " made not only the escorting committee, but the assembled villagers, regard the whole party with astonish ment. Blaine was revelling in happy memories ! If that meeting caused him as much genial pleasure as it did the old boys who met him, it was a bright day for Senator Blaine. Some of the number had never trained or affiliated with his political party, nor subscribed to his political creed, but admi ration for the boy that all remembered with feelings of love and esteem had drawn them to see him, and he and they met, not as politicians, but as lads once more. Thirty-five years were rolled back ; gray hairs turned black again ; stooped forms were straightened, and Jim and the boys were together again. A tall, well-knit figure, a good student, a ready debater, a quick parliamentarian, ambition to excel, elegant and easy manners, and a personal magnetism which compelled others 3 38 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. to admire and love him, were some of the things which dis tinguished yim Biaine at college. How much these traits have been developed and strengthened in his life since then, it is for the friends of the Hon. James G. Biaine, of Maine, to say. To his old classmates and college classmen he will always be Jim ; not irreverently so, but in the rough affec tionate language of boys at school ; and when the tide of.E.e- publican victory shall sur^e up to the__White House doorsjr^ the coming days of November, none of his friends_vvil]_rejoice -friorc thtin t^^v. CHAPTER III. FACING THE WORLD ELAINE SETS OUT TO MAKE His OWN WAY A TEACHER IN KENTUCKY Miss HARRIET STANWOOD, THE FUTURE MRS. ELAINE THE FIRST CONTACT WITH SLAVERY TEACHING THE BLIND. NO man in the United States has ever yet reached the Presidency whose career was begun in other than days of trial. It would seem, indeed, as if there was something per taining to the highest office in the gift of the American peo ple that required the foundation of a President s character to be laid in the severe school of poverty and tested in the bitterness of privation. Even the accidents and perversions of politics have not affected this rule. A certain grade of character is a prerequisite to the President s chair, and this grade seems to be unobtainable through other than the refining and gilding influences of hardship. This is credita ble to us as a nation and is in strict keeping with the free, vigorous, honest spirit of our unmatched institutions. It is necessity that develops resource. The American character always shines best in a crisis. Under ordinary circumstances we are content to let things drift, but in the face of any calamity we rise supreme and suddenly and conquer it. The magnitude and difficulty of the task have no bearing upon the result save to gauge the strength of the effort necessary to secure it. And this is pre-eminently noticeable in the American youth in whom besides ability, courage and determination always resides the supreme and irresistible energy of youthful enthusiasm. 4O HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. The boys at Washington College were not rich in anything else than health, ability, and ambition. In those days the sons of the citizens of the State were not allowed much money, even if their parents possessed it. The parents of James G. Blaine were obliged to practice economy, in order that he might be fitted out to take his part in the intellectual battle of the world. He studied during his entire career at Washington College, under the constant belief that he would have to enter the world without the aid of influential friends, and lacking the spur of wealthy relatives, for he was poor. When he faced the world from the door of Washington Col lege, that day in September, he did not have fifty cents in his pocket. Where were bank bills in some boys, he only held a diploma of merit. That he had no money was a small matter. He possessed resolution, and the brains and strength to__carry his resolution into practical effect. He left his alma mater with the intention of becoming a teacher, of adopting that career in life which is at once a thankless and a noble one. Just what turned his steps south ward no one can perhaps say. A long-time friend of Mr. Blaine, Col. F. A. Burr, writing upon this subject, alludes to it as a matter of delicacy and tradition. He says : Like other boys he had his friendships and his loves, and it would be strange if he hnd grown up for he is said to have been as handsome a boy as he is a man without leaving some impression upon the hearts of the maidens of the neighborhood. If there is one person living who can tell, and there is, it has been, and doubtless will be, forever kept as a sealed book, so far as the details are concerned. It was one of those youthful misunderstandings that often come to two people who hope to start out on the voyage of life together, and are separated by an angry sea before they meet. There is not even a suggestion as to which of the two were at fault for the parting of the ways that led their life s journeys into different paths. The party most disappointed has never wedded, but has rather devoted her life to self-denying charity. For twenty years, and by the irony of fate in the capital of the nation, has she followed the path of an undeviating Chri>tian life, devoted to careful attention upon suffering humanity, doubtless watching with a careful eye his steadily advancing steps, and, perhaps, of en sitting under the spell of his eloquence, without his ever knowing that the being whose presence was once the chief charm of his life was even living. HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 4! The next view of Mr. Blaine furnished by the kaleidoscope of history is as a teacher, or rather a professor, as his then title was in the Western Institute of Blue Lick Springs, Ken tucky. To this institute he went almost immediately upon his graduation, in 1847; unconsciously, perhaps, following in the footsteps of Webster and other Americans who founded careers of lustre in the experience born of governing men a school and experience which, when properly taken advantage of, leads to the most important results. The lad Blaine was a real student of human nature, and acted constantly on the principle that " The True Study of Mankind is Man." He read and digested correctly, quickly, systematically ; and success was therefore not a matter of question when he faced the five hundred students at Blue Lick Springs. Life at that time in Kentucky was decidedly at variance with the social methods of Western Pennsylvania; slavery was in full feather ; its influence upon the spirit of the times was such as to make the task of teaching men who were born gentlemen, born with an inherited and thorough disdain of every restriction in their proud souls, thoroughly difficult. Mr. Blaine wisely exerted his powers of winning, in order that as a superior he should be so firmly established in the hearts of the men under him, that when the harder necessities of education should be encountered he would not have to make a perpetual fight. In consequence, he knew the given names of every one of the five hundred boys, he knew their shortcomings, their mean ambitions and their high ambitions, their hopes and fears. With such weapons, it was indeed not surprising that the new teacher was very popular, and as he was a man of strong personal courage, his dominance from the outset was rendered sure beyond a doubt. His reputation for courage was established early in his 42 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. career at Blue Lick. A bloody fight between the faculty of the school and the owners of the Springs, involving some question about the removal of the school, took place. During the affray young Elaine behaved in the bravest manner, fight ing hard but keeping cool. Revolvers and knives were freely used by the combatants, but the Pennsylvania teacher used only his well-disciplined muscles. The faculty won, and the prestige of having been a leader in a winning fight, a giant in the fray, was not in the least detrimental to the success of the aspiring pedagogue. Towards the close of 1850, Mr. Blaine realized that he was not born for the profession he had selected. The duties were sometimes irksome, and the trials and tribulations over small things were more than a man of high spirit and large views could well encounter day by day. He decided, therefore, to return to Pennsylvania a move that he executed in the spring of the year following. Before accompanying him back to his native town, there are two pages from his Kentucky note-book which exercised a most important influence upon his career and future, that need to be expatiated upon. The gentler and farther-reaching influence I shall speak of first. The principal of the Blue Lick Springs under whom Mr. Blaine taught was Col. Thornton F. Johnson, and among* Mr. Elaine s associates was Bushrod R. Johnston, afterwards so distinguished in the Confederate service. Col. Johnson s wife was an enthusiast in the same great cause as her husband, and conducted a young ladies school at Millersburg, twenty miles distant. It was here, in the soft lights of a spring day, that Mr. Elaine met Harriet Stanwood, who was then teach ing in the Millersburg school. The fascinations of this young lady s manner, her strong character and fine face, attracted the young teacher so irresistibly, that during the months inter- HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 43 vening between the date of his acquaintance and his removal to Pennsylvania the two had exchanged vows of constancy, which culminated in marriage, in 1851, before the teacher returned to Pennsylvania. When he went his bride went with him. In another part of this volume, Miss Harriet Stanwood, now Mrs. Elaine, is referred to more fully. The second incident of his Kentucky career that perpetuated such a striking influence upon his life was his contact with the evils of slavery. He met it face to face, he felt its influence, he knew its demoralizing power, and he saw everywhere around him the wreck of great principles which it had wrought. The effect of this contact upon Mr. Blaine in after years was very marked, and his position on the slavery question, even while in the homes of those fostering the system, was that of de cided opposition to the iniquity in every form and shape. We may be pardoned for anticipating our story here when em phasising the influences that were at work to turn Mr. Blaine into an anti-slavery apostle. In an editorial, printed in the cnnebec Journal, January I5th, 1855, Mr. Blaine thus throws side light on his life in Kentucky and the unshaken opinions hat he then formed concerning slavery : THE "AGE" GROWING PERSONAL. \ We find the following precious niorcean in the Age of Saturday last: "One of the editors of the new Merrill organ in this city has too recently par taken of the slaveholder s salt, and reposed beneath the shadow of the pe culiar institution, to authorize him to lecture contemporaries on their duty to the cause of freedom. We would recommend to his consideration Shakespeare s advice to new beginners in the art theatrical." We the editor referred to in this would-be severe paragraph have to plead guilty to a residence of four years, prior to and including 1850, in the State of Kentucky. We were engaged in what we still consider the honorable capacity of a teacher, in a literary institution, then and now in deservedly high standing with the several States, both North and South, which patronize and sustain it. Invited to take ihe position for a certain pecuniary consideration, which we regu larly received, and having to the best of our ability and to the satisfaction of all 44 HON. JAMES G. BLAIXE. concerned discharged our duties, we have been under the impression that the matter was closed and nothing due from either party to the other in the way of personal obligation or political fealty. The Age, however, seems to think that having partaken of the " Slaveholder s salt " (for which we paid), we should be dumb to the slaveholder s wrong-doings. So conscious are they of the potency of a little " administration salt" in shutting their own mouths and Stirling their real sentiments on the shivery question that they cannot conceive of any one taking a more independent or more manly course. We beg leave further to say (since we are reluctantly forced into this allusion to self) that the anti-slavery sentiments, which, from our earliest youth, we im- bibed in our native Pennsylvania the first of the "old thirteen" to abolish s avery were deepened and strengthened by a residence among slaveholders, and that nowhere, either on slave soil or on free soil, have we expressed other feelings than those of decided hostility to the extension of the withering curse. Our residence in the South gave us, we hope, the advantage of a thorough comprehension of the question of slavery in all its aspects and of the views of the men who sustain it. It taught us, among other thing-;, that slaveholders, whilst wholly unreasonable and even perfidious in their aggressions upon freedom, have yet the magnanimity to despise a Northern traitor; and that all organists and apologists of dough-facery, after earning the contempt of freemen at home, have only for consolation the kicks and cuffs of their Southern masters. But we forbear; the opinion now current is that our neighbors of the Age, in consenting to preach acquiescence under the " crushing out " process of Pierce and Cushing, went it dirt cheap, and have even failed to receive the whole of the stipulated compensation. Under this belief the derision which they so richly merited and at first so bountifully received is rapidly subsiding and giving place to a feeling of pity; in this, we trust, we have the generosity to share, and cannot therefore find it in our heart to add a single taunt or unkind remark. From this it is easily seen that when he raised his voice against this blot upon the nineteenth century s civilization, he spoke not from blind prejudices but from thorough knowledge of circumstances existing in the slaveholding States. This, therefore, gave great force to all his utterances on subjects re lating to the South, both during and since our Civil War. /^Mr. Blaine turned northward, bringing with him his young bride in the spring of 1851. He brought with him also a resolve to study law. This he did, not persistently as other students perhaps, following the course prescribed in the law offices, but reading partly with his father and partly with othec lawyers of his acquaintance in Washington county, and making earnest investigations in the great body of the law and many long journeys into its greater fields. This law- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 45 course he afterwards completed in Philadelphia under the di rection of the late Theodore Guyler. The opportunity to study under Mr. Cuyler came to Mr. Blaine when he was principal teacher on the boys side of the Pennsylvania Institution for the instruction of the blind. This position he held for two years, and when he departed he left behind him, not only regret at the serious loss to the In stitution, but the impression of his personal force upon the work and its methods, which survives to-day the lapse of thirty years. He rang the bell of the front door of the building one sum mer afternoon in 1852 in answer to an advertisement for a teacher. There were thirty or forty other applicants, but the manner of- young Blaine was so winning, and he possessed so many valuable qualities, that an engagement with him was closed at once. He returned to his home, gathered his effects, and with his wife and son Walker, then an infant in arms, took up his residence in Philadelphia, one stage nearer the scene history had chosen to be his home. The work that he was called upon to do was the teaching of mathematics and the higher branches, and Mrs. Blaine assisted somewhat and often read aloud to the pupils. Both were ready to do any thing for the amusement of the scholars in leisure hours, and the pupils enjoyed, in this expression of healthy natures, a great deal of fun into which the Blaines entered most heartily. Measuring the work in memory I may mention that Mrs. Blaine read nearly all of Dickens works aloud to the scholars, and the future President sitting under the gaslight surrounded by a bevy of boys and girls would often read from a book entitled " Charcoal Sketches," or conduct a spelling-bee, giv ing out the words himself, or standing up among the boys and taking his turn in spelling at another s dictation, when the 46 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. class would enjoy the keen amusement of attempting to spell the teacher down. In the Institution which stands on the corner of Twentieth and Race Streets, in the city of Philadelphia, is preserved the first evidence of Mr. Elaine s early literary work, indeed his first book. It is a thick quarto manuscript, bound in dark- brown leather and lettered " Journal." It was completed by Mr. Blaine with great labor from the " Minute Book" of the Board of Managers, and it gives a historical view of the Insti tution, from the time of its foundation up to the time of Mr. Elaine s departure. On the title-page in ornamental pen- work which was executed at the time by Mr. William Chapin, then as now the principal, is this inscription : JOURNAL of the PENNSYLVANIA INSTITUTION for the INSTRUCTION OF THE BLIND, from its foundation. Compiled from official records by JAMES G. ELAINE, 1854. The methodical character of this book is most remarkable. On the first page every abbreviation used in the book is en tered alphabetically. On the four following pages will be HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 49 found " Some Notes in Regard to the Origin of the Pennsylva nia Institution for the Instruction of the Blind, furnished by I. Francis Fisher, Esq." From this page to the i88th, in which is the last entry made by Mr. Elaine, every line is a model of neatness and accuracy. On every page is a wide margin ; at the top of the margin is the year in ornamental figures. Below it is a brief statement of what the text con tains opposite that portion of the marginal entry. Every year s record closes with an elaborate table, giving the attend ance of members of the Board. The last pages of the book are filled with alphabetical lists of officers of the Institution, and statistical tables compiled by the same patient and untir ing hand. One of the lists is that of the " principal teachers." No. 13 is followed by the signature, " Jas. G. Blaine, from August 5, 1852, to ;" and then, in another hand, the record is completed with the date "Sept. 23d, 1854." This volume, in accurate mastery of facts and orderly pre sentation of details, illustrates Mr. Blaine s character quite generously. The qualities at that time which most impressed those with whom he came in contact were his culture, the thoroughness of his education and his unfailing self-pos session. He was also a man of very decided will, and was very much inclined to argument. He was somewhat impul sive, jumped to his conclusions very quickly, and was always ready to defend them no matter how suddenly he seemed to have reached them. With his Principal he had many familiar discussions, and his arguments always astonished Mr. Chapin by the intimate knowledge they displayed of the facts in his tory and in politics. His memory was noticeable and seemed to retain details which ordinary men soon forgot. Mr. Chapin, who remembers his assistant with much affec tion, in illustrating his firmness of character, relates an anec- 5O HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. dote, which from the complete success of the victory has never yet faded from his memory. Mr. Chapin writes : I recall one incident which indicates Mr. Blaine s mode of discipline, and shows, too, that he was in those days somewhat impulsive. It was one of his duties to take charge of the boys at breakfast, and sometimes there would be a few sleepy laggards. One morning a whole room-full of boys, five or six of them, failed to appear. Mr. Blaine quietly walked up-stairs and locked them in. The boys had a screw-driver and they unfastened the lock ; but by the time they reached the breakfast-room the tables had been cleared. " You can have" no breakfast," was the teacher s announcement. The boys thereupon declared that they wouldn t go into Mr. Blaine s classes. He reported them to me. Although I thought it perhaps a little severe to deprive them of breakfast, I felt obliged to sustain Mr. Blaine, and told them to go to their class-rooms as usual. They still refused, and I suspended them for the day. The next morning they rose in time for breakfast, attended classes, and the little rebellion was over. The work here among the blind boys was very congenial to the young teacher, as far as he cared for teaching, much more so than it had been in the somewhat stormy days in Kentucky. There was a feeling in connection with the work, that of educating the blind, of alleviating the troubles of the unfortunate, a satisfaction that in addition to providing educa tion and opening to expanding minds the worlds of though!, there was also the casting of a light upon paths already dark with sadness. Illuminating the future and lightening the present was indeed a work to which a teacher could look back with profound satisfaction ! When it came to a close by the necessities that were draw ing this man of history towards the predestined future, Mr. Blaine bid farewell to his pupils with genuine sorrow. He had parted from the lads at the Blue Licks with feelings of re gret. The last days in Philadelphia were tinged with sadness, but the irresistible impulse that was drawing him by its offer ing opportunities to something greater cut short his career, and in the summer of 1854 he continued his flight to the North, journeying to the home of his wife at Augusta, Maine. Here he found a residence and a historic future. CHAPTER IV. ELAINE AS A JOURNALIST THE MAN AT LAST FINDS His FIRST MISSION AN ANTI-SLAVERY APOSTLE FIGHTING THE ENEMY THUNDERBOLTS OK INK A CHANGE OF BASE TO PORTLAND. THE capital of the State of Maine was, in its earlier years, a town of somewhat greater importance than later de cades have decided it to be. It was properly considered the rival of Portland in all that pertained to commercial suprem acy. It was even a mooted question whether Portland or Augusta should in future be the metropolis of the State ; but that rule which has almost become a destiny which ordained that State capitals should not be the most important cities, operated here as it has elsewhere, and Augusta remained stationary rather than progressed. At the time that James G. Elaine settled in the town this question, however, had not yet been decided, and an emulous rivalry kept alive the question and stimulated the success of the Kennebec valley. This period, 1850 to 1860, was indeed a time of change, a time when men with large eyes and clear insight into the future saw and did not deride the coming storm. Politics ab sorbed the attention of everybody with an intensity that showed how thoroughly great changes were soon to occur. There were no dormant freemen, no men who were content to allow things to " go on as they were," no men who concluded the country was all right, and it was not, therefore, their part to 52 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. see that it was no, every man felt that the country demanded his influence, and he gave it. The two great parties of the time were the Whigs and the Democrats. There were ominous movements in Congress; there were doubtful fears surrounding and darkening the doors of the White House. The Missouri Compromise, the Lecomp- ton Constitution, the blood poured upon the soil of Kansas, the admission of certain States, the triumphs and treacheries of the Whigs, the distrusts and successes of the Democracy, were the incidents of the years just preceding Mr. Blaine s entry into journalism and the years just following. I recall thus briefly the great and involved issues of the hour in order that the reader may see exactly what labor lay before the young journalist when he grasped his pen to grapple with these questions and to give forth no uncertain sound. And it should be remembered also that in 1855 the attention paid to the editorial and the influence carried in the editorial were far greater and farther-reaching than is possible to-day, in this era of newspapers and not newspaper men. At that time the editorial was the personalty of the editor, to-day it is only so in the columns of very few of the existing journals ; then the editor was the real leader in a fight ; people waited to see what he said, and, no matter the length of his editorial, they read it through ! As before stated, Mr. Blaine arrived in Augusta in the early autumn of 1854. At that time the Kciincbcc Journal, the leading paper in the valley, was owned by William IF. \\ heeler and William H. Simpson, and was edited by the former. Wheeler sold his interest to his partner, who in turn disposed of it to Joseph Baker and James G. Blaine, Mr. Blaine securing one-half interest through the influence and means of his brother-in-law, Jacob Stanwood, of Augusta. November HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 53 loth, 1854, Messrs. Baker and Elaine took possession, and in an editorial, entitled " Our Future Course," they thus outlined their intention : Politically, THE JOURNAL will pursue the same course it has marked out for the last two months. We shall cordially support the Morrill or Republican party, the substantial principles of which are, as we understand them : freedom, temperance, river and harbor improvement within Constitutional limits, home steads for freemen, and a just administration of the public lands of the State and nation. We shall advocate the cause of popular education as the surest safe guard of our Republican institutions, and especially the common schools of the State and city. . . . \Ve shall devote a department of our paper each week to religious intelligence of all kinds, and desire that our iriends of all denomina tions will consider themselves invited freely to communicate anything in this department which they wish to have made public, particularly notices of religious conventions, ordinations and meetings of such kind. Mr. Elaine wielded a trenchant pen ; as an editor he was keen, insistent, clear, and wrote with great force. His marked personal qualities, his earnestness and magnetism, attached to him a large body of acquaintances and friends, and he evinced, to a great degree, the same qualities then that have been st> characteristic of him in recent years. His foes in the sanctum found him an enemy who never failed to -attack, and on any thing pertaining to the political history of the country his brilliant powers of stateipentThis remarkable memory, and the force and clearness of hjs logic not only evinced his strong native powers and gave proof of the intellectual discipline which he had undergone, but made him a foeman worthy of any man s steel. A remarkable industry and an intense appli cation to whatever he had in hand were strong characteristics of his editorial career. He possessed great facility in getting at all that was transpiring ; in his reading of the exchanges and reviews, like a true newspaper man, he did not seem to read them so much as to absorb them ; he very quickly reached the core of every question. His style of writing then was very similar to his style of writing now clear, strong, trench- 54 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. ant, always directly to and at the point. But rather than to devote space to characterizing him, we will let the reader peruse the editorial lightning that flashed from his pen, in his own words, and from his no uncertain sentences draw a criticism. About this time, early in November, Cassius M. Clay started on a northern trip for the purpose of delivering lec tures on " The Existing Attitude of the General Government in Relation to Slavery." Mr. Elaine suggested in the editor ial columns of his paper that Mr. Clay should be invited to ad dress the people of Maine upon the question, and thus charac terized the man who was to be invited : Mr. Clay stands in the front rank of the opponents of slavery, and hns taken that position, not with the applause of friends and cheers of approbation from the crowd, but with the loss of good name at home and the sundering cf many personal ties, and even more, with imminent peril to life and limb. He braves it all unquailed, though, for he is a man of true moral heroism and undaunted personal bravery. When he first assumed his anti-slavery position in Kentucky, they tried to bribe him with office and place. The Whigs offered him the Lieutenant-Governorship, and then a seat in Congress as Representative, with the reversion of John J. Crittemlen s Senatorial chair. But lie scorned their offers, for he was earnest and conscientious in his opposition to slavery. They next tried force and mobbed his printing office and carried off his press to Cin cinnati, like brave men, while Clay was confined to his room with serious illness ; and when all these demonstrations were ineffectual, they resorted to personal violence and hired assassins to seek his blood but all in vain ; he has con quered even in Kentucky, and is stronger this day than at any other time of his life. As a speaker, Mr. Clay is very earnest and persuasive; not polished either in manner or diction, but still irresistibly pleasing. He speaks from the soul, and the moment you hear him, you are assured that he gives utterance only to what he knows and feels to be the truth and the cause of human freedom. Mr. Clay is a man of fine personel, in the early prime of life being only a few years on the shady side of forty, and, but for his full suit of gray, readily passing for ten years younger. He resembles ex-Vice-Presidcnt Dallns, who always ranked as the finest-looking man on Pennsylvania avenue. Should any Lyceum take our hint and desire to extend him an invitation, he can be ad dressed at Richmond, Madi>on county, Ky , his residence, or at Cincinnati, where he is largely engaged in business as a private banker. I don t know whether Mr. Clay came to Augusta to animate the brave hearts in the Kennebec Valley, but it did not need Mr. Clay s impassioned eloquence to arouse the HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 57 Kennebec editor to the proper sense of the great issue. At the close of December, when the shadows of the waning year were chasing over the land, Mr. Elaine raised his voice, couched his lance, and struck boldly at the head of the Iniquity under the title of " Slavery in Indiana." He thus spoke : It is not to be wondered at that a Legislature which would send John Pettit to the United States Senate would perform any other mean act which a dishonest cupidity might instigate or suggest. Accordingly it was reserved for that same honorable body to enact a law m regard to the colored citizens of their State, most oppressive in its daily operations, and most disgraceful from the motives and reasons which induced its passage. Let us give a brief history of it. Railroad connection between Louisville, Ky., and Cincinnati has long been a desideratum, and would years since have been accomplished but for a jealousy which existed on the part of both cities as to which side of the Ohio river the road should be built on. For commercial reasons, each city and section desired it should be on their side, while the Kentuckians had an additional objection to its going on the Northern side of the river in the fact that a facility would be thereby afforded for the escape of their slaves. They demanded some security against this terrible danger, and the Indiana Legislature quick " to crook the pregnant hinges of the knee that thrift might follow fawning" immediately re sponded to the desire of their Kentucky neighbors by annexing a condition to the chartcT of the railroad company that no colored person should be admitted as a passenger in their cars unless he produce evidence of his freedom. The following account of a recent case under the law, clipped from an ex change, will briefly explain its operation and the odious construction by which it is sustained : "A colored man in Indiana lately brought suit before a magistrate against the Jefferson ville Railroad Company because they refused to admit him to the cars as a passenger until he produced evidence of his freedom. The justice awarded him twenty dollars damages, but the company appealed to the Circuit Court of Clarke county, and a few days ago the decision was reversed. The court (which is a free State tribunal) held, although the legal presumption is that all persons are free, yet the fact being that some colored persons are not I ree, it is reasonable that the matter should be settled in each case at the time the colored person ap plies for his seat." Could any argument, pretending to the dignity of a ground for legal decision, be more shallow or more disgraceful? Admitting, as the judge does, that free dom must be the presumed state of every man, he offsets all advantages arising from that presumption by adding that as some colored persons are not free, it is reasonable that the matter should be settled in each case. What is the presump tion worth if it must be sustained every time by positive evidence ? Such legislation is in strong contrast with the course pursued by the Ohio Leg islature in 1847, when the subject of granting to a company the right to construct a bridge across the Ohio river, at Cincinnati, came before them. The Kentucky Legislature, from whom the right had been obtained, so far as they could grant 4 58 HON. JAMES CJ. ELAINE. it, had cumbered the charter with such restrictions in regard to colored people a made the Cincinnati company and all tin ir agents regular slave catchers. Bu one honorable course was left to the Ohio Legislature, and they followed it mar fully. They refused tne charter and reprobated in strong terms, expressed i special resolution, any act that would so far compromise the honor and dignit of a great free State. Would that their example had made a deeper impressio on their neighbors of Inuiana. But we conless that we expect little from thy free State which will keep in the Senate of the United States a notorious slave holder, Jesse D. Bright, and a still more notorious blackguard, John Pettit. W are really afraid that their repudiation of the Nebraska treachery was only spasmodic effort, to be followed by a lithargic supineness more fatal than actua wrong-doing. In the same issue of the Journal he discussed, under th< title of "The Permanency of the Republican Party," the influ ences that irresistibly led to the formation of the Republicai party, and with almost prophetic eye he foretold what tha party was destined to accomplish and for which it was mani festly fit. He said : The whole history of parties and opinions in the United States conclusive!; demonstrates that they are of slow growth, and the result of much toilsome effor and patient seed-growing. From the adoption of the American Constitution ii 1789 to 1801 the same class of political opinions were predominant in this gov ernment, and Washington and the elder Adams were their exponents. Ther there was a revolution, and the Jeffersonian class was inaugurated and continuec more than twenty-five years, till the opposition completely died out. Then ii 1829 the dynasty of Andrew Jackson commenced, and, with only slight deviations has continued for about twenty-five years to the present time, till nearly ever; principle which was originated under his administration has become the settlei and permanent judgment of the country and been incorporated into its histor; and practice. Time and experience have demonstrated their wisdom, or tin elastic spirit of the American people has closed over their scars, and all oppo>i tion to them has gradually died out, and tliey have ceased to be issues of thi present day. In the mean time, ami ext-. ndmg back about twenty years, nev issues have sprung up. Certain nrnds in the free States began to feel the over whelming influence of slavery in the government and to IK hold the dispropor donate power it wielded in the election and appointment of the highest officer in the gift of the people, and were alarmed at it. They began to raise thei voices of remonstrance against it through the press, the pnlpit, and forum. It wa but a small beginning, but the men who conceived the anti-slavery enterprisi were not to be daunted by the vastness of the evil they had attacked or the sneer and opprobrium that were heaped upon them, but with firm hearts and unquaiiing faith they toiled on, in the morning sowing the seed and at evening withholding not their hand. At first they used only the power of argument and facts, but b} and by the time came to carry this question to the ballot box and to wield its om nipotence to advance their cause. This w.is in 184:). And thence taking a new HON. JAMES n. BLAINE. 59 impulse, the movement went on, growing little by little by small accretions as the coral builds its mighty reefs, till the anti-slavery sentiment had permeated and filled every vein and artery, and incorporated itself into the whole moral constitution of the free States. While this process was advancing on the one hand, the slave power as if to illustrate the principle of the ancients, " whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad" became, on the other hand, more and more desperate in its demand, and, by the aid of Northern subserviency, pushed its schemes of subjugation from conquest to conquest over the rights and equalities of the North till at last they culminated in the Nebraska act, that measure of stupendous wrong and perfidy. Then it was that all the anti-slavery seeds which twenty years of toil, sacrifice, and patience had disseminated through the public mind burst out into an irrepressible flame. The people had restrained these sentiments for a long time, in hopes that the evil would cease without vio lent remedies. They had endured the compromise of 1850, bitter as it was, the infamous fugitive slave act, and all; but at last endurance had ceased to be a virtue, and they could endure no longer. They could no longer smother the flame of liberty that was burning in their breasts, and that, as the Mercury says, "arises from the deepest-rooted feelings and principles" of their natures, and can never go back any. more than the water of Niagara, that has once plunged over the precipice, can go back. It must live in the hearts it now animates. Its growth has been slow twenty long years ; its decay will be equally slow. The great Republican party that has suddenly developed itself on the political thea tre, embodying the anti-slavery sentiment of the country as its leading character istic, when considered in its natural elements, in its history and progress, or in the light of experience, has every appearance of permanency and progress. It does not, as the Mercury intimates, foreshadow the dissolution of the Union, but its salvation. The slave States will never dissolve the Union. They have too great a stake in its preservation, for the arm of the Federal government is absolutely necessary to keep them from insurrection and massacre by the mil lions of slaves now groaning under the accursed lash. But dissolution, if it ever come, must come from the free States, stript of their rights and degraded in the government, as they have been for the last twenty years, and goaded on to des peration by a continuance and perpetual repetition of these aggressions. The Union will be saved by arresting the gigantic strides of the slave power towards political supremacy, driving it back into its legitimate sphere and restoring to the North its just and equal rights. But that the other alternative, mentioned by the Mercury, may not in the end result from the permanent dominion of the Re publican party we are not prepared to deny; on the contrary, it is the hope of many an earnest heart, that beats the warmest in this glorious movement, that God in his wise Providence will make it the instrumentality of the final " ex tinction of slavery" in this Republic. In this hope we live and labor, and will labor while we live, believing that a country redeemed from the shame and curse of slavery, purified and restored to the Republicanism of its palmy days will be the richest legacy we can leave to posterity. Drive rum as a beve^ge from all the avenues of society; place the tide of foreign immigration that is pouring in upon us with such fearful power under proper restrictions and in a course of edu cation that shall prepare it, as the American citizen is now prepared, for the high functions of freedom ; strike the fetters froiri the limb of every slave that breathes in all this vast domain, so that, from centre to circumference, only the glad shout of liberty shall be heard, and the smile of Providence will bless this ] CO HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. land as it never has been blessed, and the tide of national prosperity and true glory shall roll on from generation to generation while time shall last. At New Year, 1855, Mr. Joseph Baker, having tired of the business management of the Journal and desiring to prosecute his other business enterprises, sold his share of the paper to Mr. John L. Stephens, with whom Mr. Elaine immediately formed a partnership. In the issue of the 5th of January of that year the new proprietors announced the change and printed their pledges. Over their signatures they stated that the Journal would be " devoted honestly and wisely to the great cause of Republicanism, advocating those particulars of freedom and temperance upon which the good of the people and the best hopes of the State so essentially depend. With what ability or what success we may labor we shall leave others to judge we can only pledge honest impulses and faithful endeavors." Mr. Blaine continued in the editorial chair as before, and undertook the reporting of the proceedings of the Senate, of Maine for the tri-weekly issue of the Journal. In these re ports his faculty of writing and condensing were as manifest as in his editorials. He was cognizant of everything that was transpiring in the Legislature, and had a complete mastery of all its details. He seemed to have a clear appreciation and understanding of financial questions and business enterprises, of the practical details of a printing establishment, of rail roads, banks, manufacturing and agriculture. He never re leased his hold upon the editorial pen. The rapidly following events of the times gave him great scope. Everything bore on politics, and from the torrent of living English which he poured out at that time I take a bright spray from .his issue of February 14, 1855. The head-line is " William II. Seward," and Editor Blaine says : HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 63 The prayer of the freemen is answered. A question of the highest importance, the right decision of which for months has excited the deepest solicitude, has been solved to the joy of patriotic Americans and for the welfare of the public. By the force of his own character as a man and a statesman, and of the moral and political principles which he represented and in him centred, William H. Seward has been re-elected to the American Senate by the State which in her earlier days gave the nation a Clinton, a Livingston, a Jay, a Hamilton, and which now with her population, her resources and strength increased twenty- fold, bears up in her arms freedom s great leader against traitors at home and storms of relentless opposition from abroad. The heart of the nation throbs at the event which, amid exultation and congratulations, lightning and steam are announcing to the true men of this whole continent and of the civilized world. The contest through which he has passed is without parallel in the history of this country. We have waited until the clouds of the conflict were passing away and the cannon of rejoicing had ceased, to express our exultant gratitude at the event to which we have looked forward vvith the strongest hope and in regard to which, for a brief hour, we had fears. It was our fortune to be in New York City last October when the Ulman Convention had its session. Ming ling quietly with the throngs that crowded the hotels from all parts of the Em pire State, we learned much of the real purpose of the men who controlled the deliberations and plans of that Convention. We became satisfied that the guid ing purpose of the combinations there made was not love for American prin ciples, not reform in the naturalization laws, but the defeat of Myron H. Clark, and through that result the political annihilation of William H. Seward. Hards, Softs, and Silver Grays joined hands, with nothing else to unite them but indif ference to freedom and a common hatred of its leading champion. We saw that v the influence of tens of thousands of good men was to be converted to uses for eign to true American principles, and, if successful, disastrous to the position which New York holds among her sister States, in respect to that great issue now before us, whether freedom or slavery shall rule the destiny of this nation. Reviewing the field we saw that nothing but Mr. Seward s naked strength and the devotion of the people of the Empire State to him and to his principles could rescue him from the combined array against him. We watched the contest with the deepest solicitude. Four months have passed. The coalition of wickedness culminated. The battle is over. The great American statesman is unscathed, and now occupies a prouder elevation before his countrymen than ever before, and a screner and broader future is his secure. Never since the establishment of the Republic has there been a greater necessity for a leading statesman of far-seeing vision, of heroic, unyielding will, of courage that no threat or danger- can blanch, of genius to organize and guide. God s necessity in the affairs of men is always realized in history. We trust the friends of Mr. Seward will not mis understand the cause and the meaning of his triumph. His election is not the success or the defeat of the old political organizations. His bitterest and ablest foes are among those who claim to belong to the party with which he labored from its formation to the hour of its final overthrow. Many of his ablest and most devoted friends and supporters have belonged to the Democratic party. In reality his election has been secured by that party which has been gathering numbers and strength from all former organizations, which has arisen a young giant, soon to be the Hercules to drive the monsters from the national capital and trample under its feet tjhe serpent and vipers which have alarmed and bitten 64 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. the sons of liberty and poisoned and checked the growth of the best plants of American civilization. Not as the champion of an effete aijd a rapidly dis solving party, but as a great statesman and sworn defender of freedom and the Union he finds congenial fellowship with Chase, Sumner, Wade, Fessenden, Hamlin, King, Johnson, Wilson, Strong, Hall, Durkee and that whole school of vigorous and determined men of common blood and aim, who are by the will of God and the people to make it historical fact, ere 1860, that slavery is sec tional and temporary, that freedom is national and universal, and that American principles shall rule to the exclusion of ideas and elements which had their birth amid the feudal institutions and the despotism of the old world. Turning from this expression of his high-wrought feelings, I choose, as if in contrast, in showing the delight with which Mr. Elaine employed the power of sarcasm; an editorial entitled " Close of Congress," which graced the Journal of March 7, of this same year. Every one of my readers will greet it with a smile of recognition as it is brought to mind how often the same sentiment has been voiced since that day, thirty-one years ago. The first days of March have been auspicious, not alone as indicating a pleas ant spring and a favorable season for the husbandman, but they come loaded with providential blessings to the American people in that they give riddance to that body of men whom, by the necessities of the case, we must denominate the Thirty-third Congress of the United States. It is an event that should give ihe nation mingled feelings of shame and rejoicing shame that the free suffrages of the people should have elected to high and solemn trusts men so wanting in right qualification, true patriotism and elevated characters as a majority of that body has shown itself rejoicing that it is beyond their power longer to disgrace the capitol by their corruptions, their reckless audacity, and their conspiracies against liberty and the broadest and best interests of the Union. If the people of England had reason for joy when Oliver Cromwell drove the rump Parlia ment out of doors and told its members to begone to their homes, how much more should the citizens of free America manifest their pleasure that time in its long-suffering mercy had put an end to the power of the men who have violated solemn compacts, struck down the sacred land-marks established by the fathers of the Republic, and committed the government of the country to the principles and policy of a despotism worthy of Rome in her darkest days. A Congress that passed the Kansas and Nebraska bill, and gave so many proofs of a want of elevated patriotism as the one just terminated, would have been ready to elect a monarch or surrender the Republic for an empire, if surrounded by circumstances and pressed by events favoring the exchange. How much of infamy belongs to the existing National Administration we need not now affirm. Enough and dark as night is the part for which God and history will hold it responsible. Two long years more we must endure its power and its debasement, though it may be hoped that a righteous discipline and the nerve and high resolves of the new HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 65 Republican House of Representatives may keep it from going further down those deeps to which its present animus and impetus would carry it. But our remarks now respect the termination of the Thirty-third Congress. Only of that can we say our sorrows are past. How many and deep these sorrows how much the nation has lost by the littleness and want of political justice and true statesmanship on the part of the controlling majority of the Congress just closed, posterity and the future historian alone can tell. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Our hope for the future is that the evil will cure itself; that the wickedness has culminated and the reaction is fast bringing the control of the nation into purer and stronger hands. Did we not so hope, we should regard the days of the Republic numbered. For such utter defiance of the laws of hu manity ; such prostitution of solemn trust and opportunities ; such open and un blushing violations of the spirit and intent of our American institutions, unless arrested by the might of the people s will and the strong arms of patriotic states men, must end in the nation s night and desolation. In speaking as we have of the majority of Congress just passed from power, of course we design no reflec tion on those true men who have stood up manfully against threats and bribes in the defense of the Constitution and the laws ; sacred engagements and the assaulted and scouted principles of liberty and humanity, on which the Republic is based, and in love of which only it can endure. All praise to that noble band whose names we need not call. The nation will remember them. An approving con stituency will receive them warmly to their homes and give them the meed of approbation for labors well performed and solemn trusts faithfully held. A week previously, the young editor, who had already won his spurs, and whose utterances were waited for with consid erable impatience and sometimes no little fear, had given us in mosaic, a picture of the start of -the Republican party in Maine on its really first great race. Mr. Elaine said : It can no longer be questioned that we have in Maine a well-organized and powerful party, which shares the sympathies and influence of a decided majority of the people. That radical and permanent causes have been operating for years to bring about the present condition of things, is so well known as to need no repetition. Ignored and resisted, as those causes were, by selfish schemers, per sonal aims, and the force of old party watch-words, they increased yearly in breadth and strength, until they have become one resistless current of public opinion, fed by the various springs of moral and patriotic feelings, which are so fresh and healthful in the social soil of Maine, on which the ship of State is fairly launched, with the flags of Temperance, Freedom, and American enterprise waving proudly at the mast-head. The Republican party, therefore, is not the creation of a few individuals, or the result of tactics; it is the production of moral ideas which have vegetated in the consciences arid hearts of the people. It is pre-eminently the child of ideas and of the people. Strong as these ideas and their friends had shown themselves in the political efforts of the two or three years past, old poli tical organizations had prevented the union of men of like principles in one well- organized party. The men were called by different names, yet they had a com mon faith and common purposes. Their principle needed expression in a common 66 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. platform. The people desired one political family and one organization. Right, expediency, and necessity called for a Convention. What time more opportune and appropriate than the birthday of Washington! So ready were the people for ac tion, so manifest the necessity, that a long notice was not required. The Con vention of the Twenty-second was one of the most remarkable and interesting that ever assembled in our State. The numbers in attendance were very large not less than nine or ten hundred. It was composed of the true and influential portion of the people from all parts of the State. Its members came in due pro portion from all the former political parties, in names of long-established reputa tion and worth, known in the State and out of it ; in men possessing the confi dence and representing the convictions of their respective vicinities, no political assemblage ever held in the State surpassed the one of last week. No body of men could be more united in opinion and res ilution. The enthusiasm manifested was not a sudden and transitory feeling, but was the result of a calm, yet intense conviction that a new era had arrived in the politics of the State and the Nation, that high and solemn duties are now devolving on our citizens. The resolutions and the speeches indicated the spirit and the purpose of the Republican party. The remarks of Edward Kent, the President of the Convention, on taking the chair, were able, well-timed, and square up to the faith and determination of a large majority of the people of the State, at the present time. As to the candi date for nomination, there was but one opinion. There is one man, who by his past course, his principles and his devotion to them, his courage and iron-willed resolution at the right time, has so endeared himself to a majority of the people that the Republicans demanded his nomination with an enthusiasm which could not well be surpassed. Rightfully, by popular will, is Anson P. Merrill to be the candidate of the Republicans next September. Even against his strongest per sonal wishes, the friends of Temperance, Freedom, and truly American ideas, would demand that he should be their standard-bearer. As to the principles of the platform, expressed by the Resolutions, we trust they will meet the wannest approval of all true Republicans. They are plainly in consonance with our po sition as the people of a Free State, with our constitutional rights and our rela tions to the Union. They recognize the laws of God, Liberty and Humanity, as above, yet not in conflict, but in harmony with the laws of the State and all al lowable laws of the Nation. They demand that the people, and not the three hundred and fifty thousand nobles, shall control the Government of the country. They demand that the freedom, intelligence, moral interests, enterprise, labor, and property of twenty millions of citizens shall be the controlling force of the Government, instead of an audacious, haughty, and demoralized class who con stitute less than one-sixtieth of the nation. The doctrines of the Resolutions may strongly resemble the Whig doctrines of the American Revolution. They may be like the Democratic ideas of Thomas Jefferson. They express the prin ciples and the settled determination of the Republicans of Maine, and, as we be lieve, of that great and truly national party which is so rapidly gathering num bers, strength and prestige, which is to march into power in 1856, and bring the Government back to the purity and the ideas of its founders, and thus demon strate to the world that the American people have not forgotten their history, are nut blind to what should be the solution of the problem of American destiny. The warfare that Mr. Blaine was waging against slavery in any and every form never knew a moment s cessation ; every issue HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 6/ of his paper contained some biting allusions to the history that was then making. The troubles of bleeding Kansas drew from his pen in the middle of March, 1855, the following: The opening spring and coming summer will be important and exciting eras in the history of Kansas Territory, and will probably witness the close of the struggle which is to consign that fine land to the curse of human slavery or ded icate it forever to freedom. The newspapers established at different points in the territory are already waging war fiercely the free press battling manfully for the rights of humanity, and the slave press as earnestly, if not as ably and honestly, working for the introduction and permanent engrafiment of the " peculiar institu tion." The pro-slavery party are very bitter against Governor Reeder. They cannot forgive him for showing the impulses of an honest heart and the courage of a bold one in the stand he took in regard to the frauds practised in the elec tion of congressional delegate last fall. They find to their sore discomfiture that in the governor they have "caught a tartar" when they were least looking for one. Identified as Reeder always was in Pennsylvania with the hardest of the hard-shell Democrats, and appointed to his present place at the solicitation and by the influence of Senator Broadhead, who voted in favor of the Nebraska bill, the Southern party thought they had secured the game in their own hands when such a man was selected for governor. Such also we know was the prevalent belief in Pennsylvania at the time of Reeder s appointment. The more credit, therefore, is due to him for breaking away from the corrupt influences which pressed upon him and coming out boldly in favor of freedom. Atchison, who is the recognized leader of the pro-slavery forces, is again in the Territory attending to the spring elections, and using all his efforts to have them carried, as they were in the past autumn, by the imported desperadoes of M ssouri. As an offset to these adverse forces we have encouraging accounts of the success of the emigration societies, who have great hopes of throwing into the Territory during the approaching summer a sufficient number of earnest North ern freemen to counterbalance all the corrupt influence of the Missouri frontiers men and to outvote them at the election in the fall. A party of seventy-six left Boston on the 6th inst., and are already in the Territory. A much larger party, though we do not know the exact number, was to have left on Tuesday, to be followed by a third on Friday. These emigrants will meet large numbers from the States of New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, who will reach the Territory even in advance of them, and unite cordially with them in their labors in behalf of freedom. These emigration societies form the strong lever with which the North must work to keep the slave power from our Territories. They deserve at our hands aid and encouragement not that we would advise any one to leave our own good State or a comfortable home and prosperous business elsewhere, but merely to direct those who are already seeking a location in the far West to the fertile plains of Kansas, where, with unexcelled opportunities for improving their personal condition, they will find also the largest field for benefiting their fellow-men by assisting in the foundation of a great and free State. I have not space to follow Mr. Elaine s career as an editor 63 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. with anything like the closeness that I could wish. He wrote so much and wrote so well that the difficulty is not what to put in this volume, but what to leave out. We have, however, sampled fairly his style and the nervous force of his diction, no less than the directness of his attack and the earnestness of his purpose. f Finding that the remuneration of his position was not suffi cient to keep his family and himself as they should be kept, he not being able to reach a thousand dollars a year as a mat ter of salary, he decided in the summer of 1858 to accept the editorial chair of the Portland Advertiser, which paper for many months he edited with distinguished ability, and carried with him into the fiats which he issued from the then leading town of Maine the same fire and force, the same tremendous direct ness that had characterized his days upon the Kcnnebcc Jour nal. Yet his editorials here were no more forceful or gracious than those we have already printed. His career as an editor, in coming to a close in 1858 in the office of the Portland Advertiser, lasted but six years. There are many living who thoroughly appreciate Mr. Elaine s pe culiar fitness for his present position, yet who regret that as the door of politics opened to him the door of journalism closed, and a great editor was lost to the country. He pos sessed all the qualities of a good journalist, and he has said a dozen times that he never would be entirely happy until he was at the head of a great newspaper. His phenomenal memory of circumstances, dates, names, and places, or, in other words, the availability of his memory, combined with the quick ness and accuracy of judgment, is what so pre-eminently fitted him for the duties and directions of the sanctum. He wrote as readily and as strongly as he speaks, and very rapidly, and he presents to us the singular combination of the qualities of HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 69 a good speaker and a good writer in one. In many respects he resembles Horace Greeley, in that he goes straight to the point, and wastes no time in painting with pretty words a background for his thoughts. His other qualities for journal ism are : he is courageous, he is fair-minded, he does not har bor revenge nor malice, he grasps and weighs quickly the events of the day, and finally, like all other good journalists, he is a thoroughly good fellow. Ere we lose sight of him in this capacity we should recall the single other fact that, prior to his connection with the Ken- nebec Journal, he had caught the editorial fever, and more than one contribution from his pen had graced the columns of several of the greater and inferior daily newspapers of the country. While politics and economic interests were of the first im portance and demanded his best thought, his emotional nature did not hesitate to turn into other paths, and he wan dered to subjects of less importance at the moment ; thus elucidating the problems that were brought upon the stage of life at that time. In this spirit we find an editorial upon the Arctic expedition and Dr. Kane that reads as follows : The expedition which sailed from New York in May, 1853, as the "forlorn hope" in search of Sir John Franklin, was to have returned by September I, 1854. They have not been heard from since the July following their departure, and their failure to return at the appointed time has created a deep solicitude for their safety. It may be remembered that the expedition was fitted ,out in great part, by the voluntary contributions of various benevolent and philanthropic in, dividuals, among whom Mr. George Peabody, the well-known American banker of London, was the largest donor he advancing the munificent sum of ten thou sand dollars towards the worthy object. The expedition is commanded by Dr. Kane of the United States Navy, who was attached as surgeon to the former " search " which sailed from the United States in 1850, and returned in the autumn of 1851. His written account of the perils and hardships of that expedition, his full and lucid description of polar scenery and vegetation, forms one of the rich est additions to the literature and scientific knowledge of the country. That search, though unhappily not successful in its great object of finding the lost navigators, nevertheless convinced Dr. Kane that there was yet great hope, 7 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. and that Sir John Franklin and his company should not be given up, until the icy barriers of the North were penetrated to their utmost verge. His theory is that beyond Smith s or Lancaster s Sounds, and to the north of Greenland, that terra incognita^ there lies a vast open ocean into which no man has yet pene trated and returned. This ocean has a surface, according to his calculations, of four million square miles, and he believes that at some season of extraordinary mildness, Sir John Franklin s company forced their way into it, and could not return, and that there they are, fast lucked in their icy prison. Dr. Kane s pro ject was to reach the ocean by an overland route, that is, to sail as far to the North as he could get, say to the latitude of 76, then leave his ships in charge of a portion of his men, and with the remainder start overland in sledges, draun by Esquimaux dogs, and carrying gulta percha boats to be launched on this great Northern Ocean, when they would reach its shores. Whether Dr. Kane was correct in his theory of this vast Polar sea remains yet to be seen, and can neither be satisfactorily denied or affirmed until the expedition is heard from. The dis covery of the remains of Sir John Franklin s party by Dr. Rae, which seems to be well confirmed and generally accredited, removes the prime object of Kane s expedition, and deepens the anxiety which his friends feel for his return. He is one of those men whom the country can ill afford to spare. A brief outline of his life, as we have never seen it given, may be interesting to our readers. Elisha Kent Kane is the son of John K. Kane, United States District Judge of Pennsylvania much talked of throughout the country years ago, as the gentleman to whom Mr. Polk addressed the celebrated document known as the " Kane let ter." The letter undoubtedly was the weight which turned the scale against Mr. Clay in the Keystone State, and therefore Judge Kane was unmercifully abused for his connection with it. He has, however, thoroughly outlived the obloquy then heaped upon him, and is now known in Philadelphia as one of the most influential and talented gentlemen of that city. But it is the life of the son that we are to sketch. He, the doctor, is now about thirty-five years of age; when he was some fourteen or fifteen, he was pronounced by physicians so radically diseased in the heart, that he might at any time fall dead, and they advised that he be taken from school and sent travelling. Accordingly at this early age he was sent to Europe, where he rambled at leisure and pleasure, traversing a great part of the continent on foot. Having spent some three years in this way, and not dying as was predicted, he returned to Philadelphia and engnged in the study of medicine. Having finished his course, he desired to set out on his travels again, and was shortly after attached to the suite of Caleb Cushing, then going out to China as United States Commissioner. During the next three years he travelled most extensively through China, India, Persia and other parts of Asia. Thence crossed into Africa and explored many of the countries of that unknown continent. He returned from his Eastern travels by way of the Pacific, and crossed over South America, coming down the valley of the Amazon and possessing himself of a full knowledge of its varied resources. He reached the United States in 1846, and his old friend, Cushing, having previously returned from China, was about setting out for the seat of war in Mexico. Kane was immediately attached to his staff, and did pood service during the whole campaign ; at one time distinguishing himself highly for the success and daring bravery with which he conducted a train of supplies almost through the camp of the enemy. In this perilous feat he was wounded, though not in a manner to disable him seriously. HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. /I After the close of the war he received from President Polk the commission of surgeon in the United States Navy. During the years 1848-9, and part of 50, he was attached to the coast survey under Prof. Bache, where his large scientific acquirements rendered him of great service. He was engaged in the survey when, in 1850, he was detached as surgeon to the Arctic expedition under com mand of Lieut. De Haven. He has perhaps travelled more than any living man, and he furnishes a practical contradiction to the adage that great travellers are great story-tellers. A more modest, unassuming man than he can nowhere be found. He is plain and retiring, not ready to talk of his travels, nor to appear distin guished from the mass ; but when he chooses to be communicative, can be as absorbingly interesting as any man we have ever heard speak. To see him on the street in Philadelphia, a small statured, modestly dressed young man, no one would ever imagine that he is the traveller of the day not even excepting Bayard Taylor and that in scientific acquirements he is the associate and the equal of Agassiz, and Bailey, of Forbes, and Le Verrier. But such ia fact he is, and if he ever lives to return to his home, will yet do honor to his whole country in the contributions he will make to her philosophy and literature. CHAPTER V. INTO POLITICS DELEGATE TO THE CONVENTION OF 1856 His FIRST SPEECH MEMBER OF THE MAINE LEGISLATURE SPEAKER OF THE MAINE HOUSE A RATIFICATION MEETING. T T is almost needless to say, for the reader s acumen has al- JL ready prompted him to the conclusion, that it was jour- ilism that led James G. Blaine into the whirlpool of politics, and it was inevitable that in that whirlpool he should lose his hold upon his stepping-stone. . In September, 1858, he was elected to represent the city oT Augusta in the Legislature of Maine for 1859. He was re-elected to the Legislature of 1860 and 1 86 1. The last two years of his term he served as Speaker of the House of Representatives. The same strong incisive and magnetic qualities of which he had given proof as an editor he exhibited as a member of the Legislature. A master of parliamentary law, he evinced a practical experience in legislative proceedings and a quick appreciation of men, what they were and what they were capa ble of doing. His influential position in the body was at the outset recognized by his associates and by the public. His debate with the Hon. A. P. Gould, of Thomaston, the Demo cratic leader of the House and a distinguished lawyer and politician, show great fc forensic power and insight. And it ex cited the living people not only in the Legislature, but among the homes of the State. The subject was upon a resolution (72) HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 73 dealing with the confiscation of Rebel property. Mr. Elaine resigned his chair for the purpose of taking the floor, and for more than an hour he held the House within the circle of his eye. An impetuous torrent of well-couched argument was poured forth. And the coup de grace was given in a glittering structure of facts and logic. Mr. Gould was demolished. Mr. Elaine resumed the Speaker s chair and carried with him to it the hot flushed palm of success. The debate was incisive and demoralizing to the opponents of the Union. Mr. Elaine also led the forces that opposed the change of the seat of government of the State from Augusta to Port land, and after a severe and brilliant contest was victorious. As presiding officer he was prompt in his decisions, always ready and correct, and they were decisions that decided. He never stumbled and appeal was rarely taken, and his thorough comprehension of his duties, the precision and rapidity of his action were of great practical advantage in freeing legislation V from unnecessary delays and obstructions. The Hon. J. L. Stevens, who for quite a while ornamented our diplomatic service and who made Mr. Elaine s acquaint ance in January, 1855, when he became associated with him in the conduct and ownership of the Kenncbec Journal, thus writes concerning Mr. Elaine at this time : " His gifts as an orator and his generous and magnetic qualities rapidly made him known to the entire people of the State. He had a re markable faculty of attaching men to him. He always remem bered the face of a man whom he had once met, and in a brief period he knew the active men from all sections of the commonwealth. The men whose names he had once heard and whose faces he had once seen were always quickly recog nized in subsequent years wherever he chanced to meet them. In this regard as well as his remembrance of all the salient 74 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. political and historical facts, he exhibited remarkable qualities, strikingly illustrated throughout his public life. When the Free-State men of Kansas were struggling against the border ruffians of Missouri, agents of the former State came to New England, in 1855, for pecuniary aid and sympathy. Mr. Elaine was one of those who contributed, giving to the extent of his means and co-operating in obtaining other aid in Augusta. He was always kind-hearted and generous to the men in our employ. He was always liberal to the extent of his means and sympathetic toward all just objects of charity. When young, while a man somewhat impulsive and ardent, he was always very careful and prudent in decision, and his impulses were under complete control. Like all public men who have been conspicuous in politics for many years, he has necessarily some enemies, but fewer than most men have. Ever a firm adherent to the Republican party and its principles, he is catholic toward all, generous to his opponents, has few ani mosities, and forgets them sooner than most public men. From my earliest acquaintance with him he seemed to me to have precisely those qualities which make a popular and successful leader. "As a candidate he has always been stronger than his party. I consider him one of the most remarkable men in the coun try, and that he has few peers as a political leader and states man on either side of the Atlantic. The bitterness with which he has often been attacked by partisan editors and political rivals has less foundation than any like case with which I am ^acquainted. The Mr. Blainc which they represent with so many expletives and such violent rhetoric is a person entirely unlike the Mr. Blaine known to his townsmen, his acquaint ances and his friends. It is a Mr. Blaine that has no real existence." HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 75 Mr. Blaine retired from the Speaker s chair at Augusta with more than ordinary fame and the good wishes of both parties. In the House of the State Capitol building, however, Mr. Blaine did not make his first appearance on the field of poli tics. His debut ante-dated his legislative appearance nearly two years. In the spring of 1856 he was chosen a delegate to the first Convention of the Republican party, which was called to meet in Philadelphia in June of that year. Mr. Blaine by right was selected a delegate to that Convention, for he and Governor Morrill were the godfathers of the Republican party in the Pine Tree State, for it was largely to their efforts that any Convention was possible. That Convention which was to lay the foundation stone of the greatest political party of modern times is thus described by Mr. Blaine in his " Twenty Years of Congress :" The Republican party had meanwhile been organizing and consolidating. During the years 1854 and 1855 it had acquired control of the governments in a majority of the free States, and it promptly called a national Convention to meet in Philadelphia, in June, 1856. The Democracy saw at once that a new and dangerous opponent was in the field an opponent that stood upon principle and shunned expediency; that brought to its standard a great host of young men, and that won to its service a very large proportion of the talent, the courage, and the eloquence of the North. The Convention met for a purpose, and it spoke boldly. It accepted the issue as presented by the men of the South, and it offered no compromise. In its ranks were all shades of anti-slavery opinion the patient Abolitionist, the Free-Soiler of the Buffalo platform, the Democrats who had supported the Wilmot proviso, the Whigs who had followed Seward. There was no strife about candidates. Mr. Seward was the recognized head of the party, but he did not desire the nomination. He agreed with his faithful mentor, Thurlow Weed, that his time- had not come, and that his sphere of duty was still in the Senate. Salmon P. Chase was Governor of Ohio, waiting re-election to the Senate, and, like Seward, not anxious for a nomination where election was regarded as improbable if not impossible. The more conservative and timid section of the party advocated the nomination of Judge McLean, of the Supreme Court, who for many years had enjoyed a shadowy mention for the presidency in Whig journals of a certain type. But Judge McLean was old and the Republican party was young. He belonged to the past ; the party was looking to the future. It demanded a more energetic and attractive candidate, and John C. Fremont was chosen on the first ballot. He was forty-three years of age, with a creditable record in the regular army, and wide fame as a scientific explorer in the Western mountain ranges, then the terra 5 7 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. incognita of the continent. He was a native of South Carolina, and had married the brilliant and accomplished daughter of Col. Benton. Always a member of the Democratic party, he was so closely identified with the early settlement of California that he was elected one of her first senators. To the tinge of romance in his history were added the attractions of a winning address and an auspicious name. The movement in his behalf had been quietly and effectively organized , for several months preceding the Convention. It had been essentially aided, if not indeed originated, by the elder Francis P. Blair, who had the skill derived from long experience in political management. Mr. Blair was a devoted friend of Benton, had been intimate with Jackson and intensely hostile to Calhoun. As editor of the Globe, he had exercised wide influence during the Presidential terms of Jackson and Van Buren, but when Polk was inaugurated he was sup planted in administration confidence by Thomas Ritchie, of the State-Rights school, who was brought from Virginia to found another paper. Mr. Blair was a firm Union man, ami though he had never formally withdrawn from the Dem ocratic party, he was now ready to leave it because of the disunion tendencies of its Southern leaders. He was a valuable friend to Fremont, and gave to him the full advantage of his experience and his sagacity. Wm. L. Dayton, of New Jersey, who had served with distinction in the Sen ate, was selected for the Vice- Presidency. His principal competitor in the only ballot which was taken was Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. This was the first time that Mr. Lincoln was conspicuously named outside of his own State. He had been a member of the Thirtieth Congress, 1847-9, )Ut being a modest man he had so little forced himself into notice that when his name was proposed for Vice-President, inquiries as to who he was were heard from all parts ol the Con vention. When the young delegate returned to Augusta it was de cided to hold a ratification meeting, and Meinonaon Hall was* engaged for the occasion, and Saturday, June 21, 1856, was the time. Citizens came from Gardener and Hallowell, and a band of music was present. The hall held about 400 enthu siastic ratifiers, and as can be readily understood, the meeting had a primitive air about it, and there was a feeling of inexpe rience which always attends the first steps of a new movement, but there was no doubt about the utterances of the speakers or the intent of their words. James H. Williams presided, and introduced Mr. Morrill, who delivered an elaborate address, presented the attitude of the Republican party, and outlined what it had done and the great work it had mapped out for the future. HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 77 At the conclusion of Mr. Merrill s speech, a tall, thin, orown- haired man, with pale face and flashing eye, advanced to the edge of the platform. It was very evident to his audience that he approached them tremblingly and under every disad vantage of his first effort. But at the first sound of his own voice every doubt vanished. He seemed at once to grasp his theme and to recover his control. He began quietly, but soon warmed to the most earnest exertion and the most enthu siastic utterances. For thirty minutes he delivered a harangue at once brilliant and powerful. He arraigned the Whigs and Democrats with merciless severity, and he held up the Repub lican party, just born, as the great beacon-light of the times ; " a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire by night/ that was to lead them out of the bondage of slavery and disinte gration into the promised land of union and freedom. The speech aroused the greatest enthusiasm and made a strong impression. It stamped the orator from that moment as a man of mark ; a man who would yet become a great leader of his people. His oration was so pregnant with power that it at once guaranteed his future. Speaking of this occa sion, Mr. Elaine once said to rne, " I never suffered so much in all my life, and to this day, upon rising to speak, I feel coming back upon me something of the terror of that night." This was the first appearance of the man who to-day heads the march of the Republican party, then as now an ever vic torious army. And is it not a little singular that it was almost twenty-eight years to a day after this speech which marks the initiation of Mr. Elaine s career in politics that, resting within the shadow of his own house, within the same town, he should enjoy the singularly agreeable pleasure of a ratification meet ing of his own neighbors upon his nomination to the seat he so earnestly intended Mr. Fremont to occupy ? Verily, Time is a strange pilot ! CHAPTER VI. ELAINE IN CONGRESS A NEW FORCE ON THE FLOOR OF THE HOUSE THE MAN FROM MAINE BEGINS His RECORD ELECTED TO THE SPEAKER S CHAIR ANOTHER GRADUATION, THIS TIME TO THE SENATE A MARVEL OUS HISTORY OF ACTIVITY. IN 1862 the face of James G. Elaine first appeared upon the floor of the House of Representatives at Washington with the right to stay there, and from that time to this the will of the American people has perpetuated in Mr. Elaine that right. From that year dates the beginning of his national career. Indeed, few men have lived more constantly in what Mr. Manton Marble would call " the sunlight of publicity." For an instant let us run over his record. He was elected a Member of Congress for seven successive terms, by the fol lowing majorities : 1862 3,422 1864 4,328 1866 6,591 1868 3,346 1870 2,320 1872 3,568 1874 .2,830 He was three times chosen Speaker of the National House, serving in that capacity from March 4, 1869, to March 4, 1875. He received the nomination for the Speakership in the Republican caucus each time by acclamation, an honor not enjoyed by any candidate for the Speakership before or since, and he never had a ruling reversed or overruled by the House during the six years he held that onerous and trying office. (73) AT THE AGE OF THIRTY-FIVE. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 8 1 He was appointed Senator July 8, 1876, to fill the vacancy caused- by the resignation of Lot M. Morrill, who became Secretary of the Treasury ; and Mr. Elaine was elected Sena tor January 1 6, 1877, both for the long and short terms, by the unanimous vote of the Republicans in the Maine Legisla ture in caucus and in their respective houses. He resigned from the Senate March 4, 1 88 1, to accept the post of Secre tary of State. As such we will refer to him later. Dur ing all this career his public life was continuous. He was promoted by the people from one place to another, and he never got before the people that he was not elected. His de feats have been confined to the National Conventions of his own party and to politicians ; the people have never beaten him. When Mr. Blaine entered Congress and looked around him he must have wondered with the historical Western man, as he saw all the men with distinguished names sitting about him and in close proximity, " How the dickens did I get here?" Doubtless also as the later combats in which he entered de veloped to him, as would a photograph, the defects and weak nesses of these same great men, I have no doubt he concluded the story of the historical Western man with the Western man s remark, " How the dickens did they get here ?" Still, around him there were men who at that hour were ruling the destiny of the country. The natural leader who assumed his place by common consent was Thaddeus Stevens, a man with strong peculiarity of character, and as Mr. Blaine has characterized him, " able, trained, and fearless." Elihu B. Washburne, Geo. W. Julian, Daniel W. Voorhees, Schuyler Colfax, Anson P. Morrill, Henry L. Dawes, Wm. A. Wheeler, Reuben E. Fenton, Geo. H. Pendleton, Clement L. Vallandig- ham, Samuel S. Cox, Wm. D. Kelley, Roscoe Conkling, 82 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. Wm. S. Holman, Francis P. Blair, Oilman Marsden, were among the illustrious of the day, and James G. Blaine, al though they did not know it, was their peer. During his first term he gave himself up to study and ob servations, but in the Thirty-ninth Congress he began to be felt, and from that time to the present he has been foremost in all legislation. His first solid reputation made in Washington was that of an exceedingly industrious committee-man. He was a member of the Post-Office and Military Committee, and on the Appropriations and the Rules. He paid close atten tion to the business of the Committees and took an active part in the debates of the House, manifesting practical abili ties and genius for details. (JJre^i^t-Ceniarkable speech he made in Congress was on the Assumption of the General Gov ernment of the War Debts of the States, in the course of which he urged that the North was abundantly able to carry on the war to a successful issue. This speech was so warmly received that two hundred thousand copies were circulated as a campaign document in the campaign of I S$4~^And^ jt_was the delivery of this speech, and some discussions whichjook shortlyafler it, lhat"ra11sed_jniajd^ say _ "Rlainv.of Maine had shown as great abiljtY_for-the higher walks of public life as anv mnn who had come^ to Con- \ gi^ss_ckinng_his period of seryjc^s^L-Jjjs views on all public \questions were pronounced, sometimes to aggressiveness, and yet his bitterest foe ,fias neve# charged him with avoiding or evading any responsibility or the expression of his convic tions on issues of the moment. During his first session as a member of the Post-Office Com mittee he took an active part in co-operation with the Chair man, the Hon. John B. Alley, and the late James Brooks, of New York, in encouraging and securing the system of Postal HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 83 Cars now in universal operation. Distribution on the cars had not been attempted on any great scale, and the first ap propriations for the enlarged service were not granted without opposition an opposition he overcame. In the seven years intervening between the time that Mr. Elaine was first elected to Congress and the time that he was elevated to the Speaker s Chair, his speeches were not many in number nor perhaps great in quality when compared with the speeches of his later career; though they were not lack ing in force or purpose. Naturally he offered a strong sup port to the administration. In the period of reconstruction he was active, energetic and intelligent. He was especially prominent in shaping some of the most important features of the I4th Amendment, particularly that relating to the business of representation. The discussions on these great series of questions, in which Mr. Elaine figured largely, are among the most valuable and interesting in the history of the American Congress. On one occasion he said : Among the most solemn duties of a sovereign government is the protection of those citizens who, under great temptations and amid great perils, main tain their faith and their loyalty. The obligation on the Federal Govern ment to protect the loyalists of the South is supreme, and they must take all need ful means to assure that protection. Among the most needful is the gift of free suffrage, and that must be guaranteed. There is no protection you can extend to a man so effective and conclusive as the power to protect himself. And iu assuring protection to the loyal citizen you assure permanency to the government ; so that the bestowal of suffrage is not merely the discharge of a personal obliga tion toward those who are enfranchised, but it is the most far sighted provision against social disorder, the surest guarantee for peace, prosperity, and public justice. In 1867, while he was absent in Europe, the theory of pay ing the public debt in greenbacks was started in Ohio by Mr. Pendleton and in Massachusetts by General Butler. As soon as it was possible for Mr. Elaine when opportunity was afforded to him in the autumn on his return, at a special or adjourned session of Congress, he assaulted the proposition in a speech $4 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. of great research, logic, and force. It thus happened that he was the first man in either branch of Congress to speak against the financial heresy that has so long engrossed the attention of the people. From that time Mr. Elaine has been indefati gable, both in Congress and before the people, in bringing the public opinion of the country to a right standard of financial and national honor. He was ever a ready champion of his own State, and \\hrn any one chose or dared to attack it, Mr. Elaine was the first to spring to its defence. Mr. S. S. Cox, who owes to Con gressman Blaine his sobriquet of " Sunset," cast some reflec tions on the Pine Tree State on the 2d of July, 1864. Mr. Elaine, on his feet in an instant, replied : If there be a State in this Union that can say with truth that her federal con nection confers no special benefit of a material character, that State is Maine, and yet, sir, no State is more attached to the Federal Union than Maine. Her affection and her pride are centred in the Union, and God knows she has con tributed of her best blood and treasure without stint in supporting the war for the Union, and she will do so to the end. But she resents, and I, speaking for her, resent the insinuation that she derives any undue advantage from federal legisla tion, or that she gets a single dollar that she does not pay back. ... I have spoken in vindication of a State that is as independent and as proud as any within the limits of the Union. I have spoken for a people as high-toned and as hon orable as can be found in the wide world many of them my constituents, who are as manly and as brave as ever faced the ocean s storms. So long, sir, ;i< I have a seat on this floor, the State of Maine shall not be slandered by the gentle man from Ohio or by gentlemen from any other State. In similar defence he said on another occasion, " The senti ment of Maine is loyal to the core, and she has showed her loyalty by complying, with patriotic readiness, to all demands thus far made upon her for soldiers to recruit the army or for sailors to man the navy." Again he came to the rescue when Maine was covertly assailed in the debate on the fishing boun ties, when he said : A great deal has been said recently in the other end of the capitol in regard fo the fishing bounties, a portion of which is paid to M;une. I have a word to say on that matter, and I may as well say it here. According to the records of HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 85 the Navy Department, the State of Maine has sent into the naval service since the beginning of this war six thousand skilled seamen, to say nothing of the trained and invaluable officers she has contributed to the same sphere of patriotic duty. For these men the State has received no credit whatever on her quotas for the army. If you will calculate the amount of bounty that would have been paid to that number of men had they enlisted in the army, instead of entering the navy, as they did without bounty, you will find it will foot up a larger sum than Maine has received in fishing bounties for the past twenty years. Thus, sir, the original proposition on which fishing bounties were granted that they would build up a hardy and skillful class of mariners for the public defence in time of public danger has been made good a hundred and a thousand-fold by the experience and the developments of this war. It was not possible, of course, for such a grave question as that of Conscription to cross the threshold of the House of Representatives and the voice of Mr. Blaine not be raised. He said as follows : A conscription is a hard thing at best, Mr. Speaker, but the people of thir, country are patriotically willing to submit to one in this great crisis for the great cause at stake. There is no necessity, however, for making it absolutely merci less and sweeping. I say, in my judgment, there is no necessity for making i : so, even if there were no antecedent question as to the expediency and practica bility of the measure. I believe the law as it stands, allowing commutation and substitution, is sufficiently effective, if judiciously enforced. It will raise a large number of men by its direct operation, and it will secure a very large amount of money with which to pay bounties to volunteers. I cannot refrain from asking gentlemen around me whether in their judgment the pending measure, if submitted to the popular vote, would receive the support of even a respectable minority in any district in the loyal States? Just let it be understood that whoever the lot falls on must go, regardless of all business con siderations, all private interests, all personal engagements, all family obligations; that the draft is to be sharp, decisive, final, and inexorable, without commutation and without substitution, and my word for it you will create consternation in all the loyal States. Such a conscription was never resorted to but once, even in the French Empire under the absolutism of the first Napoleon, and for the Con gress of the United States to attempt its enforcement upon their constituents is to ignore the first principles of republican and representative government. His loyalty to the administration and his appreciation of Mr. Lincoln s career, led him at all times to afford the admin istration such support as lay in his power, and to do every thing he could to get from Congress the aid and comfort that President Lincoln so often needed and too often was refused. Mr. Blaine recognized thoroughly the necessity of encouraging 86 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. those men who were at the front. In a speech on the Enrol ment Bill, February 21, 1865, he said in conclusion: Nothing so discourages and disheartens the brave men at the front as the be lief that proper measures are not adopted at home for re-enforcing and sustain ing them. Even a lukewarmness or a backwardness in that respect is enough; but when you add to that the suspicion that unfair devices have been resorted to by those charged with filling quotas, you naturally influence the prejudices and passions of our veterans in the field in a manner calculated to lessen their per sonal zeal and generally to weaken the discipline of the army. After four yvar> of such patriotic and heroic effort for national unity as the world h:is never wit nessed before, we cannot now afford to have the great cause injured or its lair fame darkened by a single unworthy incident connected with it. The improper practices of individuals canm it disgrace or degrade the nation; but after these practices are brought to the attention of Congress, we shall assuredly be dis graced and degraded if we fail to apply the requisite remedy when that remedy is in our power. Let us, then, in this hour of triumph to the national arms, do our duty here, our duty to the troops in the field, our duty to our constituents at home, and our duty, alvive all, to our country, whose existence has been in such peril in the past, but whose future of greatness and glory seems now so assured and so radiant. It is almost needless to tell our readers that Mr. Elaine was at all times, and profoundly so from conviction, a protection ist. The key to his belief was obtained by the hard logic of reasoning and facts, and he early took an opportunity to state the fact by word of mouth and not by vote, after his career had placed him in such a position that the statement was needful for its effect. In the House, February I, 1866, he said : "In theory and in practice I am for protecting Ameri can industry in all its forms, and to this end we must encour age American manufacturers, and we must equally encourage American commerce." From this platform Mr. Elaine has never yet moved. Almost his last speech before his ele vation to the Speaker s chair was one of loyalty to the administration. In a pledge of his support and the support of the country to General Grant, the incoming President, in the House, December 10, 1868, he said: HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 8/ General Grant s administration will have high vantage ground from the day of its inauguration. Its responsibilities will indeed be great, its power will be large, its opportunities will be splendid; and to meet them all we have a tried and true man, who adds to his other great elements of strength that of perfect trust and confidence on the part of the people. And to reassure ourselves of his executive character, if reassurance were necessary, let us remember that grent military leaders have uniformly proved the wisest, firmest and best of civil rulers. Cromwell, William III., Charles XII., Frederick of Prussia, are not more con spicuous instances in monarchical governments than Washington, Jackson and Taylor have proved in our own. Whatever, therefore, may lie before us in the untrodden and often beclouded path of the future whether it be financial em barrassment, or domestic trouble of another and more serious type, or misunder standings with foreign nations, or the extension of our flag and our sovereignty over insular or continental possessions, North or South, that fate or fortune may peacefully offer to our ambition let us believe with all confidence that General Grant s administration will meet every exigency, with the courage, the ability and the conscience which American nationality and Christian civilization demand. On the 4th of March, 1869, when in his thirty-ninth year, Mr. Elaine was chosen Speaker of the House of Representa tives. The vote which promoted him stood : For James G. Elaine, of Maine, 135 votes. For Michael C. Kerr, of Indiana, 57 votes. Upon taking the chair, Mr. Elaine addressed the House as follows : I thank you profoundly for the great honor which you have just conferred upon me. The gratification which this signal mark of your confidence brings to me finds its only drawback in the diffidence with which I assume the weighty duties devolved upon me. Succeeding to a chair made illustrious by the services of such eminent statesmen and skilled parliamentarians as Clay, and Stevenson, and Polk, and Winthrop, and Banks, and Grow, and Colfax, I may well dis trust my ability to meet the just expectations of those who have shown me such marked partiality. But relying, gentlemen, on my honest purpose to perform all my duties faithfully and fearlessly, and trusting in a large measure to the indul gence which I am sure you will always extend to me, I shall hope to retain, as I have secured your confidence, your kindly regard nnd your generous support. The Forty-first Congress assembles at an auspicious period in the history of our government. The splendid and impressive ceremonial which we have just witnessed in another part of the Capitol appropriately symbolizes the triumphs of the past and the hopes of the future. A great chieftain, whose sword, at the head of gallant and victorious armies, saved the Republic from dismemberment and ruin, has been fitly called to the highest civic honor which a grateful people can bestow. Sustained by a Congress that so ably represents the loyalty, the patriotism, and the personal worth of the nation, the President this day inaugu rated will assure to the country an administration of purity, fidelity and pros- 88 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. perity; an era of liberty regulated by law, and of law thoroughly inspired with liberty. Congratulating you, gentlemen, upon the happy auguries of the day, and in voking the gracious blessing of Almighty God on the arduous and responsible labors before you, I am now ready to take the oath of office and enter upon the discharge of the duties to which you have called me. During the two years that followed, Mr. Elaine discharged his duties with perfect satisfaction, and on the 3d of March, 1871, before the expiration of that Congress, Mr. S. S. Cox, of New York, offered the following resolutions : " In view of the difficulties involved in the performance of the duties of the presiding officer of this House, and of the able, courteous, dignified and impartial discharge of those duties by Hon. J. G. Blaine, during the present Congress, it is eminently be coming that our thanks be and they are hereby tendered to the Speaker thereof." Mr. Blaine, in response, in adjourning the House, spoke as follows: Our labors are at an end ; but I delay the final adjournment long enough to return my most profound and respectful thanks for the commendation which you have been pleased to bestow upon my official course and conduct. In a deliberative body of this character a presiding officer is fortunate if he retains the confidence and steady support of his political associates. Beyond that you give me the assurance that I have earned the respect and good-will of those from whom I am separated by party lines. Your expressions are most grateful to me, and are most gratefully acknowledged. The Congress whose existence closes with this hour enjoys a memorable dis tinction. It is the first in which all the States have been represented on this floor since the baleful winter that preceded our late bloody war. Ten years have passed since then years of trial and triumph; years of wild destruction and years of careful rebuilding; and after all, and as the result of all, the National < Government is here to-day, united, strong, proud, defiant and just, with a terri torial area vastly expanded, and with three additional States represented on the folds of its Hag. For these prosperous fruits of our great struggle let us humbly give thanks to the God of battle.-* and to the Prince of Peace. And now, gentlemen, with one more expression of the obligation I feel for the considerate kindness with which you h-ive always sustained me, I perform the only remaining duty of my office in declaring, as I now do, that the House of Representatives of the Forty-first Congress is adjourned without day. When the Forty-second Congress convened, on the 4th day of March, 1871, Mr. Blaine was re-elected, the votes stand- HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. $-j ing: James G. Elaine, 126; George W. Morgan, 92. Mr. Blaine, on being conducted to the chair and resuming his old place, addressed the Hou.se as follows : The Speakership of the American House of Representatives has always been esteemed as an enviable honor. A re-election to the position carries with it peculiar gratification, in that it implies an approval of past official bearing. For this great mark of your confidence I can but return to you my sincerest thanks, with the assurance of my utmost devotion to the duties which you call upon me to discharge. Chosen by the party representing the political majority in this House, the Speaker owes a faithful allegiance to the principles and policy of that party. But he will fall far below the honorable requirements of his station if he fails to give to the minority their full rights under the rules which he is called upon to administer. The successful working of our grand system of government depends largely upon the vigilance of party organizations, and the most wholesome legis lation which this House produces and perfects is that which results from oppos ing forces mutually eager and watchful and well-nigh balanced in numbers. The Forty-second Congress assembles at a period of general content, happi ness and prosperity throughout the land. Under the wise administration of the National Government peace reigns in all our borders, and the only serious mis understanding with any foreign power is, we may hope, at this moment in pro cess of honorable, cordial and lasting adjustment. We are fortunate in meeting at such a time, in representing such constituencies, in legislating for such a country. Trusting, gentlemen, that our official intercourse may be free from all personal asperity, believing that all our labors will eventuate for the public good, and craving the blessing of Him without whose aid we labor in vain, I am now ready to proceed with the further organization of the House ; and, as the first step thereto, I will myself take the oath prescribed by the Constitution and laws. Mr. Blaine was so often attacked while in Congress upon one thing and another, and, whenever he had an opportunity of replying, so completely demolished his assailant that it is a matter of some surprise tbat the gentlemen of the opposition never seemed to learn wisdom from experience and to let him alone. He was instant, sharp, quick, direct, strong to repel an assault, and we dip here into the vast, often dreary, pages of the Congressional Record to quote his colloquy with General But- ler then a Representative from Massachusetts who had in dulged in criticisms upon the Speaker for being the author of the resolution " providing for an investigation into alleged out- 90 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. rages perpetrated upon loyal citizens of the South," and for being mainly responsible for its adoption by a caucus of Re publican members of the House. This was on the i6th of March, 1871. Mr. Blaine at once left the chair and took the floor in his defence. The record reads as follows : Mr. Blaine, the Speaker. [Mr. Wheeler, of New York, in the chair.] I desire to ask the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Butler) whether he denies to me the right to have drawn that resolution ? Mr. Butler. I have made no assertion on that subject one way or the other. Mr. Blaine. Did not the gentleman distinctly know that I drew it ? Mr. Butler. No, sir. Mr. Blaine. Did I not take it to the gentleman and read it to him ? Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. Mr. Blaine. Did I not show him the manuscript ? Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. Mr. Blaine. In my own handwriting? Mr. Butler. No, sir. Mr. Blaine. And at his suggestion I added these words : "And the expenses of said committee shall be paid from the contingent fund of the House of Repre sentatives" [applause], and the fact that ways and means were wanted to pny the expenses was the only objection he made to it. Mr. Butler. What was the answer the gentleman made? I suppose I may ask that, now that the Speaker has come upon the floor. Mr. Blaine. The answer was that I immediately wrote the amendment pro viding for the payment of the expenses of the committee. Mr. Butler. What was my answer? Was it not that under no circumstances would I have anything to do with it, being bound by the action of the caucus ? Mr. Blaine. No, sir; the answer was that under no circumstances would you serve as chairman. Mr. Butler. Or have anything to do with the resolution. Mr. Blaine. There are two hundred and twenty-four members of the House of Representatives. A committee of thirteen can be found without the gentle man from Massachusetts being on it. His service is not essential to the consti tution of the committee. Mr. Btttler. Why did you not find such a committee, then? Mr. Blaine. Because I knew very well that if I omitted the appointment of the gentleman it would be heralded throughout the length and breadth of the country, by the claquers who have so industriously distributed this letter this morning, that the Speaker had packed the commiitee, as the gentleman said lie- would, with "weak-kneed Republicans," who would not go into an investiga tion vigorously, as he would. That was the reason. [Applause.] So that the Chair laid the responsibility upon the gentleman of declining the appointment. Mr. Butler. I knew that was the trick of the Chair. Mr. Blaine. Ah, the "trick!" We now know what the gentleman meant by the word " trick." I am very glad to know that the " trick" was successful. Mr. Butler. No doubt. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. Ql Mr. Blaine. It is this " trick " which places the gentleman from Massachu setts on his responsibility before the country. Mr. Butler. Exactly. Mr. Elaine. Wholly. Mr. Butler. Wholly. Mr. Blaine. Now, sir, the gentleman from Massachusetts talks about the co ercion by which fifty eight Republicans were made to vote for the resolution. I do not know what any one of them may have to say ; but if there be here to-day a single gentleman who has given to the gentleman of Massachusetts the intima tion that he felt coerced that he was in any way restrained from free action, let him get up now and speak, or forever after hold his peace. Mr. Butler. Oh, yes. Mr. Blaine. The gentleman from Massachusetts says : " Having been ap pointed against my wishes, expressed both publicly and privately, by the Speaker, as chairman of a committee to investigate the state of affairs in the South, ordered to-day by Democratic vo .es, against the most earnest protest of more than a two- thirds majority of the Republicans of the House." Mr. Butler. Yes, sir. Mr. Blaine. This statement is so bold and groundless that I do not know what reply to make to it. It is made in the face of the fact that on the roll-call fifty- eight Republicans voted for the resolution, and forty-nine, besides the gentleman from Massachusetts, against it. I deny that the gentleman has the right to speak for any member who voted for it, unless it may be the member from Tennessee (Mr. Maynard), who voted for it, for the purpose, probably, of moving a recon sideration a very common, a very justifiable and proper course whenever any gentleman chooses to adopt it. I am not criticising it at all. But if there be any one of the fifty-eight gentlemen who voted for the resolution under coercion I would like the gentleman from Massachusetts to designate him. Mr. Butler. I am not here to retail private conversations. Mr. Blaine. Oh, no; but you will distribute throughout the entire country unfounded calumnies purporting to rest upon assertions made in private conver sations, which, when called for, cannot be verified. Mr. Butler. Pardon me, sir. I said there was a caucus Mr. Blaine. I hope God will pardon you ; but you ought not to ask me to do it ! [Laughter.] Air. Butler. I will ask God, and not you. Mr. Blaine. I am glad the gentleman will. Mr. Butltr. I have no favors to ask of the devil. And let me say that the caucus agreed upon a definite mode of action. Mr. Blaine. The caucus! Now, let me say here and now, that the Chair man of that caucus, sitting on my right, "a chevalier," in legislation, "sans peur et sans reproche" the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Austin Blair) stated, as a man of honor, as he is, that he was bound to say officially from the Chair that it was not considered, and could not be considered binding upon gentlemen. And more than that. Talk about tricks ! Why, the very infamy of political trickery never compassed a design so foolish and so wicked as to bring together a caucus, and attempt to pledge them to the support of measures which might violate not only the political principles, but the religious faith of men to the support of the bill drawn by the gentleman from Massachusetts, which might 92 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. violate the conscientious scruples of men. And yet, forsooth, he comes in here and declares that whatever a caucus may determine upon, however hastily, how ever crudely, however wrongfully, you must support it ! Why, even in the worst days of the Democracy, when the gentleman himself was in the front rank of the worst wing of it, when was it ever attempted to say that a majority of a party caucus could bind men upon measures that involved questions of constitutional law, of personal honor, of religions scruple ? The gentleman asked what would have been done he asked my colleague (Mr. Peters) what would have been done in case of members of a party voting against the caucus nominee for Speaker. I understand that was intended as a thrust at myself. . Caucus nomi nations of officers have always been held as binding. But, just here, let me say, that if a minority did not vote against the decision of the caucus that nominated me for Speaker, in my judgment, it was not the fault of the gentleman from Massachusetts. [Applause.] If the requisite number could have been found to have gone over to the despised Na/arenes on the opposite side, that gentleman would have led them as gallantly as he did the forces in the Charleston Conven tion. [Renewed applause and laughter.] Mr. Speaker, in old times it was the ordinary habit of the Speaker of the House of Representatives to take part in debate. The custom has fallen into disuse. For one, I am very glad that it has. For one, I approve of the conclu sion that forbids it. The Speaker should, with consistent fidelity to his own party, be the impartial administrator of the rules of the House, and a constant participation in the discussions of members would take from him that appearance of impartiality which it is so important to maintain in the rulings of the Chair. But at the same time I despise and denounce the insolence of the gentleman from Massachusetts when he attempts to say that the Representative from the Third District of the State of Maine has no right to frame a resolution; has no right to seek that under the rules that resolutions shall be adopted; has no right to ask the judgment of the House upon that resolution. Why, even the insolence of the gentleman himself never reached that sublime height before. Now, Mr. Speaker, nobody regrets more sincerely than I do any occurrence which calls me to take the floor. On questions of propriety, I appeal to members on both sides of the House, and they will bear me witness, that the circulation of this letter in the morning prints; its distribution throughout the land by tele graph ; the laying it upon the desks of members, was intended to be by the gen tleman from Massachusetts, not openly and boldly, but covertly I v/ill not use a stronger phrase an insult to the Speaker of this House. As such I resent it. I denounce it in all its essential statements, and in all its misstatements, and in all its mean inferences and meaner inuendoes. I denounce the letter as ground less without justification ; and the gentleman himself, I trust, will live to see the day when he will be ashamed of having written it. When the second session of the Forty-second Congress adjourned finally, on the 8th day of June, 1872, Mr. Niblack, of Indiana, took the Chair temporarily, and Mr. Samuel J. Randall, of Pennsylvania, submitted the following resolution : HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 93 " Resolved, that the thanks of this House are due, and are hereby tendered, to James G. Elaine, Speaker of the House, for the able, prompt and impartial manner in which he has discharged the duties of his office during the present session." On the 3d of the March following, Mr. Voorhees, of Indi ana, gave additional testimony to the popularity Mr. Elaine enjoyed in the office of Speaker, when he presented a resolu tion giving the thanks of the House to its head officer, which resolution, he said, " had the sincere sanction of his head and heart." When the House adjourned, Mr. Elaine spoke as follows : For the Forty-second time since the Federal Government was organized, its great representative body stands on the eve of dissolution. The final word which separates us is suspended for a moment that I may return my sincere thanks for the kind expressions respecting my official conduct, which, without division of party, you have caused to be entered on your journal. At the close of four years service in this responsible and often trying position, it is a source of honorable pride that I have so administered my trust as to secure the confidence and approbation of both sides of the House. It would not be strange if, in the necessarily rapid discharge of the daily business, I should have erred in some of the decisions made on points, and often without precedent to guide me. It has been my good fortune, however, to be always sustained by the House, and in no single instance to have had a ruling reversed. I advert to this gratifying fact, to quote the language of the most eloquent of my predeces sors, " in no vain spirit of exhaltation, but as furnishing a powerful motive for undissembled gratitude." And now, gentlemen, with a hearty God bless you all, I discharge my only remaining duty in declaring that the House of Representatives for the Forty- second Congress is adjourned without day. On the 2d of December, 1873, Mr. Elaine was chosen Speaker for the third time, receiving one hundred and eighty- nine votes, to eighty cast for all others. His address to the House was as follows : The vote this moment announced by the Clerk is such an expression of your confidence as calls for my sincerest thanks. To be chosen Speaker of the American House of Representatives is always an honorable distinction; to be chosen a third time enhances the honor more than three-fold ; to be chosen by the largest body that ever assembled in the Capitol imposes a burden of responsi bility which only your indulgent kindness could embolden me to assume. 6 94 "ON. JAMES G. BLAINE. The first occupant of this Chair presided over a House of sixty-five members, representing a population far below the present aggregate of the State of New York. At that time in the whole United States there were not fifty thousand civilized inhabitants to be found one hundred miles distant from the flow of the Atlantic tide. To-day, gentlemen, a large body of you come from beyond that limit, and represent districts then peopled only by the Indian and adventurous frontiersman. The National Government is not yet as old as many of its citi zens; but in this brief span of time, less than one lengthened life, it has, under God s providence, extended its power until a continent is the field of its empire and attests the majesty of its law. With the growth of new States and the resulting changes in the centres of population, new interests are developed, rival to the old, but by no means hos tile, diverse but not antagonistic. Nay, rather are all these interests in harmony ; and the true science of just government is to give to each its full and fair play, oppresMMg none by undue exaction, favoring none by undue privilege. It is this great lesson which our daily experience is teaching us, binding us together more closely, making our mutual dependence more manifest, and causing us to feel, whether we live in the North or in the South, in the East or in the \Vest, that we have indeed but " one country, one Constitution, one destiny." At the expiration of the Forty-third Congress, on the 3d of March, 1875, the thanks of the House, upon motion of Mr. Potter, were again given to Mr. Elaine for his " impartial ity, efficiency, and distinguished ability in the office of Speaker." On the same day, when the clock indicated that the hour of the dissolution of the Forty-third Congress had arrived, Speaker Blaine delivered the following valedictory address : I close with this hour a six years service as Speaker of the House of Repre sentatives a period surpassed in length by but two of my predecessors, and equaled by only two others. The rapid mutations of personal and political for tunes in this country have limited the great majority of those who have occupied this Chair to shorter terms of office. It would be the gravest insensibility to the honors and responsibilities of life, not to be deeply touched by so signal a mark of public esteem as that which I have thrice received at the hands of my political associates. I desire in this la>t moment to renew to them, one and all, my thanks and my gratitude. To those from whom I differ in my party relations the minority of this Hou^e I tender my acknowledgments for the generous courtesy with which they have treated me. By one of those sudden and deci>jve changes which dis in- guish popular institutions, and which conspicuously mark a free people, that minority is transformed in the ensuing Congress to the govprnjng power of tho House. However it might possibly have been under other circumstances, that event renders these words my farewell to the Chair. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 95 The Speakership of the American House of Representatives is a post of honor, of dignity, of power, of responsibility. Its duties are at once complex an.d~ con tinuous ; they are both onerous and delicate; they are performed in the broad light of day, under the eye of the whole people, subject at all times to the closest observation, and always attended with the sharpest criticism. I think no other official is htld to such instant and such rigid accountability. Parlinmentary rulings in their very nature are peremptory : almost absolute in authority and in stantaneous in effect. They cannot always be enforced in such a way as to win applause or secure popularity ; but I am sure that no man of any party who is worthy to fill this chair will ever see a dividing line between duty and policy. Thanking you once more, and thanking you most cordially for the honorable testimonial you have placed on record to my credit, I perform my only remain ing duty in declaring that the Forty-third Congress has reached its constitutional limit, and that the House of Representatives stands adjourned without day. It is worth saying over again that no man, since Clay s Speakership, presided with such an absolute knowledge of the rules of the House, or with so great a mastery, in the rapid, intelligent, and faithful discharge of the business. His knowl edge of parliamentary law was instinctive and complete, and his administration of it so fair, that both sides of the House united, at the close of each Congress, as has already been said, in cordial thanks for his impartiality. The political revulsion of 1874 drove him from the platform to the floor. Here his true strength was instantly demon strated. For, just as parliamentary tact and self-possession had rendered him one of the best presiding officers who ever occupied the Speaker s chair, his audacity and versatility made him one of the most daring and aggressive leaders ever seen upon the floor. Even more marked, at least in the public eye, than was his career as Speaker, was his course when he turned over the chair that the march of events had deeded to Mr. Randall. Few have forgotten the sudden tilt by which, in a day, a victorious and exultant Democratic majority was changed into a surprised, subdued and saddened crowd, upon Mr. Elaine s aggressive and unexpected tactics. The debates of that memorable session on the proposition to remove the dis- 96 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. abilities of Jefferson Davis are still fresh in all minds, and more apt, perhaps, to be appreciated to-day than at any time in the last few years. Mr. Blaine s speeches laid the founda tion of success in the then approaching campaign. One of his first speeches after resigning the gavel was on the Amnesty bill. From this speech we extract as follows: Every time the question of amnesty has been brought before the House, by a gentleman on that side for the last two Congresses, it has been done with a certain flourish of magnanimity which is an imputation on this side of the House, as though the Republican party which has been in charge of the Government for the last twelve or fourteen years had been bigoted, narrow, and illiberal, and as though certain very worthy and deserving gentlemen in the Southern Stales were ground down to-day under a great tyranny and oppression, from which the hardheartedness of this side of the House cannot possibly be prevailed upon to relieve them. If I may anticipate as much wisdom as ought to characterize that side of the House, this may be the last time that amnesty will be discussed in the American Congress. I therefore desire, and under the rules of the House, with no thanks to that side for the privilege, to pi .ice on record just what the Republican piny has done in this matter. I wish to place it there as an imperishable record of liberality and l.irge-mimledness, and magnanimity, and mercy far beyond any that has ever been shown before in the world s history by conqueror to Conquered. With the gentleman from Pennsylvania (MR. RANDALL) I entered Congress in the midst of the hot flame of war, when the Union was rocking to its founda tions, and no man knew whether we were to have a country or not. I think the gentleman from Pennsylvania would have been surprised, when he and I were novices in the Thirty-eighth Congress, if he could have foreseen before our joint service ended, we should have seen sixty one gentlemen, then in arms against us, admitted to equal privileges with ourselves, and all by the grace and mag nanimity of the Republican party. When the war ended, according to the uni versal usages of nations, the Government, then under the exclusive control of the Republican party, had the right to determine what should be the political status ot the people who had been defeated in war. Did we inaugurate any measures of persecution? Did we set forth on a career of bloodshed and vengeance? Did we take property? Did we prohibit any man all his civil rights? Did we take away from him the right he enjoys to-day to vote? Not at all. But instead of a general and sweeping condemnation the Re publican party placed in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution only this exclusion ; afier considering the whole subject it ended it, simply coming down to tlii.; " That no person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or Elector of President or Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any Stale Legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to sup- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 97 port the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability." It has been variously estimated that this section at the time of its original in sertion in the Constitution included somewhere from fourteen to thirty thousand persons : as nearly as I can gather together the facts of the case, it included about eighteen thousand men in the South. It let go every man of the hundreds of thousands or millions, if you please who had been engaged in the attempt to destroy this Government, and only held those under disability who in addi tion to revolting had violated a special and peculiar and personal oath to sup port the Constitution of the United Slates. It was limited to that. Well, that disability was hardly placed upon the South until we began in this hall and in the other wing of the Capitol, when there were more than two-thirds Republicans in both branches, to remit it, and the very first bill took that dis ability off from 1,578 citizens of the South; and the next bill took it off from 3,526 gentlemen by wholesale. Many of the gentlemen on this floor came in for grace and amnesty in those two bills. After these bills specifying individuals had passed, and othets, of smaller numbers, which I will not recount, the Con gress of the United States in 1872, by two-thirds of both branches, still being two- thirds Republican, passed this general law : 44 That all political disabilities imposed by the Third Section of the Fourteenth Article of Amendments of the Constitution of the" United States are hereby re moved from all persons whomsoever, except Senators and Representatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, officers in the judicial, military, and naval service of the United States, heads of departments, and foreign ministers of the United States." Since that act parsed a very considerable number of the gentlemen -who are s:ill left under disability have been relieved spt daily, by name, in separate acts. But I believe, Mr. Speaker, in no single instance since the act of May 22, 1872, have the disabilities been taken from any man except upon his respectful petition to the Congress of the United States that they should be removed. And I believe in no instance, except one, have they been refused upon the petition being presented. I believe in no instance, except one, has there been any other than a unanimous vote. Now, I find there are widely varying opinions in regard to the number that are still under disabilities in the South. I have had occasion, by conference with the Departments of War and of the Navy, and with the assistance of some records which I have caused to be searched, to be able to state to the House, I believe, with more accuracy than it has been stated hitherto, just the number of gentlemen in the South still under disabilities. Those who were officers of the United States Army, educated at its own expense at West Point, and who joined the rebellion, and are still included under this act, number, as nearly as the War Department can figure it up, 325 ; those in the Navy about 295. Those under the other heads, Senators and Rep resentatives of the Thirty-sixth and Thirty-seventh Congresses, officers in the ju diciary service of the United States, heads of departments, and foreign ministers of the United States, make up a number somewhat more difficult to state accu rately, but smaller in the aggregate. The whole sum of the entire list is about it is probably impossible to stale it with entire accuracy, and I do not attempt to do that is about 750 persons now under disabilities. 98 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. I am very frank to say that in regard to all these gentlemen, save one, I do not know of any reason why amnesty should not be granted to them as it has been to many others of the same class. I am not here to argue against it. Mr. Speaker, this is not a proposition to punish Jefferson Darts. There is nobody attempting that. I will very frankly say that 1 myself thought the in dictment of Mr. Davis at Richmond, under the administration of Mr. Johnson, w is a weak attempt, for he was indicted only for that of which he was guilty in common with all others who went into the Confederate movement. Therefore, there was no particular reason for it. But I will undertake to say this, and, as it may be considered an extreme speech, I want to say it with great deliberation, that there is not a government, a civilized government, on the face of the globe I am very sure there is not a European government that would not have arrested Mr. Davis, and when they had him in their power would not have tried him for maltreatment of the prisoners of war and shot him within thirty days. France, Russia, England, Germany, Austria, any one of them would have done it. There is no proposition here to punish Jefferson Davis. Nobody is seeking to do it. That time has gone by. The statute of liuu tations, common feelings of humanity will supervene for his benefit. But what you ask us to do is to declare, by a vote of two-thirds of Ixjth branches of Congress, that we consider Mr. Davis worthy to fill the highest offices in the United States, if he can get a constituency to endorse him. He is a voter; he can buy and he can sell ; he can go and he cnn come. He is as free as any man in the United States. There is a large list of subordinate offices to which he is eligible. This bill proposes, in view of that record, that Mr. Davis, by a two-thirds vote of the Senate and a two-thirds vote of the House, be declared eligible and worthy to fill any office up to the Presi dency of the United States. For one, upon full deliberation, I will not do it. One word more, Mr. Speaker, in the way of detail, which I omitted It has often been said in mitigation of Jefferson Davis, in the Andersonville matter, that the men who died there in such large numbers (I think the victims were about fifteen thousand) fell prey to an epidemic, and died of a disease which could not be aveited. The record shows that out of thirty-five thousand men, about thirty- three per cent, died ; that is, one in three, while of the soldiers encamped near by to take care and guard them, only one man in four hundred died; that is, within half a mile, only one in four hundred died. As to the general question of amnesty, Mr. Speaker, ns I have already said, it is too late to debate it. It has gone by. Whether it has in all respects been wise, or whether it has been unwise, I would not detain the House here to dis cuss. Even if I had a strong conviction upon that question, I do not know that it would be productive of any great good to enunciate it ; but, at the same time, it is a very singular spectacle that the Republican party, in possession of the en tire government, have deliberately called back into political power the leading men of the South, every one of whom turns up its bitter and relentless and malignant foe ; and to day, from the Potomac to the Rio Grande, the very men who have received this amnesty are as bu^y as they can be in consolidating inlo one compact political organization the old slave States, just as they were before the war. We see the banner held out blazoned again with the inscription that with the United South and a very few votes from the North, this country can be governed. I want the people to understand that is precisely the movement ; and that is the animus and intent. 1 do not think offering amnesty to the seven HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 99 hundred and fifty men who are now without it will hasten or retard that move ment. I Jo not think the granting of amnesty to Mr. Davis will hasten or retard it, or that refusing it will do either. I hear it said, " We will lift Mr. Davis again into great consequence by refusing amnesty." That is not for me to consider. I only see before me, when his name is presented, a man who, by the wink of his eye, by a wave of his hand, by a nod of his head, could have stopped the atrocity at Andersonville. Some of us had kinsmen there, most of us had friends there, all of us had coun trymen there, and in the name of those kinsmen, friends, and countrymen, I here protest, and shall with my vote protest against their calling back and crowning with the honors of lull American citizenship the man who organized that murder. From this on to the close of Mr. Elaine s career in the lower House of Representatives he never lost sight of the great busi ness of legislation nor the great trusts that were committed to his hands. Well may we say of him as he said of another (of Henry Clay, who occupied the same honor preserved by history for James G. Hlaine) "othgr men have excelled him in specific powers, but in tKe rare combinations of qualities ^wMclir constitute at once fHe matchless leader of party and the ^fatesman~of con slim m^te~aijil1iy^anH -ioexhausttbie resource, EeTias nev^rn&e^irsurpassed by^n^rnan^sp^aking the English tongue.! CHAPTER VII. MR. ELAINE IN THE SENATE A NEW LEAF TURNED IN THE GREAT BOOK !N THE CHAIR OF WEBSTER MR. ELAINE AS A DEBATER THE JUNIOR SENATOR AT THE FRONT. THE whirligig of time marks strange changes. Little men are often rushed to the front, pause there, are stared at by the multitude as a multitude always stares at a stranger ; then, being out of place, they are lost in the undertow. Others, great men, are whirled to the front by accident, although no one questioning theip ability to get there. Coming suddenly into possession of what they are entitled to, they absorb the place with all the ease of long and rightful possession. President Grant, in 1876, appointed Mr. Lot Morrill to the Secretaryship for the Treasury, just vacated by Mr. B. H. Bristow. It became necessary to fill Mr. Merrill s place in the Senate. Governor Connor, of Maine, appointed Mr. Blaine to the unexpired term, and the gentleman from Augusta took his seat when the session opened in December of that year. In the Senate he then entered. He remained until called to the higher office in Mr. Garfield s Cabinet, having been elected to serve the ensuing term, at the end of Mr. Merrill s term, in 1877, which therefore gave Mr. Blaine a seat until March 4, 1883. His great prominence in national politics made him a conspicuous figure in the Senate at once, immediately upon (100) HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. IOI his entrance, and he broke over the traditions of that body which required that new members should allow their elders to monopolize the debates, with such impunity and such good reason that his seeming transgression was very welcome to the Senate and the country. Many were at first inclined to regret that the able Speaker of the House, the dashing and brilliant debater, and leader in Committee of the Whole, should, as they expressed it, be shelved in the Senate. The event proved their regrets un founded, and it would be hard to name a Senator who moved so promptly to the front, and who stood there so determinedly as Blaine. The Senate contained a large number of able men and skillful debaters, but in logic, off-hand discussion, in quick perception, in full command of every resource, and in entire forgetfulness of self, the Senate contained no man superior to Mr. Blaine. He has been called dramatic. He was dramatic, but not because he posed, but because he was absolutely natural, and nature is always dramatic. His career in the upper was as active as that in the lower branch. He took a prominent part in every important debate, and though not fearing to differ from his party, was always a strong party man, and one of the recognized leaders on the Republican side. Shortly after his entrance into the Senate he electrified his confreres by a display of his fiery eloquence and dramatic action. Action in his speech plays always a leading part. Tfe^rcJ^stood in front of his desk ; but moving out into the aisle, he would advance toward his opponent with upraised, menacing^finger. This gave great effect to portions of his master efforts^ He could be witty, wise, sarcastic, serious, or otherwise, as the occasion warranted. His method of speak- 102 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. ing was generally of great effect. Once he summed up to sensational applause the absurdity of the South being alarmed at the existence of "sixty troops to every million of people " among them, and said : " The entire South has eleven hun dred and fifty-five soldiers to intimidate, overrun, oppose, and destroy the liberties of fifteen million people. In the South ern States there are twelve hundred and three counties. If you distribute the soldiers, there is not quite one for each county, and when I give the counties I give them from the census of 1870. If you distribute them territorially there is one for every seven hundred square miles of territory; so that if you make a territorial distribution, I would remind the honorable Senator from Delaware (Bayard), if I saw him in his seat, that the quota for his State would be one ragged sergeant, and two abreast/ as the old song has it. That is the force ready to destroy the liberties of Delaware." On another occasion he remarked illustrating this effective method of debate in a speech on war issues, which was begun with all the impressiveness of his favorite gesture : "All the war measures of Abraham Lincoln are to be wiped out, say leading Democrats. The Bourbons of France busied themselves, I believe, after the restoration, in removing every trace of Napoleon s power and grandeur, even chiseling the N from public monuments raised to perpetuate his memory ; but the dead man s hand from St. Helena reached out and destroyed them in their pride and folly. And I tell the Senators on the other side of this chamber I tell the Democratic party North and South South in the lead and North following that the slow, unmoving finger of scorn from the tomb of the martyred President on the prairies of Illinois will wither and destroy them. Though dead he speakcth. " HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 1 03 In the Senate Mr. Elaine distinguished himself, as he had in the House, by his sagacity, coolness, and wisdom as a party leader, and his record there, as elsewhere, can be referred to with pleasure. On the Chinese question ho was a pronounced and clear speaker, and was openly in favor of regulating and restricting the Asiatic influx. In a speech delivered in the Senate, Feb ruary 13, 1879, he said: " Ought we to exclude them (the Chinese) ? The question lies in my mind thus: Either the Anglo-Saxon rac will pos sess the Pacific slope or the Mongolians will possess it. You giv<? them the start to-day, with the keen thrust of necessity behind them and with the ease of transportation before them and with the inducements to come, while we are filling up the other portions of the continent, and it is inevitable, if not de monstrable, that they will occupy that great space of country between the Sierra and the Pacific coast. . . . " In a republic especially, in any government that maintains itself, the unity of order and of administration is in the family. The immigrants that come to us from all portions of the Brit ish islands, from Germany, from Sweden, from Norway, from Denmark, from France, from Spain, from Italy, come here with \\vtfamily as much engraven on their minds, and in their customs, and in their habits as we have it. The Asiatic, who brings neither wife nor child with him, cannot go on with our population and make a homogeneous element. The idea of comparing European immigration with an Asiatic immigra tion that has no regard to family ; that does not recognize the relation of husband and wife; that- does not observe the tie of parent and child; that does not have in the slightest degree the ennobling and civilizing influences .of the hearthstone and fireside! Why, when gentlemen talk loosely about emigra tion from European States, as contrasted with that, they are certainly forgetting history and forgetting themselves." We next notice his opposition to the bill providing for an IO4 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. electoral college. In the course of his remarks he said : " Mr. President, looking at the measure under consideration and looking at it with every desire to co-operate with those who are so warmly advocating it, I am compelled to withhold the support of my vote. I am not prepared to vest any body of men with the tremendous power which this bill gives to four teen gentlemen, four of whom are to complete their number by selecting a fifteenth, and selecting a fifteenth under such circumstances as throughout the length and breadth of the land impart a peculiar interest, I might say an absorbing inter est to what Mr. Benton termed in the Texas indemnity bill, 4 that coy and bashful blank. I do not believe that Congress itself has the power which it proposes to confer on these fifteen gentlemen. I do not profess to be what is termed, in the cur rent phrase of the day, a Constitutional lawyer, but every Senator voting under the obligations of his oath and his con science must ultimately be his own Constitutional lawyer. And I deliberately say that I do not believe that Congress possesses the power itself, and still less the power to transfer to any body of fourteen, or fifteen, or fifty gentlemen, that with which it is now proposed to invest five Senators, five Representatives and five Judges of the Supreme Court. I did not at this late hour of the night rise to make an argument, but merely to state the ground, the Constitutional and con scientious ground, on which I feel compelled to vote against the pending bill. I have had a great desire to co-operate with my political friends who are advocating it, but every pos sible inclination of that kind has been removed and dispelled by the very arguments brought in support of the bill, able and exhaustive as they have been on that side of the ques tion." Senator Elaine opposed President Hayes Southern policy, HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 1 05 and took a decided stand against the President s action in recognizing the Democratic State governments in South Caro lina and Louisiana in the spring of 1877. When the Senate considered the bill authorizing the free coinage of the standard silver dollar and restoring its legal tender character, Mr. Elaine offered as a substitute a bill which contained these three propositions : " I. That the dollar shall contain four hundred and twenty- five grains of standard silver, shall have unlimited coinage, and be an unlimited legal tender. " 2. That all profits of coinage shall go to the government, and not to the operator in silver bullion. 4< 3. That silver dollars or silver bullion, assayed and mint- stamped, may be deposited with the Assistant Treasurer of New York, for which coin-certificates may be issued, the same in denomination as United States notes, not below ten dol lars, and that these shall be redeemable on demand in coin or bullion, thus furnishing a paper circulation based on an actual deposit of precious metal, giving us notes as valuable as those of the Bank of England, and doing away at once with the dreaded inconvenience of silver on account of bulk and weight." In concluding his speech supporting these resolutions (Feb ruary 7, 1878) he thus defined his position: " The effect of paying the labor of this country in silver coin of full value, as compared with the irredeemable paper, or as compared even with silver of inferior value, will make itself felt in a single generation to the extent of tens of millions, perhaps hundreds of millions, in the aggregate savings which represent consolidated capital. It is the instinct of man from the savage to the scholar developed in childhood and re maining with age to value the metals which in all tongues are called precious. Excessive paper money leads to ex travagance, to waste, and to want, as we painfully witness on IO6 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. all sides to-day. And in the midst of the proof of its demor alizing and destructive effect, we hear it proclaimed in the Halls of Congress that the people demand cheap money. I deny it. 1 declare such a phrase to be a total misapprehen sion a total misinterpretation of the popular wish. The peo ple do not demand cheap money. They demand an abundance of good money, which is an entirely different thing. They do not want a single gold standard, that will exclude silver and benefit those already rich. They do not want an inferior silver standard, that will drive out gold and not help those already poor. They want both metals, in full value, in equal honor, in whatever abundance the bountiful earth will yield them to the searching eye of science and to the hard hand of labor. " The two metals have existed, side by side, in harmonious, honorable companionship as money, ever since intelligent trade was known among men. It is well-nigh forty centuries since Abraham weighed to Ephron four hundred shekels of silver current money with the merchant. Since that time nations have risen and fallen, races have disappeared, dialects and languages have been forgotten, arts have been lost, treas ures have perished, continents have been discovered, islands have been sunk in the sea, and through all these ages and through all these changes silver and gold have reigned supreme, as the representatives of value, as the media of exchange. The dethronement of each has been attempted in turn, and some times the dethronement of both ; but always in vain ! And we are here to-day, deliberating anew over the problem which conies down to us from Abraham s time the weight of the silver, that shall be current money with the merchant. " Senator Elaine was always instinctive with life upon any question that touched the issues of 1 86 1, and I introduce here, as illustrative of this, his remarks in the debate on March I, 1878, on the bill making Appropriations for Arrears of Pensions : Mr. President The Senator from Ohio (Mr. Thurman) HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. IO/ indulged himself in a line of remark which I hardly think was justifiable. He was arraigning this entire side of the Chamber for running at the name of Jefferson Davis. I wish to say to the honorable Senator from Ohio, and to all the Senators on that side, that, neither in this Chamber nor in the other in which I have served, did I ever hear what he would call an attack made on Jefferson Davis, until he was borne into the Chamber for some favor to be asked and some vote to be exacted. Who brought him here to-night ? Who has brought him into Congress at different times ? No Republican. No Republican Senator or Representative has ever asked censure or comment, or reference to him ; but you bring him here and ask us either to vote or keep silent : and if we don t keep silent, then the honorable Senator is astonished and indignant, and the honorable Senator from Mississippi (Mr. Lamar) thinks that a wanton insult is intended. I want the country to understand that it is that side of the Chamber and not this side that brings Jefferson Davis to the front. Mr. Thurman I wish to ask the Senator to explain what he means by bringing Jefferson Davis here? Does he mean introducing the proposition to pension soldiers who served in Mexico? Mr. Elaine Yes, the measure you are agitating brings him here. Mr. Thurman Then it is a crime ? Mr. Elaine Not a crime at all. I am not charging the Senator with a crime, but I resent with some little feeling that the Senator should look over to this side of the Chamber and complain that we are taking some extraordinary course with the name of Jefferson Davis. We do not bring him here. You bear his mangled remains before us, and then if we do not happen to view them with the same admiration that seems to inspire the Senator from Ohio, we are doing some thing derogatory to our own dignity and to the honor of the country, and when the honorable Senator from Mississippi comes to his defense, the first word he had to speak for Mr. Davis was that he never counseled insurrection against the Government. I took the words down. IO8 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. Mr, Oglesby Since when ? Mr. Blainc Since the close of the war. He has never counseled insurrection ! Let us be thankful. Why should he not pension a man who has shown such loyalty that he has never counseled insurrection ? That is from the Repre sentative of his own State. I took the words down when he spoke them ; I was amazed ; I did not exactly consider the words of the honorable Senator from Mississippi a wanton insult to apply to me or anybody else, but I consider them to be most extraordinary words, that when pleading the cause of Jefferson Davis at the bar of the American Senate to be pen sioned on its roll of honor, his personal representative, his associate, his friend, his follower, commends him to the Amer ican people, because he has been so loyal that he has never counseled insurrection since the war was over. This is the man brought in here who, according to the Sen ator from Mississippi, is to go down to history the peer of Washington and Hampden, fighting in the same cause, enti tled to the same niche in history, inspired by the same patri otic motives, to be admired for the same self-consecration. Let me tell the honorable Senator from Mississippi that in all the years that I have served in Congress I have never vol untarily brought the name of Jefferson Davis before either branch, but I tell him that he is asking humanity to forget its instincts and patriotism to be changed to crime, before he will find impartial history place Mr. Jefferson Davis anywhere in the roll that has for its brightest and greatest names, George Washington and John Hampden. After Mr. Lamar had replied to this speech, Mr. Blaine resumed as follows: Why, Mr. President, does the honorable Senator from Mississippi declare that the policy of the Govern ment of the United States, administered as it has been through the Republican party, has been one of intolerance toward those who were prominent in the war if I may use a euphemism, and leave out rebellion which is offensive to his ears? Do I understand the honorable Senator to maintain here on this floor that the Government of the United States has been intol erant ? Certainly the Senator does not mean that. HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. , 1 09 After a colloquy with Mr. Lamar, Mr. Elaine resumed thus : The Government of the United States never disfranchised or put under political disabilities more than fourteen thousand men in the entire South. Out of two millions who were in the war it never disfranchised over fourteen thousand men. There are not two hundred left to-day with political disabilities upon them. There is not one that ever respectfully or any other way petitioned to be relieved and was refused. I know very well what the honorable Senator from Ohio meant, when he said that Hon. Jefferson Davis should commend himself, because he was not an office-seeker and had not asked to be relieved of disabilities. Why, if the newspapers are to be credited, especially those in the Southern Democratic interest, Mr. Davis is a candidate for office; he is pledged to sit on the other side of this Chamber two years hence, and the honor able Senator from Ohio will in the next Congress with his elo quence I am predicting now urge that these disabilities be removed from him. I predict further that he will urge it without Jefferson Davis paying the respect to the great Gov ernment against which he rebelled, simply asking in respectful language that disabilities be taken from him. He has never asked it; I am very sure that another great leader in the South, Mr. Toombs, of Georgia, has boasted that he would never do it, and in the House of Representatives three years ago, when the general amnesty bill was pending and it was proposed that the amnesty should be granted merely on the condition that it should be asked for by each person desiring it, that it was resisted to the bitter end this great Govern ment was to go to them and ask them if they would take it. The action of the Democratic House of Representatives I am speaking of the past now, which is quite within parlia mentary limits the action of the Democratic House of Rep resentatives was not that Jefferson Davis might have his disa bilities removed upon respectful petition, but that we should go to him and petition him to allow us to remove them. I cannot pass by this, his position on Southern affairs a 7 I IO HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. position for which he has so often and so bitterly been assailed, without one more quotation from his utterances. In the Senate, December 11, 1878, he said: 41 MR. PRESIDENT The pending resolution was offered by me with a two-fold purpose in view. First, to place on record in a definite and authentic form the frauds and outrages by which some recent elections were carried by the Democratic party in the Southern States ; second, to find if there be any method by which a repetition of these crimes against a free ballot may be prevented. " The newspaper is the channel through which the people of the United States are informed of current events, and the ac counts given in the press represent the elections in some of the Southern States to have been accompanied by violence, in not a few cases reaching the destruction of life ; to have been controlled by threats that awed and intimidated a large class of voters; to have been manipulated by fraud of the most shameless and shameful description. Indeed, in South Caro lina there seems to have been no election at all in any proper sense of the term. There was, instead, a series of skirmishes over the State, in which the polling-places were regarded as forts to be captured by one party and held against the other, and where this could not be done with convenience, frauds in the count and tissue ballot devices were resorted to in order to effectually destroy the voice of the majority. These, in brief, are the accounts given in the non-partisan press of the dis graceful outrages that attended the recent elections, and so far as I have seen, these statements are without serious contradic tion. It is but just and fair to all parties, however, that an impartial investigation of the facts shall be made by a com mittee of the Senate, proceeding under the authority of law, and representing the power of the nation. Hence my resolu tion. " But we do not need investigation to establish certain facts already of official record. We know that one hundred and six Representatives in Congress were recently chosen in the States formerly slaveholding, and that the Democrats elected HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. Ill one hundred and one, or possibly one hundred and two, and the Republicans four, or possibly five. We know that thirty- five of these Representatives were assigned to the Southern States by reason of the colored population, and that the entire political power thus founded on the numbers of the colored people has been seized and appropriated to the aggrandize ment of its own strength by the Democratic party of the South. " The issue thus raised before the country, Mr. President, is not one of mere sentiment for the rights of the negro though far distant be the day when the rights qf any American citizen, however black or however poor, shall form the mere dust of the balance in any controversy ; nor is the issue one that in volves the waving of the bloody shirt/ to quote the elegant vernacular of Democratic vituperation ; nor still further is the issue as now presented only a question of the equality of the black voter of the South with the white voter of the South ; the issue, Mr. President, has taken a far wider range, one of portentous magnitude, and that is, whether the white voter of the North shall be equal to the white voter of the South in shaping the policy and fixing the destiny of this country ; or whether, to put it still more baldly, the white man who fought in the ranks of the Union army shall have as weighty and in fluential a vote in the Government of the Republic as the white man who fought in the ranks of the rebel army. The one fought to uphold, the other to destroy, the Union of the States, and to-day he who fought to destroy is a far more im portant factor in the government of the nation than he who fought to uphold it. "Let me illustrate my meaning by comparing groups of States of the same representative strength North and South. Take South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. They send seventeen Representatives to Congress. Their aggregate population is 1,035,000 whites and 1,224,000 colored; the colored being nearly 200,000 in excess of the whites. Of the seventeen Representatives, then, it is evident that nine were apportioned to these States by reason of their colored popula tion, and only eight by reason of their white population ; and 112 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. yet, in the choice of the entire seventeen Representatives, thi colored voters had no more voice or power than their remot< kindred on the shores of Senegambia, or on the Gold Coast The 1,035,000 white people had the sole and absolute choice of the entire seventeen Representatives. In contrast, tak( two States in the North, Iowa and Wisconsin, with seventeer Representatives. They have a white population of 2,247,000 considerably more than double the entire white populatior of the three Southern States I have named. In Iowa anc Wisconsin, therefore, it takes 1 32,000 white population to senc a Representative to Congress, but in South Carolina, Missis sippi, and Louisiana every 6o,OOO white people send a Repre sentative. In other words, 60,000 white people in those Southern States have precisely the same political power ir the government of the country that 132,000 white people have in Iowa and Wisconsin. " Take another group of seventeen Representatives from the South and from the North. Georgia and Alabama have a white population of 1, 1 58,000 and a colored population of I,O2O,OOO They send seventeen Representatives to Congress, of whon nine were apportioned on account of the white population and eight on account of the colored population. But the col ored voters are not able to choose a single Representative, the white Democrats choosing the whole seventeen. The foui Northern States, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, and Cali fornia, have seventeen Representatives, based on a white pop ulation of 2,250,000, or almost double the white population of Georgia and Alabama, so that in these relative groups of States we find the white man South exercises by his vote double the political power of the white man North. " Let us carry the comparison to a more comprehensive generalization. The eleven States that formed the Confeder ate government had by the last census a population of 9,- 500,000, of which in round numbers 5,500,000 were white and 4,000,000 colored. On this aggregate population seventy- three Representatives in Congress were apportioned to those States forty-two or forty-three of which were by reason of the white population, and thirty or thirty-one by reason of the HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 113 colored population. At the recent election the white Dem ocracy of the South seized seventy of the seventy-three dis tricts, and thus secured a Democratic majority in the next House of Representatives. Thus it appears that throughout the States that formed the late Confederate government 75,000 whites the very people that rebelled against the Union are enabled to elect a Representative in Congress, while in the loyal States it requires 132,000 of the white peo ple that fought for the Union to elect a Representative. In levying every tax, therefore, in making every appropriation of money, in fixing every line of public policy, in decreeing what shall be the fate and fortune of the Republic, the Confederate soldier South is enabled to cast a vote that is twice as power ful and twice as influential as the vote of the Union soldier North. " But the white men of the South did not acquire, and do not hold this superior power by reason of law or justice, but in disregard and defiance of both. The Fourteenth Amend ment of the Constitution was expected to be, and was designed to be, a preventive and corrective of all such possible abuses. The reading of the clause applicable to the case is instructive and suggestive. Hear it : " Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-Presiclent of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State. " The patent, undeniable intent of this provision was that if any class of voters were denied or in any way abridged in 114 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. their right of suffrage, then the class so denied or abridged should not be counted in the basis of representation ; or, in other words, that no State or States should gain a large in crease of representation in Congress by reason of counting any class of population not permitted to take part in electing such Representatives. But the construction given to this pro vision is that before any forfeiture of representation can be enforced, the denial or abridgment of suffrage must be the result of a law specifically enacted by the State. Under this construction every negro voter may have his suffrage abso lutely denied or fatally abridged by the violence, actual or threatened, ofirresponsible mobs, or by frauds and deceptions of State officers, from the governor down to the last election clerk; and then, unless some State law can be shown that authorizes the denial or abridgment, the State escapes all penalty or peril of reduced representation. This construction may be upheld by the courts ruling on the letter of the law, 1 which killeth, but the spirit of justice cries aloud against the evasive and atrocious conclusion that deals out oppression to the innocent and shields the guilty from the legitimate con sequences of willful transgression. " The colored citizen is thus most unhappily situated ; his right of suffrage is but a hollow mockery ; it holds to his ear the word of promise but breaks it always to his hope, and he ends only in being made the unwilling instrument of increas ing the political strength of that party from which he received ever-tightening fetters when he was a slave and contemptuous refusal of civil rights since he was made free. He resembles, indeed, those unhappy captives in the East, who, deprived of their birthright, are compelled to yield their strength to the upbuilding of the monarch from whose tyrannies they have most to fear, and to fight against the power from which alone deliverance might be expected. The franchise intended for the shield and defence of the negro has been turned against him and against his friends, and has vastly increased the power of those from whom he has nothing to hope and everything to dread. " The political power thus appropriated by Southern Demo- HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 115 crats by reason of the negro population amounts to thirty-five Representatives in Congress. It is massed almost solidly, and offsets the great State of New York ; or Pennsylvania and New Jersey together ; or the whole of New England ; or Ohio and Indiana united ; or the combined strength of Illinois, Min nesota, Kansas, California. Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado and Oregon. The seizure of this power is wanton usurpation ; it is flagrant outrage ; it is violent perversion of the whole theory of republican government. It inures solely to the present advantage, and yet, I believe, to the permanent dishonor of the Democratic party. It is by reason of this trampling down of human rights, this ruthless seizure of unlawful power, that the Democratic party holds the popular branch of Congress to-day, and will in less than ninety days have control of this body also, thus grasping the entire legislative department of the government through the unlawful capture of the Southern States. If the proscribed vote of the South were cast as its lawful owners desire, the Democratic party could not gain power. Nay, if it were not counted on the other side against the instincts and the interests, against the principles and prejudices of its lawful owners, Democratic success would be hopeless. It is not enough, then, for modern Democratic tactics that the negro vote shall be silenced ; the demand goes further, and insists that it shall be counted on their side, that all the Representatives in Congress and all the Presidential electors apportioned by reason of the negro vote shall be so cast and so governed as to insure Democratic success regard less of justice, in defiance of law. "And this injustice is wholly unprovoked. I doubt if it be in the power of the most searching investigation to show, that in any Southern State, during the period of Republican control, any legal voter was ever debarred from the freest exercise of his suffrage. Even the revenges, which would have leaped into life with many who despised the negro, were buried out of sight with a magnanimity which the superior race fail to follow and seem reluctant to recognize. I know it is said in retort of such charges against the Southern elections, as I am now reviewing, that unfairness of equal gravity prevails in I 1 6 HON. JAMES G. BLAfNE. Northern elections. I hear it in many quarters and read it in the papers that in the late exciting election in Massa chusetts intimidation and bull-dozing, if not so rough and rancorous as in the South, were yet as widespread and ive. " I have read, and yet I refuse to believe, that the distin guished gentleman who made an energetic, but unsuccessful, canvass for the Governorship of that State, has indorsed and approved these charges, and I have accordingly made my lution broad enough to include their thorough investiga tion. I am not demanding fair elections in the South without tnding fair elections in the North also. But venturing to J< for the New England States, of whose laws and customs I know something, I dare assert that in the late election in Massachusetts, or any of her neighboring commonwealths, it will be impossible to find even one case where a voter was driven from the polls, where a voter did not have the fullest, fairest, freest opportunity to cast the ballot of his choice, have it honestly and faithfully counted in the returns. Suf frage on this continent was first made universal in New Kng- land, and in the administration of their affairs her have found no other appeal necessary than that which is addressed to their honesty of conviction and to their in- ;ent self-interest. If there be anything different to disclose, I pray you show it to us, that we may amend our ways. " Hut whenever a feeble protest is made against such injustice, as I have described in the South, the response we get comes to us in the form of a taunt, What are you going to do Jt it? and How do you propose to help yourselves? is the stereotyped answer of defiance which intrenched Wrong always gives to inquiring Justice ; and those who ;me it to be conclusive do not know the temper of the rican people. For, let me assure you, that against the ted outrage upon the right of representation, !; triumphant in the South, there will be arrayed many ph /blic opinion in the North not often hitherto in harmony, who have cared little, and affected to care less, for the MON |AMf. IM \r r i i rifhtl "i wrongs of the negro, suddenly fine! that vast mone i " .Hi-l commtrcii] interests, great ipu stions of revenue, rtd^ i" i. u. MI* of tariff, vast investments in nianuffteturea, In rail- \\and In minim, are under the control of A Democratic ( " -A, whose majority waiobtftintd by dtpfiving the negro i in- M^hisi under a eomnum c!onMitutim fuil I otmnon l.twa, M. n \\lio h;wr c?xprc**flfM <lngun< wilh flu 1 waving of bloody lu.i .utd hrtvc bc*?n c)ftc?nlc?d with lf*ll< ubonl tu gro rc|imlify f i. i.. .inning to jwrwivc? tluu th? pnuling r|iiefltion >f lo-*lrty i- i.ii- tnoro f)rriitigly fo the* ecpuility of white* men utulrr HH <,.,vc*nmient, nnd tlmt however earcle** they mrty be ftboul i he Hgh<* or the wrongs of the negro, they are very i .I|HI rtnd tertfteiou4 rtbont the rights ol their own rrtce, H.I the dignity of their own fli eaidea rttul their own i indredi i Uncjw something of public opinion in the North, I l M..\V A gr rtt flettl rtboi.it the view, wihc4, rttul ptirponen f tii- Kcpubhran party c>f the Nation, Within that entire gr^rtt "n..iiiM there fa not one ttutti, whose opinion i^ entitled < lie quoted, that doe<4 ttot desire peace rtnd hrtrmony "" in. it. i lnp, ..ii.i ,{ patriotii! rtnd frrtternrtl union b^tweert ii- Niiih .iiul the South, Ihi4 wUh IM apontaneoua, inntind d throughotit the Northern btrtte*; rtnd yet, am* " ffltn "i :hrtiaeter rtnd ense, there is surely no need of . i "i|,ini{/ to deeeive rHirselves rts to the pred*e truth I i i "M. . iiii H pertijfrtbU?, (Juan will not remove rt grievanee, -""i " " -I : ;uise of State rights will rlose the eyes of our p - Nu- iii- MeceMity c)f correcting rt great national wrong, i" -ii! the South make the- fatal mistake of concluding H...I inj ustii <* to the negro ii not rtlso injustice to the white m-" HOI ii -uld it ever be fr>rgotten that for the wrongs <>\ i...iii . i. in. ,i\ will assuredly be found, The war, with all ii- " i" ^, was fought in vain, miles* f|u;d rights for all - \.> I- -i.ii.ii I...J in all the States of lite Union ; and now -. ... 1 ivhli It are those of fricndshit), however difTereuii > i jt -I, I ttill the men of the South here on tin- n . ""i beyond <i. n chamber, tlmt even if they conl.l Itrip thi " " ol in ( .u iiiiitional tighti, they ran never perm.. n > Il8 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. maintain the inequality of white men in this Nation they can never make a white man s vote in the South doubly as power ful in the administration of the Government as a white man s vote in the North. " In a memorable debate in the House of Commons, Mr. Macaulay reminded Daniel O Connell, when he was moving for repeal, that the English Whigs had endured calumny, abuse, popular fury, loss of position, exclusion from Parlia ment, rather than the great Agitator himself should be less than a British subject ; and Mr. Macaulay warned him that they would never suffer him to be more. Let me now remind you, that the Government, under whose protecting flag we sit to-day, sacrificed myriads of lives and expended thousands of millions of treasure that our countrymen of the South should remain citizens of the United States, having equal personal rights and equal political privileges with all other citizens. And I venture, now and here, to warn the men of the South, in the exact words of Macaulay, that we will never suffer them to be more !" We will not pursue here Mr. Elaine s career in the Senate any further than to say it was one of both profit and honor to the country. To protray his career in the Senate actually would involve too close a reference to questions which must be touched elsewhere in this Volume, but in his period of ser vice those who knew him well observed a constant intel lectual growth. He was fuller and stronger and abler jn de bate the last day of the service than on the first. He left the Senate one of the most forcible and fearless antagonists that could there be encountered. He was eloquent, aggressive, and yet careful, fearless without showing bravado. What he knew, he knew with precision. The powers he possessed were always at his command, and he never declined a challenge to enter the lists. As he himself said in his eulogy upon Mr. Chandler : " Here and now," was his motto, and his life out- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 119 side, indeed, seemed guided by that spirit of bravery which the greatest of American Senators exhibited in the only boast he ever made when he quoted to Mr. Calhoun the classical " Concurritur ; horae Momento cita mors venit, aut victoria laeta. CHAPTER VIII. A CABINET OFFICER THE PREMIER OF THE NEW ADMINISTRATION THE GREATEST INFLUENCE ELAINE S FOREIGN POLICY fa is ORATION ON GAR- FIELD, AND RESIGNATION. r I ""HE election of 1880 was hardly an accomplished fact before the world began wondering who was to be in the Cabinet. With unanimity the popular voice named Mr. Elaine for the Secretaryship of State. Mr. Blaine when it was offered to him shortly after the election did not at once accept but consulted his friends as to his course. They pointed out to him that as his career had been so largely one of legislative halls many of the people believed that he had no head for much else. The opportunity to show another side of his bril liant character was presented. He was urged to accept the position, and he finally did in a letter of acceptance as noble as it was patriotic : " In our new relation I shall give all that I am and all that I can hope to be, freely and joyfully, to your service. You need no pledge of my loyalty in heart and in act. I should be false to myself did I not prove true both to the great trust you confide to me and to your own personal and political fortunes in the present and in the future. Your administra tion must be made brilliantly successful and strong in the confidence and pride of the people, not at all directing its energies for re-election, and yet compelling that result by the logic of events and by the impenous necessities of the situa tion. (120) HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 121 " To that most desirable consummation I feel that, next to yourself, I can possibly contribute as much influence as any other one man. I say this not from egotism or vainglory, but merely as a deduction from a plain analysis of the political forces which have been at work in tlje country for five years past and which have been significantly shown in two great national conventions. I accept it as one of the happiest cir cumstances connected with this affair that in allying my political fortunes with yours or rather for the time merging mine in yours my heart goes with my head, and that I carry to you not only political support, but personal and devoted friendship. I can but regard it as somewhat remarkable that two men of the same age, entering Congress at the same time, influenced by the same aims and cherishing the same ambi tions, should never, for a single moment in eighteen years of close intimacy, have had a misunderstanding or a coolness, and that our friendship has steadily grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength." Before the inauguration of President Garfield Senator Elaine, laying down the burdens of the forum, accepted those of another sphere. At the head of the State Department he at once dis tinguished himself by the vigor and earnestness with which he upheld American interests. He believed essentially and where is the true American who believes differently ? that the United States was great enough and strong enough to stay out over night. That his policy in this respect was wise and beneficial to the best interests of the Republic I make no doubt. And I commend to the reader s careful attention the following exposition of " Mr. Elaine s foreign policy " with the direct challenge that on reading it over there cannot be a plausible objection raised to it. The statement is from the columns of the Chicago Tribune, to which Mr. Elaine contributed it: "AUGUSTA, ME., September i, 1882. The foreign policy 122 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. of President Garfield s administration had two principal objects in view : First, to bring about peace and prevent future wars in North and South America ; second, to cultivate such friendly commercial relations with all American countries as would lead to a large, increase in the export trade of the United States, by supplying those fabrics in which we are abundantly able to compete with the manufacturing nations of Europe. " To attain the second object the first must be accom plished. It would be idle to attempt the development and enlargement of our trade with the countries of North and South America if that trade were liable at any unforeseen mo ment to be violently interrupted by such wars as that which for three years has engrossed and almost ingulfed Chili, Peru and Bolivia; as that which was barely averted by the friendly offices of the United States between Chili and the Argentine Republic; as that which has been postponed by the same good offices, but not decisively abandoned, between Mexico and Guatemala ; as that which is threatened between Brazil and Uruguay ; as that which is even now foreshadowed between Brazil and the Argentine States. Peace is essential to com merce, is the very life of honest trade, is the solid basis of in ternational prosperity ; and yet there is no part of the world where a resort to arms is so prompt as in the Spanish-Ameri can Republics. Those Republics have grown out of the old colonial divisions, formed from capricious grants to favorites by royal charter, and their boundaries are in many cases not clearly defined, and consequently afford the basis of continual disputes, breaking forth too often in open war. To induce the Spanish-American States to adopt some peaceful mode of adjusting their frequently recurring contentions was regarded by the late President as one of the most honorable and useful ends to which the diplomacy of the United States could con tribute useful especially to those States by securing perma nent peace within all their borders, and useful to our own country by affording a coveted opportunity for extending its commerce and securing enlarged fields for our products and manufactures. HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 123 " Instead of friendly intervention here and there, patching up a treaty between two countries to-day, securing a truce between two others to-morrow, it was apparent to the Presi dent that a more comprehensive plan should be adopted if war was to cease in the western hemisphere. It was evident that certain European powers had in the past been interested in promoting strife between the Spanish-American countries, and might be so interested in the future, while the interest of the United States was wholly and always on the side of peace with all our American neighbors, and peace between them all. i( It was therefore the President s belief that mere incidental and partial adjustments failed to attain the desired end, and that a common agreement of peace, permanent in its character and continental in its extent, should, if possible, be secured. To effect this end it had been resolved, before the fatal shot of July 2, to invite all the independent governments of North and South America to meet in a peace congress at Washing ton. The date to be assigned was the I5th of March, 1882, and the invitations would have been issued directly after the New England tour, which the President was not permitted to make. Nearly six months later, November 22, President Garfield s successor issued the invitations for the peace con gress in the same spirit and scope and with the same limita tions and restrictions that had been originally designed. " As soon as the project was understood in South America it received a most cordial approval, and some of the countries, not following the leisurely routine of diplomatic correspond ence, made haste to accept the invitation. There can be no doubt that within a brief period all the nations invited would have formally signified their readiness to attend the congress ; but in six weeks after the invitations had gone to the several countries President Arthur caused them to be recalled, or at least suspended. The subject was afterward referred to Con gress in a special message, in which the President ably vindi cated his constitutional right to assemble the peace congress, but expressed a desire that the legislative department of the government should give an opinion upon the expediency of the step before the congress should be allowed to convene. 124 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. Meanwhile the nations that received the invitations were in an embarrassing situation ; for after they were asked by the Pres ident to come they found that the matter had been reconsid ered and referred to another department of the government. This change was universally accepted as a practical though indirect abandonment of the project, for it was not from the first probable that Congress would take any action whatever upon the subject. The good-will and welcome of the invita tion would be destroyed by a long debate in the Senate and House, in which the question would necessarily become inter mixed with personal and party politics, and the project would be ultimately wrecked from the same cause and by the same process that destroyed the usefulness of the Panama Congress, more than fifty years ago, when Mr. Clay was Secretary of State. The time for congressional action would have been after the peace conference had closed its labors. The confer ence could not agree upon anything that would be binding upon the United States, unless assented to as a treaty by the Senate, or enacted into law by both branches. The assembling of the peace conference, as President Arthur so well demon strated, was not in derogation of any right or prerogative of the Senate or House. The money necessary for the expenses of the conference which would not have exceeded $10,000 could not, with reason or propriety, have been refused by Con gress. If it had been refused, patriotism and philanthropy would promptly have supplied it. " The Spanish-American States are in special need of the help which the peace congress would afford them. They require external pressure to keep them from war. When at war they require external pressure to bring them to peace. Their outbreaks are not only frequent, but are sanguinary and sometimes cruel. The inhabitants of these countries are a brave people, belonging to a race that has always been brave, descended of men that have always been proud. They are of hot temper, quick to take affront, ready to revenge a wrong, whether real or fancied. They are at the same time generous and chivalrous, and though tending for years past to estrange ment and alienation from us, they would promptly respond to HON. JAMES G. ELAINE, 12$ any advance made by the great republic of the north, as they have for two generations termed our government. The moral influence upon the Spanish-American people of such an inter national assembly as the peace congress, called by the invita tion and meeting under the auspices of the United States, would have proved beneficent and far-reaching. It would have raised the standard of their civilization. It would have turned their attention to the things of peace ; and the conti nent, whose undeveloped wealth amazed Humboldt, might have had a new life given to it, a new and splendid career opened to its inhabitants. 44 Such friendly intervention as the proposed peace congress, and the attempt to restore peace between Chili and Peru, fall within the line of both duty and interest on the part of the United States. Nations, like individuals, often require aid of a common friend to restore relations of amity. Peru and Chili are in deplorable need of a wise and powerful mediator. Though exhausted by war, they are unable to make peace, and unless they shall be aided by the intervention of a friend, political anarchy and social disorder will come to the con quered, and evils scarcely less serious to the conqueror. Our own government cannot take the ground that it will not offer friendly intervention to settle troubles between American countries, unless at the same time it freely concedes to Euro pean governments the right of such intervention, and thus consents to a practical destruction of the Monroe doctrine and an unlimited increase of European and monarchial influence on this continent. The late special envoy to Peru and Chili, Mr. Trescot, gives it as his deliberate and published conclusion that if the instructions under which he set out upon his mis sion had not been revoked, peace between those angry bellig erents would have been established as the result of his labors necessarily to the great benefit of the United States. If our government does not resume its efforts to secure peace in South America, some European government will be forced to perform that friendly office. The United States cannot play between nations the part of dog in the manger. We must perform the duty of humane intervention ourselves or give way 8 126 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. to foreign governments that are willing to accept the responsi bility of the great trust and secure the enhanced influence and numberless advantages resulting from such a philanthropic and beneficent course. "A most significant and important result would have fol lowed the assembling of the peace congress. A friendship and an intimacy would have been established between the States of North and South America which would have de manded arfd enforced a closer commercial connection. A movement in the near future, as the legitimate outgrowth of assured peace, would, in all probability, have been a great com mercial conference at the City of Mexico or Rio Janeiro, whose deliberations would be directed to a bettor system of trade on the two continents. To such a conference the dominion of Canada could properly be asked to send representatives, as that government is allowed by Great Britain a very large liberty in regulating its commercial relations. In the peace congress, to be composed of independent governments, the dominion could not have taken any part, and was conse quently not invited. From this trade conference of the two continents the United States could hardly have failed to gain great advantages. At present the commercial relations of this country with the Spanish-American countries, both con tinental and insular, are unsatisfactory and unprofitable indeed, those relations are absolutely oppressive to the finan cial interests of the government and people of the United States. In our current exchanges it requires about $120,000,- ooo to pay the balance which Spanish-America brings against us every year. This amount is 50 per cent, more than the average annual product of the gold and silver mines of the United States during the last five years. This vast sum does not, of course, go to Spanish-America in coin, but it goes across the ocean in coin or its equivalent to pay European countries for manufactured articles which they furnish to Spanish-America, a large proportion of which should be fur nished by the manufacturers of the United States. "At this point of the argument the free trader appears and declares that our protective tariff" destroys our power of com- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. I2/ petition with European countries, and that if we will abolish protection we shall soon have South American trade. The answer is not sufficient, for to-day there are many articles which we can send to South America and sell as cheaply as European manufacturers can furnish them. It is idle, of course, to make this statement to the genuine apostle of free trade and the im placable enemy of protection, for the great postulate of his argument, the foundation of his creed, is that nothing can be made as cheaply in America as in Europe. Nevertheless, facts are stubborn, and the hard figures of arithmetic cannot be sat isfactorily answered by airy figures of speech. The truth re mains that the coarser descriptions of cottons and cotton prints, boots and shoes, ordinary household furniture, harness for draft animals, agricultural implements of all kinds, doors, sashes and blinds, locks, bolts and hinges, silverware, plated ware, woodenware, ordinary paper an4 paper-hangings, com mon vehicles, ordinary window-glass and glassware, rubber goods, coal oils, lard oils, kerosenes, white lead, lead pipe, and articles in which lead is a chief component, can be and are produced as cheaply in the United States as in any other part of the world. The list of such articles might be length ened by the addition of those classed as "notions," but enough only are given to show that this country would, with proper commercial arrangements, export much more largely than it now does to Spanish America. " In the trade relations of the world it does not follow that mere ability to produce as cheaply as another nation insures a division of an established market, or, indeed, any participa tion in it. France manufactures many articles as cheaply as England, some articles at even less cost. Portugal lies nearer to France than to England, and the expense of transporting the French fabric to the Portuguese market is therefore less than the transportation of English fabrics, and yet Great Britain has almost a monopoly in the trade of Portugal. The same condition applies, though in a less degree, in the trade of Turkey, Syria, and Egypt, which England holds to a much greater extent than any of the other European nations that are able to produce the .same fabric as cheaply. If it be said 128 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. in answer that England has special trade relations by treaty with Portugal and special obligations binding the other coun tries, the ready answer is that she has no more favorable posi tion with regard to those countries than can be readily and easily acquired by the United States with respect to all the countries of America. That end will be reached whenever the United States desires it and wills it, and is ready to take the steps necessary to secure it. At present the trade with Spanish-America runs so strongly in channels adverse to us, that, besides our inability to furnish manufactured articles, we do not get the profit on our own raw products that are shipped there. Our petroleum reaches most of the Spanish- American ports after twice crossing the Atlantic, paying often a better profit to the European middleman who handles it than it does to the producer of the oil in the northwestern counties of Pennsylvania. Flour and pork from the West reach Cuba by way of Spain, and, though we buy and sell ninety per cent, of the total products of Cuba, almost that proportion of her pur chases are made in Europe made, of course, with money fur nished directly from our pockets. " As our exports to Spanish-America grow less as European imports constantly grow larger, the balance against us will show an annual increase, and will continue to exhaust our supply of the precious metals. We are increasing our imports from South America, and the millions we annually pay for coffee, wool, hides, guano, cinchona, caoutchouc, cabinet woods, dye woods, and other articles, go for the ultimate benefit of European manufacturers who take the gold from us and send their fabrics to Spanish-America. If we could send our fab rics our gold would stay at home and our general prosperity would be sensibly increased. But so long as we repel Spanish- America, so long as we leave her to cultivate intimate relations with Europe alone, so long our trade relations will remain un satisfactory and even embarrassing. Those countries sell to us very heavily ; they buy from us very lightly. And the amount they bring us in debt each year is larger than the heaviest aggregate balance of trade we ever have against us in the worst of times. The average balance against us for the HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. whole world in the five most adverse years we ever experi enced was about $100,000,000. This plainly shows that in our European exchanges there is always a balance in our favor, and that our chief deficiency arises from our malad justed commercial relations with Spanish-America. It follows that if our Spanish-American trade were placed on a better and more equitable foundation it would be almost impossible, even in years most unfavorable to us, to bring us in debt to the world. " With such heavy purchases as we are compelled to make from Spanish-America, it could hardly be expected that we should be able to adjust the entire account by exports. But the balance against us of $ \ 20,000,000 in gold is far too large, and in time of stringency is a standing menace of final disaster. It should not be forgotten that every million dollars of products or fabrics that we sell in Spanish America is a million dollars in gold saved to our own country. The immediate profit is to the producer and exporter, but the entire country realizes a gain in the ease and affluence of the money market which is insured by keeping our gold at home. The question involved is so large, the object to be achieved is so great, that no effort on the part of the government to accomplish it could be too earnest or too long continued. " It is only claimed for the peace congress, designed under the administration of Garfield, that it was an important and im pressive step on the part of the United States toward closer relationship with our continental neighbors. The present tendency in those countries is toward Europe, and it is a la mentable fact that their people are not so near to us in feeling as they were sixty years ago when they threw off the yoke of Spanish tyranny. We were then a weak republic of but 10,000,000, but we did not hesitate to recognize the inde pendence of the new governments even at the risk of war with Spain. Our foreign policy at that time was specially designed to extend our influence in the western hemisphere, and the statesmen of that era the era of De Witt Clinton and the younger Adams, of Clay and of Crawford, of Webster and Calhoun, of Van Buren and Benton, of Jackson and of Edward I3O HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. Livingston were always courageous in the inspiring measures which they advocated for the expansion of our commercial do minion. " Threescore years have passed. The power of the repub lic in many directions has grown beyond all anticipation, but we have relatively lost ground in some great fields of enter prise. We have added thousands of miles to our ocean front, but our commerce has fallen off, and from ardent friendship with Spanish-America we have drifted into indifference, if not into coolness. It is but one step further to reach a condition of positive unfriendliness, which would end in what would be equivalent to a commercial alliance against us. Already one of the most dangerous of movements that of a European guarantee and guardianship of the Inter-oceanic canal is suggested and urged upon the great foreign powers by repre sentatives of a South American country. If these tendencies are to be averted, if Spanish- American friendship is to be re gained, if the commercial empire that legitimately belongs to us is to be ours, we must not lie idle and witness its transfer to others. If we would reconquer it a great first step is to be taken. It is the first step that costs. It is also the first step that counts. Can there be suggested a wiser step than the peace congress of the two Americas that was devised under Garficld and had the weight of his great name ? " In no event could harm have resulted in the assembling of the peace congress failure was next to impossible. Suc cess might be regarded as certain. The subject to be discussed was peace, and how it can be permanently preserved in North and South America. The labors of the congress would have probably ended in a well-digested system of arbitration, under which all trouble between American States could be quickly, effectually and satisfactorily adjusted. Such a consummation would have been worth a great struggle and a great sacrifice. It could have been reached without any struggle and would have involved no sacrifice. It was within our grasp. It was ours for the asking. It would have been a signal victory of philanthropy over the selfishness of human ambition ; a com plete triumph of Christian principles as applied to the affairs HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 13! of nations. It would have reflected enduring honor on our own country, and would have imparted a new spirit and a new brotherhood to all America. Nor would its influence beyond the sea have been small. The example of seventeen indepen dent nations solemnly agreeing to abolish the arbitrament of the sword and to settle every dispute by peaceful methods of adjudication, would have exerted an influence to the utmost confines of civilization and upon the generations of men yet to come. "JAMES G. ELAINE." A further exposition of his views upon this matter occurs in the following paragraph from " Twenty Years of Con- gress:" " This brief history of the spirit rather than the events which characterized the foreign relations of the United States during the civil war has been undertaken with no desire to re vive the feelings of burning indignation which they provoked, or to prolong the discussion of the angry questions to which they gave rise. The relations of nations are not and should not be governed by sentiment. The interest and ambition of States, like those of men, will disturb the moral sense and in cline to one side or the other the strict balance of impartial justice. New days bring new issues, and old passions are un safe counselors. Twenty years have gone by. England has paid the cost of her mistake. The republic of Mexico has seen the fame and the fortunes of the emperors who sought her conquest sink suddenly as into the pits which they them selves had digged for their victims and the Republic of the United States has come out of her long and bitter struggle, so strong that never again will she afford the temptation of the opportunity for unfriendly governments to strike at her national life. Let the past be the past, but let it be the past with all the instruction and warning of its experience. " The future safety of these continents rests upon the strength and maintenance of the Union ; for, had dissolution been pos sible, events have shown with what small regard the interests or the honor of either of the belligerents would have been 132 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. treated. It has been taught to the smaller republics that if this strength be shattered they will be the spoil of foreign arms and the dependent provinces again of foreign monarchs. When this contest was over the day of immaturity had passed, and the United States stood before the world a great and per manent power. That power can afford to bury all resent ments. Tranquil at home, developing its inexhaustible re sources with a rapidity and success unknown in history, bound in sincere friendship, and beyond the possibility of hostile rivalry with the other republics of the continents, standing midway between Asia and Europe, a power on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic, with no temptations to intermeddle in the questions which disturb the old world, the republic of the United States desires to live in amicable relations with all peoples, demanding only the abstinence of foreign interven tion in the development of that policy which her political creed, her territorial extent, and the close and cordial neigh borhood of kindred governments have made the essential rule of her national life." Is there anything here to which honest exception can be taken ? Is this the shadow of a war ? No, it is a clear, elo quent and just exposition of the policy which the United States ought to pursue in its relations with foreign countries. As Mr. Blaine says, " The relations of nations are not and should not be governed by sentiment." " The interest and ambition of States, like those of men, will disturb the moral sense and incline to one side or the other the strict balance of impartial justice." Every nation which has held a high place in history, or which now exerts a commanding influence over the affairs of the world, has only reached that position by a constant struggle for supremacy. Sentiment has not entered into their political ethics, and will not in the future. During our prolonged struggle for the Union the imperial charlatan of France, Napoleon III., and the Emperor of Austria thought HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 133 it to their interest to establish an empire in Mexico, and the subjugation of that country was at once undertaken. The English government calculated that the disunion of these States would redound to the advancement of British interests, and every aid possible, without making an offensive and de fensive alliance with the South, was extended to the cause of the pro-slavery rebellion. What can be more just than the policy which Mr. Elaine points out as the proper course for this nation to pursue in its relations with foreign powers ? Our " day of immaturity " is forever passed, and in population, wealth, intelligence, indus try, agriculture, commerce, all that pertains to genuine national greatness, we stand " before the world a great and permanent power." We can well afford " to bury all resentments." We have " no temptations to intermeddle with the questions which disturb the old world." " Desiring to live in amicable rela tion with all peoples," the United States only demands " the abstinence of foreign intervention " on the American con tinent. In the Cabinet of James A. Garfield James Gillespie Elaine was the President s chosen adviser, and confidential, political, and personal friend, and he took a pronounced part in defence of his chief when the storm of opposition broke. When President Garfield appointed William H. Robertson the political rival of Senator Conkling in New York State Collector of the port of New York, that Senator bitterly op posed the President s appointment in that instance, as he be lieved it was inspired by Senator Elaine. After considerable deliberation the United States Senate confirmed the appoint ments, and the two United States Senators from New York Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt resigned their seats in the Senate, and appealed to the Legislature of their State 134 HON - JAMES G. ELAINE. to sustain them in their opposition to President Garfield, by re-electing them to the seats which they had resigned ; but after a bitter contest of two months the New York Legislature sustained the President s course by defeating Messrs. Conk- ling and Platt, and electing Messrs. Miller and Lapham in their places ; and in this struggle with Senator Conkling Pres ident Garfield was sustained by the great mass of the Repub lican party throughout the country. This was followed by the dire tragedy of July 2d, and the whole world of official happiness just opening to the eyes and hopes of the new President closed in the momentary glitter of the assassin s pistol-barrel. Garfield was shot. Through all the period of eighty days of suffering of the President, Secretary Elaine, the master-spirit of the President s Cabinet, was virtually acting President; and after Garfield s death, and Vice-President Arthur s inauguration as President, Mr. Elaine remained in office for several months, but as he and the new President differed on matters of public policy, one point of which was Mr. Elaine s foreign policy, the Secretary retired from office late in the fall of 1881. It was but fitting that this man should pronounce the eu logy over his dead friend, the beloved Statesman, from the pleasant places of the Western Reserve. On February 27, 1882, the oration was pronounced in the Hall of the House of Representatives before a great and distinguished audience. The orator said : " MR. PRESIDENT For the second time in this generation the great Departments of the Government of the United States are assembled in the Hall of Representatives to do honor to the memory of a murdered President. Lincoln fell at the close of a mighty struggle in which the passions of men had been deeply stirred. The tragical termination of his HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 137 great life added but another to the lengthened succession of horrors which had marked so many lintels with the blood of the first-born. Garfield was slain in a day of peace, when brother had been reconciled to brother, and when anger and hate had been banished from the land. Whoever shall here after draw the portrait of murder, if he will show it as it has been exhibited where such example was last to have been looked for, let him not give it the grim visage of Moloch, the brow knitted by revenge, the face black with settled hate. Let him draw, rather, a decorous, smooth-faced, bloodless demon; not so much an example of human nature in its de pravity and in its paroxysms of crime, as an infernal being, a fiend in the ordinary display and development of his char acter. " From the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth till the uprising against Charles First, about twenty thousand emi grants came from Old England to New England. As they came in pursuit of intellectual freedom and ecclesiastical inde pendence rather than for worldly honor and profit, the emi gration naturally ceased when the contest for religious liberty began in earnest at home. The man who struck his most effective blow for freedom of conscience, by sailing for the col onies in 1620, would have been accounted a deserter to leave after 1640. The opportunity had then come on the soil of England for that great contest which established the authority of Parliament, gave religious freedom to the people, sent Charles to the block, and committed to the hands of Oliver Cromwell the supreme executive authority of England. The English emigration was never renewed, and from these twenty thousand men, with a small emigration from Scotland and from France, are descended the vast numbers who have New England blood in their veins. " In 1685 the revocation of the Edict of Nantes by Louis XIV. scattered to other countries four hundred thousand Protestants, who were among the most intelligent and enter prising of French subjects merchants of capital, skilled manufacturers, and handicraftsmen, superior at the time to all others in Europe. A considerable number of these Huguenot 138 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. French came to America ; a few landed in New England, and became honorably prominent in its history. Their names have in large part become Anglicised, or have disappeared, but their blood is traceable in many of. the most reputable families, and their fame is perpetuated in honorable memorials and useful institutions. " From these two sources, the English-Puritan and the French- Huguenot, came the late President his faTher. At) ram Garfield, being descended from the one, and his mother, Eliza Ballou, from the other. " It was good stock on both sides none better, none braver, none truer. There was in it an inheritance of courage, of manliness, of imperishable love of liberty, of undying adher ence to principle. Garfield was proud of his blood ; and, with as much satisfaction as if he were a British nobleman reading his stately ancestral record in Burke s Peerage, he spoke of himself as ninth in descent from those who would not endure the oppression of the Stuarts, and seventh in descent from the brave French Protestants who refused to submit to tyranny even from the Grand Monarque. " Gen. Garfield delighted to dwell on these traits, and during his only visit to England, he busied himself in discovering every trace of his forefathers in parish registries and on ancient army rolls. Sitting with a friend, in tne gallery of the House of Commons one night, after a long day s labor in this field of research, he said, with evident elation, that in every war in which, for three centuries, patriots of English blood had struck sturdy blows for constitutional government and human liberty, his family had been represented. They were at Mars- ton Moor, at Naseby, and at Preston ; they were at Bunker Hill, at Saratoga, and at Monmouth, and in his own person had battled for the same great cause in the war which pre served the Union of the States. " Losing his father before he was two years old, the early life of Garfield was one of privation, but its poverty has been made indelicately and unjustly prominent. Thousands of readers have imagined him as the ragged, starving child, whose reality too often greets the eye in the squalid sections of our HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 139 large cities. Gen. Garfield s infancy and youth had none of their destitution, none of their pitiful features appealing to the tender heart and to the open hand of charity. He was a poor boy in the same sense in which Henry Clay was a poor boy; in which Andrew Jackson was a poor boy ; in which Daniel Webster was a poor boy; in the sense in which a large ma jority of the eminent men of America in all generations have been poor boys. Before a great multitude of men, in a public speech, Mr. Webster bore this testimony : " It did not happen to me to be born in a log-cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters were born in a log-cabin raised amid the snow-drifts of New Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the smoke rose first from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence of a white man s habitation between it and the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. I make to it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, the early affections, and the touching narratives and inci dents which mingle with all I know of this primitive family abode. " With the requisite change of scene, the same words would aptly portray the early days of Garfield. The poverty of the frontier, where all are engaged in a common struggle, and where a common sympathy and a hearty co-operation lighten the burdens of each, is a very different poverty, different in kind, different in influence and effect from that conscious and humiliating indigence which is every day forced to contrast itself with neighboring wealth, on which it feels a sense of grinding dependence. The poverty of the frontier is indeed no poverty. It is but the beginning of wealth, and has the boundless possibilities of the future always opening before it. No man ever grew up in the agricultural regions of the West where a house-raising, or even a corn-husking, is matter of common interest and helpfulness, with any other feeling than that of broad-minded, generous independence. This honor able independence marked the youth of Garfield, as it marks I4O HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. the youth of millions of the best blood and brain now training for the future citizenship and future government of the Re public. Garfield was born heir to land, to the title of free holder, which has been the patent and passport of self-respect with the Anglo-Saxon race ever since Hengist and Horsa landed on the shores of England. His adventure on the canal an alternative between that and the deck of a Lake Erie schooner was a farmer boy s device for earning money, just as the New England lad begins a possibly great career by sailing before the mast on a coasting vessel, or on a mer chantman bound to the Farther India or to the China Seas. " No manly man feels anything of shame in looking back to early struggles with adverse circumstances, and no man feels a worthier pride than when he has conquered the obsta cles to his progress. But no one of noble mould desires to be looked upon as having occupied a menial position, as hav ing been repressed by a feeling of inferiority, or as having suffered the evils of poverty until relief was found at the hand of charity. General Garfield s youth presented no h_aiiiships which family love and family energy did not overcome, sub jected him to no privations which he dicPnbt cheerfully ac cept, and left no memories save those which were recalled with delight, and transmitted with profit and with pride. " Garfield s early opportunities for securing an education were extremely limited, and yet were sufficient to develop in him an intense desire to learn. He could read at three years of age, and each winter he had-4he benefit of the district school. He read all the books to be found within the circle of his acquaintance ; some of them he got by heart. While yet in childhood he was a constant student of the Bible, and became familiar with its literature. The dignity and earnest ness of his speech in his maturer life gave evidence of this early training. At eighteen years of age he was able to teach school, and thenceforward his ambition was to obtain a college education. To this end he bent all his efforts, working in the harvest field, at the carpenter s bench, and, in the winter sea son, teaching the common schools of the neighborhood. While thus laboriously occupied he found time to prosecute HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 14! his studies, and was so successful that at twenty-two years of age he was able to enter the junior class of Williams College, then under the presidency of the venerable and honored Mark Hopkins, who in the fullness of his powers survives the eminent pupil to whom he was of inestimable service. " The history, of Garfield s life to this period presents no novel features. He had undoubtedly shown perseverance, self-reliance, self-sacrifice and ambition qualities which, be it said for the honor of our country, are everywhere to be found among the young men of America. But from his graduation at Williams onward, to the hour of his tragical death, Garfield s career was eminent and exceptional. Slowly working through his educational period, receiving his diploma when twenty- four years of age, he seemed at one bound to spring into con spicuous and brilliant success. Within six years he was suc cessively President of a College, State Senator of Ohio, Major- General of the Army of the United States, and Repre sentative-elect to the National Congress. A combination of honors so varied, so elevated, within a period so brief and to a man so young, is without precedent or parallel in the history of the country. "Garfield s army life was begun with no other military knowledge than such as he had hastily gained from books in the few months preceding his march to the field. Stepping from civil life to the head of a regiment, the first order he re ceived when ready to cross the Ohio was to assume command of a brigade, and to operateas an independent force in Eastern Kentucky. His immediate duty was to check the advance of Humphrey Marshall, who was marching down the Big Sandy, with the intention of occupying, in connection with other Confederate forces, the entire territory of Kentucky, and of precipitating the State into Secession. This was at the close of the year 1861. Seldom, if ever, has a young college pro fessor been thrown into a more embarrassing and discouraging position. He knew just enough of military science, as he ex pressed it himself, to measure the extent of his ignorance, and with a handful of men he was marching, in rough winter weather, into a strange country, among a hostile population, 142 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. to confront a largely superior force under the command of a distinguished graduate of West Point, who had seen active and important service in two preceding wars. "The result of the campaign is matter of history. The skill, the endurance, the extraordinary energy shown by Gar- field ; the courage he imparted to his men, raw and untried as himself; the measures he adopted to increase his force and to create in the enemy s mind exaggerated estimates of his num bers, bore perfect fruit in the routing of Marshall, the capture of his camp, the dispersion of his force, and the emancipation of an important territory from the control of the Rebellion. Coming at the close of a long series of disasters to the Union arms, Garfield s victory had an unusual and extraneous im portance, and in the popular judgment elevated the young commander to the rank of a military hero. With less than two thousand men in his entire command, with a mobilized force of only eleven hundred, without cannon, he had met an army of five thousand and defeated them driving Marshall s forces successively from two strongholds of their own selection, fortified with abundant artillery. Major-General Buell, com manding the Department of the Ohio, an experienced and able soldier of the regular army, published an order of thanks and congratulation on the brilliant result of the Big Sandy cam paign, which would have turned the head of a less cool and sensible man than Garfield. Buell declared that his services had called into action the highest qualities of a soldier, and President Lincoln supplemented these words of praise by the more substantial reward of a brigadier-general s commission, to bear date from the day of his decisive victory over Marshall. " The subsequent military career of Garfield fully sustained its brilliant beginning. With his new commission he was as signed to the command of a brigade in the Army of the Ohio, and took part in the second and decisive day s fight in the great battle of Shiloh. The remainder of the year 1862 was not especially eventful to Garfield, as it was not to the armies with which he was serving. His practical sense was called into exercise in completing the task, assigned him by General Buell, of reconstructing bridges and re-establishing lines of HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 143 railway communication for the army. His occupation in this useful but not brilliant field was varied by service on Courts-mar tial of importance, in which department of duty he won a valu able reputation, attracting- the notice and securing the approval of the able and eminent judge-advocate-general of the army. That of itself was warrant to honorable fame ; for, among the great men who in those trying days gave themselves with en tire devotion to the service of their country, one who brought to that service the ripest learning, the most fervid eloquence, the most varied attainments, who labored with modesty, and shunned applause, who in the day of triumph sat reserved, and silent, and grateful as Francis Deak in the hour of Hun gary s deliverance was Joseph Holt of Kentucky, who in his honorable retirement enjoys the respect and veneration of all who love the Union of the States. " Early in 1863 Garfield was assigned to the highly impor tant and responsible post of Chief-of-StafT to General Rosecrans, then at the head of the Army of the Cumberland. Perhaps in a great military campaign no subordinate officer requires sounder judgment and quicker knowledge of men than the Chief-of-Staff to the Commanding General. An indiscreet man in such a position can sow -more discord, breed more jealousy and disseminate more strife than any other officer in the entire organization. When General Garfield assumed his new duties he found various troubles already .well developed and seriously affecting the value and efficiency of the Army of the Cumberland. The energy, the impartiality, and the tact with which he sought to allay these dissensions, and to discharge the duties of .his new and trying position, will always remain one of the most striking proofs of his great versatility. His military duties closed on the memorable field of Chicka- mauga, a field which, however disastrous to the Union arms, gave to him the occasion of winning imperishable laurels. The very rare distinction was accorded him of a great promo tion for his bravery on a field that was lost. President Lincoln appointed him a Major- General in the Army .of the United States for gallant and meritorious conduct in the battle of Chickamauga. , 144 HON - JAMES G. ELAINE. " The Army of the Cumberland was reorganized under t command of General Thomas, who promptly offered Garfie one of its divisions. He was extremely desirous to accept t position, but was embarrassed by the fact that he had, a ye before, been elected to Congress, and the time when he mi take his seat was drawing near. He preferred to remain the military service, and had within his own breast the larg< confidence of success in the wider field which his new ra opened to him. Balancing the arguments on the one side a the other, anxious to determine what was for the best, des ous above all things to do his patriotic duty, he was decisive influenced by the advice of President Lincoln and Secreta Stanton, both of whom assured him that he could, at that tin be of especial value in the House of Representatives. He i signed his commission of Major-General on the 5th day December, 1863, and took his seat in the House of Repi sentatives on the 7th. He had served two years and fc months in the army, and had just completed his thirty-seco year. " The Thirty-eighth Congress is pre-eminently entitled history to the designation of the War Congress. It \\ elected while the war was flagrant, and every member ^ chosen upon the issues involved in the continuance of t struggle. The Thirty-seventh Congress had indeed legislat to a large extent on war measures, but it was chosen befc any one believed that the secession of the States would actually attempted. The magnitude of the work which f upon its successor was unprecedented, both in respect to t vast sums of money raised for the support of the army a navy, and of the new and extraordinary powers of legislate which it was forced to exercise. Only twenty-four States we represented, and one hundred and eighty-two members we upon its roll. Among these were many distinguished par leaders on both sides, veterans in the public service, \vi established reputations for ability, and with that skill whi< comes only from parliamentary experience. Into this c semblage of men Garfield entered without special preparatic and it might almost be said unexpectedly. The question HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 145 taking command of a division of troops under General Thomas, or taking his seat in Congress, was kept open till the last moment so late, indeed, that the resignation of his military commission and his appearance in the House were almost contemporaneous. He wore the uniform of a major-general of the United States Army on Saturday, and on Monday, in civilian s dress, he answered to the roll-call as a Representa tive in Congress from the State of Ohio. " He was especially fortunate in the constituency which elected him. Descended almost entirely from New England stock, the men of the Ashtabula district were intensely radical on all questions relating to human rights. Well educated, thrifty, thoroughly intelligent in affairs, acutely discerning of character, not quick to bestow confidence, and slow to with draw it, they were at once the most helpful and most exacting of supporters. Their tenacious trust in men in whom they have once confided is illustrated by the unparalleled fact that Elisha Whittlesey, Joshua R. Giddings, and James A. Garfield represented the district for fifty-four years. " There is no test of a man s ability in any department of public life more severe than service in the House of Repre sentatives ; there is no place where so little deference is paid to reputation previously acquired, or to eminence won outside ; no place where so little consideration is shown for the feelings or the failures of beginners. What a man gains .in the House, he gains by sheer force of his own character, and if he loses and falls back he must expect no mercy, and will receive no sympathy. It is a field in which the survival of the strongest is the recognized rule, and where no pretense can deceive and no glamour can mislead. The real man is discovered, his worth is impartially weighed, his rank is irreversibly decreed. " With possibly a single exception, Garfield was the young est member in the House when he entered, and was but seven years from his college graduation. But he had not been in his seat sixty days before his ability was recognized and his place conceded. He stepped to the front with the confidence of one who belonged there. The House was crowded with strong men of both parties ; nineteen of them have since been 146 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. transferred to the Senate, and many of them have served with distinction in the gubernatorial chairs of their respective States, and on foreign missions of great consequence ; but among them all, none grew so rapidly, none so firmly as Garfield. As is said by Trevelyan of his parliamentary hero, Garfield succeeded because all the world in concert could not have kept him in the background ; and because, when once in the front, he played his part with a prompt intrepidity and a com manding ease that were but the outward symptoms of the im mense reserves of energy, on which it was in his power to draw. Indeed the apparently reserved force which Garfield possessed was one of his great characteristics. He never did so well but that it seemed he could easily have done better. He never expended so much strength but that he seemed to be holding additional power at call. This is one of the hap piest and rarest distinctions of an effective debater, and often counts for as much in persuading an assembly as the eloquent and elaborate argument. " The great measure of Garfield s fame was filled by his service in the House of Representatives. His military life, illustrated by honorable performance, and rich in promise was, as he himself felt, prematurely terminated, and necessarily in complete. Speculation as to what he might have done in a field, where the great prizes are so few, cannot be profitable. It is sufficient to say that as a soldier he did his duty bravely; he did it intelligently; he won an enviable fame, and he retired from the service without blot or breath against him. As a lawyer, though admirably equipped for the profession, he can scarcely be said to have entered on its practice. The few efforts he made at the bar were distinguished by the same high order of talent which he exhibited on every field where he was put to the test, and if a man may be accepted as a com petent judge of his own capacities and adaptations, the law was the profession to which Garfield should have devoted himself. But fate ordained otherwise, and his reputation in history will rest largely upon his service in the House of Rep resentatives. That service was exceptionally long. He was nine times consecutively chosen to the House, an honor HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 147 enjoyed by not more than six other Representatives of the more than five thousand who have been elected from the organization of the government to this hour. "As a parliamentary orator, as a debater on an issue squarely joined, where the position had been chosen and the ground laid out, Garfield must be assigned a very high rank. More, perhaps, than any man with whom he was associated in public life, he gave careful and systematic study to public questions, and he came to every discussion in which he took part with elaborate and complete preparation. He was a steady and indefatigable worker. Those who imagine that talent or genius can supply the place, or achieve the results of labor, will find no encouragement in Garfield s life. In preliminary work he was apt, rapid, and skillful. He possessed in a high degree the power of readily absorbing ideas and facts, and like Dr. Johnson, had the art of getting from a book all that was of value in it by a reading, apparently so quick and cursory, that it seemed like a- mere glance at the table of contents. He was a pre-eminently fair and candid man in debate, took no petty advantage, stooped to no unworthy methods, avoided personal allusions, rarely appealed to prejudice, did not seek to inflame passion. He had a quicker eye for the strong point of his adversary than for his weak point, and on his own side he so marshalled his weighty arguments as to make his hearers forget any possible lack in the complete strength of his position. He had a habit of stating his opponent s side with such amplitude of fairness and such liberality of conces sion that his followers often complained that he was giving his case away. But never in his prolonged participation in the proceedings of the House did he give his case away, or fail in the judgment of competent and impartial listeners to gain the mastery. " These characteristics, which marked Garfield as a great debater, did not, however, make him a great parliamentary leader. 1 A parliamentary leader, as that term is understood wherever free representative government exists, is necessarily and very strictly the organ of his party. An ardent Ameri can defined the instinctive warmth of patriotism when he 148 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. offered the toast, * Our country, always right ; but right or \vrong, our country. The parliamentary leader who has a body of followers that will do and dare and die for the cause, is one who believes his party always right, but right or wrong, is for his party. No more important or exacting duty de volves upon him than the selection of the field and the time for contest. He must know not merely how to strike, but where to strike, and when to strike. He often skilfully avoids the strength of his opponent s position, and scatters confusion in his ranks by attacking an exposed point, when really the righteousness of the cause and the strength of logical in- trenchment are against him. He conquers often both against the right and the heavy battalions, as- when young Charles Fox, in the days of his Toryism, carried the House of Com mons against justice, against its immemorial rights, against his own convictions, if, indeed, at that period Fox had con victions, and, in the interest of a corrupt administration, in obedience to a tyrannical sovereign, drove Wilkes from the seat to which the electors of Middlesex had chosen him and installed Luttrell in defiance, not merely of law but of public decency. For an achievement of that kind Garficld was dis qualified disqualified by the texture of his mind, by the hon esty of his heart, by his conscience, and by every instinct and aspiration of his nature. "The three most distinguished parliamentary leaders hith erto developed in this country are Mr. Clay, Mr. Douglas and Mr. Thaddeus Stevens. Each was a man of consummate* ability, of great earnestness, of intense personality, differing widely, each from the others, and yet with a signal trait in common the power to command. In the give and take of daily discussion, in the art of controlling and consolidating reluctant and refractory followers ; in the skill to overcome all forms of opposition, and to meet with competency and courage the varying phases of unlooked-for assault or unsus pected defection, it would be difficult to rank with these a fourth name in all our Congressional history. But of these Mr. Clay was the greatest. It would perhaps be impossible to find in the parliamentary annals of the world a parallel to HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 149 Mr. Clay, in 1841, when at sixty-four years of age he took the control of the Whig party from the President who had received their suffrages, against the power of Webster in the Cabinet, against the eloquence of Choate in the Senate, against the Herculean efforts of Caleb Cushing and Henry A. Wise in the House. In unshared leadership, in the pride and plenitude of power, he hurled against John Tyler with deepest scorn the mass of that conquering column which had swept over the land in 1840, and drove his administration to seek shelter be hind the lines of his political foes. Mr. Douglas achieved a victory scarcely less wonderful when, in 1854, against the secret desires of a strong administration, against the wise counsel of the elder chiefs, against the conservative instincts and even the moral sense of the country, he forced a reluctant Congress into a repeal of the Missouri Compromise. Mr. Thaddeus Stevens in his contests from 1865 to 1868 actually advanced his parliamentary leadership until Congress tied the hands of the President and governed the country by its own will, leaving only perfunctory duties to be discharged by the executive. With two hundred millions of patronage in his hands at the opening of the contest, aided by the active force of Seward in the Cabinet, and the moral power of Chase on the bench, Andrew Johnson could not command the support of one-third in either House against the parliamentary upris ing of which Thaddeus Stevens was the animating spirit and the unquestioned leader. " From these three great men Garfield differed radically, differed Jn_the_ quality of his mind, in temperament, in the form and phase of ambition. He could not do what they did, but he could do what they could not, and in the breadth of his Congressional work he left that which will longer exert a potential influence among men, and which measured by the severe test of posthumous criticism, will secure a more endur ing and more enviable fame. "Those unfamiliar with Garfield s industry and ignorant of the details of his work, may, in some degree, measure them l>y the annals of Congress. No one of the generation of pub lic men to which he belonged has contributed so much that 150 H ON! 1 JAMES G. ELAINE. will be valuable for future reference. His speeches are. numer ous, many of them brilliant, all of them well studied, carefully phrased, and exhaustive of the subject under consideration. Collected from the scattered pages of ninety royal octavo volumes of Congressional Record, they would present an in valuable compendium of the political history of the most im portant era through which the national government has ever passed. When the history of this period shall be impartially written, when war legislation, measures of reconstruction, pr&- tection of human rights, amendments to the Constitution, maintenance of public credit, steps towards specie resumption, true theories of revenue may be reviewed, unsurrounded by prejudice and disconnected from partisanism, the speeches of Garfield will be estimated at their true value, and will be found to comprise a vast magazine of fact and argument, ot clear analysis and sound conclusion. Indeed, if no other authority were accessible, his speeches in the House of Representatives from December, 1863, to June, 1880, would give a well-con nected history and complete defence of the important legisla tion of the seventeen eventful years that constitute his parlia mentary life. Far beyond that, his speeches would be found to forecast many great measures, yet to be completed meas ures which he knew were beyond the public opinion of the hour, but which he confidently believed would secure popular approval within the period of his own lifetime, and by the aid of his own efforts. " Differing as Garfield does, from the brilliant parliamentary leaders, it is not easy to find his counterpart anywhere in the record of American public life. He perhaps more nearly re sembles Mr. Seward in his supreme faith in the all-conquering power of a principle. He had the love of learning, and the patient industry of investigation, to which John Quincy Adams owes his prominence and his Presidency. He had some of those ponderous elements of mind which distinguished Mr. Webster, and which, indeed, in all our public life have left the great Massachusetts Senator without an intellectual peer. " In English Parliamentary history, as in our own, the leaders HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 15! in the House of Commons present points of essential differ ence from Garfield. But some of his methods recall the best features in the strong, independent course of Sir Robert Peel, and striking resemblances are discernible in that most prom ising of modern conservatives, who died too early for his country and his fame, the Lord George Bentinck. He had all of Burke s love for the Sublime and the Beautiful, with, possibly, something of his superabundance ; and in his faith arfd his magnanimity, in his power of statement, in his subtle analysis, in his faultless logic, in his love of literature, in his wealth and world of illustration, one is reminded of that great English statesman of to-day, who, confronted with obstacles that .would daunt any but the dauntless, reviled by those whom he would relieve as bitterly as by those whose supposed rights he is forced to invade, still labors with serene courage for the amelioration of Ireland, and for the honor of the Eng lish name. " Garfield s nomination to the Presidency, while not pre dicted or anticipated, was not a surprise to the country. His prominence in Congress, his solid qualities, his wide reputa tion, strengthened by his then recent election as Senator from Ohio, kept him in the public eye as a man occupying the very highest rank among those entitled to be called statesmen. It was not mere chance that brought him this high honor. We must, says Mr. Emerson, reckon success a constitutional trait. If Eric is in robust health, and has slept well, and is at the top of his condition, and thirty years old at his departure from Greenland, he will steer west and his ships will reach Newfoundland. But take Eric out and put in a stronger and bolder man, and the ships will sail six hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred miles farther and reach Labrador and New England. There is no chance in results. "As a candidate Garfield steadily grew in popular favor. He was met with a storm of detraction at the very hour of his nomination, and it continued with increasing volume and mo mentum "until the close of his victorious campaign : " No might or greatness in mortality . Can censure scape; backwounding calumny 152 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue ? "Under it all he was calm, and strong, and confident; never lost his self-possession, did no unwise act, spoke no hasty or ill-considered word. Indeed, nothing in his whole life is more remarkable or more creditable than his bearing through those five full months of vituperation a prolonged agony of trial to a sensitive man, a constant and cruel draft upon the powers of moral endurance. The great mass of these unjust imputa tions passed unnoticed, and with the general debris of the campaign fell into oblivion. But, in a few instances, the iron entered his soul, and he died with the injury unforgotten if not unforgiven. " One aspect of Garfield s candidacy was unprecedented. Never before, in the history of partisan contests in this country, had a successful Presidential candidate spoken freely on passing events and current issues. To attempt anything of the kind seemed novel, rash, and even desperate. The older class of voters recalled the unfortunate Alabama letter, in which Mr. Clay was supposed to have signed his political death-warrant. They remembered also the hot-tempered effusion by which General Scott lost a large share of his pop ularity before his nomination, and the unfortunate speeches which rapidly consumed the remainder. The younger voters had seen Mr. Greeley in a series of vigorous and original ad dresses preparing the pathway for his own defeat. Unmindful of these warnings, unheeding the advice of friends, Garfield spoke to large crowds as he journeyed to and from New York in August, to a great multitude in that city, to delegations and deputations of every kind that called at Mentor during the summer and autumn. With innumerable critics, watchful and eager to catch a phrase that might be turned into odium or ridicule, or a sentence that might be distorted to his own or his party s injury, Garfield did not trip or halt in any one of his seventy speeches. This seems all the more remarkable, when it is remembered that he did not write what he said, and yet spoke with such logical consecutiveness of thought, and HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 153 such admirable precision of phrase as to defy the accident of misreport and the malignity of misrepresentation. " In the beginning of his Presidential life Garfield s experi ence did not yield him pleasure or satisfaction. The duties that engross so large a portion of the President s time were distasteful to him, and were unfavorably contrasted with his legislative work. I have been dealing all these years with ideas, he impatiently exclaimed one day, and here I am dealing only with persons. I have been heretofore treating of the fundamental principles of government, and here I am con sidering all day whether A or B shall be appointed to this or that office. He was earnestly seeking some practical way of correcting the evils arising from the distribution of overgrown and unwieldy patronage evils always appreciated and often discussed by him, but whose magnitude had been more deeply impressed upon his mind since his accession to the Presidency. Had he lived, a comprehensive improvement in the mode of appointment, and in the tenure of office, would have been proposed by him, and with the aid of Congress no doubt perfected. " But, while many of the Executive duties were not grateful to him, he was assiduous and conscientious in their discharge. From the very outset he exhibited administrative talent of a high order. He grasped the helm of office with the hand of a master. In this respect, indeed, he constantly surprised many who were most intimately associated with him in the govern ment, and especially those who feared that he might be lack ing in the executive faculty. His disposition of business was orderly and rapid. His power of analysis and his skill in classification enabled him to dispatch a vast mass of detail with singular promptness and ease. His Cabinet meetings were admirably conducted. His clear presentation of official subjects, his well-considered suggestion of topics on which discussion was invited, his quick decision when all had been heard, combined to show a thoroughness of mental training as rare as his natural ability and his facile adaptation to a new and enlarged fiefd of labor. " With perfect comprehension of all the inheritances of the 154 H O N - JAMES G. ELAINE. war, with a cool calculation of the obstacles in his way, im pelled always by a generous enthusiasm, Garfield conceived that much might be done by his Administration towards re storing harmony between the different sections of the Union. He was anxious to go south and speak to the people. As early as April he had ineffectually endeavored to arrange for a trip to Nashville, whither he had been cordially invited, and he was again disappointed a few weeks later to find that he could not go to South Carolina, to attend the Centennial Cele bration of the victory of the Cowpens. But for the autumn he definitely counted on being present at three memorable assemblies in the South, the celebration of Yorktown, the opening of the Cotton Exposition at Atlanta, and the meet ing of the Army of the Cumberland at Chattanooga. He was already turning over in his mind his address for each oc casion, and the three taken together, he said to a friend, gave him the exact scope and verge which he needed. At York- town he would have before him the associations of a hundred years that bound the South and North in the sacred memory of a common danger and a common victory. At Atlanta he would present the material interests and the industrial develop ments which appealed to the thrift and independence of every household, and which should unite the two sections by the instinct of self-interest and self-defense. At Chattanooga he would revive memories of the war only to show that, after all its disaster and all its suffering, the country was stronger and greater, the Union rendered indissoluble, and the future, through the agony and blood of one generation, made brighter and better for all. " Garfield s ambition for the success of his Adtnjnistration was high. \ With strong caution and conservatism in his nature, he was in no danger of attempting rash experiments or of re sorting to the empiricism of statesmanship. But he believed that renewed and closer attention should be given to questions affecting the material interests and commercial prospects of fifty millions of people. He believed that pur continental re lations, extensive and undeveloped as they are, involved re sponsibility, and could be cultivated into profitable friendship, HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 155 or be abandoned to harmful indifference or lasting enmity. He believed with equal confidence, that an essential fore runner to a new era of national progress must be a feeling of contentment in every section of the Union, and a generous belief that the benefits and burdens of government would be common to all. Himself a conspicuous illustration of what ability and ambition may do under Republican institutions, he loved his country with a passion of patriotic devotion, and every waking thought was given to her advancement. He was an American in all his aspirations, and he looked to the destiny and influence of the United States with the philosophic composure of Jefferson, and the demonstrative confidence of John Adams. " The political events which disturbed the President s serenity for many weeks before that fateful day in July form an im portant chapter in his career, and, in his own judgment, in volved questions of principle and of right which are vitally essential to the constitutional administration of the Federal Government. It would be out of place here and now to speak the language of controversy ; but the events referred to, however they may continue to be a source of contention with others, have become, so far as Garfield is concerned, as much a matter of history as his heroism at Chickamauga or his illustrious service in the House. Detail is not needful, and personal antagonism shall not be rekindled by any word uttered to day. The motives of those opposing him are not to be here adversely interpreted nor their course harshly character ized. But of the dead President this is to be said, and said because his own speech is forever silenced, and he can no more be heard except through the fidelity and the love of surviving friends. From the beginning to the end of the controversy he so much deplored, the President was never for one moment actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he even show resentment, and malice was not in his nature. He was congenially employed only in the exchange of good offices and the doing of kindly deeds. " There was not an hour, from the beginning of the trouble 156 HON. JAMES G. BLAINR till the fatal shot entered his body, when the President would not gladly, for the sake of restoring harmony, have retraced any step he had taken if such retracing had merely involved consequences personal to himself. The pride of consistency, or any supposed sense of humiliation that might result from surrendering his position, had not a feather s weight with him. No man was ever less subject to such influences from within or from without. But after most anxious deliberation and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, he solemnly believed that the true prerogatives of the Executive were involved in the issue which had been raised, and that he would be unfaith ful to his supreme obligation if he failed to maintain, in all their vigor, the Constitutional rights and dignities of his great office. He believed this in all the convictions of conscience when in sound and vigorous health, and he believed it in his suffering and prostration in the last conscious thought which his wearied mind bestowed on the transitory struggles of life. " More than this need not be said. Less than this could not be said. Justice to the dead, the highest obligation that devolves upon the living, demands the declaration that in all the bearings of the subject, actual or possible, the President was content in his mind, justified in his conscience, immovable in his conclusions. "The religious element in Garfield s character was deep and earnest. .In his early youth he espoused the faith of the Dis ciples, a sect of that great Baptist Communion, which in dif ferent ecclesiastical establishments is so numerous and so influential throughout all parts of the United States. But the broadening tendency of his mind and his active spirit of in quiry were early apparent, and carried him beyond the dogmas of sect and the restraints of association. In selecting a college in which to continue his education he rejected Bethany, though presided over by Alexander Campbell, the greatest preacher of his church. His reasons were characteristic: first, that Bethany leaned too heavily toward slavery ; and, second, that being himself a Disciple and the son of Disciple parents, he had little acquaintance with people of other beliefs, ai)d he thought it would make him more liberal, quoting his own HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 157 words, both in his religious and general views, to go into a new circle and be under new influences. "The liberal tendency which he anticipated as the result of wider culture was fully realized. He was emancipated from mere sectarian belief, and with eager interest pushed his in vestigations in the direction of modern progressive thought. He followed with quickening step in the paths of exploration and speculation so fearlessly trodden by Darwin, by Huxley, by Tyndall, and by other living scientists of the radical and advanced type. His own church, binding its disciples by no formulated creed, but accepting the Old and New Testaments as the word of God with unbiased liberality of private inter pretation, favored, if it did not stimulate, the spirit of investi gation. Its members profess with sincerity, and profess only, to be of one mind and one faith with those who immediately followed the Master, and who were first called Christians at Antioch. " But however high Garfield reasoned of fixed fate, free will, foreknowledge absolute, he was never separated from the Church of the Disciples in his affections and in his asso ciations. For him it held the Ark of the Covenant. Tb him it was the gate of Heaven. The world of religious belief is full of solecisms and contradictions. A philosophic observer declares that men by the thousand will die in defense of a creed, whose doctrines they do not comprehend and whose tenets they habitually violate. It is equally true that men by the thousand will cling to church organizations with instinc tive and undying fidelity, when their belief in maturer years is radically different from that which inspired them as neophytes. " But after this range of speculation, and this latitude of doubt, Garfield came back always with freshness and delight to the simpler instincts of religious faith, whjch, earliest im planted, longest survive. Not many weeks before his assassin ation, walking on the banks of the Potomac with a friend, and conversing on those topics of personal religion concerning which noble natures have an unconquerable reserve, he said that he found the Lord s Prayer and the simple petitions learned in infancy infinitely restful to him, not merely in their 158 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. stated repetition, but in their casual and frequent recall as he went about the daily duties of life. Certain texts of scripture had a very strong hold on his memory and his heart. He heard, while in Edinburgh some years ago, an eminent Scotch preacher who prefaced his sermon with reading the eightli chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, which book had been the subject of careful study with Garfield during all his re ligious life. He was greatly impressed by the elocution of the preacher, and declared that it had imparted a new and deeper meaning to the majestic utterances of St. Paul. He referred often in after years to that memorable service, and dwelt with exaltation of feeling upon the radiant promise and the assured hope with which the great apostle of the Gentiles was persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. " The crowning characteristic of General Garfield s religious opinion, as, indeed, of all his opinions, was liberality. In all things he had charity. Tolerance was of his nature. He respected in others the qualities which he possessed himself sincerity of conviction and frankness of expression. With him the inquiry was not so much what a man believes, but does he believe it ? The lines of his friendship and his confidence encircled men of every creed, and men of no creed, and to the end of his life, on his ever-lengthening list of friends, were to be found the names of a pious Catholic priest and of an honest- minded and generous-hearted free-thinker. " On the morning of Saturday, July 2d, the President was a contented and happy man not in an ordinary degree, but joyfully, almost boyishly happy. On his way to the railroad station to which he drove slowly, in conscious enjoyment of the beautiful morning, with an unwonted sense of leisure and a keen anticipation of pleasure, his talk was all in the grateful and gratulatory vein. He felt that after four months of trial his administration was strong in its grasp of affairs, strong in popular favor and destined to grow stronger ; that grave diffi- HON. JAMES G, ELAINE. 1 59 culties confronting him at his inauguration had been safely passed; that trouble lay behind him and not before him; that he was soon to meet the wife whom he loved, now recovering from an illness which had but lately disquieted and at times almost unnerved him ; that he was going to his Alma Mater to renew the most cherished associations of his young manhood, and to exchange greetings with those whose deepening in terest had followed every step of his upward progress, from the day he entered upon his college course until he had at* tained the loftiest elevation in the gift of his countrymen. " Surely if happiness can ever come from the honors or triumphs of this world, on that quiet July morning, James A. Garfield may well have been a happy man. No foreboding of evil haunted him; no slightest premonition of danger clouded his sky. His terrible fate was upon him in an instant. One moment he stood erect, strong, confident in the years stretching peacefully out before him. The next he lay wounded, bleeding, helpless, doomed to weary weeks of tor ture, to silence, and the grave. " Great in life, he was surpassingly great in death. For no cause, in the very frenzy of wantonness and wickedness, by the red hand of murde r, he was thrust from the full tide of this world s interest, from its hopes, its aspirations, its victories, into the visible presence of death and he did not quail. Not alone for the one short moment in which, stunned and dazed, he could give up life, hardly aware of its relinquishment, but through days of deadly languor, through weeks of agony, that was not less agony because silently borne, with clear sight and calm courage, he looked into his open grave. What blight and ruin met his anguished eyes, whose lips may tell what brilliant, broken plans, what baffled, high ambitions, what sundering of strong, warm, manhood s friendships, what bitter rending of sweet household ties! Behind him a proud, ex pectant nation, a great host of sustaining friends, a cherished and happy mother, wearing the full, rich honors of her early toil and tears ; the wife of his youth, whose whole life lay in his ; the little boys not yet emerged from childhood s day of frolic; the fair, young daughter; the sturdy sons just spring- 10 I6O HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. ing into closest companionship, claiming every day and every hour the reward of a father s love and care ; and in his heart the eager, rejoicing power to meet all demands. Before him, desolation and great darkness ! And his soul was not shaken. His countrymen were thrilled with instant, profound, and uni versal sympathy. Masterful in his mortal weakness, he be came the centre of a nation s love, enshrined in the prayers of a world. But all the love and all the sympathy could not share with him his suffering. He trod the wine-press alone. With unfaltering front he faced death. With unfailing tender ness he took leave of life. Above the demoniac hiss of the assassin s bullet he heard the voice of God. With simple resignation he bowed to the Divine decree. "As the end drew near, his early craving for the sea returned. The stately mansion of power had been to him the wearisome hospital of pain, and he begged to be taken from its prison walls, from its oppressive, stifling air, from its homelessness and its hopelessness. Gently, silently, the love of a great people bore the pale sufferer to the longed-for healing of the sea, to live or to die, as God should will, within sight of its heaving billows, within sight of its manifold voices. With wan, fevered face tenderly lifted to the cooling breeze, he looked out wistfully upon the ocean s changing wonders ; on its far sails, whitening in the morning light ; on its restless waves, rolling shoreward to break and die beneath the noon day sun ; on the red clouds of evening, arching low to the f horizon ; on the serene and shining pathway of the stars. Let us think that his dying eyes read a mystic meaning which only the rapt and parting soul may know. Let us believe that in the silence of the receding world he heard the great waves breaking on a further shore, and felt already upon his wasted brow the breath of the eternal morning." CHAPTER IX. ELAINE AS A POLITICIAN His SPEECHES ON THE STUMP ORATIONS DURING THE CAMPAIGNS DISCUSSING LIVING ISSUES LEADING THE VOTING HOSTS OF THE REPUBLICANS. IN turning the reader s attention to Mr. Elaine as a politi cian, that is, a politician apart from the political measures and methods of Legislature and Congress, a politician as met with on the stump and in the caucus chamber I do so with fall knowledge that this is a very great side of Mr. Elaine s character. Here he is pre-eminently at home, here his elo quence and courage are worth many thousand votes to the candidate able to secure them. And it has been through this phase of his busy career that he has been brought face to face with the people. The scrutiny always resulted for him in increased credit. Let us read first what was said of our subject by one who knew him intimately, and had many opportunities of judging. The great Governor Kent, of Maine, the genial old war-horse of Pine-Tree politics, of whom it was once said in 1840 and never forgotten : " Maine went Hell bent For Governor Kent," in a letter written some years ago said of Mr. Elaine : "Almost from the day of assuming charge of the Kenncbec Journal, at the early age of twenty-three, Mr. Elaine sprang into a posi- (161) 1 62 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. tion of great prominence in the politics and policy of Maine. At twenty-five he was a leading power in the councils of the Republican party, so recognized by Fessenden, Hamlin, the two Merrills and others, then and still prominent in the State. Before he was twenty-nine he was chosen Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Republican organization in Maine a position he has held ever since, and from which he has practically shaped and directed every political campaign in the State always leading his party to brilliant victory. Had Mr. Blaine been New Eng land born, he would not have received such rapid advance ment at so early an age, even with the same ability he pos sessed. But there was a sort of Western dasli about him that took with us down-Easters ; an expression of frankness, candor and confidence that gave him, from the start, a very strong and prominent hold on our people, and as the founda tion of all, a pure character and masterly ability equal to all demands made upon him." As we gaze at the work that he undertook and accomplished in the various campaigns of the party, we cannot but admire his wonderful energy and his ability to pour into a campaign that so very essential fire necessary to success. He was a very happy manager at a crisis. This ability was never better manifested than when the Democratic party in Maine attempted to steal the State. Those who were disposed to regard Mr. Blaine as an impulsive and possibly rash man were kindly furnished by the Democratic party on this occasion with the opportunity to be undeceived. The steadiness, persistence and success with which he conducted the Republican side were admirable. He brought order and law out of chaos and threatened violence. No finer display of statesmanlike quali ties had been seen, and the people were not slow to perceive HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 163 that in this protracted and perilous struggle their leader ex hibited all the qualities required for the discharge of the most difficult and delicate duties of an executive station. He always has considered it a part of his political duties to take the stump, and while it is not necessary to detail his trav els and work in the campaigns of 1864, 68, 72, 76 and 80, nor to enumerate the States in which he labored so conscien tiously for the success of the Republican ticket, this volume would be incomplete did I not furnish the reader with exam ples of Mr. Elaine s best work in this direction. The campaign of 1876, more, perhaps, than any other, de manded hard work from the leaders. We naturally turn, then, to this campaign for brilliant work. The dissatisfaction then threatening the life of the Republican party had to be met and met boldly. Mr. Elaine s first speech in Ohio in that campaign was delivered at Warren on the 24th of September. " He spoke," wrote a correspondent of the New -York Tribune, " in the Court-House Square to an audience of over 10,000 people, who had gathered from all parts of the surrounding country." The following are the chief extracts from his speech : Now I have something to say of Mr. Tilden regarding his position on specie payments. After seeking to place a Democratic character in your own view, he immediately begins to call you a liar and other cpmplimentary names. The Democrats say the Constitution forbids the payment of rebel claims. Now the Constitution does forget the payment of two classes of claims. You shall not make any appropriation to pay the rebel debt, nor for the slaves that were eman cipated. The Constitution in one clause of the fourteenth amendment undoubt edly says that. I will not stop to argue that, though I think even this may be got round, but I will acknowledge that those gateways are closed. I will admit there is no danger of any money being paid for the rebel debt, or for the slaves that were emancipated. But inside of that, gentlemen, there is nothing in the Constitution that forbids the payment for all the articles that were destroyed down South during the war; all the wild destruction that followed the war; all the houses, the fences, the school-houses, churches, towns, and the wheat and the corn, and the bacon, and mules and horses, the railroads, bridges and cul verts, and a thousand and one nameless sources of loss are all payable to-day if you can get a majority in Congress to vote the money. There is nothing in the world to prevent it. How do you know that any of them are going to be paid ? They have very nearly 200 bills now piled up. I have seen it stated at 140, but 164 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. it is very nearly 200 and of every imaginable thing. For the number of these bills you have the testimony of Hon. Wm. Lawrence, a careful, painstaking, in dustrious man. He is moderate in his statements and has carefully examined, and from his experience for he is more competent than any other man in the House he said that those already filed would involve the payment of from four to seven hundred million dollars from the national treasury in the event of a majority of the House voting them. Well, the War Claims Committee of the House sat, and, as I said, Judge Lawrence, of Bellefontaine, was chairman, and they had it as a rule that a man must first establish his loyalty before establishing his claim. The first thing that committee did when the Democrats got control of it was to strike out that requirement and let any man put in his claim for losses without regard to the question of loyalty at all. And then another rule which certainly the lawyers, if there be any doing me the honor to listen to me now, will look upon as remarkable, that any person putting in a claim for damages should have his own evidence, should sustain that claim by his own affidavit, and that of some other person knowing the facts. Here comes John Smith, of Alabama, who has lost $20,000 by the Union army ; and then John Jones swears that is so. This would bankrupt the Rothschilds. And these are the men that made Mr. Tilclen back out from the doctrine of specie payments in 1879, and there is not a Southern rebel with a claim to-day who does not know instinctively and abso lutely that when this country comes down to the hard pan, to the gold and silver dollar, you are never going to pay the taxes with a portion of the rebel claims, for you cannot keep the currency open at both ends the paper money at one end and the rebel claims at the other. No ; we will never pay taxes to pay Southern claims. They cannot create a Southern revulsion, but by quietly work ing what is known as the inflation sentiment, they hope to be able to pay for the vast number of mules and Southern claims through the manipulation of some form of paper money. Take one single claim. When we were taxing every thing during the war, from the solitary hair that was left on the bald man s pate Jto his shoe, we taxed cotton, and under the cotton tax collected $70,000,000. Now they come forward and ask that the taxes be paid back, not to the men who paid the taxes, but that this $70,000,000 shall be paid to the cotton-producing States in proportion to their bales of cotton. There are fifteen bills now pending for the payment of that one claim. And now, gentlemen, more startling than anything else, on Thursday of last week, there was a decision rendered in the city of Portland, State of Maine, in the U. S. Circuit Court, Judge Nathan Clif ford presiding, with Daniel Clark, District Judge for New Hampshire, sitting with him and I want the attention of the lawyers again confirming the judg ment obtained against Neal Dow, of the I3th Me. regiment in Louisiana, giving judgment to the rebel against Dow personally for the sugar seized on his planta tion by a foraging party from his regiment. They were out foraging and seized some sugar, and the man sued for it. And Dow said, " If you are a loyal man we will give you a receipt, and you will easily get your pay for it." Now the sugar was used and a large part of it sent to the hospitals. Dow says, "If you will show me your loyalty I will give you a receipt for it," and he declined to do it, and got judgment in a Louisiana court. The U. S. Circuit Court at Portland .ffirmed that judgment and ordered execution to issue for $1,750. That being so, say, gentlemen, will it not enable the man that owned the field at Appomattox >) collect ground-rent from Grant for the occupancy of it and the destruction uf he fences and crops ? There has never been so menacing a cloud as this hanging HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 1 65 over a free people. More than that, this decision was warmly dissented from by Judge Clark, of New Hampshire. He was brought up in the true faith, but the Su preme Court overruled him in the person of Clifford. Clifford is an ingrained, hun gry Democrat ; double-dyed and twisted ; dyed in the wool and coarse wool at that [Much laughter], and, in my judgment, he has carried that case for eight years, and never offered that decision until he in his ignorance believed in a Democratic triumph. If there should be a Democratic dreamer here, will not that gentleman tell me why any solitary battalion or division of the army in the South cannot be sued for every article of trespass? [Laughter.] Let me read to you of the nature of the case. Ex-Governor Wood, of Ver mont, a man of as pure character as lives, writes over his name, " I have known Mr. Tilden for twenty years. I have debated this question with him personally, and I know that he holds the opinion that the war was unconstitutional. I heard him declare, in-conversation with myself since the close of the war, that every man in the United States Army that marched across Southern soil was a tres passer, and liable to suit for damages in an action for trespass." I think that Clifford read that opinion of Tilden the day before he made his decision in regard to Dow s sugar. And the Democrats tell you that the Constitution forbids the payment of these claims. Never was anything more menacing and alarming than that. About this time Mr. Elaine had been attacked by Charles Francis Adams, in a tone that was more offensive than was necessary, and entirely beyond the bounds of campaign cour tesies. Mr. Blaine replied in the following stirring speech delivered before a large and enthusiastic audience at Cincin nati. Mr. Blaine said : I observe that some political letters of the Hon. Charles Francis Adams, the Democratic candidate for Governor of Massachusetts, are being disseminated through the Associated Press, and circulated as campaign tracts by his brother Democrats of the West. In these letters Mr. Adams goes out of his way quite gratuitously to speak of myself in a tone that is personally offensive. I have neither the time nor the desire to exchange personalities with any one in this campaign, but there is a very important chapter in the political life of Mr. Adams which at this time should be recalled. I commend the facts which I am about to set forth to those voters who may be led by the sound of Mr. Adams name to give heed to his counsel. I shall speak from the record and by the record. After the Republican victory in 1860, which resulted in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, Mr. Adams, then a Representative in Congress from Massachusetts, sought with all his influence to deprive the country of everything that had been gained by the struggle. If anything had been settled by that elec tion, it was that slavery should be put in the course of extinction, by prohibiting its introduction into free territory ; and yet, as soon as the Southern Democrats in Congress began their threats of disunion, Mr. Adams knees smote with fear, and his tongue became palsied for any utterance except in support of slavery. His whole course during the closing session of the Thirty-sixth Congress, inter- 1 66 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. vening between Mr. Lincoln s election and his inauguration, was one of treaso to the cause of liberty, and desertion from the cause of the Union. He offere every humiliating concession to the South, agreed to abandon the prohibition o slavery in the Territories, and, as the climax of degrading and dishonoring con ditions, he offered to amend the Constitution of the United States, so as to rende the abolition of slavery impossible so long as a single slave State should object The amendment so warmly urged by Mr. Adams declared in effect that nc amendment to the Constitution in any way interfering with slavery in the State; should ever be even so much as proposed, except by one of the slave States, and should not be adopted except with the consent of every slave State. When, in 1836, Arkansas applied for admission into the Union, with a Constitution which forever prohibited the Legislature from touching slavery, except with the con sent of the slaveholders, John Quincy Adams declared such a provision to be infamous beyond the power of expression ; and yet, Charles Francis Adams, in 1861, offered, and urged, and entreated, and pleaded for an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which applied to the whole country a far more infamous principle than was contained in the Arkansas Constitution of 1836. Every franchise you enjoy under the Constitution of the United States, your right to vote, freedom of religious opinions, your trial by jury, your right even to rep resentation, were left open to change by the ordinary mode of amending the Constitution, but Mr. Adams proposed to give slavery a much more sacred guar antee than had ever been given to liberty, placing it beyond the power of ninety- nine hundredths of the people of the United States to abolish it, unless a slave State should propose it, and every other slave State vote for it. There is no parallel to this in history. No ukase of Russian despotism, in the dreariest clays of Romanoff tyranny, ever so bound its own hands, and placed it beyond its own power to do mercy and work righteousness in the future, as Mr. Adams proposed to bind the hands of the United States, and deprive our own govern ment for all time of the power to emancipate a single slave, so long as one slave State should object. Mr. Adams has never forgiven Abraham Lincoln for de feating this atrocious measure. Fortunately, through Mr. Lincoln s silent influ ence exerted from his Illinois home, through Owen Lovejoy, Elihu \Vashburne, and other representative friends in Congress, the odious proposition was strangled without even coming to a direct vote, but not until Mr. Adams had made an elaborate plea for it. And years after Mr. Lincoln had gone to a martyr s grave a grave bedewed with the tears of millions, including those emancipated negroes whom Mr. Adams had sought to keep in eternal bondage, Mr. Adams took occasion, in a eulogy of Mr. Seward, to depreciate, and belittle, and dis honor the grandest man that had sat in the Presidential chair since George Washington. Mr. Adams, in this petty and paltry course, was seeking an ignoble revenge over the dead patriot who, when living, could never refer to the Constitutional amendment which Mr. Adams advocated without a thrill of horror. Mr. Lincoln, indeed, often declared that no crisis of the war was so terrible, and no possible issue of it so destructive, as the proposition of Mr. Adams to found the continu ance of the Union on the remorseless and hopeless and endless servitude of an entire race of men. Mr. Lincoln did not believe that God would permit the perpetuity of a Union founded on such atrocious wrong and crime. In view of Mr. Adams course toward Mr. Lincoln in his grave, the friends of Governor Hayes will estimate his criticism of that honored leader and true man at precisely HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. l6/ its just value. But for the honor of New England, I desire to say that of all her Representatives, Mr. Adams stood alone, I think, in supporting this infa mous proposition. Every other Massachusetts Representative was opposed to.it, including the Hon. Alexander H. Rice, the present Republican Governor of that State, and candidate for re-election against Mr. Adams. Indeed, from all New England, as I have said, in that hour of supreme trial, no other Republican proved false to her principles and her teachings save only he whose inheritance should have made him the foremost defender of the right. And after Mr. Adams had made this fearful offer of the eternal permanence of slavery to the ranting Democratic disunionists of the South, he superadded to it, in a formal speech, the intimation that if it was not acceptable to the South, he might himself favor some scheme of disunion, if it could be of a peaceful character. And now, with this record, Mr. Adams naturalty and properly supports Tilden, and the lengths he would go to conciliate the rebel Democratic element may be inferred from the extent to which he was willing to go in 1861, when he was ready and eager, on the heels of a National Republican victory, to concede more to the slave interest than its extremes! fire-eating advocate had ever demanded in Congress. Imagine, if you can tell me, if you will one possible condition the South would impose on the legislation of Congress that Mr. Adams would not gladly support one possible exaction the rebel Democrats could make that Mr. Adams would not gladly concede? Would he hesitate at anything a "solid South" would de mand ? Would he interpose his influence against the payment of any amount of rebel claims ? Would he, I ask, in all sincerity, ever enter a word against taking the right of suffrage from the colored men, whose hopeless and endless enslavement he so lately advocated ? When Massachusetts forgets the Repub lican teachings of John Quincy Adams, she will elect his son Governor of the proud old commonwealth. I have said that I have no time and no desire for personalities. If I had, I might readily indulge myself at Mr. Adams expense. The personal and political gossip at Washington, in 1861, was busy with Mr. Adams name, and it was currently said that he obtained the mission to England in a manner and by means which he would now consign to oblivion, and which his children would blush to have repeated. I have no disposition to indulge in that line of gossip, and prefer to confine my criticisms to the Adams record on public questions. Nor have I any wish to comment on his utter disregard of the difference of principles between the two great political parties, standing, as he has for years, ready to accept the nomination of either. Still less do I desire to rehearse the assumed belief in certain quarters, that Mr. Adams candidacy of the Democratic party was the result of a regular bargain between him and Mr. Tilden, in which Mr. Adams agreed to give the respectability of his name to the Democratic party, and Mr. Tilden agreed, if elected, to make Mr. Adams his Secretary of State. I have no taste for such gossip, and I only refer to its cur rency, that Mr. Adams may be reminded that he lives in a political house con taining a great deal of glass, and that he may not with impunity throw stones at his neighbors nor loosely indulge in railing accusations against those who con scientiously maintain as high a standard of honor as he preaches himself, and higher perhaps than he has already practised. , An incident of this campaign was also Mr. Elaine s utter ances on Southern war claims, in a letter addressed to the 1 68 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. Toledo Blade. The force and character of this letter is well worthy of close study. Wrote the distinguished statesman : TOLEDO, OHIO, October 5, 1876. To the Editor of the Toledo Blade : I observe in the Cincinnati Enquirer of yesterday, a letter from Bion Brad bury, Esq., an attorney-at-law of Portland, Maine, in regard to the decision made by Judge Clifford, of the United States Supreme Court, in the now famous Neal Dow case. Mr. Bradbury is counsel for the plaintiff in that suit, is fully com mitted to all its dangerous doctrines, and is well known in Maine as one of the most rancorous and uncompromising partisan Democrats. He is a fair and a full type of the men whom the loyal Republican sentiment of the North will have to fight to the bitter end on all questions of this kind. Only two or three points of Mr. Bradbury s letter require my attention, and I am compelled to write "on the wing," and of course very hastily. Mr. Bradbury intimates that I have had in my possession, ever since my Bos ton speech of September i8th, a letter from Judge Clark, of New Hampshire, who sat with Judge Clifford and dissented from his opinion. The inference Mr. Bradbury desires the public to draw is that I have concealed or withheld Judge Clark s letter all that time. The truth is, Judge Clark s letter was not written until September 22d, mailed the 23d, and has been following me from point to point, and finally reached me at Cincinnati three days since. The letter is as follows, and I give it verbatim et literatim. " MANCHESTER, N. H., Sept. 22, 1876. " MY DEAR MR. ELAINE: My attention has been called to a passage of your speech at Boston, in which you refer to a suit against Neal Dow, recently heard by Judge Clifford and myself at Portland. " Your statement of the case is substantially correct, and forcibly illustrates the danger to be apprehended from these Southern war-claims, and yet it may do injustice to Judge Clifford by leaving an impression that he is in favor of paying such claims. I hardly think this is so, and no such inference can be drawn from his conduct or decision in this case. He heard the case in the first instance sit ting alone. Neither Judge Shepley nor Judge Fox could sit with him. He had the case a long time under advisement, it presenting a question of great national importance and of fine pleading. He did not wish to decide it alone, and it could in only one way be carried to the Supreme Court, to wit : a certificate of difference between two judges, because the amount being about $1700, it could not go up on writ of error. To enable the parties, therefore (if they wish), to take the case to the Supreme Court, he sent for me to come and sit with him and sign the certificate of difference, as I did. One great difficulty in the case is, General Dow let a judgment go by default in a court recognized by Judge Shep ley while military governor of New Orleans, and that judgment is now and here. The judgment is conclusive if the court had jurisdiction, and the court was one recognized by the military governor, and its process was duly served on General Dow. The case is one of difficulty, and I am quite certain Judge Clifford is anx ious it should be decided right. Yours truly, DANIEL CLARK." It will be observed that Judge Clark frankly says that my " statement of the HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 169 case was substantially correct," and further, that it "forcibly illustrates the dan ger to be apprehended from the Southern war-claims." These remarks by Judge Clark sufficiently answer Mr. Bradbury s ill-tempered, ill-mannered, untruthful assertions respecting the main point at issue. I am not responsible for the report of my speech at Warren as quoted by Mr. Bradbury. I never saw the reporter s notes, and never read the extract quoted by Mr. Bradbury until I saw it in his letter; but I was assuredly reported incorrectly. I certainly never dreamed of calling Judge Clifford " a hungry Democrat." I am too familiar with the judge s well-fed and portly dimensions to apply to him any such absurd characterization. Neither did I reflect on his personal or official integrity. On the contrary, I stated that one of the most alarming features of the decision was that Judge Clif ford belonged to that gnarled, twisted, ingrained, incurable school of Bourbon Democracy that honestly believes in just such dangerous and destructive doctrines as are covered by this decision. Mr. Bradbury says that the only point involved in Judge Clifford s decision was the question of jurisdiction of the Louisiana court. Precisely. The Louisi ana court gave judgment against a colonel of the Union army for property seized and appropriated by a foraging squad of the regiment. Judgment was taken by default, Colonel Dow being with his command in the field utterly unable to re spond to a summons, and certainly not dreaming that civil suits could be brought in the country of the insurgents against officers of the invading army of the Union. I have always stated the case with accuracy, and neither Judge Clif ford nor Mr. Bradbury can show why every other officer of the Union army may not in like manner be sued for all the property which his command may have seized and appropriated during the four years of the rebellion. Judge Clifford s decision is far worse than if it sustained a suit brought since the war, for it dis tinctly recognizes, if it does not positively affirm, that while the war was actually going on., flagrant* hello, an officer of the Union army was bound, at whatever peril it might be to the Union cause, to leave his command when summoned by a local court in the heart of the rebellious country. And Judge Clifford, without looking at the facts which notoriously surrounded the case (nay, shutting his eyes to these facts when it required a great effort to close them), recognizes the jurisdiction of a Louisiana court to interfere at the very crisis of the war with the operations of the Union army. Judge Clark says : " Judge Clifford has had the case .a long time under advisement, it presenting a case of grave national im portance." The "long time" referred to by Judge Clark covers at least eight years I am told. It is not for me to say that Judge Clifford has not had good reasons for withholding his opinions this " long time," but it cannot fail to strike the country that the decision is promulgated just at the time that Judge Clark thinks there is " danger to be apprehended from these Southern war-claims." I have no right to comment on Judge Clifford s motives, and do not assume to judge them, but I have a perfect right to discuss the mood and tense of his remarkable opinion. And the danger concealed under that opinion is greatly enhanced by the reported expressions of the Democratic candidate for the Presidency, that " every soldier that marched across Southern soil was a trespasser, and liable to suit for damages in an action for trespass." Ex-Governor Underwood, of Ver mont, declares that Mr. Tilden made this identical declaration to him during the war. The dangers to which I call attention, as exemplified by Judge Clifford s opin ion, were substantially these : HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. I. That an army officer can be sued and compelled by judgment of court to pay for property seized by him or his soldiers at the South during the war. II. That in such a suit, by decision of the Supreme Court touching cotton cases before the Court of Claims, no proof whatever can be required that the plaintiff was not a rebel, but that he may recover without such proof. III. That such a suit may be brought and judgment recovered in any Southern State Court, and then the judgment sued in a United States Court at the North, and the judgment affirmed and the officer compelled to pay by the process of the United States Court. No answer has been made to any of these points by Mr. Bradbury. He says that Bradish Johnson, the plaintiff, was in fact loyal, but he does not assert that any such fact was proved, or that Judge Clifford s opinion makes any distinction whatever between a loyal citizen and a rebel. And this point illustrates the very danger I have been trying to point out, and most forcibly presents the rapid progress we are making towards paying Southern claims regardless of the loyalty of the claimant. With the Republican party in power the United States treasury is safe from the frightful raid now impending over it. But what, I ask, may be apprehended from a Democratic Congress, a Democratic President, and Demo cratic judges? The passage of one short law covering only three points would bankrupt the United States government and destroy our public credit. Those points are : I. That no proof of loyalty shall be required of any claimant before the South ern claims commission, now in session, or before any department of the govern ment other than that required by the United States Supreme Court in suits at law, i. e., no proof whatever. II. That the statutes of limitation shall not apply in case of any war-claims otherwise allowable against any individual or against the United States. If there be any question of law about the power to revive a claim against an individual once barred by the statute of limitations, there is certainly none as to the power of the government to revive it as against itself, and that is the point principally affecting the United States treasury and the loyal tax-payers of the country. III. That "reasonable compensation may be recovered by all citizens of the United States for the use and occupation of their property for the United States army, or any part thereof, during the late civil war;" and in these words I am but quoting the language of a bill now pending in the U. S. House of Repre sentatives, introduced by a Democrat and under consideration by the Democratic Judiciary Committee, to whom it was referred in February lest, and who did not report it back to the House, but held it for consideration until after the Presiden tial election. Why did they not report adversely upon it promptly and decidedly ? The courteous tone in which Judge Clark refers to his belief in Judge Clifford s intentions to do right belongs to the amenities of the bench, and with these I am not dealing at present. I only see that Judge Clifford did not agree with Judge (Mark, and end, as he might then and there, all dangerous claims of this charac ter. I only see that Judge Clifford s great influence on the Supreme Bench, based on his long service and his learning in the law, has all been thrown on the .Southern, or rebel, side of this mighty question. In short, in the very lan guage of Judge Clark, I only see that the case "fully illustrates the danger to l>e apprehended from these Southern war-claims." And seeing these things and believing these things, I have exposed them wherever I have spoken, and shall continue to do so to the end of the Presidential campaign. Very respectfully, J. G. BLAINE. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 171 On the question of the currency and its relation to politics, Senator Elaine delivered himself at Biddeford, August 21, 1878, and this speech accurately defines his present views. He said : " By common consent the currency question is the great question before the people. This I regret ; because, if there is one thing people cannot afford, it is a political currency question. Let us settle it, and settle it right. Let us review the circumstances that brought us where we are now. In 1 86 1 an extra session of Congress was called, and it author izes the Treasurer to borrow $400,000,000, as there was no money in the Treasury. Fifty millions of demand-notes were also authorized, and when Congress assembled after the Christmas holidays they assembled with an empty Treasury. In this particular strait the Government provided for an issu ance of $150,000,000 of legal-tender notes. That was a measure of absolute necessity. It was useless to stand upon a very fine drawn point at such a time. It was a question of life. We declared the notes legal tender. Before another year had expired we were called upon to issue another $150,000,000, and when Congress assembled in December, 1863, the report of the Secretary of the Treasury brought be fore us a very embarrassing condition. The Government was without currency again. We were at that time appealing to every civilized nation of the world for money. Forty or fifty million dollars were due the army, and ready cash was de manded. Out of this state of affairs came the Loan Act, which really supplied funds which were necessary for the sal vation of the nation. The Loan Act had not only authority of law, but in a peculiar and strong sense it is binding upon us. In this act was a proviso as follows : That the total amount of those notes issued, and to be issued, shall never exceed $400,000,000. It was the price which in extreme ur gency we pledged ourselves to, and if there is any honor in the American people they would as soon sign away their birthright as violate this pledge. The most fearful thing that could happen to this country would be the issuance of an un- 1/2 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. limited amount of currency. How are you going to contract the currency? You want Republican money or Democratic money, do you not ? " Whatever else the American people do with currency, let me say to you that there is no body of men so little compe tent to determine the question of money as Congressmen. I voted in Congress for the Greenback bill. I voted that green backs should not be contracted. " Greenback people say that we should not have any banks. For seven hundred years we have had banks, and we cou-ld not conduct the business of the country for a minute without banks. Why are banks a necessity ? A bank is a place where the borrower of money meets the lender ; where surplus money is deposited. Suppose a man wants to borrow $10,000 to go into business. Greenbackers would send him all over the country borrowing $50 here and $50 there. There are at the present time three bills in Congress for resurrect ing the State Banks. New England enjoyed, under the old system, the best banks in the country, but they owed their reputation to the personal integrity of the men who stood behind the counter, fhe speaker aptly illustrated the weak ness of the system by referring to the Lumberman s Bank, which might be said to have been owned by the present Greenback candidate for Governor. This bank had a capital of $50,000, but at one time had on hand unsigned bills to the amount of $165,000, which would be signed as fast as any body wanted them. In fact, the old system of banking was based upon the personal notes of the stockholders. If you will have banks, then what kind will you have responsible or irresponsible ? National Banks are perfectly free for every man to engage in with just one little condition that the Gov ernment insists upon that you shall not issue any bills until you have put into the United States Treasury an account equal to ten per cent, additional to protect the bill-holders. " If you hold a National bank bill you don t care whether the bank is burst or not. In regard to taxing bonds Green- backers say here is an exempted class. The only man in the United States who pays absolutely full tax on his property HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 173 is the holder of Government bonds ; for instance : A invests $10,000 in Government 4 per cents.; B invests an equal amount in Maine State 6s, and C invests a like amount in Maine Central 7 per cents. In the first case the investor in Government bonds pays his taxes in advance, but in the case of the other bonds, is it within your experience that holders thereof flock to the assessor s office asking to be taxed? Facts show that but a very small portion of the bonds are taxed. It is the easiest thing in the world for your brother in California to own them, or your uncle in some other part of the country. Then why delude yourselves with the idea that if you tax Government bonds they would be any more likely to turn up for taxation than these State or railroad bonds ? If you succeed in taxing bonds you merely place upon your shoulders an additional burden of $40,000,000. Government bonds never could nor never should be taxed. There are five kinds of money that the United States stands sponsor for : gold and silver and gold is better than silver. Moses, in the second chapter of Genesis, tells us that gold is good; and it makes no difference whether it is stamped by the United States or Venezuela. Then there is the old-fash ioned, war-honored, patriotic greenback, that did such great work, that says the United States will pay $10, or as it may be, reserving to the United States when they would pay. In 1875 it did say when they would pay, viz.: January I, 1879. The advance school of Greenbackers, represented by General Butler, don t want this kind of greenback at all. They want another kind. They don t want anything stamped with promise to pay. They want this greenback to say, this is $10, or any sum. Such talk is merely nonsense. Why not say, this is horse/ why not make it $1,000? It takes no more paper or time to print it, but it is not so with gold. The next government money is National Bank bills, and lastly the silver certificates. " We fancied during the Greenback craze that we were all getting rich. In 1873 we found out we had been buying $800,000,000 more than we were selling. There is nothing so mysterious about National finances. The same principles 174 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. are involved in private finances. If a farmer is buying more than he is selling from his farm, he is growing poorer ; but if he is selling more than he is buying, he is getting richer. This idea holds good with the trade of the country. Now things are changed. We are buying less abroad, and have a balance in our favor of $630,000,000. No people in the world are so able to maintain a specie basis as the United States, if they say they will. We are just in sight of the day of redemption. We can look right into the promised land, but Greenbackers say, Don t go in. Come, now, and wander with -us for years more. You depreciate your currency, and you might as well by one shock of mighty power paralyze capital from one end of the country to the other. You reduce the country from that of a great commercial people to a beggarly small retail affair. The things which this day frighten men are wild schemes of finance. What the United States needs in this matter is a large amount of let-alone-ativeness. You cannot keep this currency as a political foot-ball. You cannot settle this question until you settle it right." In the fall of 1879 he addressed the New York merchants in the Cooper Institute upon the topic so especially dear to his heart the Republican party. His speech then is an admirable sample of a political oration : " Mr. Chairman It is a healthful and encouraging sign in the politics of the country, when the merchants and business men of the great commercial emporium of the Nation see fit, in their distinctive character, to take part on the Republican side. I thank them for the honor of being permitted to address them. But I shall not apologize because this is a mere State election. The Democrats have been busy in the last month issuing pronunciamentos warning off all outsiders from taking any part in this contest. Having a disturbance in their own happy family, and having summoned the National Committee of the Democratic party, embracing one man from every State in the Union, and then having summoned the HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 75 Hon. Benjamin Hill, of Georgia, as generalissimo in the great task of composing the Democratic troubles of the New York Democracy, in order that they might get into line for the great national contest next year but these consultations over all the States and Territories in the Union having utterly failed to produce an adjustment, it then occurred to The New York World, and other organs of the Democratic party, that this was purely a State contest, involving something about your canals and the rate of taxation which the County Supervisors shall levy. Well, if it were only that I should not be here. When Voltaire visited Congreve, the English poet said to him that he preferred to be visited as an English gentleman, and the French wit replied to him, that as an English gentleman he should not have paid the slightest attention to him in the world. And I am very frank to say that if the question before the people of New York was the rate of taxation to be levied by your County Supervisors, or the amount of cheese paring which had been affected, or the money that had been saved under the administration of Governor Robinson, I should not be here. But this election has a far wider and far greater and a far grander significance. And I beg you, not only in the specific instance of New York, but generally do observe whenever a hard-pressed or an assistant Democrat like Lucius Robinson, of New York, or Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, gets into a tight place, they are always sure to make loud proclamation that there is nothing in the world involved but a little penny-whistle State issue, and they warn the people not to take part in the issue at all. " The Republican party are dealing with weighty things. They remember that in the Congressional elections of last year, the Democratic party throughout the country, in combi nation with the Greenback party, stood shoulder to shoulder in opposition to the resumption of specie payments. They remember that both those parties proclaimed specie payment on the ist of January, 1879, as an impossibility. They re member that they not only proclaimed it as an impossibility, but they said that the Republicans who were advocating it knew it to be an impossibility, and were engaged in a gigantic ii 176 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. conspiracy to deceive the people. And thus the contest of 1878 closed. The ancient monarch said, Time and I against the world. And so the Republicans had nothing to do but to wait, and in the revolving seasons the first day of January was reached. The first day of January was reached in the year of grace 1879, and then against all the predictions of the enemies of the Republican party, on that great day, forever memorable in the financial history of America, on that, great day the $700,000,000 of paper money in the United States, in the twinkling of an eye, without commotion, or disturbance, or excitement, was raised to par with coin. And there it will remain until long after the death of the great-grandchild of the youngest person here present. And this generation are permitted to see what no other generation of Americans ever saw, what no other generation of Americans ever dared to hope for, a paper currency good everywhere, the same every where, good in thirty-eight States and nine Territories, over 3,000,000 square miles of area, among 47,000,000 of people, and good far out and beyond that, good in distant nations and far-off continents ; for while we are here discussing political issues which involve, in a certain sense, the approval of the return of specie payments, while we are here debating and discussing, the Greenback dollar of the United States and the National bank dollar alike are the representatives of coin wherever commerce extends or civilization is known. You can pass them in Liverpool, in London, in Paris, in Vienna, in St. Petersburg, in Cairo, in Bombay, in Hong Kong, in Hono lulu, in Melbourne, on all continents and on all islands ; and to-night the limit of the circulation and the credit of the paper money of the United States is only that for which the pious old deacon, in the Presbyterian Church, in the monthly concert of prayer for the spread of the Gospel prayed that the glad tidings of salvation might be carried to the uttermost parts of the earth, even to those desolate regions where the foot of man never trod and which the eye of man never saw. "And now there is not in the United States a party that could rise up to destroy the Resumption Act. There is not a party in the United States of sufficient respectability in point of HON JAMES G. ELAINE. 177 strength to carry a single county that will incorporate in its platform the repeal of the Resumption Act. You may fill a Congress with Benjamin F. Butlers and Samuel J. Tildens and Solon Chases taking them in a descending scale and they won t dare repeal the Resumption Act ! You can t make a Congress of the United States to-day, selected outside of a lunatic asylum, that would repeal the Resumption Act, and if one Congress should be found that would do it, the people of the United States would rise up with one voice and send them inside the lunatic asylum pretty quickly. Therefore, on that great issue, the strong initial point, the conclusion, really, of the whole controversy, the Republican party stands to-day vindicated and triumphant. And all these opinions, too, on the financial question, simply nibble round the edges, and take up some subordinate issue, and try to excite prejudice, and mislead the people by misstatement of fact. And with great unanimity, eminent men and men who are not eminent Sena tors and men so little eminent I shall not mention them jump with singular unanimity upon the bait, and hold up the Republican party as guilty of the error, or rather crime, of establishing a system of banks in this country, which are at war with the principles of justice and with the interests of the people. Now, Mr. Chairman, I am quite willing to admit and I am not going to inflict a discussion on banking upon you I am quite willing to admit whatever defect if defect there be exists in the national banking system, which is chargeable upon the Republican party. I only ask for a fair debtor and creditor account on the political ledger, and that whatever of merit there may be there shall be carried to our account. " When the war broke out we had thirty-three kinds of paper currency in this country, with the Territories to hear from. Some was bad, some was good, and a good deal was indifferent. In New York you had a good paper currency. It was secured under a certain form and was in a certain meas ure the forerunner of the national system. We thought we had a good system of currency in New England, which we called the Suffolk banking system. We thought we enjoyed HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. one down in Maine, and yet regularly with a periodicity which beat the return of the equinoctial storm these banks would turn out defunct. I remember as if it were yesterday, on a pleasant morning in 1858, a large bank in Maine, known as the Shipbuilders . Bank, was announced as failed with $357,000 circulation out and it is out yet. There was that good thing about the old State Bank, when it failed it made a clean bang-up. You remember before the war there was a story current in the papers of a celebrated coroner s inquest held on the body of a negro boy in Mississippi. They quit holding coroner s inquests on negroes down there now but then they had value. Well, they had the coroner s inquest on the negro boy, who was found dead in a swamp, though all that was left of him was his skin. After hearing testimony for three days they unanimously returned a verdict of found empty. And that was the verdict on all the old State banks. And every twenty years from the time Washington was in augurated down to the time of Lincoln, every twenty years the State bank circulation in this country was completely lost, and it wasn t the banks that lost it either. It was the bill- holders among the people. "Andrew Jackson goes down to history for his uncom promising resistance to, and his ultimate destruction of a great monopoly known as the United States Bank. Whatever politics I have I inherited from the Whig side of the house, and yet I believe in the impartial verdict of history that the American people believe to-day, and will still more come to believe, that in that contest between Jackson and the United States Bank, Jackson was right and the Whigs were wrong ; on this simple ground, that the Congress of the United States ought not and should not have given to one set of men any particular privilege of banking over and above any other set of men. And therefore Jackson crushed it. But the time had not arrived, the opportunity had not yet come for Jackson to seize the old State banks. " It would be a rash man who would say that Jackson did not have the courage to seixe that system. He had courage enough for anything, but the time had not then come. And HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 1/9 there never did come a time when courage and opportunity fell together until the Republican party came into power ; and the Republican party was the first party that ever had the courage to take hold of the State bank system by the nape of the neck and hold it over the gulf of financial perdition, and let it drop down into it. But they did. They said hereafter in this country there should be no special charter ; they said that hereafter in this country whatever money there was should be National, that it should not be limited or circum scribed by State lines. In the olden times I could not have traveled through ten States, as I have done, without having to change my money ten times. Why, if any man had ap peared down in Maine before the war and brought a bill from the State of Ohio or Illinois, to a merchant, the first thing he would have done would have been to look at his counterfeit detector, and then straightway send for a policeman on the evident presumption that the man had been either engaged in robbing a bank or uttering counterfeit money. " But the Republican party put an end to that. They said that money should be National, and when they came to es tablish a banking system, they said that two things should distinguish it. In the first place it should be just as free to one man in the United States as to any other, and no man should have a particle of advantage over any other man. I made this statement in a public meeting a little while ago, and a Greenbacker said, Well he jumped up in the audi ence, as the Greenbackers used to do very lively before the election Well, said he, you cannot bank without the bonds. Said I, Does that constitute a monopoly in national banking ? Certainly, he replied, you confine it to the fellows that have the bonds. I said, Did it ever occur to you that farming was a monopoly ? Certainly not. Well, but it is entirely confined to the fellows who have the ground. You cannot farm in a balloon or out at sea in a boat. " The Republican party said that banks should be open to all alike, and to all on the same terms ; and then the Republican party, speaking through the instrumentality of National legis lation, said this one great thing that while banking should 180 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. be open to everybody on precisely the same terms, nobody should issue a solitary dollar of circulating money until they had put up United States bonds for every dollar bill, and then they might go, if they chose, and destroy their bank, they might go and misconduct themselves, and when they did, and their banks, in the strong language of the boys/ were bust, the United States should step forward and sell their bonds, and take care of the innocent third party, which is the public. And from that day, Mr. Chairman, and I beg your attention to this as a merchant of New York from that day there has been no bad money in the United States." Turning aside from the exciting questions of a political campaign, I may be pardoned a moment if I introduce a speech from the stump, so to speak, though it was not deliv ered for stumping or political purposes. It is an example, happy in conception and delivery, of Mr. Elaine s style in orations of this character; important often in their results, yet most generally considered by orators of no particular moment : "I am addressing," said Mr. Elaine, "an agricultural com munity; during all the depression of trade and commerce and manufactures prevailing for these past five years you have steadily progressed in comfort, independence, and wealth. While those elsewhere have lacked employment, and many I fear have lacked bread, no able-bodied man in Minnesota has been without remunerative labor, and no one has gone to bed hungry. Your pursuits and their results form the basis of the ideal Republic happily, indeed, realized within your own borders. The tendency of all your industry is towards the accumulation of independent competency, and does not favor the upbuilding of colossal fortunes ; you are dealing daily with the essential things of life, and are not warped in your judgments nor deflected from your course by speculative and illusory schemes gf advancement and gain; you are land- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. l8l owners and freeholders, a proud title that comes to us with centuries of civilization and strength a title that every man in this country should make it his object to acquire and to honor. Self-government among the owners of the soil in America is an instinct, and where that ownership is widely distributed good government is the rule. Whatever disturb ance, therefore, may threaten the peace and order of society, whatever wild theories transplanted from other climes may seek foothold here, the Republic of the United States rests on that basis of agriculture which the farmers of the Revolution and the framers of the Constitution placed it. The man who possesses broad acres which he has earned by the sweat of his brow is not apt to fall in with the doctrines of the communist that no one has a right to the ownership of the soil ; the man who has the profit of his labor in wheat and in corn, in pork and in beef, in hides and in wool, commanding gold and silver as they always have and always will in the markets of the world, is not to be led astray with theories of fiat paper and absolute money, but instinctively consigns such wild vagaries to the proper dimensions of fiat folly and absolute nonsense. "The farmers of the Republic will control its destiny. Agriculture, commerce, and manufactures are the three pursuits that enrich a nation ; but the greatest of these is agriculture, for without its progress the spindle cannot turn and the ship will not sail. Agriculture furnishes the conservative element in society, and in the end is the guiding, restraining, and con trolling force in Government against the storms of public fury, against frenzy that seeks collision with established order, against theories of administration that have drenched other lands with blood, against the spirit of anarchy that would sweep away the landmarks and safeguards of Christian society and republican government. The farmers of the United States will stand as a shield and a bulwark themselves the willing subjects of the law, and, therefore, its safest and strongest administrators." CHAPTER X. BLAINE AS A HISTORIAN His ABILITY WITH THE PEN His MAGAZINE WORK His SUMMARY OF THE AMERICAN CONFLICT THE CHARACTER OF BUCHANAN THE NEI;RO PEN- PORTRAITS OF STANTON AND SHERMAN. NO man with the gift of utterance, no matter what his in clinations may be, can ever confine himself to the forum or the platform. The desire for expression, when well developed, is generally paramount. A nature so filled that it seeks every source of legitimate expression will never neglect the newspaper. That a literary career was congenial to Mr. Blaine we have seen in the earlier pages of this book. That he was eminently fitted to adorn such a career was equally demonstrated by the examples of what he did, there printed. He was, early in his career, a contributor to the press, then an editor ; and then occasionally, during his Congressional career, he branched off to furnish something from his pen that bore upon the ques tions of the day from the exalted sphere of the printing-press. The editor of the North American Review, in the spring of 1879, one of the chief years in recent times for the heat of political discussion, invited the Senator from Maine, the Sen ator from Mississippi, L. Q. C. Lamar, Gov. Wade Hampton, of South Carolina, Congressman J. A. Garfield, of Ohio, Alexander Stephens of Georgia, Wendell Phillips, Montgom ery Blair, and Thomas A. Hendricks, to discuss the question " Ought the Negro to be disenfranchised ? Ought he to have (182) HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 183 been franchisee! ? " The views of these gentlemen appeared in the issue for March, and Mr. Blaine led the debate as follows : " I have been distinguished as the special Champion of the Negro s Rights, by many who have devoted their lives to re dressing the Negro s wrongs. The questions owe their origin not to any coloring of Philanthropic interests, not to any Rad ical views about Universal Suffrage, but to the fact that in the judgment of many of those hitherto accounted the wisest, Negro Suffrage has failed to attain the ends hoped for when the franchise was conferred, failed as a means of more completely securing the Negro s civil rights ; failed to bring him the consid eration which generally attaches to power; failed in the gen eral opinion except to increase the political weight and influ ence of those against whom and in spite of whom his enfran chisement was secured. "Those who have reached this conclusion and those who are tending towards it argue that the important franchise was prematurely bestowed on the Negro. That its possession necessarily placed him in inharmonious relations with the white race. That the excitement incident to its free enjoyment hinders him from progress in the rudimental and essential branches of education, and that advance in material wealth is thus delayed and obstructed and that obstacles which would not otherwise exist continually accumulate in his path, render ing his progress impossible and his oppression inevitable. In other words that Suffrage in the hands of the Negro is a challenge to the white race for a contest in which he is sure to be overcome, and that the withdrawal of the franchise would remove all conflict, restore kindly relations between the races, place the whites on their proper and honorable responsibility, and assure to each race the just prosperity attainable under the Government where both are compelled to live. "The class of men whose views are thus hastily summarized did not contemplate the withdrawal of the suffrage from the Negro, without a corresponding reduction in the representation in Congress of the States where the Negro is a large fac tor in the apportionment. And yet it is quite probable that they have not given thought to the difficulty or rather impos- 1 84 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. sibility of compassing that end. Under the Constitution as it is now construed, the diminution of representative strength could only result from the States passing such laws as would disfranchise the Negro by some educational or property test, as it is forbidden by the Fifteenth Amendment to disfranchise him on account of his race. But no Southern State will do this and for two reasons : first, they will in no event consent to a reduction of representative strength. And second, they f cannot make any disfranchisement of the Negro that would i not at some time disfranchise an immense number of the whites. " Quite another class mostly residents in the South but with numerous sympathizers in the North would be glad to have the Negro disfranchised on totally different grounds. Born and reared with the belief that the Negro is inferior to the white man in everything, it is hard for the class who were masters at the South to endure any face or form of equality on the part of the Negro. Instinct gives reason and with the masses of the Southern people the aversion to equality is in stinctive and ineradicable. The general conclusion of this class would be to deprive the Negro of voting, if it could be done without impairing the representation of their States, but not to make any move in that direction so long as the diminished power in Congress is constitutional, the logical result of a denial or abridgment of suffrage. In the meanwhile, seeing no mode equitable of depriving the Negro of his suffrage, ex cept with the unwelcome penalty to themselves, the Southern States as a whole differing in degree but with the same effect have striven to attain by indirect and unlawful means what they could not attain by direct and lawful. They have, so far as possible, made Negro suffrage of no effect. They have done this against law and against justice. Having stated the position of both classes on this question, I will venture to give my own views in a series of statements in which I will en deavor to embody both argument and conclusion. " First. The two classes I have nan\ed contemplating the possible or desirable disfranchisement of the Negro from en tirely different standpoints and with entirely different aims, are HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 185 both equally in the wrong. The first is radically in error in sup posing that a disfranchisement would put him in the way of any development or progress that would in time fit him for suffrage. He would, instead, grow more and more unfit for it every day from the time the first backward step should be taken, and he would relapse if not into actual chattel slavery yet into -such a dependent and defenceless condition as would result in only another form of servitude. For the ballot to-day, imperfectly enjoyed as it is by the Negro, its freedom illegally curtailed, its independence ruthlessly marred, its purity defiled, is with all and after all, a race as against the form of servitude which would have all the cruelty and none of the alleviation of the old slave system whose destruction carried with it the shed ding of so much innocent blood. The second class is wrong in anticipating even the remotest possibility of securing the legal disfranchisement of the Negro without a reduction of representation, but for the clause regulating the representation in the I4th Amendment of the Constitution, we should to-day have a South wholly under the control and legally under the control of those who rebelled against the Union and sought to erect the Confederate Government enjoying full represen tation by reason of the Negro being counted in the apportion ment without a pretense of suffrage being conceded to the race. The I4th Amendment was designed to prevent this, and if it does not succeed in preventing it, it is because of evasion and violation of its express provisions and its clear intent. Those who erected the Confederate government may be in exclusive possession of power throughout the South, but they are not so fairly or legally ; they will not be permitted to continue in the enjoyment of political power unjustly seized and seized in derogation and in defiance of the rights not merely of the Negro, but of the whites in all other sec tions of the country. Injustice cannot stand before the ex posure and argument and the force of public opinion ; and no more safer weapons of defence will be required against the wrong which now afflicts the South, and it is a scandal to the whole country. " Second. But while discussing the question of disfranchis- 1 86 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. ing the Negro and settling its justice or expediency according to our discretion, it may be worth while to look at its imprac ticability, or to state it still more strongly, its impossibility, Logicians attach weight to arguments drawn ab inconvenicnti, Arguments must be still more cogent and conclusions still more decisive when drawn ab impossibili. The Negro is se cured against disfranchisement by two Constitutional Amend ments, and he cannot be remanded to the non-voting class until both these amendments are annulled. And these amend ments cannot be annulled until two-thirds of the Senate and two-thirds of the House of Representatives of the United States shall propose, and a majority of the Legislatures or Con ventions of twenty-nine States shall by affirmative vote approve the annulments. In other words the Negro cannot be dis franchised so long as one vote more than one-third in the United States Senate, or one vote more than one-third in the House of Representatives shall be recorded against it ; and if these securities and safe-guards should give way, then disfran chisement could not be effected so long as a majority in one branch in the Legislature of only ten States should refuse to assent to it and refuse the assent of a Convention to which it may be referred. No human right on this Continent is more completely guaranteed than the right against disfranchisement on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude as embodied in the 1 5th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. " Third. In the enforcement and elucidation of my second point, it is of interest to discern the rapid advance and devel opment of public sentiment in regard to the rights of the Negro as expressed in the last three Amendments of the Con stitution of the United States. 5 "In 1865 Congress submitted the 1 3th Amendment which merely gave the Negro freedom without suffrage, civil rights or citizenship. In 1866 the I4th Amendment was submitted de claring the Negro to be a citizen but not forbidding the States withholding suffrage from them yet inducing them to grant it by the provision that representation in Congress should be re duced in proportion to the exclusion of male citizens of twenty- one years of age to vote, except for rebellion or other crimes. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. l8/ In 1869 the decisive step was taken of declaring that the right of citizens of the United States shall not be abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or pre vious condition of servitude. The most important provision in this Amendment is the inhibition upon the United States as well as upon any State ; for it would not be among the impossible results of a great political Revolution resting on prejudice and grasping for power, that in the absence of this express inaction the United States might assume or usurp the right to deprive the Negro of suffrage, and then the States would not be subject to the forfeiture of representation as pro vided in the I4th Amendment, as the result of the denial or abridgment of the suffrage by State authority. In this stately progression of organic enactments, the law of a great people is embodied, and its reversal would be one of those revolutions which would convulse social order and endanger the authority of the law. " There will be no step backward, but under the provision which specially confers on Congress to enforce each amend ment by proper legislation, there will be from time to time fitful purposes and yet certainly a restraining and caring of national authority. "Fourth. I have already hinted that there will be no attempt made in the Southern States to disfranchise the negro by any of those methods which would still be within the power of the States. There is no Southern State that would venture on an educational qualification, because by the last census there were more than one million of white persons over fifteen years in the States lately slaveholding who cannot read, and a still larger number who could not write their names. There was, of course, a still greater number of negroes of the same ages who could not read or write, but in the nine years that have inter vened since the census was taken, there has been a much greater advance in the education of the negroes than in the education of the poor whites of the South, and to-day on aa educational qualification, it is quite probable that while the proportion would be in favor of the whites, the absolute ex clusion of the whites in some of the States would be nearly as 1 88 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. great as that of the negroes. Nor would a property test oper ate with any great advantage to the whites. The slave States always had a large class of very poor and entirely uneducated whites, and any qualification of property that would seriously diminish the negro vote would also cut off a very large num ber of whites from the suffrage. " Thus far I have directed my arguments to the first question propounded : Ought the negro to be disfranchised ? " The second interrogatory : Ought he to have been en franchised? is not practical but speculative, and yet unless it can be answered in the affirmative the moral tenure of his suf frage is weakened, and as a consequence his legal right to enjoy is impaired. " For myself, I answer the second question in the affirm ative with as little hesitation as I answer the first in the nega tive, and if the question was again submitted to the judgment of Congress, I would vote for suffrage in the light of experi ence with more confidence than I voted for it in the light of an experiment. Had the franchise not been bestowed upon the negro as his shield and weapon of defense, the demand upon the general government to interfere for his protection would have been constant and irritating and embarrassing. Great complaint has been made for years past of the government s interference merely to secure to the colored citizen his plainest constitutional right. But this intervention has been trifling compared to that which would have been required if we had not given suffrage to the negro. In the reconstruction exper iment under President Johnson s plan, before the negro was enfranchised it was clearly foreshadowed that he was to be dealt with as one having no rights except such as the whites should choose to grant. The negro was to work great labor laws ; freedom of movement and transit was to be denied him by the operation of vagrant laws ; liberty to sell his time and skill at their market value was to be restrained by apprentice laws ; and the slavery that was abolished by the Constitution of the nation was to be revived by the enactments of the States. To counteract this and all like efforts at re-enslavement, the national authority would have been constantly invoked. In- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 189 terference in the most positive and peremptory manner would lave been demanded, and angry conflicts and possible resist^ ance to law would have resulted. The one sure mode to remand the States that rebelled against the Union to their autonomy was to give suffrage to the negro, and that autonomy will be complete, absolute, whenever the rights that are guaranteed by the Constitution of the Republic shall be en joyed in every State as the administration of justice was assured in Magna Charta promptly and without delay ; freely and without sale ; completely and without denial. " This article belongs properly to the domain of political questions, and in turning from it to Mr. Blaine s book, " Twenty Years of Congress," we come at once to a para- mount illustration of his talent for a literary career. /Mr. Elaine was eminently fitted to write a history. His minute and magnificent memory of facts, dates, events, and men of history, is not only remarkable but almost unprece dented. In his college days he was noted for his love of the study of history. Therefore, it was not to be wondered at that when fate released him for a breathing spell from the ardor of a tremendously active political life, he should turn with ex ceeding pleasure to the joys and peace of the pen. His book, "Twenty Years of Congress," has already reached a wide cir cle of readers. It is in no sense a party manifesto ; it is a careful narrative, popular but not undignified in style, and remarkably fair and moderate in tone. He has expressed a decided opinion on all the issues involved in the civil war, but he is able to appreciate the argument and respect the motives of those whom he holds to have been most widely mistaken. A great charm is thrown over the volume from the fact that the events therein portrayed for more than two-thirds of the entire work were close at hand to Mr. Elaine ; indeed, it may be said, " All of which he saw and part of which he was." 190 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. The book has been well received not only here but abroad. The London Times says of it : "It is a fair, valuable and powerful volume. In dealing with the characters of the states men of the past, and especially with Clay and Calhoun, he is, we think, particularly happy. In dealing with his own con temporaries, he is, naturally enough, somewhat too uniformly civil ; but his connection with politics, on the whole, is an ad vantage to the book. He has been an active and trusted member of the Republican party from its formation, and he has drawn from his own recollections many interesting touches of description." My readers will hold a better view than that of the London Times. Let us taste this refreshing volume. Open it any where. Here is a pen-picture of the abolitionists : " While encountering, on these issues, the active hostility of the great mass of the people in all sections of the Union, the Abolitionists challenged the respect of thinking men, and even compelled the admiration of some of their most pro nounced opponents. The party was small in number, but its membership was distinguished for intellectual ability, for high character, for pure philanthropy, for unquailing courage both moral and physical, and for a controversial talent which has never been excelled in the history of moral reforms. It would not be practicable to give the names of all who were conspicuous in this great struggle, but the mention of James G. Birney, of Benjamin Lundy, of Arthur Tappan, of the brothers Lovejoy, of Gerrit Smith, of John G. Whittier, of William Lloyd Garrison, of Wendell Phillips, and of Gamaliel Bailey, will indicate the class who are entitled to be held in remembrance so long as the possession of great mental and moral attributes gives enduring and honorable fame. Nor would the list of bold and powerful agitators be complete or just if confined to the white race. Among the colored men often denied the simplest rights of citizenship in the States where they resided were found many who had received the rift of HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 19! tongues, orators by nature, who bravely presented the wrongs and upheld the rights of the oppressed. Among these Fred erick Douglass was especially and richly endowed not only with the strength but with the graces of speech ; and for many years, from the stump and from the platform, he exerted a wide and beneficent influence upon popular opinion. " In the early days of this agitation, the Abolitionists were a proscribed and persecuted class, denounced with unsparing severity by both the great political parties, condemned by many of the leading churches, libeled in the public press, and maltreated by furious mobs. In no part of the country did they constitute more than a handful of the population, but they worked against every discouragement with a zeal and firmness which bespoke intensity of moral conviction. They were in large degree recruited from the Society of Friends, who brought to the support of the organization the same calm and consistent courage which had always distinguished them in up holding before the world their peculiar tenets of religious faith. Caring nothing for prejudice, meeting opprobrium with silence, shaming the authors of violence by meek non-resistance, re lying on moral agencies alone, appealing simply to the reason and the conscience of men, they arrested the attention of the nation by arraigning it before the public opinion of the world, and proclaiming its responsibility to the judgment of God." Is this not fidelity to what they were and suffered ? It is but natural that Henry Clay should receive at the hands of Historian Blaine a full meed of justice. In Henry Clay James Gillespie Blaine found his model and the type of his idolatry among men. The two are much alike, they pos sess many qualities in common. Let us see how the latter models the former: " No contest for the Presidency, either before or since, has been conducted with such intense energy and such deep feel ing. Mr. Clay s followers were not ordinary political sup porters. They had the profound personal attachment which 12 hj HON. JAMES G IM MM is looked for only m hereditary governments, where loyalty becomes * passion, and is l>hnd and UUUM .<>nm ad herence .md i - devotion, Tin* logical complement of such .n dent fidelity i an opposition ni.u i.f. I l>y un i npnloii-, i.un OTi Tin. i pioved no exception. 1 IP- love of Mr. Clay s hi.-nd. was equaled by the hatred o| In. Iocs. The / -al of In , luppoiten did not surpass the zeal of his opponents. All the enmities and exaspeiahons which l>e;.;.m in tlie menioi.ible conte.t for the Presidency when John (Jmncy Ad. mis chosen, .md h.ul j .mwn into great proportions during the long mtei vi -n in;.-, p M iod, u .Me I<M i- I it . .1 it >n t he ati;;ry Held ol iS ).[. Mi. Polk. .1 moderate and amiable man, did not rcpn- - Mil the .u i 1 1 ih MI ion - chaiacter of the contn IVefSy, 1 Ie -tood onl the passive representative of iti prinrii>ii-s. n-hind him was J.i d .md intii m in hody, hut strong in mind, and un- liroU-Mi m -pint. \Vith him the itrilggle was not only ODC "t principle, but o( pride; not merely 01 judgment, but oi t -m pel , ami he i .iinmnmi ated to the le-ions throiiidiont the count iv, who regarded him writh reverence and gratitude, a full measure oi his own animosity .!.;. mist Clay. In its;. the st i u;.; ;le al) ..>il).-d (lie t hi ni;;lil . tin* a tioii, the j> i ;sion, of the whole people. When it , iv ailt wa . known, the Win-.; i -d the defeat of Mr. Clay, not only as a calamity of untold magnitude to the country, luil a. a pM .oiial and pm- lound .uel. which touched the h-Mit as deeply as the undei standing it was fackson a imal triumph over Clay. The lion n i \e 1 Old h M months alter tin J en Wiling ilion ..I hi. hfe. " l- .n twenty ye.u s the. ( - t u o ;;i-it. l)ia\ e men headed the opjio.in.; political foices .f the I 1 !!!"!! \\ hoevci im-dit be candidates, they wort the a.tual leaders John Quincy Alain. \\a. more le.nned than either; Mi v. was and in ipeech; ( alh>nn more acute, refined, an 1 plnlo ...pine ; Vanl .men hetler skilled in combining and tliiei tni .[ poht i, a 1 forces ; i>nt to IK. one ot these was given the snMime attiilmte of l-adei Jnp. the faculty o| diauin; men unto him. That is natural, not ac jiiired fhere was not in the Whole COUntiy, during the lon^ pMiodol th-Mi nvalry, a MON, I IMES G r.i \INK. h> i. id-en ni Intelligence \vim \\-.\-. m.iiii.ient t.> < i.i\ <>i i,. |.i. k .oll. | o| llic "lie \Vll1x Mil i|lialllli alloii, .l;;.im I III. olll< i \\ Mlii >ul ic-. i i v.i 1 1 ii. u.r. III.- i ill.- ni i live. 1 1 >i i It 1 111 1 I lie Mm I lii -i M ino-.t ln\vir.lii| nl N. u 1 ii daml to the month. ..| (he MIV.I-. Mppi llolh leader, li. id tin lii^ln .1 . ..m.e i , |,li\ lira] .ui.l inoi.il, in n|ii.il .I. "M r < I. iv li.-lil ill. ,i,|\ .ml. I*;. ,.| i.,,. . I.. tpieme; i.ui J.K K .on li. ui .1 -.|ii. n. h. i military record, which spoke i" ili> IK .u i . -I I li< | u >ple more effectively lli.m Wordl emliei . lui l\\i ni\ \ .u "I Hi - same |>.niv. tin \ dill. i<<! lightly, 1 1 -it .ill. in p ill HI .il | u UK 1 1 ill--. \\ 1 1. n i in- < i.i ii< .! I., . .in , Inii Jackson enjoyed the prestige of a more linral hcirihlp to lip- r< i-il oi J.-n.-i ...n. M.iilr.oM, .UK! Monroe; wlnl. < l.i\ , l,\ his imprudence m ! "mm;; Secretary of State, im mi. I no( onl\ the odiinii ol ili<* bargain and sale/ but a share of the j;cii-i.il iiii|io|Mil.ii i!\- wliu li .il lli.il linn- .illat hcd to tlu n.imc "I Adams II is iml m irlio ,|i. I dilln nil to m< .1 .m. lli< .i.l Vantages \\lii. li |.i. Usoii possessed m thr lotip; ((inte.-.l, .m.l |, clearly I In- reasons ol In . lm.il 1 1 mmpli over tli< boldest ol leaders, the ii"M. .1 "I !<.. Still less is i I diflicull lo sei \\\\ l,ni;cl\ tin- p. i .ility of the two men enteied ml.. III. slni};(de, .md h.>\\ m Hie < ml Hi- -II- I upmi tin p<>litn I .m<l piospeiily ol (he i "iinli y would have been neail\ lh< sami had the winner and the lo-.ei < \. li,m;;ed plates In cat hoi 111- -m p iti I llr.ni w.is .1 p.iv.i"ii. 1 lu-re lievei was .1 momriil Hi n prolonged emmiy and then i. m. "i"i i , . ..ni. its when a ie.il d.ni ;ei In Ihe i "imh\- \vmld ii"l h.ive unit -I Mi- m .1 heartily as in i^-i . when Clay in the iion-.e .md |.n i. i.- li M < <> <ip. -i. iled m <|. I. ii lm ; the nation. il IKUIOI .i;;.mr.l -i ; ".i ;ion ; of ( I re; it lirilain." And later on he "iihasts Mr. Clay and Mi. \V< I. i i "A 1 , il i.. emphasize the disaster to Ihe Whig li ( l.i\- .iinl Mi. VVeb-.lei li..lh died dmim; the (.m\.r.. , Mi < l.iv m Jmie, .1 |,-w <l.i\", alter Seotl s nomm.it n HI, Mi WcbitCI m < >. toliei; ,i |,-\v days before his d- I- .ii I h- \ h.id l."ih hv d loll". e||, ticdi to ,(( tile V\ "I I. "I I he|| | mill |i I I |||e |||||. | ||e,| || nol destroyed. l he\- hn I li>-ld ih-- same lelalion I" lln \\ hi" th.il the eldei Ad.mr, and I I .inn II <>n h.id he| I t < | he | i<|ii 194 HON - JAMES G. ELAINE. alists, that Jefferson and Madison had held to the Republicans. Comparison between them could not be fairly made, their inherent qualities and personal characteristics differed so widely. Each was superior to the other in certain traits, and in our public annals thus far each stands unequaled in his sphere. Their points of contrast were salient and numerous. Mr. Clay was born in Virginia. Mr. Webster was born in New England. Mr. Clay was a devoted follower of Jefferson. Mr. Webster was bred in the school of Hamilton. Mr. Clay was an earnest advocate of the second war with Great Britain. Mr. Webster was its steady opponent. Mr. Clay supported Madison in 1812 with great energy. Mr. Webster threw all his strength for De Witt Clinton. Mr. Clay was from the first deeply imbued with the doctrine of protection. Mr. Webster entered public life a pronounced free-trader. They were not members of the same political organization until after the destruction of the old Federal party to which Mr. Webster belonged, and the hopeless divisions of the old Republican party to which Mr. Clay belonged. They gradually harmon ized towards the close of Monroe s second term, and became firmly united under the administration of John Quincy Adams. Modern political designations had their origin in the Presi dential election of 1824. The candidates all belonged to the party of Jefferson, which had been called Democratic-Republi can. In the new divisions, the followers of Jackson toolc the name of Democrats : the supporters of Adams called them selves National Republicans. They had thus divided the old name, each claiming the inheritance. The unpopularity of Mr. Adams administration had destroyed the prospects of t\\2 National-Republican party, and the name was soon dis placed by the new and more acceptable title of Whig. To the joint efforts of Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster more than to all others the formation of the Whig party was due. It was not, however, in Mr. Webster s nature to become a partisan chief. Mr. Clay on the other hand was naturally and inevitably a leader. In all the discussions of the Senate in which consti tutional questions were involved, Mr. Clay instinctively de ferred to Mr. Webster. In the parliamentary debates which HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 195 concerned the position of parties and the fate of measures, which enchained the Senate and led captive the people, Mr. Clay \va.s/aci/e princeps. Mr. Webster argued the principle. Mr. Clay embodied it in a statute. Mr. Webster s speeches are still read with interest and studied with profit. Mr. Clay s speeches swayed listening senates and moved multitudes, but reading them is a disappointment. Between the two the differ ence is much the same as that between Burke and Charles James Fox. Fox was the parliamentary debater of England, the consummate leader of his party. His speeches, always listened to and cheered by a crowded House of Commons, perished with their delivery. Burke could never command a body of followers, but his parliamentary orations form brilliant and permanent chapters in the political literature of two conti nents. " While Mr. Webster s name is so honorably perpetuated by his elaborate and masterly discussion of great principles in the Senate, he did not connect himself with a single historic meas ure. While Mr. Clay s speeches remain unread, his memory is lastingly identified with issues that are still vital and pow erful. He advanced the doctrine of protection to the stately dignity of the American system. Discarding theories and overthrowing the dogma of strict construction, he committed the general government irrevocably to internal improvements. Condemning the worthless system of paper money imposed upon the people by irresponsible State banks, he stood firmly for a national currency, and he foreshadowed if he did not reach the paper money which is based to-day on the credit and the strength of the government. " Mr. Clay possessed extraordinary sagacity in public affairs, seeing and foreseeing where others were blinded by ignorance or prejudice. He was a statesman by intuition, finding a remedy before others could discover the disease. His con temporaries appreciated his rare endowments. On the day of his first entrance into the House of Representatives he was chosen Speaker, though but thirty-four years of age. This was all the more remarkable because the House was filled with men of recognized ability, who had been long in the 196 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. public service. It was rendered ^still more striking by the fact that Mr. Clay was from the far West, from one of the only two States whose frontiers reached the Mississippi. In the entire House there were only fifteen members from the Western side of the Alleghenies. He was re-elected Speaker in every Congress so long as he served as representative. He entered the Senate at thirty, and died a member of it in his seventy-sixth year. He began his career in that body during the Presidency of Jefferson in 1806, and closed it under the Presidency of Fillmore in 1852. Other Senators have served a longer time than Mr. Clay, but he alone at periods so widely separated. Other men have excelled him in specific powers, but in the rare combination of qualities which constitute at once the matchless leader of party and the statesman of con summate ability and inexhaustible resource, he has never been surpassed by any man speaking the English tongue." What an exact view of what so many have often felt but lacked the exact words to utter ! All through this delightful volume are scattered pen-miniatures of great people. So delicately are they drawn and colored that I cannot help in troducing some of them here. For instance here is " old Buck " true to the life : " In a final analysis and true estimate of Mr. Buchanan s conduct in the first stages of the revolt, the condition of the popular mind as just described must be taken into account. The same influences and expectations that wrought upon the people were working also upon him. There were indeed two Mr. Buchanans in the closing months of the administration. The first was Mr. Buchanan of November and December, angered by the decision of the Presidential election and more than willing that the North, including his own State, should be disciplined by fright to more conservative views and to a stricter observance of what he considered solemn obligations imposed by the Constitution. If the Southern threat of re sistance to the authority of the Union had gone no further HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. \gj than this, Mr. Buchanan would have been readily reconciled to its temporary violence, and would probably have considered it a national blessing in disguise. The second was Mr. Buchanan of January and February, appalled by surrounding and increasing perils, grieved by the conduct of Southern men whom he had implicitly trusted, overwhelmed by the realiza tion of the evils which had obviously followed his official declarations, hoping earnestly for the safety of the Union, and ^et more disturbed and harrowed in his mind than the mass of loyal people who did not stand so near the danger as he, or so accurately measure its alarming growth. The President of December with Cobb and Floyd and Thompson in his cabinet, and the President of January with Dix and Stanton and Holt for his councilors, were radically different men. No true estimate *of Mr. Buchanan in the crisis of his public career can ever be reached if this vital distinction be over looked. " It was Mr. Buchanan s misfortune to be called to act in an emergency which demanded will, fortitude and moral cour age. In these qualities he was deficient. He did not possess the executive faculty. His life had been principally devoted to the practice of law in the most peaceful of communities, and to service in legislative bodies where he was borne along by the force of association. He had not been trained to prompt decision, had not been accustomed to exercise com mand. He was cautious and conservative to the point of timidity. He possessed ability of a high order, and, though he thought slowly, he could master the most difficult subject with comprehensive power. His service of ten years in the House and an equal period in the Senate was marked by a conscientious devotion "to duty. He did not rank with the ablest members of either body, but always bore a prominent part in important discussions and maintained himself with credit. " It was said of Mr. Buchanan that he instinctively dreaded to assume responsibility of any kind. His keenest critic re marked that in the tentative period of political issues assumed by his party, Mr. Buchanan could always be found two paces 198 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. to the rear, but in the hour of triumph he marched proudly in the front rank. He was not gifted with independence, or self-assertion. His bearing towards Southern statesmen was derogatory to him as a man of spirit. His tone towards administrations of his own party was so deferential as almost to imply a lack of self-respect. He was not a leader among men. He was always led. He was led by Mason and Soule into the imprudence of signing the Ostend Manifesto; he was led by the Southern members of his Cabinet into the inex plicable folly and blunder of indorsing the Lecompton iniquity ; he was led by Disunion Senators into the deplorable mistake contained in his last annual message. Fortunately for him he was led a month later by Black and Holt and Stanton to a radical change of his compromising position. " If Mr. Buchanan had possessed the unconquerable will of Jackson or the stubborn courage of Taylor, he could have changed the history of the revolt against the Union. A great opportunity came to him but he was not equal to it. Always an admirable adviser where prudence and caution were the virtues required, he was fatally wanting in a situation which demanded prompt action and strong nerve. As Representa tive in Congress, as Senator, as minister abroad, as Secretary of State, his career was honorable and successful. His life was singularly free from personal fault or short-coming. He was honest and pure-minded. His fame would have been more enviable if he had never been elevated to the Presi dency." Of the great war secretary the historian says : " Nine months after the outbreak of hostilities the organiza tion and equipment of the national forces were placed under the direction of Edwin M. Stanton as Secretary of War. Out side of his professional reputation, which was high, Mr. Stanton had been known to the public by his service in the cabinet of Mr. Buchanan during the last three months of his administra tion. In that position he had undoubtedly exhibited zeal and fidelity in the cause of the Union. He was a member of the Democratic party, a thorough believer in its principles, and a HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. hearty opponent of Mr. Lincoln in the contest of 1860. In speech and in writing he referred to Mr. Lincoln s supporters in the extreme partisan phrase of the day, as Black Repub licans. He had no sympathy with Mr. Lincoln s views on the subject of slavery, and was openly hostile to any revival of the doctrine of protection. If Mr. Buchanan had been governed by the views of Mr. Stanton, he would undoubtedly have vetoed the Morrill Tariff Bill, and thus an unintended injury would have been inflicted upon the reviving credit of the nation. A citizen of the District of Columbia, Mr. Stanton was not called upon to make a personal record in the Presi dential election of 1860, but his sympathies were well under stood to be with the supporters of Breckinridge. " With these political principles and affiliations, Mr. Stanton was not even considered in connection with the original organ ization of Mr. Lincoln s cabinet. But the fact of his being a Democrat was now in his favor, for Mr. Lincoln was anxious to signify by some decisive expression, his appreciation of the patriotism which had induced so large a proportion of the Democratic party to lay aside prejudice and unite in support of his administration. He had a high estimate of Mr. Stanton s capacity, derived from personal intercourse in a professional engagement some three years before. He had learned some thing of his powers of endurance, of his trained habits of thought, of his systematic method of labor, and he had con fidence that at forty-seven years of age, with vigorous health and a robust constitution, Mr. Stanton could endure the strain which the increasing labor of the War Department would impose. His nomination was confirmed without delay, and the whole country received his appointment with profound satisfaction. " No cabinet minister in our history has been so intemper- ately denounced, so extravagantly eulogized. The crowning fact in his favor is that through all the mutations of his stormy career he was trusted and loved by Mr. Lincoln to the end of his days. He was at all times and under all circum stances absolutely free from corruption, and was savagely hostile to every man in the military service who was even 2OO HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. suspected of irregularity or wrong. He possessed the execu tive faculty in the highest degree. He was prompt, punctual, methodical, rapid, clear, explicit in all his work. He imparted energy to every branch of the service, and his vigorous deter mination was felt on the most distant field of the war as a present and inspiring force. " Mr. Stanton had faults. He was subject to unaccountable and violent prejudice, and under its sway he was capable of harsh injustice. Many officers of merit and of spotless fame fell under his displeasure and were deeply wronged by him. Gen. Stone was perhaps the most conspicuous example of the extremity of outrage to which the secretary s temper could carry him. He was lacking in magnanimity. Even when intellectually convinced of an error, he was reluctant to ac knowledge it. He had none of that grace which turns an enemy to a friend by healing the wounds which have been unjustly inflicted. While oppressing many who were under his control, he had the keenest appreciation of power, and to men who were wielding great influence he exhibited the most deferential consideration. He had a quick insight into char acter, and at a glance could tell a man who would resist and resent from one who would silently submit. He was ambi tious to the point of uncontrollable greed for fame, and by this quality was subject to its counterpart of jealousy, and to an envy of the increasing reputation of others. It was a sore trial to him that after his able and persistent organization of all the elements of victory, the share of credit, which justly belonged to him, was lost sight of in the glory which sur rounded the hero of a successful battle. " But his weaknesses did not obscure the loftiness of his character. The capricious malignity and brutal injustice of the Great Frederick might as well be cited against the ac knowledged grandeur of his career, as an indictment be brought against Stanton s fame on his personal defects, glaring and even exasperating as they were. To the nation s trust he was sublimely true. To him was committed, in a larger degree than to any other man except the President alone, the success ful prosecution of the war and the consequent preservation of HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 2OI the Union. Against those qualities which made him so many enemies, against those insulting displays of temper which wounded so many proud spirits helplessly subject to him for the time, against those acts of rank injustice which, in the judgment of his most partial eulogist, will always mar his fame, must be remembered his absolute consecration of all that he was and of all he could hope to be, to the cause of his country. For more than three years, of unceasing and immeasurable responsibility, he stood at his post, by day and by night, never flagging in zeal, never doubting in faith. Even his burly frame and rugged strength were overborne by the weight of his cares and by the strain upon his nerves, but not until his work was finished, not until the great salvation had come. Persecution and obloquy have followed him into the grave, but an impartial verdict must be that he was inspired with the devotion of a martyr, and that he wore out his life in a service of priceless value to all the generations of his countrymen." The old war-horse and veteran campaigner, William Te- cumseh Sherman, thus impressed himself into Mr. Elaine s mind, and so into his history : " The character and ability of General Sherman were not fully appreciated until the second year of the war. He had not aimed to startle the country at the outset of his military career with any of the brilliant performances attempted by many officers who were heard of for a day and never after wards. With the true instinct and discipline of a soldier, he faithfully and skillfully did the work assigned to him, and he gained steadily, rapidly, and enduringly on the confidence and admiration of the people. He shared in the successful cam paigns of General Grant in the Southwest, and earned his way to the great command with which he was now intrusted a command which in one sense involved the prompt success of all the military operations of the government. Disaster to his army did not of course mean the triumph of the rebellion, t>ut it meant fresh levies of troops, the prolongation of the. 202 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. struggle, and a serious increase to the heavy task that General Grant had assumed in Virginia. General Sherman was a graduate of West Point, and while still a young man had served with marked credit for some twelve years in the army. But he had more than a military education. Through a checkered career in civil life, he had enlarged his knowledge of the country, his acquaintance with men, his experience in affairs. He had been a banker in California, a lawyer in Kan sas, president of a college in Louisiana, and, when the war began, he was about to take charge of a railroad in Missouri. It would be difficult, if not impossible, to find a man who has so thorough, so minute a knowledge of every State and Terri tory of the Union. He has made a special study of the geography and products of the country. Some one has said of him, that if we should suddenly lose all the maps of the United States, we need not wait for fresh surveys to make new ones, because General Sherman could reproduce a perfect map in twenty-four hours. That this is a pardonable exaggeration would be admitted by any one who had conversed with Gen eral Sherman in regard to the topography and resources of the country from Maine to Arizona. " General Sherman s appearance is strongly indicative of his descent. Born in the West, he is altogether of Puritan stock, his father and mother having emigrated from Connecticut, where his family resided for nearly two centuries. All the characteristics of that remarkable class of men reappear in General Sherman. In grim, determined visage, in command ing courage, in mental grasp, in sternness of principle, he is an Ironside officer of the army of Cromwell, modified by the impulsive mercurial temperament which eight generations of American descent, with Western birth and rearing, have im pressed upon his character." The martyr Lincoln whose face was the saddest ever seen in American history was a man most attractive to James G. Blaine. The President s great qualities are thus remembered : " Six days after the surrender of Lee the nation was thrown into the deepest grief by the assassination of the President. HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 203 The gloom which enshrouded the country was as thick dark ness. The people had come, through many alternations of fear and hope, to repose the most absolute trust in Mr. Lin coln. They realized that he had seen clearly where they were blind, that he had known fully where they were ignorant. He had been patient, faithful, and far-seeing. Religious people regarded him as one divinely appointed, like the prophets of old, to a great work, and they found comfort in the parallel which they saw in his death with that of the leader of Israel. He too had reached the mountain s top, and had seen the land redeemed unto the utmost sea, and had then died. " Mr. Lincoln had been some time in the Presidency before the public estimate of him was correct or appreciative. The people did not at first understand him. In the glamour of the Presidential canvass they had idealized him attributing to him some traits above and many below his essential qualities. After his election and before his inauguration, there was a general disposition to depreciate him. He became associated in the popular mind with an impending calamity and tens of thousands who had voted for him heartily repented the act, and inwardly execrated the day that committed the destinies of the Union to his keeping. The first strong test brought upon Mr. Lincoln was this depressing reaction among so many of his supporters. A man with less resolute purpose would have been cast down by it, but Mr. Lincoln preserved the mens cequa in arduis. Through the gloom of the weeks preceding his inauguration he held his even way. Perhaps in the more terrible crises through which he was afterwards called to pass, a firmer nerve was required, but not so rare a combination of qualities as he had shown in the dismal months with which the year 1 86 1 opened. " Mr. Lincoln united firmness and gentleness in a singular degree. .He rarely spoke a harsh word. Ready to hear argument and always open to conviction, he adhered tena ciously to the conclusions which he had finally reached. Altogether modest, he had confidence in himself, trusted to the reasoning of his own mind, believed in the correctness of 2O4 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. his own judgment. Many of the popular conceptions con cerning him are erroneous. No man was further than he from the easy, familiar, jocose character in which he is often painted. While he paid little attention to form or ceremony, he was not a man with whom liberties could be taken. There was but one person in Illinois outside of his own household who ventured to address him by his first name. There was no one in Washington who ever attempted it. Appreciating wit and humor, he relished a good story, especially if it illustrated a truth or strengthened an argument, and he had a vast fund of illustrative anecdote, which he used with the happiest effect. But the long list of vulgar, salacious stories attributed to him, were retailed only by those who never enjoyed the privilege of exchanging a word with him. His life was altogether a serious one inspired by the noblest spirit, devoted to the highest aims. Humor was but an incident with him, a partial relief to the melancholy which tinged all his years. " He presented an extraordinary combination of mental and moral qualities. As a statesman he had the loftiest ideal, and it fell to his lot to inaugurate measures which changed the fate of millions of living men, of tens of millions yet to be born. As a manager of political issues and master of the art of presenting them, he has had no rival in this country, unless one be found in Jefferson. The complete discomfiture of his most formidable assailants in 1863, especially of those who sought to prejudice him before the people on account of the arrest of Vallandigham, cannot easily be paralleled for shrewdness of treatment and for keen appreciation of the re actionary influences which are certain to control public opinion. Mr. Van Buren stands without rival in the use of partisan tactics. He operated altogether on men, and believed in self-interest as the mainspring of human action. Mr. Lin coln s ability was of a far higher and broader character. There was never the slightest lack of candor or fairness in his methods. He sought to control men through their reason and their conscience. The only art he employed was that of presenting his views so convincingly as to force conviction on the minds of his hearers and his readers. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 2O$ " The executive talent of Mr. Lincoln was remarkable. He was emphatically the head of his own administration, ultimate judge at all points and on all occasions where questions of weight were to be decided. An unwise eulogist of Mr. Sew- ard attributes to him the origination and enforcement of the great policies which distinguished the administration. So far is this from the truth that in more than one instance the most momentous steps were taken against the judgment and con trary to the advice of the Secretary of State. The position of control and command so firmly held by Mr. Lincoln was strikingly shown when the Peace Conference was about to assemble at Fortress Monroe. He dispatched Mr. Seward to the place of meeting in advance of his own departure from Washington, giving him the most explicit instructions as to his mode of action prescribing carefully the limitations he should observe, and concluding with these words: You will hear all they may choose to say, and report it to me. You will not assume to definitely consummate anything Assuredly this is not the language of deference. It does not stop short of being the language of command. It is, indeed, the expression of one who realized that he was clothed with all the power belonging to his great office. No one had a more sincere admiration of Mr. Seward s large qualities than the President; no one more thoroughly appreciated his matchless powers. But Mr. Lincoln had not only full trust in his own capacity, but a deep sense of his own responsibility a responsibility which could not be transferred, and for which he felt answer able to his conscience and to God. " There has been discussion as to Mr. Lincoln s religious belief. He was silent as to his own preference among creeds. Prejudice against any particular denomination he did not entertain. Allied all his life with Protestant Christianity, he thankfully availed himself of the services of an eminent Cath olic prelate Archbishop Hughes, of New York in a personal mission to England, of great importance, at a crisis when the relations between the two countries were disturbed and threat ening. Throughout the whole period of the war he constantly directed the attention of the nation to dependence on God. 2O6 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. It may indeed be doubted whether he omitted this in a single state paper. In every message to Congress, in every proc lamation to the people, he made it prominent. In July, 1863, after the battle of Gettysburg, he called upon the people to give thanks, because it has pleased Almighty God to hearken to the supplications and prayers of an afflicted people, and to vouchsafe signal and effective victories tq the army and navy of the United States, and he asked the people to render homage to the Divine Majesty and to invoke the influence of His Holy Spirit to subdue the anger which has produced and so long sustained a needless and cruel rebellion. On another occasion, recounting the blessings which had come to the Union, he said : No human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out, these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. Throughout his entire official career attended at all times with exacting duty and painful responsibility he never forgot his own dependence, or the dependence of the people, upon a Higher Power. In his last public address, delivered to an immense crowd assembled at the White House on the nth of April, to congratulate him on the victories of the Union, the President, standing as he unconsciously was in the very shadow of death, said reverently to his hearers: In the midst of your joyous expression, He from whom all bless ings flow must first be remembered ! But we cannot linger in such delightful company. The stirring scenes of a later day and the fortunes of the living demand that we should follow them hence, and forsake the dead. CHAPTER XL SELECTING A PRESIDENT THE CHICAGO CONVENTION How THE CHOICE CAME TO BE MADE. WITH the opening of the present year the Republican party took up the question of a standard-bearer for the autumn struggle. Everything seemed in doubt. No one questioned that President Arthur was in the lists for a nomination, though that gentleman did and said nothing which could be construed into an admission of his ambi tion. Coming into power through a sad and terrible tragedy, a chance candidate, it was but natural that he should desire the seal of his country s approval placed upon his ad ministration. Indeed, had he not done so, had he had no further ambition than to retire from the great responsibilities that an assassin s bullet had shot into his hands, President Arthur would not have deserved all the praise his countrymen bestowed. So, with the opening days of the year, Mr. Ar thur s canvass took undoubted shape and form. Abreast of it, in time, leading it in force and emphasis, was the effort of the friends of James G. Elaine to place that gen tleman at the avowed head of his party. Twice Mr. Elaine had been cheated, so his friends maintained, and the third time they were bound to win. To give color to their- more than earnest work they had three decided sources of power : Mr. Elaine s popularity, his avowed retirement from politics, and his book. Without doubt Mr. Blaine had more friends than 13 (207) 2OS SELECTING A PRESIDENT. any other individual in public life, and no name before the American people could rouse more enthusiasm than that of the Maine statesman. His personal hold on the people was therefore a magnificent lever, for after all the people rule Then as Mr. Blaine persistently asserted that he was out of politics, it was impossible to form combinations against him you could not combine against a non-combatant. And, again Mr. Blaine s much-heralded volume was produced in such wa) and at such time as to derive the greatest advantage which his strong, clear sentences, his eloquence, his knowledge oi men and affairs were capable of gaining him. With thre< such operating influences Mr. Blaine s " boom " assumec shape early in the year, and grew in size and strength. Ye with its assertion came a curious feeling that it was not possi ble for him to win. It was thought, and not without reason that neither Mr. Blaine nor Mr. Arthur could receive enougl ballots at the outset to nominate, and that, as it was impossi ble for either to draw from the other, both would be defeate< by the mutual enmity of their followers. After these two, who were the leading candidates, came second list of possibilities, in which many who were name* were named only because they were extremely likely to ge the second place. For the head of the ticket Edmunds, Lin coin, Logan, Harrison, Sherman, Grant, were all heralded i] turn, and Lincoln, Hawley, Gresham, and many others wer selected by the newspaper autocrats as being fitted to adori the tail of the ticket. Naturally, too, there was the inevitabl " dark horse," the unknown, the man whose " boom " was ii the hands of a few aspiring but silent leaders, shrewd, lynx eyed men, who knew that if they could only grasp the light ning at exactly the right moment, they could possess them selves of it. And these men had many unconscious followers SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 211 who regretted yet believed that a dark horse and not a favorite was sure to be the winner. This was the state of affairs when the managers for the various contestants reached Chicago, the city of the battle. The camps were pitched at once and the earnest work that was to result in splendid victory was begun. The Elaine men were the first in the field, and they came to the great Lake city most thoroughly equipped for what they were expected to do, or rather for what they came for, because the distinguished gentleman in whose behalf they were working was himself taking no part in the great struggle. Indeed, his friends com plained of his apathy and indifference to their appeals for his personal aid. His canvass for the nomination was therefore conducted without him, and yet most ably. And he is in debted for his nomination directly to Stephen W. Elkins, of New Mexico, and Thomas Donaldson, of Philadelphia, who had supreme charge, assisted by M. P. Handy of the Philadel phia Press, Whitelaw Reid of the New York Tribune, Titus Sheard of Little Falls, N. Y., William Walter Phelps of New Jersey, Collector Robertson of New York City, and J. B. Chaffee of Colorado. Of course there were others, but these were the chosen few, and they were men who combined brains with energy and tact with perseverance. The second line of assistants were men who, while lacking the exact ability to conduct a compaign, were yet able to give valuable advice to the conductors and furnish valuable information which, while some persons have it at their fingers ends, others yet find a difficulty in procuring. Mr. Elaine s men were all men of marked fitness for what they had to do. They were not what are called statesmen, nor were they orators ; but they possessed eminently the rare and indispensable faculty of organization, conduct and politi- 212 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. cal sagacity. Mr. Elkins is a man of determination and dar ing ; Mr. Donaldson possesses a nature at once genial, con vincing and tireless. Night and day he never left his post, never was weary, never unamiable, and never forgetful. To him was confided the disposition of the wavering Southern delegates, and it is safe to say that a delegate who once lent Mr. Donaldson his attention never had it distracted until his vote was booked for Elaine. It was the same character of work that was accomplished by Mr. Sheard, a man of natural political instincts reinforced by the abilities to accomplish. To these gentlemen, Mr. Whitelaw Reid and Mr. M. P. Handy brought all the resources of two influential newspapers the Tribune of New York and the Press of Philadelphia. The interests of President Arthur were in the hands of Mr. James D. Warren, Chairman of the New York State Republican Committee, Collector Jesse Spalding of Chicago, Silas B. Dutcher of Brooklyn, Bernard Biglin of New York, and others. Mr. George William Curtis, Hon. Andrew D. White, President of Cornell University, Ithaca, Theodore Roosevelt of New York, Henry Cabot Lodge, and Congressman John D. Long of Massachusetts came to care for Senator Ed munds ; Ex-Governor Cullom and " Long " Jones manipulated Logan ; Judge Foraker of Ohio did what he could for John Sherman; and finally, Wharton Barker of Pennsylvania arrived in Chicago with the avowed intention of nominating Senator Ben Harrison at the moment when the leading candidates were dead upon the field, and the success of a dark horse had become possible. At the time of the opening of the contest Mr. Blaine was not a believer in his success. Veiy properly he said that combinations would be made against him as the leading can didate, that, being led by the cry, " Anything to beat Blaine," SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 213 would doubtless succeed. This was only true before the assem bling of the Convention. For every delegate in Chicago was soon made aware of the determined feeling that animated the contending parties to the issue. The Elaine and Arthur men ex pressed their determination to stick until one or the other was chosen. The Logan men announced the same intention, but were not believed, as they were expected at the effective mo ment to come to Elaine. The Edmunds men had apparently come to Chicago to flirt and fish, to do the wrong thing at the right moment, to be the centre of a good deal of attention, and the focus soon after of much scorn and derision. Having it practically in their power to defeat Mr. Elaine by continu ing against him, they stuck to Mr. Edmunds until Mr. Elaine had reached the goal and had been handed the prize, and then Mr. Curtis arose to gravely inquire when the race would start. The really serious diversion from Mr. Elaine s wonderful and triumphant march was the Harrison movement. It would have diverted 28 votes from Elaine on the first ballot, thus re ducing his total to 306^, a fatally significant number and a total so discouraging in the face of the assertions of Mr. Elaine s managers that his chances would have been impaired possibly beyond recovery. The afternoon before the day in which the balloting began, however, the Harrison men find ing that the promises of support made by the Edmunds men -vere born of vanity and conceived in jest, decided promptly to abandon their programme and revert to Mr. Elaine, to whom they properly belonged. The nomination of Mr. Harrison, therefore, was not made, and that of Mr. James Gillespie Elaine followed as a matter of course. IN THE CONVENTION HALL. Chicago during the time that it was possessed by the Re- 214 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. publican National Convention can truly be said to have been alive. And no spectator in the place could doubt but that a political convention was at hand. Wherever one turned, nothing but political discussions met the ear, and the air re sounded with praises of candidates, as well as with charges against opponents of any possible description. Noise, din, music, crowded corridors, dirty floors, tobacco smoke, push ing, shouting, shoving hoarse-voiced men were the compo nents of the picture everywhere, the night before the Conven tion met. Tuesday, June 3, was a lively day, a rare June day. Before the doors of the Exposition Building was assembled a vast crowd of anxious, eager people, waiting the moment when they might enter to witness the grandest and most inspiriting scene possible to American life. The various entrances to the Exposition Building were thronged with eager crowds as early as 8 o clock, when the doorkeepers to the Convention took their appointed stations. Innumerable flags of varied color and design flapped in the morning wind from the turrets, roof, and eaves of the building, and above the main entrance, in the centre of a tastefully- blended trophy of National emblems, shone the National coat-of-arms with its interwoven motto : " E Pluribus Unum." A flood of warm, bright sunshine poured down on the placid, velvet-violet bosom of the lake ; the blue, Italian-like sky was flecked with drifting clouds ; the June breezes blew from the south warm, gentle zephyrs just sufficient to stir the floating flags and fan the heated faces of the excited politicians. No one was admitted except on special business until 10 o clock. From that hour until 12.30.1 surging throng besieged the building, and it was only with extreme difficulty in many cases that the delegates were able to make their way to the H CROWDED HOTELS. 1^N_ DELEGATES FROM SOUTH CAROLINA AND FLORIDA. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 2 17 proper entrance. Delegates and members of the press were admitted at the northern main entrance. Persons holding stage tickets were admitted at the north end of the building. The central main entrance admitted to some of the boxes and to certain sections of the floor. About a dozen other entrances had been improvised by removing some of the large windows and erecting steps thereto. These entrances led to the amphi theatre or south gallery, to the east and west galleries, to the alternates division and to various other sections of the main floor. About 11.30 the delegates began to arrive in processions of varying depth and length. The Iowa phalanx, with its plain red badges, was about the first to arrive, in solid and well- drilled form ; then came Rhode Island, with its gaudy ensigns of blue and gold ; and after that most of the States of the Union crowded up and hustled around, and became inextric ably commingled. The great red-and-gold sign, " For Dele gates Only," over the delegates entrance was not sufficient to prevent alternates and the friends of delegates crowding up and trying to gain admission by that entrance. The door keepers and policemen on duty howled themselves hoarse, pointed frantically to the other entrances, and protested in warm, emphatic language against the stupidity of people who rushed in without reading or understanding the plain notices over the doors^ while the ticketless crowd outside enjoyed the confusion and the bad language with a large, approving grin. The delegates from the East attracted the largest share of attention in fact, the Philadelphia section received more public notice than all the other delegates put together. These were all dressed in what might be fairly termed a Philadelphia uniform. About thirty of these delegates and their friends were dressed exactly alike, suggesting the idea that the outfits 218 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. had been purchased on the contract system. The dress was all of the same material a fine steel-gray cloth of light shade ; the coats were all of the cut known as open-sack ; vests to button up pretty close, and without collar ; trousers tight and fashionable ; jieckties of brilliant blue silk, tied in a plain bow, and the whole uniform crowned with a cream-colored plug hat set slightly askew. Thus were the Philadelphians adorned. And all the small details of the thirty outfits were carefully arranged, leaving on the beholder a general impression of beauty and harmony. Every man wore a bouquet and every bouquet consisted mainly of a red rosebud, a pansy and a lily of the valley. The smaller men wore the larger nosegays. Nearly every man had a cream-silk handkerchief, about two inches of which were allowed to extend from his coat-pocket. These handkerchiefs were evidently for ornament only, those for use being of plain whity-colored cotton and carried in the hip-pocket. All the delegates of the party wore great badges of blue and gold, with a double overflap and a deep gold fringe. There were about six men in the party, dressed ex actly like the others, but without the badges, each of whom was from six and a half to seven feet high and would weigh from 270 to 400 pounds. These giants stood in a knot ouN side the madding crowd and cracked bootblack jokes. " Did you say President Arthur s mother used to wash for your folk ? " says Giant No. I to Giant No. 2. And Giant No. 2 replies : " Oh, say ! don t give it away like that." Then Giants Nos. 3, 4, 5 and 6 join Giants I and 2 in a guffaw. And the listening street Arab ejaculates : " Oh, bosh ! " and turns away in disgust, as do many of the curious crowd encircling the Jumbo dudes. Every few minutes the men in gray adjourned to the nearest saloon, and it was not until about 12.45 tnat the dazzling Philadelphia legion and its big side-show vanished into the convention-hall. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Within the scene was as inspiring as without. The elliptical area of the hall in which the delegates assembled, the lofty walls and the rising of the tiers of seats resemble somewhat the ancient Coliseum in the days of its glory ; but in another respect it was like the Flavian reservoir on which the great amphitheatre was built. It was a reservoir into which there began to trickle through little leaks, as it were, from the great human flood that surged outside. The leaks grew into rivulets, and these into streams and torrents as the swollen waters of a river first push rills through the levees, and then, growing in dimensions, carry all before them. And then the reservoir became a coliseum. The human tides flowed in till all the spaces were black with people. These people covered the level floor; they surged up and occupied the elevated seats : they swarmed far up into the high galleries, and even thronged what seemed like little dove cotes above the eaves beneath the roof. By-and-by the surge of the tides ceased, and there was peace. The scene was one of striking interest. The body of the spacious auditorium was occupied by the seventeen hundred delegates and alternates, massed in solid form, with a partition to shut the more choicely elect from the ready substitutes, present ing an imposing tribunal of arbitration. Beyond this portion the admirably arranged provisions of the hall gave a gradual as cent of graded seats to counterbalance the platform of dignity at the other end, reaching up to a line with the galleries that reached north and south on either side. In every division of this ample space the crowd was equal to the accommodations, so that a bird s-eye view gave the effect of a perfect basin of humanity, an animated picture to inspire enthusiasm and whet the edge of keen expectancy. Numbers lift the common soul into importance and nerve the ordinary heart. Enthusiasm 22O SELECTING A PRESIDENT. is breathed like a spell into every sense, and when the touch of opportunity is felt the ready sympathy leaps out to swell the applause that makes occasion great. To further charm this quick responsive sense the signs and emblems of enlisted States waved or gleamed wherever eyes were turned, in happy harmony with the broader banners of the general Union. At the opening hour the bannerets of States hung their gold and silken beauty down like tribal flags to mark the factors of the body. From them the scene gained picturesque addition, but as the forest yields its graceful foliage to clear the way of action, so these gaudy trappings of vain pomp were torn away from their supporting staves to give to clearer view the more important delegates. It needs no chance-caught ornaments to lend impressive character to such a scene. The eye can spare the flaming colors and devices of fixed decoration at such a time as this, where every interest is centred upon the living incidents that seem to shape the destiny of nations while they are in action. The spectators are more concerned with singling out the men of note who sit so modestly among their less distinguished associates, and the mind is busier with the sentiments of potent speech than the mute though heroic mottoes that mark the badge of States. Perhaps of all the means employed to give a pictured purpose to the hall nothing attracted more attention than the flag-draped crayon of General Garfield that hung before the chairman s stand beneath the widespread golden eagle. This seemed a memory. A thousand eyes beheld it, and few who looked were quite without a thought of the June day a little span ago when a convention beneath the same roof lifted that man upon its shoulders and gave his name to fame. And perhaps some, too, remembered that his associate at that time stood now the foremost one to combat the influences that, through a broken chance of wild SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 221 surrender, gave Garfield eminence. The conditions are, indeed, but little changed, though the Spartan quality and the Spartan purpose that made that epoch grand can never be revived again. There are broader interests now involved, a less em phatic combination of opposing forces to defeat the popular will, but the personal interest is as great, and the general aim as high. It is again the sentiment of the people against or ganized ambition, and in the outer circle where interest takes shape there is an eagerness no less intense to mark the ebb and flow of action than when this vaulted roof flung back the tumult of a half hour s robust cheering. At precisely twenty-five minutes and a half past twelve, noonday, Senator Dwight M. Sabin, of Minnesota, Chairman of the National Republican Committee, rapped with his gavel on the desk over which James A. Garfield was nominated four years ago. His first words were : " The delegates in the aisle will please be seated." When comparative quiet was gained he addressed the audience as follows : " GENTLEMEN OF THE EIGHTH REPUBLICAN NATIONAL CONVENTION : The hour having arrived appointed for the meeting of this Convention, it will now be opened by prayer by the Rev. Mr. Bristol." The reverend gentleman prayed in the following words : " Let us pray : God of our fathers, we adore and worship Thee, and to Thee, by whose grace and providence we are what we are as a Nation, we would lift our hearts in devout thanksgiving and everlasting praise. We thank thee for our glorious National heritage, for this magnificent land of wealthy hills and fertile plains, for the laws and institutions which make it a land of progress and of liberty. We thank Thee for our Christian sires, lovers of freedom and of God, men of con science and integrity, whose names have jeweled history, and the memories of who^e deeds is an inspiration to heroism and patriotic pride. We thank Thee for Plymouth Rock, for Appomittox foot-teps that mark the progress of right eousness and the higher law. We thank Thee for the Declaration of Independ ence, the Constitution of the United States, the Emancipation Proclamation our blood-bought charters of freedom. We thank Thee for the Republican party for its splendid history and its still more splendid possibilities; and now, as this great convention enters upon a work which will involve the most precious inter- 222 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. ests of fifty millions of people, and in a large sense the destiny of free institutions, we devotedly and most earnestly supplicate the blessing of Almighty God. Bless the members of this body, the homes, the States, the party, and the Nation which they represent. May the ambition of patriotism, the wisdom of statesmanship, and the righteousness of Christian conscientiousness possess their numbers and con trol their action. And may the results of this convention be in harmony with the will of God concerning us, and be received with joy by the people of this whole land. And grant, Almighty God, that the coming political campaign may be conducted with that decency, intelligence, patriotism, and dignity of temper which become a free and intelligent people. Continue Thy mercies to us. Bless our country with power, prosperity, and universal enlightenment. May we never deny the faith of our fathers. May we never cease to be a temperate, a free, an industrious, a Sabbath-keeping, and God-fearing, and a Christian people, blessed with the righteousness that exalteth the Nation. And to Thee Father, Son, and Holy Spirit will we ascribe praise and offer worship forever. Amen." Senator Sabin The Secretary of the National Committee will now read the call for the Convention. Secretary Martin read as follows : WASHINGTON, D. C, Dec. 12, 1883. A National Republican Convention will meet at Chicago, 111., Tuesday, June 3, 1884, at 12 o clock noon, for the nomination of candidates to be supported for President and Vice-President at the next election. The Republican electors of the several States, and all other voters, without re gard to past political differences, who are in favor of elevating and dignifying American labor, protecting and extending home industries, giving free popular education to the masses of the people, securing free suffrage and an honest count ing of ballots, effectually protecting all human rights in every section of our com mon country, and who desire to promote friendly feeling and permanent har mony throughout the land by maintaining a National Government pledged to these objects and principles, are cordially invited to send from each State four delegates-at-large, from each Congressional District two delegates, and for each Representative-at-Lnrge two delegates to the Convention. The delegates-at-large shall be chosen by popular delegate State Conventions, called on not less than twenty days published notice, and held not less than thirty days nor more than sixty days before the time fixed for the meeting of the Na tional Convention. The Republicans of the various Congressional Districts shall have the option of electing their delegates at separate popular delegate conventioi S, called on similar notice, and held in the Congressional Districts at any time within the fif teen days next prior to the meeting of the State Conventions, or by sub-divisions of the State Conventions into District Conventions; and such delegates shall he chosen in the latter method if not elected previous to the meeting of the State Conventions. All district delegates shall be accredited by the officers of such District Conventions. Two delegates shall be allowed from each Territory and from the District of Columbia, similarly chosen. Notices of contests shall be given to the National Committee, accompanied by SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 223 full printed statements of the grounds of contest, which shall also be made pub lic ; and preference in the order of hearing and determining contests shall be given, by the Convention, according to the dates of the reception of such notices and statements by the National Committee. It is signed by all the members of the committee from the several States and Territories. Senator Sabin Gentlemen of the Convention : On behalf of the National Republican Committee permit me to welcome you to Chicago. As Chairman of that committee, it is both my duty and pleasure to call you to order as a National Re publican Convention. This city, already known as the City of Conventions, is amongst the most cherished of all the spots of our country, sacred to the memories of a Republican. It is the birthplace of Republican victory. On these fields of labor gathered the early fathers of our political faith and planned the great battle for the preservation of the Union. [Applause.] Here they chose that immortal chief that led us on to victory Abraham Lincoln. [Cheers.] Here were gathered in council those gifted men who secured the fruits of that long struggle by elevating to the first place in the Nation the foremost chieftain of that great contest General Grant. [Cheers.] Here was afterwards witnessed that signal triumph which anticipated the wish of the Nation by nominat ing as color-bearer of the party that honored soldier, that shining citizen, that representative American, James A. Gar- field. [Long continued cheers.] Every deliberation of Re publican forces on this historic ground has been followed by signal success. [Applause.] And every contest planned on this spot has carried forward our line of battle until to-day our banners overlook every position of the enemy. Indeed, so secure now is the integrity of the Union, so firmly embodied in the Constitution and laws of the land are the safeguards of individual liberty, so fairly and fully achieved is the past, that by general consent the time has now arrived for new dispositions of the party forces in contemplation of new lines of operation. Having compassed the defeat of our opponents on all former occasions, the party is about to set its house in order 224 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. and take counsel as to the direction and management of its future course. In the comparative lull of party strife which distinguishes the present condition of National politics, there is observable an increasing disposition to look after the men who are to execute and the methods that are to guide them in the execution of the powers committed to them for the management of the affairs of the Republic. As the result of a rule adopted in the last National Con vention this Convention finds itself constituted by a large majority of gentlemen who have been clothed with delegated powers by conventions in their several Congressional districts. On this consideration may be grounded a hope that the voice of the people [applause] will, beyond recent precedent, be felt in moulding the work you are summoned to perform, so that its results may be such as to win the unhesitating and un- deviating support of every lover of those principles by which the party has heretofore triumphed and yet will triumph. [Applause.] When we consider the memories of the past, so intimately connected with this city, and even with this edifice, which the people of Chicago have so generously placed at your disposal, when we reflect upon the deep-seated concern among all people in the result of your deliberations, and the various in centives to the abandonment of personal ambitions in the interest of the party welfare, you cannot wonder that the committee, and beyond it the great Republican masses, extend you a most hearty welcome to this scene of labor, in the con fident hope that your efforts will result in such an exposition of Republican doctrine and disclose such a just appreciation of Republican men in the choice of your nominees as to re joice the hearts of your constituents and keep victory on the side of our ever-victorious banners. [Applause.] THE TEMPORARY CHAIRMANSHIP. The first contest of the Convention came promptly upon the assembling of the delegates. Senator Sabin concluded his address thus : SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 22/ In conclusion, gentlemen, and at the request of the National Republican Committee, I have to propose to you as Temporary Chairman of this Convention the Hon. Powell Clayton, of Arkansas. Immediately Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts, a thin, youthful fellow, arose and said: Mr. Chairman, in accordance with the vote of the majority of the committee, and in accordance with the suggestion of the gentlemen who have presented the name of a gentleman as Temporary Chairman, it is the right of this Convention to adopt that suggestion or to revise it if they feel it to be their duty to do so. With no view of introducing any personal contest, with no view to attempting to make any test vote as to the strength of candidates, but simply with a view to making a nomination for Temporary Chairman which shall have the best possible effect in strengthening the party throughout the country, there are many members of this Con vention, I believe, who feel that a nomination which would trengthen the party more could be made than that which has been presented by the National Committee. I therefore have the honor to propose, as it is certainly most desirable that we should recognize as you have done, Mr. Chairman, the Repub- cans of the South [applause] I therefore desire to present the name of a gentleman well known throughout the South for his conspicuous parliamentary ability, for his courage, and lis character. I move you, Mr. Chairman, to substitute the lame of the Hon. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi. [Loud ipplause.] The motion was promptly seconded. Mr. Lodge, of Massachusetts I ask that in taking the vote :he roll may be called on that question. The Chairman Gentlemen of the Convention, you hear the notion for a substitution of the name of John R. Lynch, of Mississippi, and on that motion a call of the roll is demanded. 228 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. Butcher, of New York I desire to heartily second the nomination of John R. Lynch, of Mississippi. [Applause.] And move that the roll be called, and that the delegates ex press their choice for either of the men presented. The Chairman The roll will be called by the Secretary. As their names are called by States the gentlemen will rise in their seats announcing the gentleman whom they desire to vote for as Temporary Chairman of this Convention. Mr. Morrow, of California Before you proceed to call the roll of States I desire to suggest that it appears to me that it is proper that we should proceed with deliberation in these preliminary proceedings in the formation of this Convention. I believe it to be a fact that for over forty years it has been the practice for the National Committee to name to the National Convention the name of some gentleman who could act as Temporary Chairman. [Applause.] That practice has grown to be the common law of political parties in this country. [Applause.] Besides, I desire to say, Mr. Chairman, that it seems to me inappropriate on this great occasion, when we are proposing to start with unanimity and with courage and lay the foundation of a campaign that shall lead to victory, for us to commence here on this floor with the suggestion of the possibility that there should be any division with respect to so simple a question. The National Committee, represent ing the great Republican party of this country, in its wisdom has elected the gentleman from Arkansas to act as Temporary Chairman of this Convention. I have faith in the integrity of this Convention. I have faith in the integrity and wisdom of that National Committee in their choice. [Applause.] And I do not think that this Convention is prepared to reverse the precedent of over forty years for the purpose of forming a contest in this preliminary matter. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. Chairman, allow me to suggest that we should take counsel from the wisdom of those heroes of the party who heretofore in these conventions have suggested and under their guiding wisdom have formed these conventions in their preliminary matters with entire harmony and with entire success. We come here from all parts of this country with our sepa rate views and advocating certain principles, and we come to this altar and lay them down, and say that whatever may be the judgment of this Convention upon the great principles of the country, let them be determined and we will go home and we will carry your judgment to our respective sections of the country, and we will carry them forward to victory and to success. [Applause.] Now, let us sustain the National Committee in this thing [cheers], which I tell you, gentlemen, is for the success and harmony of the Republican party of this country. [Loud applause.] There were calls for " Curtis, of New York," who rose amid loud and continuous applause and said : Mr. Chairman, this is the supreme council of the Repub lican party. Here at this moment, sir, American citizens pro fessing the Republican faith are met to open the great Repub lican campaign of 1884, which, sir, by the grace of God, and by the true heart of the Republican party, shall be like those other campaigns to which you have so well and fitly alluded. Now, sir, what is done in the question now raised before this Convention is to be the first act done by the Republican party in that great campaign, and by that act, believe me, the peo ple of this country will judge the purpose and the spirit of the Republican party. [Cheers.] Unquestionably it has been the usual practice, as the gentle- .man from California has said, that the nomination of the Tem- 14 23O SELECTING A PRESIDENT. porary Chairman made by the National Committee should be ratified by the Convention itself. But the spirit of the nom ination made to this Convention is in a spirit of recognition of Southern Republicans [applause and cheers], and when, sir, this convention, without in the slightest degree impugning the purpose or the authority of that committee within its power, proceeds to exercise its own unquestionable right to be judged in the first act of the campaign by its own unquestionable and responsible action, then, sir, this Convention may rightfully and with perfect respect reconsider the nomination which has been submitted. [Cheers.] In the person of Mr. Lynch we offer you a representative of those people who in great part and at unspeakable cost constitute the Republican party of the South [applause and cheers] in himself a man who justifies the friendship and the devotion of the Republican party and the citizens that he rep resents ; in himself, sir, a candidate such as this Convention will naturally seek without any imputation upon any gentle man who maybe submitted; in himself a candidate of whom every Republican may be justly proud, and for whom in voting, as I believe, sir, every Republican in this hall in the depths of his own consciousness at this moment knows and responds to the expectation, and the demand, and the hope of the great Republican masses of the country, whose eyes are at this moment fixed upon this hall and who are watching to hear that the first act of the Republican Convention of 1884 shall be an act which every one of us will glory to defend upon the stump, and to which the Republican heart-of the country will respond with a shout of victory. [Applause and cheers.] Judge Drummond, of Maine I desire to take up a momei of the time of this Convention, and yet I desire to say that n< one in Massachusetts or New York has a higher regard fc SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 23! the Republicans of the South represented by the gentleman placed in nomination by my friend from Massachusetts than I have myself and my fellow-delegates from the State of Maine. Applause.] But, sir, it strikes me that the recognition of this orinciple ought not to be brought forward at this Convention t this time for the first time. At this time for the first mo- Tient is this matter brought forward. If we can trust the re- orts of the public press in relation to the proceedings of the National Committee, the name of the distinguished gentleman rom Mississippi was not presented to that committee. Applause.] But it is presented now for the first time ; and say, sir, that we who support the nominee of the National Committee must not ever be charged with the slightest disre- pect or the slightest want of appreciation of the Republicans >f the South or the particular class which is represented by he gentleman who has been placed in nomination. But, sir, have but one further suggestion. I understood the Chair to ay that the roll of delegates each individual delegate was o be called, and I propose to move that instead of that the oil of States be called, that each State may announce its ote. [Cries of "No!"] Am I right in my understanding f this ? If so, I move that when the vote is taken it may be aken by call of the roll of States. The Chairman In the absence of any parliamentary rules governing this body the rules of the House of Representatives vill be followed as closely as possible. It is evident to the 3hair that at least one-fifth of this body desire the call of the oil, and we will proceed to that call ; if so demanded the roll >f delegates will be called at the proper time. A delegate I move that the roll of delegates be called. The Chairman The Chair would rule that the motion is ut of order. 232 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. Stewart, of Pennsylvania I make no dissension, M Chairman, from the position taken by the distinguished gentl man from New York (Mr. Curtis), that this, the supren council of the Republican party, has it within its power make this the action of this body ; but I rise to question tl expediency of any such desire. Nothing short of somethir which would offend the dignity and which would compromi the honor of the Republican party will justify this Conventi( in putting that stigma upon their National executive bod [Great applause.] The proposition of the gentleman fro Massachusetts involves the violation of an established prec dent of this party. [Applause.] Upon what ground is demanded? That one is more worthy than the other? N at all. I know nothing of the private record of either of the distinguished gentlemen. I do know something of th< official record and that which is public and written in the lig of day. I do know that he who has been nominated by tl Executive Committee of this party has rendered to his count distinguished services upon the field of battle. [Great a plause.] No man assails his worth. Why then deny reject the action of your committee ? This Convention w not listen to the noise of acclamation or personal animositi< This Convention arises to an appreciation of the high respon: bility resting upon it, and will ratify the action of its coi mittee and voice the sentiment of the Republican party of t! United States. [Applause.] Mr. Horr, of Michigan Mr. Chairman: I rise for the pi pose of seconding the motion of the gentleman from Main if he made such a motion and I understood that he did- that we proceed to settle this question by call of the State Let me explain why. It takes over two hours to call ar receive the votes of 820 men called in their consecutive ordt SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 233 Cries of " Roll-call ! "] If you call the votes by States each tate is at work making its vote all at the same time, and we an do in thirty minutes what we cannot do in the other form i an hour and a half; and it certainly can make no difference i the result, because, the question being before this Conven- on, each man is going to vote his privilege, his convictions, r hether he votes when his name is called by the Secretary or y the Chairman of the State. Now, in the matter of economy f time, I move, sir, that the roll be called by States, per- litting each State to collect its vote and announce it to the hair. Gen. Ben M. Prentiss, of Missouri Mr. Chairman : I rise >r a particular purpose. I know not the object of this motion ignore the action of the National Committee. I understand lat they have recommended to this Convention an old com- ide of mine, Gen. Powell Clayton, of Arkansas. I wish to I entertain the idea that a refusal to indorse the recom- lendation of our National Committee goes forth to the American Republic as a stigma upon a man, and I am not ailing to remain silent while I know his conduct. I know im as a citizen ; I know him as a soldier; I have known him s a friend of the men a representative of whom has been ominated for the position of Temporary Chairman. I rise i this Convention to say, gentlemen, be careful how you tigmatize a man placed before you by the National Committee, owell Clayton carries the mark of his loyalty to the flag to ay. [Applause.] He is a Southern Republican, and you ecognize the Southern Republicans by electing him your temporary Chairman. Go slow, gentlemen ; but if you seek y your efforts to displace him from that platform, you seek o do that which ought not to be done, and you will not suc- eed in placing there a more fitting servant than Powell Clay- on, of Arkansas. [Applause.] 234 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. Roosevelt, of New York Mr. Chairman : I trust tha the motion made by the gentleman from Minnesota will b defeated, and that we will select as Chairman of this Conven tion that representative Republican, Mr. Lynch, of Mississipp Mr, Chairman, it has been said by the distinguished gentlema: from Pennsylvania that it is without precedent to reverse th action of the National Committee. Who has not knowi numerous instances where the action of a State Committe has been reversed by the State Conventions ? Not one of u but has known such instances. Now there are, as I understan< it, but two delegates to this Convention who have seats on th National Committee, and I hold it to be derogatory to on honor, to our capacity for self government, to say that w< must accept the nomination of another body and that ou hands are tied and we dare not reverse its action. [Applause. Now, one word more. I trust that the vote will be takei by individual members and not by States. Let each mai stand accountable to those whom he represents for his vote [Applause.] Let no man be able to shelter himself behin< the shield of his State. [Applause.] What we say is tha one of the cardinal doctrines of the American political gov crnment is the accountability of each man to his people; am let each man stand up here and cast his vote and then g< home and abide by what he has done. It is now, Mr. Chair man, less than a quarter of a century since in this city th< great Republican party for the first time organized for victory and nominated Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, who broke th< fetters of the slave and rent them asunder forever. [Applause. It is a fitting thing for us to choose to preside over this Convention one of that race whose right to sit within these walls is due to the blood and the treasure so lavishly speni by the founders of the Republican party. [Applause.] SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 235 I trust that the Hon. Mr. Lynch will be elected Temporary Chairman of this Convention. [Applause.] Gen. Clark E. Carr, of Illinois Mr. Chairman : It seems to some gentlemen sitting in the neighborhood where I am that the question to be considered at this time is whether or not the action of the National Committee has been wise, prudent, and for the best interests of the Republican party whether or no the National Committee have selected a fit, proper, wise man to be the Temporary Chairman of this Convention. If this National Committee has failed in this it is proper that its action should be overruled and that another be put in his place. If the National Committee has succeeded in this it is proper that the action of the National Committee should be sustained by this Convention. [Applause.] The question as it comes to us some of us sitting here is whether Gen. Powell Clayton is or is not a fit man to preside here. Some of us have known him for many years. We have known his devotion to the principles for which we have fought. Some of us have known how much he himself has done in fighting the battles of the free men in this country. [Applause.] Some of us are unwilling that a stigma should be placed upon his great and grand name. [Applause and jeers from the gal lery.] We know that there are 500 other men in this Conven tion who would be fit and proper presiding officers ; but, hav ing been selected by this committee, we are unwilling that we should place a stigma upon Powell Clayton at this time by voting against the action of the National Committee. [Ap plause.] There are some gentlemen here from Illinois who do not feel that it would be proper and right for them to go be fore the world with a candidate from a convention whose action, the first of all, had been to put down a man who carries an empty sleeve. [Applause and cheers.] 236 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. Taft, of South Carolina Mr. Chairman : Had not gentlemen who have spoken in behalf of the action of the National Committee put it upon two grounds I would not rise in my seat and say one word. The first tiling that is said to us is that the National Committee have done this out of re spect to the Southern Republicans. And again they say that we should confirm the action because it is the action of the National Committee. In the first place, Mr. Chairman, if the action of the National Committee be not in accord with the wishes of the majority of this Convention it is not only our right but our duty to ourselves that we reverse the action here and now. [Applause.] And again it has been said, Mr. Chairman, and I regret that it has been injected into this de bate, that we are casting a stigma upon Powell Clayton, of Arkansas, because he is an old soldier. I, too, am an old sol dier of the Union army. [Applause.] And we have got more of them in the Southern delegations; and when you come to poll the vote you will find that the old soldiers of the Union army who have been in the South in the hard and rough days of reconstruction, in the rough days when we were trying to get a free ballot and a fair count, you will find their votes cast for the Hon. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi. [Applause.] Why do they do it? We do it because the majority, and the vast majority, of Southern delegates upon this floor believe that he now truly represents the spirit of the Republican party that spirit that knows no breaking, the spirit that dare go to the polls, shot-gun or what not, and vote for the Republican party. [Applause.] The question has been before this country for a long time, and when National Conventions meet they put a plank in their platform for a free ballot and a fair count. Only those who live in the South know what that means. "A free ballot and a fair count" SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 237 means a great many things to us. It means our homes, our safety, our lives ; and John R. Lynch, of Mississippi, repre sents that, and we as Southern delegates will stand by him and support him for that reason. [Applause.] Mr. Chairman, I don t think it will be throwing any slur upon the National Committee. That committee is not entirely composed of delegates upon this floor, and if it were they could more fully voice the sentiment of this Convention, in my opinion, than they have done. The committee have put it upon the ground that they want to recognize Southern Repub licans. We as Southern Republicans say to this National Convention if it wishes to truly honor and give us some recognition, vote for the Hon. John R. Lynch, of Mississippi. [Applause.] Mr. Winston, of North Carolina Mr. Chairman, if I under stand the action of this committee it has no more force than a mere recommendation to this body. As such, and appre ciating that recommendation, as a Southern Republican I have a right to say, with all courtesy to the committee, I prefer somebody else. I take it that with the best of feeling this Convention has the same right to decide who shall preside over its deliberations. Now, Mr. Chairman, this is not the time to engender a bad spirit here ; but, sir, the plea has been made that Mr. Clayton is a soldier. I honor him that he has fought under the flag of liberty ; but, sir, I remember that there are three millions of Southern black Republicans, inhabitants of this country, who have no voice here except what we are about to give them this day. And, sir, the men of Copiah and Dan ville and many other places appeal to this Convention, and will not appeal in vain. Mr. Chairman, this is a simple matter. There is a great to- do kicked up here to-day. Why haven t we the right to de- 238 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. cide whom we want for Chairman ? I say, gentlemen, I pro pose to cast my vote for the distinguished gentleman from the great Southern State of Mississippi. [Applause.] Mr. Green, of Maryland Mr. Chairman The Chairman The gentleman will suspend for one mo ment. The Chair desires to state that on this matter being presented to him a short time since he felt called upon to call to his assistance some of the very best parliamentary talent in the country, and I present the ruling, which I will now read you, by the Chairman of the last National Republican Con vention, that able parliamentarian, that distinguished jurist, Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts. In this ruling he took the position which we feel called upon to assume and maintain at this time. It reads as follows : " The Chair supposes that in the absence of any rule the method of taking the question rests in the sound discretion of the Chair, subject, of course, to the order of the Convention," etc. The Chair would state that this is emphatically a convention of the people, and that every citizen representing a seat on this floor has the undoubted right to a free expression of his opinions and a right to have that expression so recorded. [Applause.] The Chair will therefore, after a reasonable de bate and in this respect will not assume to follow any arbi trary rule, but to give the utmost liberality and latitude to debate call for the roll by individuals by delegates. The gentleman from Maryland has the floor. Mr. Green, of Maryland Now that this Convention, after a long public discussion and public expectation, has reached this culminating hour of its purpose ; now that there comes a lull, a throbbing of bating breath in the further conduct and purpose of our proceedings ; standing as we do in the pres ence of the whole land, the congregated millions of citizens SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 239 of this Republic have halted to catch with bated breath the further progress and purpose of our proceedings; it is eminently proper that we should proceed deliberately and in order ; and I submit, sir, that we should take abundant time upon a question like this to give it full and free discussion. Speaking for myself, for a Republican district in a border State, on the southern side of that line once so fiercely con tended for ; speaking for Southern Republicans and in behalf of a constituency made up of native and foreigner, Northerner and Southerner, Confederate and Federal, white men and black men, I say in their behalf that the voice of my district will approve me in sustaining John R. Lynch as a proper can didate for Chairman of this Convention. [Applause.] Mr. Chairman, in saying this I abate not one jot or tittle of my regard for the men who carried that flag for four years through the fierce conflict of battle. There is no memory or association that will ever be dearer to me than the memory that I touched elbows and shouldered muskets with those of vanished columns whose potent influence upon the age and the Nation shall never break rank. I remember our Generals and our privates. I have respect and love for those men that led and commanded and won their fame and their name ; but nearer and dearer to me is my memory of the dusty, and weary, and wounded columns that were commanded, and obeyed. Now those scattered over Southern soil, shoulder to shoulder with the colored men and Southern Republicans, will indorse the man who is a representative of that people that make up the great bulk of the party, the bone and sinew of the Republican party in the Southern States. It has been said Gen. Clayton has an empty sleeve. I carry, too, an empty sleeve, and in that there is a chord of sym pathy between us [applause], but I carry also a heart in sym- 24O SELECTING A PRESIDENT. pathy with the Republican party, and I believe it to be to their best interest that John R. Lynch should be selected as our Temporary Chairman here to-day. Mr. Thurston, of Nebraska Mr. Chairman, I appreciate the fact that this discussion has already wearied the patience of this Convention, and yet I believe that we can better afford to stay here for a day or a year raUier than an injustice shall be done to any man by this Convention. If this Convention is to overturn the action of its National Committee, let it not be done under a pretext which masks the real design. If it be true that the spontaneous expression of this Convention is in favor of recognizing the colored element of the South, if that be the honest purpose of these gentlemen as they have hon estly said to us, then let the committee appointed by this Con vention upon permanent organization voice it in the election of Mr. Lynch, of Mississippi. But, sir, in recognizing that col ored element, let us also do justice to that element which made it possible for a colored man to sit on the floor of this Con vention. If it be true that there are any just, wise, potent, overwhelming reasons why the action of the Republican Com mittee should be disregarded and sat down upon by this Con vention, let the voice be heard where every man has a right to be heard, before his people and his God. But on behalf of the Western country where from almost every quarter-section men have proved their loyalty to the party by carrying a musket and following the flag, we say we are for Gen. Clayton, the choice of the National Committee. Mr. Benjamin, of Arkansas Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention : It seems to me that this is a very strange proceeding. It is an unusual one. It has never been attempted before, and now why is it ? They say they want to recognize the Southern Republicans ; that they want to do SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 24! something for the Southern Republican. Now, there is one thing I wish to call the attention of this Convention to in re gard to this candidate who is reported by the committee. The Hon. Powell Clayton in 1868 was Governor of the State of Arkansas. It is a well-known fact in history that all over the Southern States there was organized what was known as a Ku-Klux-Klan. There have been killed more Southern Re publicans killed and wounded by this Klan and others than were killed during the Mexican War than were killed during the War of 1812. Now, what did Powell Clayton as Gov ernor do ? He called out the militia of the State of Arkansas, and he overcame them so that that was the end of it in that State, and ever since that time have you heard anything of any troubles from the Ku-Klux in Arkansas? No. You find it in every other State, and had they called out militia in other States at the start, thousands of colored men who have been murdered by these men would be able to be here, and be in this Convention, instead of being in the grave. I say he has done more to elevate the Southern cause of Republican ism in the South in this one act alone than anything else that was ever done by any Southern Republican. I do not have one word to say against Mr. Lynch. If he had been brought in here by this committee I would have sup ported him. If he should be brought in by the Committee on Permanent Organization for Permanent Chairman no man would support him more cheerfully than I would. Mr. Sheets, of Alabama Mr. Chairman : I suppose, sir, that every man s mind is made up on this question. We know that Mr. Clayton was Governor of Arkansas ; we know that Mr. Lynch was a member of Congress from Mississippi. We know, sir, that they are both nominees for Temporary Chairman of this Convention, and I think every delegate here SELECTING A PRESIDENT. is satisfied and is prepared to vote, and, sir, in order to cut this matter short, I now call the previous question. The Chairman The previous question is not to be called at this time, but will order the roll called by the Secretary. As the names are called, the gentlemen will rise and announce their preferences. A delegate \Yhat is the question ? The Chairman As the names are called of the various delegates the delegate will rise in his seat and announce his preference for either Mr. Lynch or Gen. Clayton. The Secretary then began to call the roll Mr. Foraker, of Ohio We have no rule now governing this Convention that prevents the interruption of the call of the roll. Therefore I rise to inquire of the Chair by what authority have you dispensed with the motion which has been pending, and which has been under discussion, to the effect that the call of the States should be had instead of calling the members ? I understood the ruling. [Calls of order.] The Chair ruled this, as I understand [Calls of order.] Ji moment The Chair made this ruling and read it [calls of order] that in the absence of organization the Chair should exercise a sound discretion, subject only to the control of the Convention. Now the Convention has asked to be heard to say whether or not the discretion which the Chair intimated it would exercise should control the Convention. We think we have a right to vote upon that. [" Order, order."] The Chairman The Chair will announce, once for all, that he will recognize no gentleman in this Convention during the roll-call. [Applause.] The roll was then called by the Secretary, the result being Lynch, 431 ; Clayton, 387, as follows: SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 243 THE SUMMARY. Clay- States. Lynch. ton. Alabama 19 I Arkansas I 13 California I 15 Colorado 6 Connecticut 6 6 I )eiaware I 5 Florida 7 I Georgia 24 Illinois 16 28 Indiana 10 20 Iowa 3 23 Kansas 4 14 Kentucky 20 6 Louisiana 13 3 Maine . 12 Maryland 6 10 Massachusetts 24 4 Michigan 12 14 Minnesota 6 8 Mississippi 16 2 Missouri 15 17 Nebraska 2 8 Nevada 6 New Hampshire 8 New Jersey 8 IO New York 45 27 Clay- States. Lynch. ton. North Carolina 18 4 Ohio 23 23 Oregon 6 Pennsylvania 15 44 Rhode Island 8 South Carolina 18 Tennessee 21 3 Texas 12 13 Vermont 8 Virginia 20 4 West Virginia 12 Wisconsin 12 10 Territories. Arizona 2 Dakota 2 Dist. of Columbia I I Idaho 2 Montana I I New Mexico 2 Utah 2 Washington . .. I I Wyoming 2 Total 431 387 Majority 44 Mr. Lynch in assuming the chair spoke as follows : GENTLEMEN OF THE CONVENTION : I feel that I ought not to say that I thank you for the distinguished honor which you have conferred upon me, for I do not. Nevertheless, from a standpoint that no patriot should fail to respond to his country s call, and fhat no loyal member of his party should fail to comply with the demands of his party, I yield with reluctance to your decision, and assume the duties of the position to which you have assigned me. [Applause.] Every member of this Convention who approached me upon this subject within the last few hours knows that this position was neither expected nor desired by me. If, therefore, there is any such thing as a man having honors thrust upon him, you have an exemplification of it in this instance. [Applause.] 244 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. I wish to say, gentlemen, that I came to this Convention not so much for the purpose of securing the defeat of any man, or the success of any man, but for the purpose of con tributing to the extent of my vote and my influence to make Republican success in November next an assured fact. [Ap plause.] I hope and believe that the assembled wisdom of the Republican party of this Nation, through its chosen rep resentatives in this hall, will so shape our policy and will present such candidates before the American people as will make that victory beyond the shadow of a doubt. [Applause.] I wish to say, so far as the different candidates for the Presidential nomination are concerned, that I do not wish any gentleman to feel that my election by your votes is indicative of anything relative to the preference of one candidate over another. [Applause.] I am prepared, and I hope that every member of this Convention is prepared, to return to his home with an unmistakable determination to give the candidates of this Convention a loyal and hearty support, whoever they may be. [Applause.] Gentlemen of the Convention, I am satisfied in my own mind that when we go before the people of this country our action will be ratified, because the great heart of the American people will never consent for any political party to gain the ascendency in this Government whose chief reliance for that support is a fraudulent ballot and violence at the polls. [Applause.] I am satisfied that the people of this country are too loyal ever to allow a man to be inaugurated President of the United States whose title to the position may be brought forth in fraud and whose garments may be saturated with the innocent blood of hundreds of his countrymen. [Applause and cheers.] I am satisfied that the American people will ratify our action, because they will never consent to a revenue system in this Government otherwise than that which will not only raise the necessary revenue for its support, but will also be sufficient to protect every American citizen in this country. [Applause.] Gentlemen, not for myself, but perhaps in obedience to custom, I thank you for the honor you have conferred upon me. [Applause.] CHAPTER XII. THE SECOND DAY DETAILS AND INCIDENTS OF TUESDAY RESOLUTIONS AND BUNCOMBE MANOEUVRING FOR POSITION THE PERMANENT CHAIR MAN. WHILE waiting the hour of fate our eyes wander rest lessly over the building. Among the people who make up the audience, and who sit in waiting for exploits of mind and episodes of personal sensation, the present Conven tion suffers by comparison with the last. The major portion evidently lament the absence of those giant minds that gave majestic character and brilliant sway to the incidents of a convention as exceptional as it was impressive, and yearn for a repetition of exploits that touched the savage in the soul. Looking about they do not see the fountains of oratory and springs of eloquence that promise the flood of inspiration and the torrent of enthusiastic speech. The silver tongues of national repute are not among the members now, and from the few who wear the bays of reputation there have come no bright Promethean sparks to give assurance of impassioned life within. But there are men who view this convocation as a field from which to pluck the laurels of success, who stand within their golden tide of time and feel the impulse to endeavor serving them. In the slow grigd of unexciting work their mental forces are employed shaping ideas for energetic use, and at the fateful moment, when occasion calls, perhaps 15 ( 2 45) 246 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. it will be found that frosted locks and long maintained su premacy are not the only guardians of soul-awakening re sources. Besides the service of their cause those men have just ambition to do honor to themselves, and in the focus of the people s gaze give proof again that greatness is the golden fruit of chance. The character of the Convention grows in estimation as it becomes familiar; and in these two days, with only formal matters under view, it has been made apparent that there is a great deal of latent power, in mind and magnet ism, ready to leap into action, ready to exertkan influence to thrill, electrify, or startle. The spectators are not in peril of disappointment. There is bright intelligence enough for the keen retort and full ability to meet the issues of an hour when eloquence shall claim the mastery. The quick, spirited, though unimportant, proceedings of yesterday gave ample evidence of this. Nothing was more admirably conspicuous than the alertness ot the conventional leaders to detect and seize upon points that seemed, however vaguely, to indicate a hidden purpose of advantage, and from one of these passing trifles grew out a moment s excitement that aroused the assembly to eager watchfulness of what promised to be a crafty tilt of words. The Convention was called to order at 1 1.18 A. M. by Chair man Lynch, who, after rapping the vast audience into silence with his gavel, said : The Convention will be opened with prayer by the Rev. John H. Barrows, of this city. The Rev. Mr. Barrows, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Chicago, addressed the throne of grace as follows: Let us unite in prayer. Lord, Thou hast been our dwelling- place in all generations. We bless Thee, God of our Fathers, SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 247 that thou hast dealt so graciously with this American people ; that a nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the sublime truth that all men are created equal, has endured to this hour. We praise Thee that Thou hast delivered us from dismember ment and shameful overthrow. We magnify Thy name, O King of Kings, and Ruler of mankind, that institutions founded upon the precepts of the New Testament, and in which there is so much of the life-blood of Jesus Christ, have sur vived the shocks of war, and the wastings of time and corrup tion. And we thank Thee for the vast moral and political changes indicated by the President here, who now so watch fully presides over this Convention. We thank Thee, O God, for every service to the cause of human rights and good government and popular education rendered by the political organization whose representatives are assembled here at this time. We thank Thee for the names of Lincoln, Lovejoy, Sumner and Garfield ; names which have been given to the incomparable galaxy of human names which have been con nected with the triumph of humanity. And we pray that the men of to-day may be equally faithful to duty. That they may be equal to new occasions which may spring forth. May the leaven of unrighteousness be cast out utterly. God grant that among the people North and South, East and West, there may not only be a deepening sentiment of nationality, but also growing intelligence, a more vigorous conscience, and a strengthening purpose that ignorance and folly shall not be enacted into law. God bless the union of these impregnable States, and give them the strength of justice and peace, and we pray that wisdom and prudence may govern the delibera tions of this great Convention, overruling them for our national welfare, and may that favor which is life, and that loving kindness which is better than life abide with him who now presides over this body, and let Thy blessing rest on the com monwealth and the cause which he represents. And we pray Thee, O God, that when this Convention is dissolved, it may have presented to the suffrages of the nation for the highest office in the people s gift, a candidate who in personal char acter, in devotion to duty, in loyalty to American institutions, SELECTING A PRESIDENT. in courage, in experience and wisdom, shall worthily succeed to the chair of Washington, and thus help the nation to become not only more prosperous and peaceful, but also to be an in spiration and a blessing to the struggling peoples of mankind, and to Thy name shall be the praise. Amen. The Chairman Gentlemen of the Convention : The chair will request gentlemen when they are recognized by the chair to distinctly announce the name and State, so that there will be no mistake made by the reporters. Mr. Gary, of Maryland I desire to present to this Conven tion a memorial of the Maryland State Temperance Alliance, and I ask that it be referred to the Committee on Resolu tions. . The Chairman Very well; it will be read by the clerk. The secretary will read the memorial presented by the gentle man from Maryland. The secretary read the resolution as follows : "The undersigned, the President and Secretary of the Maryland State Temperance Alliance, as well as the Central Executive Committee thereof, do hereby certify that the following resolutions were passed by the Central Executive Committee of the Maryland State Temperance Alliance at a regular meeting held on the 6th day of May, 1884 Mr. Rosenthal, of Texas I move that the memorial be referred to the Committee on Resolutions without reading. The Chair The reading is not finished yet. The clerk continued the reading of the resolutions as fol lows : Resolved, i. By the Central Executive Committee of the Maryland State Temperance Alliance, acting under the advice and by the authority of the Maryland State Temperance Al- SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 249 liance, and which latter being the representative of the tem perance organizations, churches, schools and all moral and reform associations of the State, that we do hereby earnestly appeal to the Republican and Democratic Conventions that will nominate candidates for President of the United States in the present year, 1884, to adopt an article in their platform of principles distinctly recognizing the right and policy of the people to suppress or prohibit by law the liquor traffic, and to nominate candidates in accord with this declaration. Resolved, 2. That the President and Secretary of this Exe cutive Committee be directed to certify and forward the above resolution, together with a copy of the resolution recently adopted by the convention of the Maryland State Temperance Alliance in relation to the same subject, to each of these nominating conventions or the presiding officers thereof. And we do further certify that the following resolution was passed at the late annual meeting of the Maryland State Tem perance Alliance, in convention assembled on the i/th day of April, 1884, every county in this State being duly represented except one therein. Resolved, That the question of the suppression of the liquor traffic has become one of such vital political importance to the nation that to justify prohibitionists of both the Democratic and Republican parties, requiring of them, at their next nominating convention for President and Vice-President of the United States, to distinctly and positively recognize this ques tion in their respective platforms, and nominate candidates who are in accord therewith. And if both parties shall do so we will not make this question a political one in this Presiden tial campaign, or if either party shall distinctly so do, and the other refuse or decline, we will cast our suffrages to the party thus favoring this question in preference to the one refusing, regardless of our present party affiliations. But in case neither party shall recognize this question, we authorize the Executive Committee of this alliance at the proper time to place in the field an electoral prohibitory ticket for the State of Maryland, for the President and Vice-President, that shall have been nominated by the Prohibitory party of the United States if, in their judgment, they deem it best so to do. 2$O SELECTING A PRESIDENT. The Chair It will be referred to the Committee on Resolu tions. Mr. Massey, of Delaware I hold in hand a resolution which, on behalf and by direction of the unanimous senti ments of my delegation, I am instructed to present to this Convention. I ask permission to send it to the Secretary s table to be read, and then I desire to submit a motion for its adoption. The Chair The resolution will be read by the Secretary. The resolution was read by the Secretary as follows : WHEREAS, The propriety- of the adoption of such an amend ment to the Federal Constitution as will enlarge the term of office of the President of the United States to six years, and render the incumbent of that office ineligible to re-election, is a subject well worthy of the consideration of this Convention in order that the possibilities of the abuse or misuse of the public patronage may be avoided, therefore, Resolved, That the subject be referred to the Committee on Resolutions, to the end that it may be duly considered and a suitable deliverance made in that behalf. Mr. Massey I move the adoption of that resolution. The Chair That is not in order. The resolution will be referred to the Committee on Resolutions. Senator Plumb, of Kansas I wish to offer a resolution, The resolution was read by the Secretary as follows : Resolved, That American land should belong alone to those willing to assume the duties and responsibilities of American citizenship. The best interests of the republic are with those who are bound to it by the ties of ownership and possession of the soil. The system of tenant farming and absentee land lordism, which has disturbed Ireland and destroyed the peace of Europe, is opposed to the doctrine of the fathers and has no place in the policy of a republic. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 251 The resolution was referred to the Committee on ResoltK tions. Mr. Hawkins, of Tennessee, offered a resolution binding every delegate to support the nominee of the Convention, whoever he may be, and he moved its adoption, calling for a vote by States on the suspension of the rules to adopt. The Chair The gentleman from Tennessee moves that the rules be suspended and that this resolution pass. Mr. Pierce, of Massachusetts I trust that that resolution will not pass. I come here with the purpose that I believe every man has done, expecting, in good faith, to support its nominee, believing that this Convention will not nominate any man who will not command the universal support of the mem bers of this Convention [Tremendous applause], and by the people of the United States. This matter has had in the past a bad record, brought here when Garfield was nominated, and brought here by the gentleman from New York, Mr. Conkling the late Mr. Conkling and I trust that this Con vention will not bind its conscience by a mere perfunctory resolution. Mr. Winkler, of Wisconsin I take it that our presence here is an assertion in itself on the part of every one of us that we propose to support the nominee of this Convention. [Applause.] It needs no resolution in order to enforce that assertion. [Applause.] And it is for that reason that I am opposed to adopting any resolution upon the subject. [Cries of " Good."] Mr. Hawkins, of Tennessee In offering that resolution I did it in good faith, and I trust there is not a delegate to be found here that is not ready and willing to subscribe to that resolution, and if there be a delegate who is not willing to support tlje nominee of this Convention he surely ought not 252 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. to be allowed to deliver his vote in this Convention. I don t care where he comes from, and I know of no harm that can come to a man who is here for the purpose of participating in making this nomination, and I know of no harm that can come of indorsing that resolution and saying he is willing to stand by the nominee of this Convention. I ask that it be passed. I have heard whispers in the air as to the course of some gentlemen. I don t believe they are true, and for the purpose of showing the world that the Republican party stands here to-day a unit, and determined to support the nominee of this Convention, I introduce that resolution and I now move its adoption. Mr. Knight, of California Mr. Chairman, I hope that that resolution will pass. [Applause.] No honest Republican, no man having the good of the great Republican party at heart should dare to stand on the floor of this Convention and vote down that resolution. [Cheers.] There are already whisper ings in the air from men high in the Republican party, or that once stood high in the Republican party, open and avowedly declaring that they will not support one man if he be nominated by this Convention, a Convention of the most intelligent men of this nation. That kind of men we want to know, and the sooner they are out of the Republican party the better it will be for the party. [Cheers.] Gentlemen of the Convention, no more enthusiastic people are under the shadow of the American flag than those in the section that I come from. No more enthusiastic people for their candidate can be found in this Convention, but if he should not be the choice I believe we would be false to every principle of the Republican party, we would be false to the constituency we represent, we would be false to ourselves, if we did not abide by the nominee of this party of intelligence. [Tremendous SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 253 applause.] Tell me what reason can be urged that these men, gentlemen of this Convention, selected alone for their intelli gence, their patriotism, their zeal in behalf of the Republican party, shall not support their nominee. None can be. There fore, gentlemen of this Convention, I hope, yea we insist from the section of the country that we come from, that this be voted for, and that, whoever the nominee may be, he will have the hearty support and the votes of this Convention, and all those, be they editors of newspapers, or conducting great periodical journals, who refuse to support the nominee, let them be branded. [Tremendous applause and cheers.] That they not only came here and violated the implied faith that was put in them, but the direct and honest convictions of this Convention expressed by a direct vote upon the subject. When Mr. Knight took his seat about seventy-five delegates arose in different parts of the hall, and insisted upon being recognized by the Chair. The Chair refused to recognize any of them, and repeatedly requested them to be seated. Re luctantly they took their seats, and a moment after the confu sion had subsided, the Chair said : The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York (George William Curtis). Mr. Curtis climbed up on his chair and began to speak. He said : " Mr. Chairman," but at this point loud calls came up from all parts of the house of "plat form, platform." Mr. Curtis shook his head, and retaining his position on his chair, said : " Gentlemen of the Conven tion : A Republican and a free man, I came into this Conven tion. By the grace of God, a Republican and a free man will I go out of this Convention. [Cheers.] Twenty-four years ago I was here in Chicago. [Applause.] Twenty-four years ago I took part with the men of this country who nominated the man who bears the most illustrious name in the Repub- 254 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. lican party, and the brightest ray in whose halo of glory and immortality is that he was the great emancipator. [Cheers and cries of " Good ! good."] In that Convention, sir, a reso lution was offered in amendment of the platform. It intro duced into that platform certain words from the Declaration of Independence. That was voted down in that Convention, and Joshua R. Giddings, of Ohio, rose from his seat and was passing out of the Convention. As he went to pass by my chair I reached out my hand well-nigh a boy, and unknown to him I said, " Sir, where are you going ?" He said to me, " Young man, I am going out of this Convention, for I find there is no place in a Republican Convention for an original anti-slavery man like me." Well, gentlemen, after my talk with him he stopped and again took his seat, and before the Convention concluded the Republican party declared that no word, no deed, no sign should ever be made in a Republican Convention that in the slightest degree reflected upon the honor or the loyalty of the men who took part in that Con vention and their adhesion to liberty. [Loud applause.] The gentleman who was last on the floor dared any one upon this floor to vote against that resolution. I say to him, in reply, that the presentation of such a resolution in such a Convention as this is a stigma, an insult upon every man who stands here. This question is not a new question. Precisely the same mo tion was brought up at the last Convention, and a man f; om West Virginia I honor his name that man said, in the face of the roaring galleries, and in the face of all this success, this man from Virginia said, " I am a Republican, and one of those who carries his sovereignty under his own hat." [Loud ap plause.] Now, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Campbell s position in that Con vention, the wise reflection, the after-thought of the Repub- SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 255 lican Convention of 1880, under the lead of that great im mortal leader whose face fronts us there James A. Garfield, of Ohio [applause], under the lead of Garfield, I remind my friend from California that the Convention, taking its action, induced the gentlemen who presented the resolution to with draw that resolution from the consideration of the Conven tion. Now, sir, in the light of the character of the Repub lican party, in the light of the action of the last Republican Convention, the first Convention of which I have known in which such pledge was required of the members, I ask this Convention, mindful of all that hangs upon the wisdom, the moderation, the tolerance, and the patriotism of our action, I beg this Convention to remember Lincoln, to remember Gar- field, to remember the very vital principle of the Republican party, and assume that every man here is an honest and an honorable man, to vote this resolution, which should never have appeared in a Republican Convention, as unworthy to be ratified by this concourse of freemen that I see before me. [Applause.] The Chair The Chair will say that the rules of the House of Representatives have been adopted for the government, as far as applicable, of this Convention. And under the rules of the House, or at any rate under its usages and customs, speeches are allowed___t2 be made alternately for^and against a proposition. Mr. Posey, of Indiana I desire to say a few words against the resolution. The Chair Then the Chair would be obliged to recognize some gentleman who desired to speak on the other side. The Chair thinks that is in accordance with the custom of the House of Representatives. Mr. Hawkins asked that the resolution be re-read. 256 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. The Secretary then re-read the resolution as follows : Resolved, As the sense of this Convention, that every mem ber of it is bound not only to support its nominee, whoever that nominee may be, but that no man should hold a seat here who is not ready to so agree. Mr. Hawkins (holding a volume of the proceedings of the Convention of 1880 in his hand) I desire to say that James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur both voted for this resolution in 1880. As the resolution has developed so much opposition, and in the memory of Garfield, I withdraw it. [Slight applause.] After some memorials and resolutions had been introduced, Mr. Williams, of Indiana, reported from the Committee on Permanent Organization the name of General John B. Hender son, of St. Louis, as permanent Chairman. On taking the Chair he delivered the following speech: Gentlemen of the Convention : We have assembled on this occasion to survey the past history of the party, to rejoice, as we may, because of the good it has done, to correct its errors, if errors there be, to discover if possible the wants for the present, and with patriotic firmness provide for the future. Gentlemen, our past history is : The Union preserved, slavery abolished, and its former victims equally and honorably by our sides in this Convention ; the public faith maintained ; un bounded credit at home and abroad; a currency converted into coin, and the pulses of industry throbbing with renewed help and vigor in every section of a prosperous and peaceful country. These arc the fruits of triumphs over adverse policies gained in the military and civil conflicts of the last twenty- four years. Out of these conflicts has come a race of heroes and statesmen, challenging confidence and love at home, re spect and admiration abroad. And when we now come to select a standard-bearer for the approaching contest our em barrassment is not in the want but in the multiplicity of Presi dential material. New York has her tried and true statesman, upon whose administration the fierce and" even unfriendly light of public SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 257 scrutiny has been turned, and the universal verdict is, " Well done, thou good and faithful servant. " [Loud applause.] Vermont has her great statesman, whose name is as clear as the crystal springs of his native State, and whose virtue is as firm as its granite hills. [Applause.] Ohio can come with a name whose history is but the history of the Republican party. [Applause.] Illinois can come with a man who never failed in the dis charge of public duty [applause], -whether in the council chamber or upon the fields of battle. [Loud applause.] Maine has her favorite, whose splendid ability and personal qualities have endeared him to the hearts of his friends, and the brilliancy of whose genius challenges the admiration of all. [Loud and continued applause.] Connecticut and Indiana also come with names scarcely less illustrious than those. [Applause.] And now, gentlemen, in conclusion : If, because of personal disagreements among us, for the emergencies of the occasion another name is sought, there yet remains that grand old hero of Kenesaw Mountain and Atlanta. [Applause.] When patriotism calls he cannot, if he would, be silent, but grasping that banner which he has already borne in triumph upon many a bloody field, he would march to a civic victory no less renowned than those of war. Gentlemen, I thank you for this distinguished mark of your confidence, and will discharge the duties imposed at least with impartiality. [Applause.] After several unimportant resolutions had been read the Convention adjourned until 7 P. M. On reassembling some further unimportant work was done, and the Committee on Credentials not being ready to report, the Convention again adjourned until the next day at eleven o clock. The vast audience, however, refusing to go out, it was resolved into a mass-meeting and speeches were made by several distinguished people. CHAPTER XIII. THE THIRD DAY NOMINATIONS SPEAKING FOR THE FAVORITES TH\, PLATFORM GREAT ENTHUSIASM THE ROARS OF THE GALLERIES. INHERE was scarcely a question raised that did not stir the assembly into demonstration, and now and then some flaming brilliancy of speech or lofty grace of sentiment, or bold, heroic stroke loosed enthusiasm to its wildest flight There is a vast quantity of suppressed ecstacy in this Con vention, and it is quite ready to effervesce with the slightest juggling of encouragement, and when a marked occasion came along it was hailed as a safety-valve of fervor, and through it were forced the dangerous, fermenting gases of the Ustless moments when dull monotony starved inspiration. It seemed as if the delegates were making them ready to do full justice to the office of vocal rapture when the exhilarating epics of the nominating speeches should be heard. The eagerness with which the members seized upon a chance to wrangle with loyalty and wrestle with patriotic zeal was mani fest in the energy that characterized a long debate upon the syntax of resolutions. It was a veritable war of words upon the rules reported, as fierce and hotly urged as the famous battle of the books, and though the points were excellently taken or skilfully dismissed, the " Tales of a Tub " have not more deep, satiric elements than were reflected from an entire session given over to aspersing the integrity of language. Had there not been caustic interruptions now and then, with SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 26l intervals of ardent emotions set in play, the vast audience, the largest of the week, might have found the proceedings duller than significant. The first excitation occurred when the Com mittee on Credentials reporting mentioned the name of General Mahone as the Chairman of the recognized Virginia delegation. This name has invariably been a touchstone in the Convention, and never has it been spoken above discretious whisper with out a royal recognition from the house. Now knowing what action had been taken on disputed claims, the listening body was very quick to do the opportunity full service, and with the name there went up a cheer that was repeated on the an nouncement of the decision, and rounded the adoption of the report with a vehemence that left no doubt how great appre ciation interested members felt in having this important faction counted in. While this business was going on the hall was filling up, and at the conclusion of the long report there was nowhere to be seen a vacant seat. PLAN OF CONVENTION HALL. The view was very picturesque. The white pine boarding was shut out from sight by the close packed multitude, and across the ample stretch of space the eye could not detect the slight dividirtg lines that marked the segregation of the 202 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. audience and members of the great Convention. The mass, indeed, seemed homogeneous, a multivertibrat, hydra-headed body obeying the one impulse of motion, coming from the illusion of oneness, only the view was narrowed toward the foreground. Had the thing been one in sentiment and voice as in material appearance the huge concussion of its single shout might well have shattered the environments of doubl and partial prejudice that make conventions long. But the audience were not without its entertainment yesterday. The delegates played an interesting part, engaging more performers than at any other time, proving that there is eloquence and power in plenty stored among the members of this body. The ball was set in motion by a radical thinker from the Blue Grass region. He arose in a moment of confusion, when many others claimed the floor, to answer the proposition of the gentleman from Massachusetts touching the apportion ment by States of delegates to the next Convention. To the Northern members this plan of arrangement, which was a minority report, by the way, seemed to present some excellent advantages, and there was a very earnest approbation in ap plause, from a considerable portion of the body, when the re commendation was read. It was in the midst of this demon stration that Mr. Bradley, of Kentucky, got the acknowledging nod of the Chairman. Thus recognized, his eager, confident look for a moment departed, and he seemed an instant con fused as though he had not fully expected to be recognized against so large a clamor for the cue to speak. But the hesi tation proved to be only the massing of mental powers for a grand attack. The sentiment within the man leaped out in a volume of speech that never faltered for a word, a flood of hearty eloquence too genuine to trip upon a halting tongue; and when he made demand with half prophetic threat SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 20; every State should have its just equality maintained, the shackeled South received as fully as the independent North the shock of long, enthusiastic cheers and shouts drowned out the feeble hiss of thoughtless opposition. Barely had the last word of the speaker been faintly heard through the mur mur of ill-subdued expectancy than a hundred delegates leaped to their feet with a united chorus to attract the Chair, black men and white men straining their voices and gesticu lating as though the destiny of the nation were trembling in the balance and each were the chosen saviour. The scene was one of wild confusion. The gavel of the Chairman pounded lustily upon the desk was but the patter of an in fant s toy, and the cry for order, hoarsely muffled as it was, could make no way against the noise below. Suddenly the delegates subsided, impelled to quiet by the motions rather than the rapping of the Chairman. But almost instantly there burst forth a call for Lynch that redoubled the former dis order. But Lynch did not immediately respond, and other speakers were recognized ahead of him, all of whom, with patriotic fire, warmed by the excitement of the scene, spoke in undisguised hostility against the resolution. Among these was Judge West, of Ohio, who, tall and slim of figure, with peculiarly touched iron-gray hair and beard, and the sadly uncertain eyes from which had gone the gleam and brilliancy of sight, raised his strident voice that seemed half tempered to appeal, in strong protest against a measure that threatened entirely to strip of political rights a people already wronged to infamy in that respect. The negro statesman from Mississippi was again called for, and this time with such a persistence that he mounted upon his chair and turned his face to the great body of the Convention. One universal cheer, as generous as genera^ rewarded him, and then there was a silence more per- 16 264 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. feet than at any other time of the session. Here was pre sented one of the most striking and picturesque effects yet produced in the Convention. Standing in the body of the assembly, its one conspicuous object, arose this colored man, this citizen of a one time bonded State, and looked down upon a white expanse of upturned faces, and saw the patient eagerness to hear him speak. Every face in the great hall was turned toward him, every eye was fixed upon him, making an impressive scene, all the more effective for one brief instant during which not a sound, the slightest, was heard in the vast chamber. He was frequently applauded after he began and throughout the time in which he spoke. But through one of those happy inspirations by which sometimes a great and comprehensive truth finds condensation in a single line, he suddenly punctured the resolution and controlled the spirit of the Convention. He had referred to the abuse of the negro vote in the Southern States, the false returns, the dishonest count, and the utter impracticability of a representation on the basis of votes where votes were neither received nor recorded, and then exclaimed to the Convention that the adoption of such a resolution was equal to the declaration to the Southern Republicans, " We will admit you only on what the Demo crats choose to give you." This sentence was the strategic stroke. It touched the sense of the Convention and stirred a whirlwind of applause. The resolution fell with the transport. There were other moments of enthusiasm when the splen didly prepared, if somewhat lengthy, platform of resolutions was read. It was full of those admirable touches that meet vital issues like inspired thought and which appeal with irre sistible influence to hearts arid minds in interest. There were periods of cheers throughout its reading, and at the end it was adopted by a loud acclaim of well-content approval that knew SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 265 o negative. And so the preparations were completed and lie field cleared for the real purpose and battle of the Con- ention. Chairman Henderson at 10.50 brought down his gavel in esponse to pugilistic cries, from the body of the house, of Time." The Chairman introduced Bishop Fallows, of the Reformed Episcopal Church, who was to open the session nth prayer. Almighty God, the fountain of all light and life, we de- outly bless Thee for the national and individual blessings Thou last mercifully vouchsafed to us. Thou wast with our fathers .s in their weakness and feebleness they laid the foundations >f the republic. Thou didst give victory to our struggling rmies during the dark and stormy days of the revolution. Thou didst lead us forth out of our terrible civil conflict with n emancipated and enfranchised grace and undivided union >f the States. We thank Thee, O God, for the precious heri- age of memory, thought, and service bequeathed to us by he labors, the sacrifices, and the surrendered lives of heroic, !evoted men. We thank Thee that in every period of our his- ory Thou didst raise up leaders of the people to meet the leeds and emergencies of their own times, and we praise Thee liat the bright succession has not died out. We thank hee for the blessings of free speech, free schools, a free bal- ot, a free pulpit, a free press so extensively enjoyed. We iray for one blessing now upon our common country, welded .lore closely together in a union of fraternity, charity and oyalty. Bless Thy servant the President of the United States, nd all in authority ; grant them in health and prosperity long o live. Bless him who presides over the Convention ; give u ni wisdom and strength for his arduous task. We ^thank Thee, O God, for the glorious record made in winning justice or all, liberty for all, equality before the law for all, by the )arty whose representatives are here assembled. Direct peace o them, we pray Thee, in their deliberations and discussions ; ave them from error, ignorance, pride and prejudice ; check he hasty word : prevent the inconsiderate act. May those 266 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. who shall be selected for the loftiest political positions t which mortal man can aspire be those who shall possess ever qualification of body, mind and heart for that high and hoi; trust. Grant, we pray Thee, that personal preferences and in terests may yield to the just demands of a true and broai patriotism, and grant, we pray Thee, that when the time shal come for the suffrages cf the American people to be cast, sue! shall be the declaration of principles adopted by this grea body, such the measures devised, such the candidates pre seated, that the hearty and unanimous support of these her before Thee shall be secured, and a final ratification made b] the people in an unmistakable manner. In the name of tin Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, and all glory, worli without end. Amen. The report of the Committee on Credentials, seating th entire Mahone delegation from Virginia, was then adopte< without debate. The Committee on Rules submitted major ity and minority reports relating to the appointment of mem bers of the National Committee. The majority report wa adopted with slight modifications. A second report of tin minority upon the representation to Conventions according t< the number of Republican votes cast in the various district led to a very excited debate. It was finally withdrawn. The Platform was then presented from the Committee 01 Resolutions and read. It is as follows : THE PLATFORM. The Republicans of the United States in National Convention assembled, re new their allegiance to the principles upon which they have triumphed in si: successive Presidential elections, and congratulate the American people on thi attainment of so many results in legislation and administration by which the Re publican party has, after saving the Union, done so much to render its institution just, equal and beneficent, the safe guard of liberty, and the embodiment of tin best thought and highest purposes of our citizens. [Applause.] The Republican party has gained its strength by quick and faithful response t< the demands of the people for the freedom and equality of all men, for a l/niicc Nation, assuring the rights of all citizens, for the elevation of labor, for an hones currency, for purity in legislation, and for integrity and accountability in all de SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 26/ partments of the government, and it accepts anew the duty of leading in the work of progress and reform. We lament the death of President Garfield, whose sound statesmanship, long conspicuousness in Congress, gave promise of a strong and successful administration, a promise fully realized during the short period "of his office as President of the United States. His distinguished success in war and peace have endeared him to the hearts of the American people. [Cheers.] In the Administration of President Arthur we recognize a wise, conservative, and patriotic policy, under which the country has been blessed with remarkable prosperity, and we believe his eminent services are entitled to, and will receive, the hearty approval of every citizen. [Rounds of applause.] It is the first duty of a good government to protect the rights and promote the interests of our people. The largest diversity of industry is most productive of general prosperity and of the comfort and independence of the people. We, therefore, demand, that the imposition of duties on foreign imports shall be made " not for revenue only," but that in raising the requisite revenues for the government, such duties shall be so levied as to afford security to our diversified in dustries, and protection to the rights and wages of the laborer, to the end that active and intelligent labor, as well as capital, may have its just award, and the ilaboring man his full share in the National prosperity. Against the so-called economic system of the Democratic party which would degrade our labor to the foreign standard, we enter our earnest protest. The Democratic party has failed completely to relieve the people of the burden of unnecessary taxation by a wise reduction of the surplus. The Republican party pledges itself to correct the inequalities of the tariff, land to reduce the surplus, not by the vicious and indiscriminate process of hori- izontal reduction, but by such methods as will relieve the tax-payer without in juring the labor or the great productive interests of the country. We recognize the importance of sheep husbandry in the United States, the serious depression which it is now experiencing, and the danger threatening its jfuture prosperity, and we therefore respect the demands of the representatives of this important agricultural interest for a readjustment of duty upon foreign wool, Jin order that such industry shall have full and adequate protection. [Applause.] We have always recommended the best money known to the civilized world, land we urge that efforts should be made to unite all commercial nations in the stablishment of the international standard which shall fix for all the relative r alue of gold and silver coinage. The regulation of commerce with foreign nations and between the States is me of the most important prerogatives of the General Government, and the Re- mblican party distinctly announces its purpose to support such legislation as will ully and efficiently carry out the constitutional power of Congress over inter- I State commerce. The principle of the public regulation of railway corporations is a wise and salutary one for the protection of all classes of people, and we favor I legislation that shall prevent unjust discrimination and excessive charges for trans portation, and that shall secure to the people and the railways alike the fair and equal protection of the laws. [Applause.] We favor the establishment of a National bureau of labor, the enforcement of the eight-hour law, a wise and judicious system of general education by adeqinte appropriation from the National revenues wherever the same is needed. We believe that everywhere the protection to a citizen of American birth must be se- : > SELECTING A PRESIDENT. wericui *dkf*w* * we fe*ortl* ^ J t tiLii IMI r n km rrirw*i>^ w4frV * **t jjjrtrU. kkW-J* *--* --*-- 1* fc.- . - - % . . V . > _ ., >-. .> > S . . - < , . - _ ~ ,,..,,,. . .- - Ifc*M*tl*MUr*CftlMWkMK] k %.*fc%.**fc . - -. - >.-..>.->> :.".-.- v . , . - ^MMe. -. .. . ... .^. . ^- ... . . . . PCMW of oftcM r^ftQMgf. JIT W wcehr lart eie<tita; roMk4> [Apffciwe.] ^ 4 - need, as far *s MsaiUkv * *" Iwldfom W ackwi srttkrsc OMMK4 lo tl KMsfewMi to hm tracts of tWsft&u^ WcnmiMKoriwK. ^J^^cn%mlKK^lnUMc M tW lwd& f m-ratte* aJk^ ... . . . >.. ;-^s - . . ; -. . . . . . : ., - . . ; . - . . tiwve >w li o attenyt M fowl 6uMi to fcflfem tW coddltmi of siKli pMb . . .^ ^ . .^. ^ . .. v . . ; HOMI VMMMMw me OKI - , > ^ -., ... ...... ,;, - .-< v- -, ;- -,: v . . - .. . ;" .: .- ,--. .: - . ^ e*t _i_u fcji_ ^. _i llttimi w^tf^ . it it MTmMf9Mprale< I it mr amrwft protect tfc* Mis T Awnkw cfcwa* *4 At MMrt I MM W^ CUi W . - V ; . > - ... ..,.., - , .- .-;;.;. . . > -...-. . .-....-. bfe im Hft Ami TLk fem i mMkMt T tfce Tn*oocs AMfc^^Il^llllllft^SSrciMMR^ ^tJKttB^MU&tlgt^J>^^^ *fc a >*tfc . fc^ k^J *\.Mkt *-^ . . **)*&?**** [G^tanpte.^3 NG 11 , -T-.v) The v. - \ | . \ S uUym.ur.. --.:: in.iy bo the I i rests ra \\ B t States I i UK) we s the . I, re^u^U s* of ihei: hem our mo<t e.xrne>t - .he full ami complete ul jv litical lights. ^ ; linucd app- Mr. Rush, of California I move the reso lutions. ! Chair Tlu* gentleman from California moves the ption of the resolutions. The question is upon the adop tion. Those in favor of the trary " no." The resolutions .animously. r compleiin^- the National Committee, the Comv :rned until se\e:i oV .ock. THK XOMIN \ NS After five minutv < - .:rin^, the S, proceed- call the roll of States in order that the variou- niijjht be put in nomination. Alabama, Ark.. ,:hout response. \\ .;/ :\ ConntCt&Ut named the Hon. August-.: s N \\alked up to the speaker s desk and thus ad nbled i: Mr. V: ,.l iicwiesnen of the .\uiventioti \\ , m ken 6 tor rliiny eigfal States atul 55A\\\,v.> v>f j\ lutn ot June \\ill Iv ; : N . vr. and March ^ I . .:ivl Oouti:r.. , v.th Repu - .ictxt of the l"ri:oa S-.v.os. 1: i ; . to . t .x; - -.uh, : has already captured the ; the 270 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. results of the war will be rolled back for another generation. We are the ac credited representatives from all the States and from every Territory of a party to the wisdom and patriotism of whose great leaders human progress and liberty owe more than to any political organization since governments were instituted among mankind. To that party impartial history will accord a Union saved a Constitution preserved and rein fused with a larger spirit of liberty a race eman cipated, enfranchised, regenerated and disinthralled, the nation s credit main tained, specie payment resumed, all rights for all men secured, American labor dignified, ennobled and protected. With such a proud history in the past, and such high hopes of the future, we stand pledged not to make shipwreck of an organization in which the best interests of our country and our race are bound up. Never before to a National Convention was such an opportunity presented, or the path of duty so plain. The tidal wave has ebbed it has left wrecks along the shore and exposed the flats and the shallows. The councils of our opponents are confused. They have been smitien again with judicial blindness. The heart of the people has unmistakably turned once more to the Republican party. The supreme duty of the hour is for us to select a leader under whom that party can grandly and surely win. Such a leader must be a true and tried Republican one whose name alone will be a platform, who has capacity, experience, character and a backbone; a leader who lias the courage of his convictions, and whose convic tions have been on all great questions right right on the wnr, right on -recon struction, right on each and all of the constitutional amendments, right on the public faith, the currency, resumption, the tariff, civil rights and civil service reform. Standing in this great presence in this historic hall inspired by the familiar faces of the great leaders and mnityrs of our faith, who look down as in benedic tion from the walls, impressed with a profound consciousness of the trust I have in charge, I am requested to offer such a candidate to our brethren from other States by the Republicans of Connecticut. In their behalf I nominate, as one who fulfils every one of these conditions and whose name would lead to certain victory General Joseph R. Hawley, of Connecticut. The Connecticut delegation, sir, sits in this grand council of the party unin- structed, uncommitted, unpledged. They are free to hear, free to speak, free to deliberate and decide. They offer the name of their great leader and Senator as, in their judgment, the wisest choice that can be made. If it seems good to you, make it yours. If you have a better, we will cheerfully make it ours. But wherever the lot may fall and whoever the standard-bearer may be, we pledge ourselves in advance, with full, ungrudging, unhesitating loyalty, with all our hearts and with all our votes to support the nominee. General Hawley was born in North Carolina. He draws from the blood and the skies of the South the generous chivalry of a nature which abhors cant and crookedness and falsehood, and feels a stain like a wound. He came a penni less, barefooted boy to the rugged soil of Connecticut, where, taught in its free schools, breathing its free air and listening to its free speech, he laid the founda tions of his character and life in those manly principles which are as endearing as its everlasting hills. He early caught the eye of honest John Hooker, the John the Baptist of free soil, whose voice was then crying for repentance of the nation s great sin. He studied law in Hooker s office, but the fire was kindling SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 2/1 in his soul, and it could not find, rest in the dry quillets and dusty maxims of the law while men were being hunted under the fugitive slave act like partridges over the mountains of New England. When at last Boston Court- House was hung in chains, he could plead no longer any cause less sacred than that of emancipation and the rights of man. He threw away his Coke and Blackstone, and started the first free soil paper of Connecticut, in time to become the first Republican newspaper of New England. At last the storm-cloud burst, and the shot fired at Sumter echoed around the world. Seeing from his office window the crowd gathered in the old State House square at Hartford at the proclamation of Lincoln, he laid aside his pen, walked down among his neighbors, and said : " The time has come ! I am going! Who will follow?" lie was the first soldier to enlist in the first company of the first regiment which left Connecticut for the defense of the capital. He was the last to leave the stricken field of Bull Run. The English historian of that rout says : " Haw- ley brought off his company in good order, while the Union army was flying, panic-stricken, to Washington." He fought all the war through from Bull Run till the Democratic party laid down its arms under the apple tree of Appomattox. He went in a private, and came out a major-general. But not alone in " the purple testament of bleeding war" is his name written among the foremost. He stands as well in the front rank of orators and states men. There is scarcely a State where his voice has not been heard preaching the gospel of Republicanism. He was a Republican before the party was born, and believed in its creed before it had been formulated into a platform. In the Senate no great measure of public policy or reform has failed to receive his sup port. He is thoroughly equipped upon all great questions of administration or legislation which concern our interest or our honor at home or abroad. In that dark hour for the nation s credit, when the storm of repudiation seemed about to sweep the old ship from its moorings, it was his voice which, like a trumpet, pro claimed from this very platform where you now preside, " Every dollar of the nation s debt shall be as sacred as a soldier s grave." When in the Senate of the United States even trusted leaders wavered as to the nation s faith, he summed up the duty of the hour in the pithy sentence, " Uncle Sam is a gentleman, and scorns to pay his debts in bogus dollars." To his power of organization, clear judgment a,nd administrative tact as President of the Centennial Exposition was largely due that order and harmony took the place of confusion and discord ; and what seemed to promise a great national failure was wrought out into a magnificent success. He believes in the morality of practical politics, not the crooked devices of packers and bummers, nor the abhorrent forces of the machine, but in the duty which every ciiizen owes the State to throw the whole of his personal influence for good government, from the primaries to the polls. As his public record is without a flaw, so his private life is without a stain. There is nothing to conceal, or to defend, to apologize for, or extenuate. " His life is gentle, and the elements so mixed up in him that nature might stand up and say to all the world this is a man." The fierce light which beats upon a candidate will search his record in vain. He will grow brighter in the blaze. His nomination will leave no heart-burnings behind. There will be nothing to take back, nothing to be forgiven or forgotten. It will be the humiliation of no other candidate. There will be no pov/der burned except against the common 272 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. foe. The South for the first time will have a Republican candidate born on her soil. All elements in the party can unite on him, for he was the friend of Garfield and the friend of Grant. All professions can claim him, for he is at once lawyer, editor, soldier, orator, and statesman. All people can vote for him, for he is the ideal candidate a capable, upright, sincere, and honest man. If he should seem to some to come from too small a State let me remind you that bigness is not greatness, and that States are not measured by acres, but by men. If he should seem to live too near the North Star, let me recall to your recollection that never since the Republican party was born have you nom inated a candidate from the East, and that for a generation now the men of that section have ungrudgingly supported the candidate of your choice. With his name on your banner victory is certain from the start. The brazen throats of the cannon in yonder square, waiting to announce the result, will not have time to cool before his name will be caught up from ten thousand tongues of electric flame. It will sweep down from the Pine Tree State over the hills of New England. It will insure Connecticut by 10,000 majority. It will weld with fervent heat the divisions of New York. It will blaze through the State of Garfield that younger daughter of Connecticut more beautiful than her mother. It will sweep across the prairies like a conflagration, carrying every State from the storm- vexed coast of the Atlantic to the golden gates of the Pacific. With such a President, in the very prime of life and vigor of his powers, re spected abroad and honored at home, with our free institutions and imperial do main, we need no Bartholdi statue at the gateway of commerce, with uplifted torch, to typify the genius of Liberty enlightening the nations. But our history, wrought out under Republican principles, Republican policy by a Republican President, will itself bear witness to all the world that this people are the hap. piest, freest, most favored people upon whom the sun has ever shone. The Secretary called the States of Delaware, Florida, and Georgia without meeting with any response. When Illinois was called, and Senator Cullom rose from his seat, about four thousand voices indulged in the exclamation, "Ah! ah! ah!" as people are in the habit of venting themselves while looking upon Fourth of July fireworks. The Senator walked down the aisle toward the platform, coolly buttoning up the buttons of his coat. As he mounted the platform he was received with a fresh volley of yells, which died out and were renewed again as he confronted the audience from the speakers desk. The Chair introduced the Representative of Illinois as fol lows : Gentlemen Senator Cullom of Illinois. More yells followed, during which the Senator smoothed SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 273 himself down in front with his hand, and when the uproar subsided he proceeded as follows : Mr. President and gentlemen of the Convention Twenty-four years ago the second National Convention of the Republican party met in this city and nom inated its first successful candidate for President of the United States Abraham Lincoln. [Cheers.] Abraham Lincoln led the Republican party to its first great victory. He stands to-day in the estimation of the world as the grandest figure, the most majestic figure in all modern times. [Applause.] Again in 1868 another Republican Convention came together in this city and nominated as its candidate for President of the United States another eminent citizen of Illinois General Ulysses S. Grant. [Loud cheers and waving of fans and other demonstrations of approval.] And the Republican party was again victorious. Still again in 1880 the Republican party turned its face toward this political Mecca, where two successes had been organized and the murdered Garfield led the Republican party to victory. [Loud and continued applause.] Mr. President and fellow- citizens, it is good for us to be here. There are omens of victory in the air. History repeats itself. There are promises of triumph to the Republican party in holding its Convention in this great emporium of the Northwest. [Applause.] The commonwealth of Illinois, which has never wavered in its adherence to Re publican principles since it gave to the nation and to the world the illustrious Lincoln, and now presents to this Convention for its consideration as the standard- bearer of the Republican party another son of Illinois, one whose name will be recognized from one end of the land to the other as an able statesman, a brilliant soldier and an honest man General John A. Logan. [The announcement of General Logan s name was received with a wild burst of applause, a great many persons rising to their feet, waving their hats and handkerchiefs and the thousands of people in the gallery joining in the roar of applause. The cheers were re newed again and again.] A native of the State which he represents in the Coun cil of the Nation, reared among the youth of a section where every element of manhood is early brought into play, he is eminently a man of the people [ap plause], is identified with them in trust, in faith, and in feeling, and enjoying their sympathy, respect, and confidence. The safety, the permanency, and the prosperity of the nation depend upon the courage and integrity, and the loyalty of the citizens. When yonder flag was assailed by enemies in arms, when the integrity of the Union was imperiled by an organized treason, when the storm of war threatened the very life of this nation, this gallant son of the Prairie State resigned his seat in the Congress of the United States, returned to his home, and was among the first of our citizens to raise a regiment and to march to the fronc in defense of his country. [Applause.] Like Douglas, he believed that in time of war men must be either patriots or traitors, and he threw his mighty in fluence on the side of Union, and Illinois made a record second to none in the history of States in the struggle to preserve this government. [Applause.] Among the large number of brave men, of brave soldiers of the late war, whose names are proudly written upon the scroll of fame, none appear more grandly than the name of Logan. [Applause.] His history is the record of the battle of Belmont, Donelson, of Shiloh, of Vicksburg, of Lookout Mountain, of At lanta, and of the famous march to the sea. [Great applause.] He never lost a baUle. [Applause.] I repeat again, Sir. Chairman and fellow-citizens. [Applause.] When there was fighting to be done he did not 274 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. wait for others, nor did he fail to obey orders when they were received. His plume, the white plume of Henry of Navarre, was always to be seen at the point where the battle raged the hottest. [Applause.] During the long struggle of four years he commanded under the authority of the government, first a regiment, then a brigade, then a division, then an army corps, and finally an army. He remained in the service until the war closed, when, at the head of his army, with the scars of battle upon him, he marched into the capital of the Nation, and with the brave men who had bled on a hundred hard fought fields, was mustered out of the service under the very shadow of the Capitol building which he had left four years before as a member of Congress to go and fight the battles of his country. When the war was over and general peace victoriously returned he was again honored by his fellow-citizens to take his place in the councils of the Na tion. In a service of twenty years in both Houses of Congress he has shown himself to be no less able and distinguished a citizen than he was renowned as a soldier. Conservative in the advocacy af measures involving the public welfare, ready and eloquent in debate, fearless yes, I repeat again, fearless in defense of the rights of the weak against the oppressions of the strong, he stands to-day (and I say it without disposition to take one laurel from the brow of these men whose names may be presented at this Convention) I say he stands to-day, in my judgment, closer to the great mass of the people of this country than almost any other man now engaging public attention. [Applause.] No man has done more in defense of those principles which have given life and spirit and victory to the Republican party than has John A. Logan, of Illinois. [Applause.] In all that goes to make up a brilliant military and civil career, and to commend a man to the favor of the people, he whose name we have presented here to-night has shown himself to be the peer of the best. \Ve ask you therefore to give h : m this nomination, because it would not be assailed, and it is not assailable. \Ve ask you to nominate him, because his public record is so clean that even political calumny dare not attack it. \Ve ask you to nominate him in behalf of the hundreds of thousands of gray veteran volunteer soldiers \vho are to-night over this broad land standing around the telegraph offices waiting to know whether that gallant leader of the volunteer soldiers of this country is to receive the nomi nation at your hands. [Applause.] We ask you to nominate him in behalf of the white and the colored Republicans of the South who are here by the hundred, white and black, appealing to this Convention as the representative of our grand old party, to give protection and to vindicate them in their rights in the South. [Applause.] Now, my friends, standing in the midst of this vast assemblage of representa tive citizens of this grand Republic aye, in the sublime presence of the people themselves represented here to-night in all their majesty, we offer you the name of the tried hero and patriot, the sagacious and uncorrupted statesman, the man who though defeated never sulked in his tent we offer you General John A. Logan, and ask you to make him your nominee. [Applause.] If you do so he will give you a glorious victory in November next ; and when he shall have taken his position as President of this great Republic you may be sure you will have an administration in the interest of labor, in the interest of education, in the interest of commerce, in the interest of finance, and in the in terest of peace at home and peace abroad, and in the interest of the prosperity of this great people. [Applause.] SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 2/5 The Chairman then introduced General Prentiss, of Missouri. Mr. Chairman : It is a great pleasure for me to stand here to-night and second a nomination just made from a State in which I have resided for forty-one years. It is a glorious privilege for me to stand before this Convention and say a word or two by way of seconding the nomination of a man pursuing his own course, endowed with energy, until to-day he is the equal of any of the great statesmen of our land [applause]; a man pursuing his own course from poverty up until to-night he is reaching to the highest round of fame known to earth, that of President of the United States of America ; a man who upon the field of battle led his comrades always to victory ; a man who in the Senate of the United States, when the bold enemies of this country combined with timid allies sought to annul the solemn finding of an honored court, stepped boldly to the front and called loud and long, " Hold in your infamous, criminal attempt to place o er honest, tried men of reputation and at the expense of reputation a man whom the votes of the people never elected." Oh, it is glorious that I am here to-night. I dare not speak plainly of that crisis, but, dear.friends, now I love the man that stood by the reputation of the dead, her last but three living ones left whose reputation had been assailed and your speaker at this moment one of the living ; a man who has been my friend, a man who has been the friend of humanity, a man that led the armies of Tennessee on to Washington and there mustered it out of service, a man whose star upon his shoulder shines brighter and brighter as he moves on. That man John A. Logan, the favorite son of Illinois [applause], the favorite of the Mississippi Valley, the favorite of the West, and you, gentlemen, if you knew him as we know him, you of the East would learn to love him a man in the position to-day to lead our army to victory. Why, Mr. Chairman, I am not one of those that entertains the idea for a moment that this great Republican party is to be defeated. No. Whoever we nominate is to be the President. [Cheers and applause.] Whoever we select, I ask you to-night I ask you as a friend, I ask you as one representing those who have been true to the party for twenty-eight years ; one who has stood by it in all its peril, one who has never yet forsaken it at any time I ask you, oh, I appeal to you, of this Con vention, consider well and make the best nomination you possibly can. I ask you in behalf of the cripples of this land ; I ask you in behalf of the old soldiers of this country; I ask you in behalf of men bleeding to-day, that this Nation has aided ; I ask you in behalf of the children of this country that are without aid ; I ask you in behalf of humanity to give the nomination to John A. Logan, of Illinois. [Applause.] Mr. Chairman, I believe, sir, that as Epaminondas at the battle of Mantinea At this time the audience hissed and cheered in token of their disapproval of the speaker, but he, disregarding them, continued as follows : I believe, sir, as Epaminondas of old, when at the battle of Mantinea, receiv ing his death-wound, his officers lifted him up to a height above where he could look over the field. They cried when they perceived him in death. " Oh, why do you weep?" says he. "We are weeping because, sir, you are dying." [Continuous applause, in which the speaker s voice was entirely drowned, and cries of "Stop! Stop! "] 276 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. The Chairman (rapping the desk with his gavel) said We must have order. The Speaker (continuing) He said to them, " Weep not, dear friends." [Hisses and cheers continued.] The Speaker " Do I not leave you two daughters ?" and then the speaker concluded as follows : Recognizing the services of the proudest star in that galaxy in the volunteers of the army, I second the nomination of John A. Logan. [Applause.] The call was then proceeded with, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana each being called and each passed as called. When the State of Maine was called the vast assem bly arose, and an explosion of human voices occurred. For seven minutes the roar continued, and only ceased because of the inability of the audience to roar any longer. Some of the delegates were overjoyed to the extent of a perfect frenzy; hats, handkerchiefs and canes were thrown in the air, flags waved, and a regular pandemonium reigned. The Chairman rapped with his gavel for order; he might as well have tried to argue with a cyclone. The audience apparently desired no finer opportunity to express their feeling, and expressed the feeling in keeping with the opportunity. It is impossible to convey any adequate idea as to the tumult that reigned, but possibly an estimate can be formed by the statement that from 12,000 to 14,000 people were yelling like mad and could not be restrained. It was a glorious tribute to pay to any man. After the Chairman had succeeded in producing compara tive quiet, Judge West, of Ohio, was introduced, and said : As a delegate in the Chicago Convention of 1860, the proudest service of my life was performed by voting for the nomination of that inspired emancipator, the first Republican President of the United States. [Applause.] Four and twenty years of the grandest history of recorded times has distinguished the as cendency of the Republican patty. The skies have lowered, and reverses have threatened. Our flag is still there, waving above the mansion of the Presidency, not a stain in its folds, not a cloud on its glory. Whether it shall maintain that grand ascendency depends upon the action of this great council. \Viih bated breath a nation awaits the result. On it arc fixed the eyes of twenty millions of SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 2?/ Republican Freemen in the North. In it or to it, rather are stretched forth the imploring hands of ten million of political bondsmen of the South [ap plause], while from above, from the portals of light, is looking down the immor tal spirit of the immortal martyr who first bore it to victory, bidding to us hail and God-speed. [Applause.] Six times, in six campaigns, has that banner triumphed that symbol of union, freedom, humanity and progress sometimes by that silent man of destiny, the Wellington of American arms [wild ap plause] ; last by him whose untimely taking off a nation swelled the funeral cries and wept above great Garfield s grave. [Cheers and applause.] Shall that banner triumph again ? Commit it to the bearing of that chief. [A voice, " James G. Elaine." Cheers.] Commit it to the bearing of that chief, the in spiration of whose illustrious character and great name will fire the hearts of our young men, stir the blood of our manhood and rekindle the fervor of the veteran, and the closing of the seventh campaign will see that holy ensign span ning the sky like a bow of promise. [Cheers.] Political conditions are changed since the accession of the Republican party to power. The mighty issues of struggling freedom and bleeding humanity, which convulsed the continent and aroused the Republic, rallied, united and inspired the forces of patriotism and the forces of humanity in one consolidated phalanx. These great issues have ceased their contentions. The subordinate issues resulting therefrom are settled and buried away with the dead issues of the past. The arms of the solid South are against us. Not an electoral gun can be expected from that section. If triumph come, the Republican States of the North must furnish the con quering battalions. From the farm, the anvil, the loom; from the mine, the workshop, and the desk ; from the hut of the trapper on the snowy Sierra, from the hut of the fisherman on the banks of the Hudson. The Republican States must furnish these conquering battalions if triumph come. Does not sound po litical wisdom dictate and demand that a leader shall be given to them whom our people will follow, not as conscripts advancing by funereal marches to certain defeat, but a grand civic hero whom the souls of the people desire and whom they will follow with all the enthusiasm of volunteers, as they sweep on and on ward to certain victory. [Cheers.] In this contention of forces to which candidate shall be intrusted our battle- flags? Citizens, I am not here and my tongue would cleave to the roof of my mouth if I attempted it to abate one tithe from the just fame, integrity and pub lic honor of Chester A. Arthur, our President. [Applause.] I abate not one tiihe from the just fame and public integrity of George F. Edmunds [ap plause] ; of Joseph A. Hawley [applause] ; of John Sherman [applause] ; of that grand old black eagle of Illinois. [Here the speaker was interrupted sev eral moments by prolonged applause.] And I am proud to know that these dis tinguished Senators whom I have named have borne like testimony to the public life, the public character, and the public integrity of him whose confirmation brought him to the highest office second in dignity to the office of the Presi dent only himself the first premiership in the administration of Garfield. [Ap plause.] A man for whom the Senators and rivals will vote, the Secretary of State and the United States is good enough for a plain flesh and blood God s people to vote for for our President. [Loud applause.] \Vho shall be our can didate? [Cries of "Elaine," "Arthur," and "Logan." A loud voice yelled above the tumult, " Give us Black Jack, and we will elect him." When quiet was somewhat restored the speaker continued.] Not the representative of a 2/8 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. particular interest or a particular class. Send the great proclamation to the country labeled, the doctor s candidate, the lawyer s candidate, the Wall street candidate, and the hand of resurrection would not fathom his November grave. [Applause.] Gentlemen, he must be a representative of American manhood. [Applause.] A representative of that living Republicanism that demands the amplest industrial protection and opportunity whereby labor shall be enabled to earn and eat the bread of independent employment, relieved of mendicant com petition with pauper Europe and pagan China. [Loud applause.] He must be a representative of that Republicanism that demands the absolute political as well as personal emancipation and enfranchisement of mankind a representative of that Republicanism which recognizes the stamp of American citizenship as tl e passport to every right, privilege and consideration at home or abroad, whether under the sky of Bismarck, under the palmetto, under the pelican, or on the banks of the Mohawk that Republicanism that regards with dissatisfac tion a despotism which, under the sic semper t\rannis of the whole dominion, emulates to slaughter popular majorities in the name of Democracy a Repub licanism as embodied and stated in the platform of principles this day adopted by your convention. Gentlemen, such a representative Republican is James G. Blaine, of Maine. Upon the call of the name of Blaine it seemed as if the en tire- assemblage arose and amid a roar of applause mingled with cries of " Blaine " commenced a scene such as can be witnessed only in a National Convention. The delegates from California, mounted on chairs, hoisted their white hats on canes and waved them about in response to the ocean of handkerchiefs waved by the ladies in the gallery and on the platform seats. One genius conceived the idea of opening his umbrella, and immediately about fifty umbrellas were up and waved about, presenting a novel sight. Meanwhile the im mense crowd of admirers of Mr. Blaine were shouting in one immense never-ending shout, something like the roar of a tem pest, now swelling and sinking. The band itself came to the aid of the shouters and thundered with its basses and drums, and although five minutes had passed the enthusiasm of the Blaineites knew no end and the roar of their applause still continued. At last the President, who had been looking with interest upon the scene before him, seized his gavel and gave some raps therewith. The crowd was silent a moment, and SELECTING A PRESIDENT. then, regardless of the Chairman rapping, again burst out in. another shout in honor of their candidate. The Chairman shouted again, but at length, after a succession of halloes lasting some minutes, business was allowed to proceed. The sensation was intense and the interest in Mr. West on account of his commanding presence and sympathy for his infirmity brought all to silence in the vast hall. Order having been restored, Mr. West proceeded as fol lows : Gentlemen of the Convention, it has been urged that in making this nomina tion every other consideration should merge, every other interest be sacrificed, in order and with a view exclusively to secure the Republican vote and carrying the State of New York. [Slight applause from the back seats.] Gentlemen, the Republican party demands of this Convention a nominee whose inspiration and glorious prestige shall carry the Presidency with or without the State of New York [applause] that will carry the Legislatures of the several States, and avert the sacrifice of the United States Senate; that shall sweep into the tide the Congressional districts to recover the House of Representatives, and restore it to the Republican party. Three millions of Republicans believe that that man who from the baptism of blood on the plains of Kansas to the fall of the injmortal Garfceld, in all that struggle of humanity and progress wherever humanity de sires succor, where love for freedom called for protection, wherever country called for a defender, wherever blows fell thickest and fastest, there in the forefront of the battle were seen to wave the white plame of James A. Garfield, our Henry of Navarre. [The speaker seeing that he had misspoken, closed his sentence by substituting the name of James G. Elaine] our Henry of Navarre. Nominate him and the shouts of September victory in Maine will be re-echoed back by the thunders of the October victory in Ohio. Nominate him and the camp-fires and beacon-lights will illuminate the continent from the Golden Gate to Cleopatra s Needle. Nominate him and the millions who are now in waiting will rally to swell the column of victory that is sweeping on. In the name of a majority of the delegates from the Republican States and of our glorious constituencies who must fight this battle, I nominate James G. Blaine, of Maine. [Renewed ap plause.] The Chair then introduced Governor Davis, of Minnesota. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention In the face of the demon stration which we have seen and heard it would seem scarcely necessary to second a nomination which appears already to be a foregone conclusion. [Cheers and applause.] In the name of the people of Minnesota it gives me the greatest pleasure to second the nomination of James G. Blaine, of Maine [vigorous cheers], who has never been defeated by the people. [Cries throughout the house, " No, no, never has been defeated."] He has borne his great faculties so nobly that year after year, in success and adversity, he has grown so completely 280 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. into the affections of the people of this country that nt this moment he is in his own person the embodiment of the definition of their choice for President of the United States. [Cheers and applause and cries of louder.] This preference is not the growth of any locality or of any one idea. It springs not from any cold calculation of expediency, although it is coincident with the highest expediency, the expediency of success ; it is the majestic voice of three millions of the great party of the Union of National progress which emancipated man, which raised the country from the hell of civil war and made it so great that neither foreign foe nor domestic factions can affect it where it stands secure on the eternal b..sis of right whereon it has lieen placed. Mr. Elaine is not the man of any State; lie has grown far beyond that. To-day his peisistt-nt popularity, his magnificent personal traits, his unfailing tact, his unswerving loyalty to his party, and his commanding statesmanship are honored in every community from Maine to Cal ifornia [applause] and from the St. Lawrence to the Gulf. Without the aid of that thing called organization, without self-seeking, without combination, with no such condition to his success as the ruin of another man, he stands here to-day with all these attributes, and the people of this country ask this Convention to gratify their twice deferred desire. [Applause.] He stands upon the friendship and confidence of Garfield, and when the lile of the nation seemed ebbing away with the spirit of the great son of Ohio, when all the func tions of government were languid, when business men felt the need of security it was upon the arm of the great Secretary that the nation leaned. He has con ducted our foreign affairs so as to make us respected abroad and that too upon principles almost co-evil with the foundations of this government. [Applause.] He has undergone defeat in two Conventions and risen from each with greater strength than before. [Applause.] The campaigns which followed were most momentous and imperiled the very existence of the party. Did he sulk in his tent like Achilles before the walls of Troy ? [Cries of no, no, from all over the hall.] No; he rose upon the ruins of his adversity and made them the monuments of his glory. [Cheers.] He led his competitors through the road of triumph to the White House. No word from him that the nomination was unfortunate. No auspices from him of want of success, but then he, this man from Maine, came forth with all his armament like a magnificent war vessel, ever) pennant flying, every sail set, every man at his post, and every gun thundering from its side. [Applause.] This is the man faithful to all trusts; superior to any fortune ; beloved as no American statesman has ever been whom we present for your suffrages. [Cheers and applause.] The Chair next introduced the Hon. William C. Goodloe, of Kentucky, to second the nomination of Mr. Elaine. Mr. Goodloe addressed the Convention as follows : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention Coming from a State which was the immediate home of that woirlerful and electric oralor, the idol of his people, the great " Harry of the West," and from the State that gave birth to the great liberator, Abraham Lincoln [applar.se], I rise to second the nomination of a man who has faithfully followed the teachings of these great men James G. Blaine, of Maine. [Cheers.] ince the d$ath of Mr. Clay, Kentucky has SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 28 1 seemingly forgotten the wisdom of his works and the strength of his presence, for she has never given a single electoral vote for any Republican candidate, and she is not apt to depart at the coming election from her oft-trodden and well- beaten Democratic path. (One voice on the platform was here guilty of applause, and the supposition is that some enthusiastic Democrat had surreptitiously smuggled himself into the very citadel of Republicanism.) Party spirit has in fluenced the vote alike with equal boasts and warmth as of a Democrat of the strictest school, a general of the Union, and an original and devout abolitionist. Such persistency in voting in the same line very justly admits of the conclusion that the goal those powerful pilgrims are struggling to reach is one of spoils and not of principles. Coming myself from that strong Democratic section as a Re publican, I certainly shall disclaim any semblance of dictation to Republican States as to whom they shall have as their candidates. [Cheers.] I am here to counsel with delegates having Republican constituencies at their backs [cheers], and to follow their lead, that we may all move on to victory. [Cheers.] \Ve do not propose to trammel your future action by the abuse of the power that we now possess, but which falls limp from our hands the very instant that your Presi dent raps the adjournment of this Convention. [Applause.] Southern Re publicans who have passed through every vicissitude of fortune, only to be strengthened in their conscientious devotion to the principles of the party, are happy in the belief that Republicans are too brave to be driven from any course a majority may be led to pursue by an unseemly clamor of the opposition or their weak-kneed and trembling allies. [Applause.] I am not one of those Avho be lieve that long and honorable service in behalf of Republicanism, and an intimate knowledge gained through experience of the strength and needs of the Nation, is in any sense a disqualification for leadership. [Applause, and cries of " Good, good."] The great popular heart always beats in unison with the right [ap plause] ; and if, without organization or preconcerted action, that State sentiment has made itself clearly manifest from ocean to ocean, it seerns to me, then, that the plain and simple duty of delegates is to ratify the people s choice. [Tre mendous cheers.] We came not here to disparage any candidate, but, with the kindliest feeling and sincerest admiration for all, we have only endeavored to learn the choice of these States, and those delegates having Republican electoral votes, to sustain their judgment and their preferences. [Applause.] Speaking for myself and others from the South, and conscientiously believing that choice to be the great commoner from Maine, I with great pleasure second the nomina tion of James G. Elaine. [Applause.] The Chair then introduced Mr. T. C. Platt, of New York, who spoke as follows : Gentlemen of the Convention I rise with pleasure to second the nomination of James G. Elaine. [Applause.] I second the nomination, believing, as I do, that his turn has come; believing, as I do, that expedience and justice demand it ; believing, as I do, that the Republican people of the Republican States want him; believing, as I do, that he is the representative of lhat stern, stalwart Republicanism which will surely command success ; believing, as I do, that with him for our standard-bearer success is surely assured, and believing in my inmost heart that with him for our standard-bearer success is assured in the great State 282 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. of New York. [Applause.] Fellow-delegates, friends of James G. Elaine, stand linn, stay so. id, and with steady step and strong purpose, victory is ours now and in November. [Great applause.] Upon the mention of the name of Blaine there arose another shout of applause, which, spreading rapidly, soon developed into a greater, louder, more piercing halloo than followed the call of Maine. The handkerchiefs of the ladies were again waved in unison, the delegates elevated their hats, and it seemed likely for five minutes to be merely a repetition of the preceding uproar. A happy innovation, however, was made. The visitors, who indeed made ninety-nine hundredths of the applause, wrested the flags from the sides of the gallery and waved them the entire length of the hall. A large national flag was also taken by a visitor from the platform and waved from the platform with tremendous cheering. Subsequently upon the pole of the flag was placed a helmet, exquisitely formed of carnations and roses, with a long white plume, which was hoisted from a press table. The helmet was the gift of some young ladies of Chicago. Tremendous acclama tion greeted this happy suggestion of the " Plumed Knight " of four years ago. So went on the waving of hats, umbrellas, flags and divers other articles for several minutes until it de generated into whistling, cat-calls and other like noises. The Chairman seized the moment to rap the Convention to order, and after a short fight with the whistlers, cat-callers and others, the business was resumed after an interval of twenty- five minutes. Mr. Galusha A. Grow, of Pennsylvania Mr. Chairman : The Chairman Mr. Grow, of Pennsylvania. At the close of this second century of national existence 200,000,000 of peo ple will be dwellers of the soil over which to-day floats the flag of our fathers. Each year adds 1,000,000 to our population. The great social problems there fore are those which relate to the future instead of the generation which is pass ing away. It is one of the most favorable signs of the world s history. All SELECTING A PRESIDENT. that tends to social political institutions, development of material resources, the greatness and growth of a nation trying the great experiment of free con^titu- tional government among men. With these great associations of this quarter of a century, with the shadows of its mighty events and the shades of its mighty ties around us, we meet to voice the sentiments of that great party whose achieve ments in peace and war have contributed so much to the greatness and glory of the republic. A quarter of a century of successful administration, beginning in the long roll of one of the most gigantic wars of history, is the conclusive evi dence of the ability of that party to manage the affairs of government wisely and well. The Republican party, in its earliest formation, embodied the very essence of its existence, personal rights, manhood, ciiizenship and the best in terests of the laboring classes. And almost the first act in the administration of the government was to dedicate the unoccupied public land of the Union to free homes for free men, inviting the sons of toil to come and sit under the vine and the fig tree, secure from poverty and want. The great social problems of the day will fall upon this generation and those that are to come after it. The great questions of labor, of capital, of the development of the material res mrces of the country intrusted with the high offices in a free government like this, it will ;equire men skilled in statesmanship, men experienced in all the great questions of political statesmanship, social and economic questions. Such candidates will carry the Republican party to success in the future as in the past. [Loud ap plause and cries of " Take the platform, platform."] The Chair Will the gentleman suspend for a moment ? Mr. Grow I will occupy but a moment. Loud cries of " Platform, platform, platform." Mr. Grow then ascended the platform and spoke as follows : The Republican party, with its standard-bearers such as it has had from its in fancy, while true and faithful to the great principles of its organization, will march to victory on the political battle-fields of the country in the future as in the past. A party, a political organization, with a record unequaled in the his tory of political organizations of any nation, having had for its standard-bearers heretofore the great champions of labor, men who in their long lives were the representatives of labor and its trials, Lincoln, Wilson, Greeley, Wade and Gar- field, and a host of their illustrious compeers in youth and early manhood earned their daily bread by their daily toil in the workshop, the field, and along the highways of commerce. The statesman from Maine was brought up in a school-house as a school-teacher [applause], in the printing office as a day laborer [persistent applause], and in youth [persistent applause and cries of " Order "], unaided and alone [applause renewed], without the aid of wealth [renewed applause], without the aid of wealth or family influence [applause continued], unaided and alone [applause, cries of "Louder!" hisses and con fusion], by his own efforts [applause, cries of "Can t hear you!" "Goon!" "Order! " hisses] (the Chairman rapped the gavel, and the speaker continued), thus beginning and earning his daily bread by his daily toil [applause], unaided and alone [applause, cries of "Order! " " Louder! " and hisses], without the aid of wealth or family influence. [Cries of " Louder!"] 284 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Delegate Luke Staley Mr. Chairman [applause, confusion, the Chairman calling for order], I desire to say to this Con vention that while I am not here in the interest of James G. Elaine, I hope this Convention will not forget that we are gentlemen, and we are Republicans, and I hope and trust that this Convention will give Mr. Grow a hearing here to night. Mr. Grow I stand before you, gentlemen of the Convention, representing in part the State where James G. Blaine was born. I speak as one of his neighbors, calling your attention to the trials of his early life, and, as I said before, from the school-house and printing press, unaided and alone, he has come almost to the top round of the ladder that leans against the sky, the architect of his own foriune ; the first to go before the American people a standard -bearer, who was one of the illustrious compeers of the great men who have made the great name of the Re publican party illustrious. In my judgment, in November next the Republican party will march to victory under the broad banner of protection to American labor, e i .ial rights to all men, and adhesion to the constitutional guarantees of citizenship. [Applause.] The Chair The Secretary will call the roll. The calling of the roll was continued by the Secretary until the State of New York was reached. When New York was called came the opportunity of the friends of Arthur, and well was it improved. Such a burst of enthusiastic applause upon the part of the general audience, such an uprising and cheering of a great body of the delegates and waving of flags showed their numbers and earnestness. The colored delegates especially raised their voices (and their hats) and added to the general applause. Flags were again swung upon the platform and along the sides of and in the hall. After fifteen minutes of this enthusiastic cheering, the Chairman rapped twice to stop the cheers, but was only cheered for his trouble. He rapped thrice and the crowd sang " Marching Through Georgia." Again he rapped, and they gave three cheers and a tiger for Arthur, after which the business proceeded. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 285 After the State of New York was reached and called by the Secretary of the Convention, Mr. Martin I. Townsend, of New York, took his place upon the platform. The house cheered and applauded for sixteen minutes, and endeavored, if possible, to counteract the enthusiasm gotten up by the friends of Mr. Elaine a few minutes previous. As soon as it was possible to be heard, the Chairman rapped vigorously on the table with his gavel and said : Gentlemen of the Convention, Mr. Town- send, of New York. Mr. Townsend Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : America is proud of her great men; the Republican party is proud of her great men, and the great men of America, are in the Republican party. [Applause.] It has warmed the cockles of my heart to hear the eulogies and lo see the scenes of to night. I abate not one whit from the speakers who have uttered the eulogium in my admiration of those men. I came here to say amen and thrice amen as to the achievements of the Republican party, including the glorious history of the gentlemen whose names have been presented here. I came here, however, to talk about the well-being of the Republican party in the future, and I say to the gentlemen of this Convention that however joyous our evening interview may be, there is a very grave responsibility resting upon us that has got to be borne and decided by cool and deliberate judgment. The question is : How shall we put ourselves before the American people in shape to carry the suffrages at the next November election ? And it is a serious question. In France, when the National Assemblies from about 1790 to 1803 were assembled, a demonstration from the surrounding neighborhoods in Paris and the assent by the National Assemblies settled the question ; but we may exert influence upon this body, we may obtain the assent of this body, and yet our work is not done. We have got to go down to the constituencies that sent us here; we have got to shape our action so that it shall commend itself to the men that go to the church, to the clergymen, to the elders, to the deacons, and the members and the citizens that attend the churches all that fear God and love the Republic have got to canvass our action and pass in judgment upon what we have done. Now, how shall we meet the views of those people? I come to speak to you, in carrying out what I believe is most likely the favor of the electors of this country the Republican electors. I have to speak of the individual I speak of General Chester A. Arthur, of the State of New York. [Cheers and applause.] I shall not dwell upon the early history of Chester A. Arthur. I shall content myself with saying that his veins are filled with the blood that draws its origin from the channels of Argyle, and from the North of Ireland, the sturdiest stock in the universe. He passed the typical life of an American boy. Without money, he had to make up by energy for what he lacked of the filthy lucre. Four years ago he was taken up by the National assembly that met here, an I nominated for the office of Vice-President of the United States. He \va- Hpcre I upon the same ticket with the sainted Garfield, a man that I loved. I kiv_\v 286 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. him away back in 1856, when a boy struggling in college, in my own college in WiBiamstOwn, in dear old Massachusetts, where my early boyhood days were passed, and I met him in the National Congress. Four long years I sat by his side, and I felt that when the National Convention nominated Garfield, they had done themselves honor, they had done the country the greatest favor that it was possible in that way, and the then circumstances of the country to confer upon it. In the providence of God, a mournful, a melancholy, a never-to-he-forgotten providence, Mr. Gnrfield was removed from the field of action and Mr. Arthur was called to the difficult and almost disheartening position of the chief officer of this Union, and from that time his work has been constant, forward, un swerving, kind, considerate to all, and with charity for all, and malice against jione, he has discharged his duties. [Applause.] Within a year, every Repub lican Convention in this Union passed a resolution of unqualified commendation upon the man and his conduct in the Pics:dential office. [Applause.] Shall I say that I need not utter commendation ? What have you said to-day ? " In the administration of President Arthur we recognize a wise, conservative and patri otic policy under which the country has been blessed with remarkable prosperity, and believe his eminent services are entitled to and will receive the hearty ap proval of every citizen." [Cheers.] That is to go down to the fireside of every constituent of this assembly : I mean of this representative assembly, and they will hold you to what you have said on this occasion. We have a peculiar con stituency. We have greater difficulties than our Democratic friends. When our Democratic friends have held up a principle, have led their friends to believe they were in earnest, and have achieved a triumph, nothing makes them so happy, nothing makes their constituents so proud of them as to have them turn tail to and confess they never believed it. Our people hold no such doctrine. What shall they say to us? Shall we lead them to say, " Were you in earnest about this thing?" I have not said enough. Some ten years ago a large portion of our citizens came to feel that the mode of distributing inferior and clerical offices throughout the country was injurious to public morality, and would in the end be subversive of the best interests of the people. They started then what is called the agitation for the civil-service reform. A great many who are here to-day be lieved it was not necessary, but by and by through the persistency of the earnest men that favored this motion, the earliest men that determined that reform of the civil service upon the principles that they indicated must and should be accom plished, persevered in it until now. For more than eight years no National, no State Convention has ever been organized without passing a resolution in favor of civil-service reform. We passed laws. We have appointed commissioners. The commissioners have gone into action, and during the administration of Mr. Garfield all the principles of civil-service reformers and that included the whole Republican party have been put in practice. [At this point in Mr. Townsend s address considerable confusion arose in the audience, from the fact that he fre quently turned his face to the rear of the platform to speak to the officials occu pying that exalted position. Frequent ciies arose from the delegates ami fr m the audience, requesting Mr. Townsend to " Turn around ! face the front ! We can t hear you."] Facing to the front a moment Mr. Townsend continued It is not I that say so. The commissioners themselves in their report to the Na tional Congress declared that Mr. Arthur in every respect has carried out the law ?nd aided them to the extent of his power. [Cheers.] Another thing I vi^h to j-ny. Ii in.-y I c said that I hold an office. I do, and for it I am indtbU-d SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 287 to Mr. Rutherford B. Hayes, a most excellent gentleman, who did honor to the great office of President. [Laughter in spots.] I came here to speak for the man who is now President, but the day has come when a man can safely come here and oppose the head of the National administration. There (pointing to the New York delegation) sits my friend Judge Robertson, of the State of New York, the collector of the port of New York, coming here, like an honest man and a brave-hearted man to carry out his views directly in opposition to the chief executive of the Nation [applause and laughter], and he is here with perfect safety to perform that service. [Cries of " turn around, we can t hear you."] I am bound to say, and I would despise myself forever if I did not say it much has been said about New Yoik State politics. Much has been said about the New York machine, with Roscoe Conkling and Thomas C. Platt turning the crank of the machine. [Laughter.] I have, sir, to prove that Mr. Arthur has not prostituted his office to the purposes of faction. I have but to point to the fact that Roscoe Conkling has given his whole influence against Mr. Arthur, and that Thomas C. Platt, the man that resigned his office, the man that could not stay in Garfield s admini>tration because Mr. Biaine was so wicked as to per suade Garfield to nominate Mr. Robertson [Mr. Townsend continued his per nicious habit of turning toward the rear of the platform, and he was greeted with frequent cries from the body of the hall of " This way ! Look at the reporters !" and other expressions of disapproval of his course. He finished the sentence upon which he was engaged at the time when the interruption came in, as fol lows:] for Collector of the port of New York. [Unable to restrain his desire that the people at the rear of the speaker s desk should be benefited by his eloquence, Mr. Townsend again faced to the rear, and was greeted with a storm of his-es which startled him so much that for a brief period he kept his face to the front. Proceeding he said : I am here to-night as a delegate. I am one of those men I am an old man, but I am one of those men that for fifty years in speaking of politics have uttered just the sentiments that I feel and believe. Here the speaker relapsed into his old habit of showing his coat-tails to the audience in front, but reversed his position as soon as made aware of the fact that the people wished to look at his front and not at his rear elevation. Again settling down to his work, he said : And although the work is out, my work is done. If it is the last act of my life, I want to call the attention of this Convention to the exhibition that we have had here to-night as an evidence that the executive chamber, if it was otherwise, is not now a caucus-room of faction. [Applause.] Now, the people, when we go to our homes, will say: "What means this? Mr. Arthur has had every body s commendation. The politicians m t at Chicago and were compelled by the force of public opinion to give their unqualified commendation for the administration of Chester A. Arthur, and yet he was not renominated." Mr. President, when you took the chair, in speaking of the great and glorious men whose names would come before this Convention for consideration, you said that this Chester A. Arthur had justly won the commendation, " Well done, good 288 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. and faithful servant," Sir, you quoted from a book. What in that book was said should be done with the well-doing and faithful servant? Turned out inic a brush pasture to starve ? That is not the doctrine of that book. The good and faithful servant is everywhere promised his reward. That is a womleifull) good book, and, for a digression, let me say to the young gentlemen, not menv bers of the Convention, who cried so loudly for my friend Ingersoll last night that there is a great deal of most instructive and interesting reading in that book if they shall have the grace to attend to it. I said the people are full of de termination in this matter. There is more, sir. In meeting an intelligent and tireless enemy the Democratic party are watching for a break in our army ; the) have their lances at rest; they have their spears pointed, and whenever we open our armor they are ready to pierce the Republican party to the heart, \\l..\\. will they say ? Oh, here ! oh, here! what a nice party you are? You have been prating ten years about reform in the civil service; you have been prating ter years about having a non-factional administration ; you have found one your selves, as you say, and yet for the purpose of taking up somebody else you have struck down and cast into oblivion, as far as you have the power to do it, the very man who has done the work you said you could do, and have spent ten years in preparing fur lus hand. I said the Democrats could do anything! They have their civil service reform; they had their Pendleton in Ohio; they clacked him loudly; they patted him on the back when he made his speeches for civil service reform, but when he came down to Ohio for recognition, to be returned to the Senate, they whistled him down the wind. It will do well to strengthen the party, but it won t strengthen us. These men, our constituents, will look into this. In the days of James II. he got into difficulty with a bishop and he im prisoned nil the bishops, and among them was Trelawney, from Cornwall, the Bishop of Bristol. The Cornish men were very much excited because their friend was in danger, and a message was sent out, the burden of which was: " SI all Trelawney die? Shall Trelawney die? Then 30,000 Cornish men will know the reason why." And in this case, strike down Aithur, and not 30,000 Republicans, but thirty times 30,000 Republicans will know the reason why. [Applause.] Now, my friends, I have presented substantially the considerations which govern me in proposing the action which I intend to follow. "We have in every case since the Republican party was formed done on of two things. \Ve have, when our President has finished his term, renomiiiated him, except in the ca-e of Mr. Hayes, who refused a renomination [laughter], we gave him a second term. \Ve refused t<> give General Grant, much as we regarded him, a third term. These are the traditions of the p-irty the common understandings and in order to show that- 1 give the d-mmon understandings of the party I lave to quote a letter from the mo>t distinguished statesman in the northeasterly por tion of the Union, written on the 2Cth of December, 1880, in view of the incom ing administration of Gai field, in which he says, speaking of the administration, not at all directing its energies for re-election yrt compelling the re-uH by the logic of events and the imperious necessities of the situation. So said that great statesman ; so has said every man ; so snys the community, and so will say the voters, and God grant that this Convention may adopt such a course as to con ciliate the solid, anxious men of the Republican party that so victory in Novem ber so important to the well-being of this country may again perch itself for twenty-four years upon the Republican banner. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 289 Mr. Bingham, of Pennsylvania, rose to second the nomina tion of Chester A. Arthur, and spoke as follows : Republican Pennsylvania will utter no uncertain sound in November next [applause] when the suffrages of her industrious people will roll up 30,000 ma jority for the nominee of this Convention. Manly, outspoken differences of opinion exist in the Pennsylvania delegation as to the choice of the candidate who will cluster around him the largest following and best typify the principles of our party. But that individual judgment will be, confined to the walls of this Convention. [Applause.] And when its judgment is uttered, all will labor and struggle for the standard-bearer of that pnrty. [Loud applause.] I have risen to second the nomination of Chester A. Arthur [loud applause], and in so rising and doing I but voice the unanimous sentiment of the last Republican Conven tion in Pennsylvania, and in every State in this broad Union [applause], when they pointed with pride to his grand administration of public affairs, congratu lated the people upon the material prosperity of the country, proclaimed his un wavering fidelity, his fitness and capacity for high trust ; and even the providence of God in His omniscience and omnipotence placed upon him the obligation of the government of a Christian people. [Loud cheers.] Unknown unknown four years ago, to-day he is the best-known man within the confines of the Re public. [Applause.] Recognizing as I do the high responsibility and important duty devolving upon this Convention, I proclaim that no record and no name so typifies the peace, prosperity, and high honor of this Republic as the name of Chester A. Arthur. [Loud and long applause.] Four years ago in this Con vention hall the plaudits of the people as generous and as enthusiastic as yours are to-night, indorsed the choice of the Convention by the suffrages of the people. He comes to-night and lays before you work well done, duty fulfilled, honor maintained, the Republic with its principles still living. [Loud applause.] Three years of administration of public affairs and he brings to this Convention the great Republican party reunited. [Loud applause.] And it is for the judg ment and the wisdom of this Convention to say whether that party shall be in vincible. [Applause.] Blazing all over the horizon of our party s birth is the brotherhood of man, the equality before the law. Abraham Lincoln [loud ap plause] believed, as the Republican party believed, that all men were created equal ; and when the havoc of war was at its highest, when the legions of the dead were thickest around us, he proclaimed to the people emancipation to the black men; and to-day, in all this wide land, the sun never rises upon a bonds man or sets upon a slave. [Loud applause.] He was God s chosen ruler for God s great purposes. Then in convention assmbled, with duty done nnd obli gation fulfilled, the representatives of the people in 1864 said to him : "Well done, good and faithful servant. Carry the banner again for law, for liberty, for the Nation s union, and for victory." The great and silent soldier who was sent from the armies of the West to break in the almost impregnable barriers surrounding the capital of rebellion, marshaled the matchless and masterful armies of the North and swept into Treason s stronghold, and the capitulation upon the field of Appomattox is familiar to all. Great in war, he was greater in peace, and the suffrages of the people lifted him up into the chair of Washington and Lincoln, and four years afterward in the National Convention at Philadelphia, and into them the declar- 2 9 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. ation of duty well done, they gave him the unanimous nomination o. the Repub lican party. Rutherford B. Hayes [pause and hisses] Rutherford B. Hayes gave a wise and prudent, safe and conservative administration, acceptable to all the lovers of good government. [Applause.] But when he took the oath of office he made public the declaration that at the expiration of his term he would go back to the people of his Stale who had honored him on many occasions, and by whom he had always been loved. Who can forget the scenes in this hall four years ago when Ohio and New York were joined in bonds that death only could part ? I cannot and I will not attempt to picture these scenes that follow. History will record them. Around the name of Garfield clusters the grandest recollec tions in American history. [Applause.] Nominated in this hall, the enthusiastic response of the people of that safe Republican State, Ohio, was unmistakable and positive. The powtr, the force, the strength of the name of Chester A. Arthur [ap plause] welded to the Republican column the doubtful and wavering State of New York. [Applause.] Garfield, the idol of the people may his grave ever be green, and may the tears of the American people ever water it. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust ; he is gone who seemed so great. Gone, but nothing can bereave him of the force he made his own being here, and we believe him something far advanced in State, and that he wears a higher crown than any wreath that man Can weave him. [Applause ] God accept him ! Christ receive him. [Ap plause.] Into the firm, strong hands of Chester A. Arthur [applause] fell the baton of power and empire. A great man died, but a great and brave man stood at the helm, and the ship called State rode through the storm safely into the harbor of peace and prosperity. [Great applause.] The Republican party has not been unmindful of wise administration and able leaderships in the past. Lincoln reaffirmed in tin-; title and his office. Grant reindorsed in his title and his office, and what have you to say to-day, remembering that peace hath her victories no less renowned than war. [Applause.] He comes to you and he tells you, " Exercise your critical, yet best judgment. Examine the record. If you find a flaw, condemn." If it is the record of your party you should approve. [Applause.] How stand your finances? The integrity of his administration has never been questioned, nor never assailed. I point to you the enterprise and capital of this great city. I point to you the exhibition in New York city but a few weeks ago from the representative business-men of the country. In this gathering to-night one hundred of that great body are present. Does capital need protection? Let me answer and say that to-day more than at any time in the last decade must capital be protected. Read the recent decision of the Su preme Court of the United States on the paper-money question, and then tell me that in the executive chair an incorruptible chief is not necessary. [A voice in the gallery, " Humph."] Now we have already gained one great victory in the freedom of the black men. The judgment and comiciion of the South, and the men of the South will ever be with us in their deliberations until every man, white and black, can cast his ballot with freedom arid have it fa rly counted. [Applause.] Wipe out from the banner of the Republican party the legends that have been written there by the people of the down-trodden South, and you have only a flag proclaiming material prosperity and material success. In rising, therefore, to second the nomination of Chester A. Arthur [applause], I conclude as I began, that the well-exprrssrd and well-digested judgment of every Convention of the United Stales is that he has faiihfuily and well performed SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 29 1 his duty, and it is for this Convention to-night to decide whether the written and unwritten law of our party shall any longer be recognized in the Republican National Convention. How about your foreign relations ? Messages of love and respect are only in terchanged. The State Department to-day is only in receipt of the recognition of high character and standing, love, and affection of the nations abroad for this American Republic. How about your surplus revenue ? I refer you to his veto. Even when the legislation that was condemned has been formulated by his own party, and gained in the advancing position that the Republican party has taken upon the wise administration of public trust known as the civil service. Stand ing on that platform to-night the leader and the chairman of the New York dele- g.tion, who, for advanced thought, for high leadership, and for National states- man>hip, no man exceeds him ; what was his answer to the fulfilment of the duty of Chester A. Arthur in reference to the administration of the civil service enactment? He said, "I can only trust and hope in the deliberation of this Convention." The gentleman himself may have the opportunity to so express to this gathered multitude. One word more. [Cheers.] From this platform to-night, in language eloquent, in figure perfect and beautiful, there was uttered sentiments that I cannot, as a Republican, approve. When in this Convention of principles and equals we foster the fundamental doctrine of my party and your party, to be told that the highest judgment, the completest conception of the duty of the Republican party was to be found only where Republican electoral votes could be counted, is to my mind a sentiment and a principle to be condemned. All over the South its free vacant fields have been the camping-ground for the armies that fought for Republican principle and Republican thought. The Chair Gentlemen, I take great pleasure in introducing Mr. Lynch, of Mississippi. Mr. Lynch came forward and said: It seems to me that veiy little remains for me to say ; therefore I will say a very few words. I recognize the fact that I come from a State that is at present in a prostrate political condition. In con sequence of that fact I hope you will not think it is immodest in me to give you a few reasons why, in my opinion, the man of my choice should receive the nom ination of this Convention, though the State from which I corne is at present politically powerless to contribute to the success of the nominees of this Con- - vention, yet our voters are there, having loyal hearts, patriotic impulses, and a determination to do whatever they can. Let me say that the Republicans of my section have no feeling of ill-will, no feeling of antipathy toward any one of the distinguished gentlemen whose names have been presented to this Convention, or may hereafter be presented. We entertain for all of them the highest admira tion, the profoundest respect, and we are determined that whichever one may re ceive the nomination from this Convention will receive our cordial and united support. Then, Mr. Chairman, I feel that I express the holiest wish, the sin- cerest desire of every member of this Convention when I say that whatever dif ferences may have existed in our ranks heretofore, whatever factions may have existed in days gone by, when we leave this hall we all hope that every sore shall have been healed, and every faction shall have been destroyed. [Cheers.] The Republicans of my section believe that the present administration should be con tinued, because Mr. Chester A. Arthur [applause] has given us a safe, clean, pure, honest administration. [Applause.] 29 2 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. A Voice How about the shot-gun ? Mr. Lynch (continuing) We believe that having done so well he ought to \ allowed to continue at least another term in well-doing. \Ve believe that having been compelled, in consequence of circumstances which he could not control and which all of us seriously deplore, to assume the President s chair, he hai done better than his friends expected, and certainly did better than his enemie expected; therefore we believe that he is a wise, safe, prudent, judicious parti leader, and believing that our desire is that he should be allowed to succeed him self. Whether this be the choice of this Convention or not, I am satisfied in mi own mind that, whoever the nominee may be.no man will do more to contrilmt< to his success than the present occupant of the Presidential chair, the Hon. dies ter A. Arthur. He lias never failed, and I am satisfied he will not fail hereafter He will not fail, he will not falter; he \\ill not say that " I am the only man tha can be elected." His friends do not say, I do not say, that Mr. Arthur is th< only man we can elect, for I believe we can elect anybody we nominate. [Ap plause.] But we believe he should have an opportunity to succeed himself That is all. [Applause.] One more reason and I will take my seat. We al know that Arthur is an earnest, a sincere advocate of civil service reform. Al of us are civil service reformers, the office-holders included ; I may say the office holders especially. We have declared in our platform for civil service reform Mr. Arthur is known to be sincere and honest in the advocacy of civil servici reform. Give him an opportunity to do a little better than he has done. Gen tlemen, it is not worth while for me to say more than simply to express the hop( that you will ratify the nomination of Mr. Arthur when you come to the ballot [Applause.] The Chair then introduced Mr. Winston, of North Carolina who seconded the nomination as follows : Mr. President and Gentlemen of this Convention : The victory of arms won 01 the physical field of Appomattox was not more glorious than the moral victor that lies within the grasp of the Republican party. A generation has grown uj south of the Potomac whose accepted watchword is : " This shall no longer be i union of two opposing sections, but a union of 50,000,000 of freemen." [Ap plause.] The unrivaled glory of past sacrifices endured by the patriotic Unior men of the South appeals irresistibly to the sympathy of those that have con tributed to freedom the proudest page in its annals. Let the friends of freedom in the North now come and touch elbows on th< march with their fellow-countrymen of the South, and the solid South will b< broken forever. Why, since the close of the war North Carolina has given hei electoral vote to the Republican candidate for President. The great Stale of New York has done no more. Because we are determined that henceforth w< will be found in the front rank of the party of progress, we are here to-day with the courage of our convictions. [Applause.] Upon what principle shall w( proceed to select our candidate for President? We are at pence with the world Our national honor is without stain. Honest labor is paid with honest money: capital is secure. There is not one of us who does not feel that his wn condi tion and the condition of ihe country are largely due to the ability and intelli gence of the President of the United States. The Republican party presentee SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 293 to the world the sublime character of Abraham Lincoln as the representative of its principles. An era of peace is before us. Let us choose a leader to-night who represents peace, prosperity, and progress. Such a leader is the exponent of all that is best in the party, is the choice of the conservative element of the country, and on behalf of the State of North Carolina I second the nomination of Chester A. Arthur. Mr. Mead, of California It is now past eleven o clock, and these people are tired, and I move, sir, that this Conven tion adjourn Here the speaker s voice was drowned amid cries of " No, no! " The Chair The motion is in order. Gentlemen, the motion has been seconded, and all those in favor of adjournment until to-morrow at ten o clock will say aye. To which there was rather a feeble response. The Chair Contrary, no. To which there was a loud and prolonged response of " No." The Chairman then introduced the Hon. P. B. S. Pinchback, of Louisiana. Mr. Pinchback spoke as follows : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention : This is the second time in my life that I have had the honor to rise in a National Convention to second the nomination of one of our distinguished fellow-citizens. I have not arisen in this Convention to second the nomination of General Chester A. Arthur alone [applause and cries of " Louder"], but I have taken the floor for the purpose of meeting some of the accusations that have been brought against Southern Re publicans. 1 desire to say that if Southern Republicans come into this Conven tion and second the nomination of Chester A. Arthur, it is not because they de sire to dictate to this Convention, or to the Republican States of the North, who will be called upon to furnish the electoral vote, but because we have noticed in the South that every State Convention held in the great Northern States, so far as I have seen, have with singular unanimity, indorsed the administration of General Chester A. Arthur. [Applause.] We feel in the South that in the present occupant of the White House we have a prudent, a safe and a reliable ruler; a man who is not only acceptable to the Republicans of the North, and, what is still better than all this, a man who is acceptable to the Republic. [Ap plause.] I can say to you, gentlemen, that on my way from New Orleans to this Convention, all along the line of the railroad, in conversation with the citizens generally, the substantial citizens of the country, I was admonished to stand by General Chester A. Arthur. [Applause.] I was told in Louisville, Ky., by the members of several of the leading business firms of that city, that if Chester A. 2Q4 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Arthur was nominated the business men of Louisville, Ky., would give him 10,- ooo more votes in Kentucky than had ever been cast for any Republican candi date. [Applause.] I was told in Louisville by the sugar-planters, and by the people who are interested in the tariff question, that if the Republican National Convention should fail to put a protective plank in their platform to put in the field an independent electoral ticket in their State and give their votes for its election. [Applause.] I second the nomination of General Chester A. Arthui for these reasons. They are to me evidences that he is nut only a fit and propel candidate, but I conscientiously believe that he has the best chance of any gen tleman whose name has thus far been placed before this Convention of carrying the country in November next. [Applause.] I hear delegates in this Conven tion talking about New York, and talking about what Grant will do and Mr Conkling will do, and what this man or that man will do; but I want to say tc you that I have spent a good deal of my time in New York within the last year and I am. here to say that for every vote lost to Chester A. Arthur by the disaf fection of the gentlemen named he will gain two. There is a strong senfimenl in the minds of the people and a strong belief in the minds of the people of New York, as well as there is in many other sections of this country, the trouble between these gentlemen is that General Chester A. Arthur was President instead of somebody else. I believe that it is the desire of this Convention, I believt it is the desire of the Republican party, I believe i is the desire of the greal American people, that whoever shall occupy the Presidential office shall b< President of all these United States. [Applause.] I am in favor of Chester A, Arthur for the additional reason that my constituents are in favor of him ; and while they failed to instruct me to cast my vote for him, they made it manifest in many ways that they desired me to cast my vote for him; and I know that whai is true in Louisiana is largely true of every Southern State, and I know thai most of the Southern delegates left their homes with the impression upon the country that they were in favor of General Chester A. Arthur. I have seen in the prints since I have been on my way to this Convention rumors that we were a mercantile element ; that especially the colored delegate to this Convention would be bought and sold like so many sheep. I want l>y my vote in this Con vention and I hope to have the vote of every other colored man recorded in the same way, in favor of General Chester A. Arthur to give the lie to these rumors. [Applause.] I want to demonstrate by our fealty to this chosen chief of ours that we are as pure and incorruptible in our holding public trusts as the whitest man that may sit beneath this roof. [Applause.] If I had no other reason but this so important is it to me to lift up the standard of integrity of my people that alone would induce me to stand by General Chester A. Arthui as long as his name is before this Convention. [Applause.] The Chair The Secretary will continue the call of the roll of States. The Secretary North Carolina, Ohio. [Loud applause, during which Judge Foraker, of Ohio, came on the platform.] The Chair Judge Foraker, of Ohio. [Loud applause.] SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Judge Foraker Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Convention : If noise and demonstration and nominating and seconding speeches, when numerically considered, could either nominate a candidate or elect him to be the President of the United States, I would not, in view of what has transpired in this hall to night, take this stand to perform the duty that has been imposed upon me. But in view of the fact that such results do not necessarily follow such demonstrations, but more particularly in view of the fact that these demonstrations are conflicting, and these orators are opposing, I am emboldened to come before you that I may in an humble way say a few plain words for a plain, but a very great and grand man. [Loud applause.] But, sirs, first and foremost, I want to say again, here and now, what I have had to repeat so many times since I came to Chicago to attend this Convention, and that is that Ohio is a Republican State. [Applause.] She will cast her electoral vote for the nominee of this Convention. [Cries of " Good, good," and applause.] But, sirs, she claims no credit and she asks no favor on that account. She would be untrue to herself if she did otherwise. She could not do less without injustice to the memory and teachings of a long line of distinguished sons who have won imperishable renown for themselves and their country, both on the field and in the Cabinet. I am not here, therefore, to ask anything for her nor in her name as a condition precedent. On the contrary, let it be distinctly understood that whatever she may do in other years and I happen to know that she sometimes acts strangely [laughter and applause] she never failed to carry our flag to victory in Presidential campaigns. She has always been ready to enthusiastically follow the chosen leader of the party, and she was never more so than at the present time. To-day, as in the past, her highest ambition is that with her October election she may worthily and victori ously lead the Republican column. [Loud applause.] If, therefore, it be true that in the past she has enjoyed distinguished favor, she humbly hopes that it has been no*nore than a just recognition accorded by her generous sister States. And if she is proud of the names of Grant and Sherman and Sheridan and Mc- Pherson and Chase and Stanton and Hayes and Garfield it is only because of their illustrious services to the whole people ; the whole people are proud of them also. [Applause.] And if for these distinguished men Ohio first claimed National consideration and honor, it was not because they were her sons, but only because, the better knowing their worth, she put them forward for the com mon good. She has had no selfish purposes to subserve. She has none such to-day. She fully recognizes and appreciates the fact that what is best for the whole Republican party is best also for her. Moved by no other feeling, she has a name to place before this Convention. You have heard it before. From one end of the land to the other it is as familiar as a household word. It is the name of a man who has been an acknowledged leader of the Republican party for the last thirty years. He is identified with every triumph of our most wonderful career. He stood at the fore front in the struggles with slavery. He was a very pillar of strength to the government in its death-rattle with secession. His personal impress is upon every line of reconstruction, and when our National integrity had been preserved by the valor of our soldiers on the field, and there came that wild and senseless mania of inflation that threatened to sweep the country and tarnish the National honor, it was his luck to stand in the breach as no other man stood. [Applause.] Save only the war that was the greatest danger that ever manaced the American people. A failure to resume specie payment in 1879 would have been almost as thoroughly fatal to this Republic as 18 2g6 SELECTING A ^RESIDENT. would have been success for Lee at Gettysburg. It was patriotic courage ar heroism in the one case no more than in the other that saved the day and a complished for us the sublime results in which we have ever since rejoice* The people of this country know and appreciate that fact and they still have profoundly great recollection of the services thus rendered. And this is especial! true at this particular time, when Wall street gambling and what you charai terized in the platform this day adopted as Democratic horizontal reduction, ha\ done their bad work. The flood-tide of prosperity has been arrested, and v have been brought through the several stages of stagnation and decline to ll very verge of business demoralization and panic. Confidence has been shake and impaired. Its restoration is to be the controlling question of the comir campaign, and if we would act wisely here we must recognize that fact an make our nomination accordingly. What man, then, of all those presented I this body for consideration most fittingly and completely meets the prefermen of this situation ? In answering that question I can say, as others have sai here to-night, that I have no thought or word of detraction or disparagemei for any other name that you will be called upon to consider, and in the languaj of that platform, as it was read by our friend from New York to-night, I, to> can say, and I do say without hesitation, that in the present chief magistrate v have had a wise, a conservative, and a patriotic administration. [Applause And I can say, too, that no man s admiration is greater than mine for th brilliant genius from Maine. Another boisterous demonstration followed this mention c the name of the man from Maine, which, in vehemence an fervor on the part of the audience and comparative apathy o the part of the delegates, outdid all former ebullitions. To th tune of the most discordant yells from the galleries, hats, flag handkerchiefs and articles of wearing apparel were flashed an fluttered wildly about, and the air trembled with the concu! sion. One enthusiastic gentleman seized a flagstaff, and th plumed floral helmet was paraded around the hall, drawin out a still more frantic outburst of yells and shrieks. In th midst of the uproar the band struck up some indistinguishabl tune, but the throat capacity of the audience was more tha equal to the music, and the bazoo-rippers and drum-thumper were drowned out as effectually as if they had been playin against the rolling thunder of Niagara. After some twelve c thirteen minutes of bedlam, the audience responded to th summons of the gavel and subsided into semi-silence. Judge Foraker resumed as follows : SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 297 Gentlemen of the Convention : I shall not compliment anybody else until I come to iny own man. And resuming, permit me to remind you that you have violated an old, time-honored maxim, " Never to holler until you are out of the woods." [Cheers and applause.] You should not do so, for I want to say something now that you will not want to applaud. For that which I want to say further to this Convention is this : That what we want, what we must have, what we stand here to-night, charged with the grave and responsible duty of laying the foundation for, is success in November next; and to that end, that we may have that success, we must nominate a man who will make not only a good President, but the best possible candidate. [Cheers and applause.] That is what we want; and to that end we want a man who is distinguished not so much for the brilliancy of his genius as for that other safer, better, and more assuring quality, the brilliancy of common sense. [Applause.] We not only want a man who is a pronounced Republican, thoroughly tried and in the crucial test of experience [at this moment the speaker was interrupted by loud and continuous calls of the name of Elaine], but we want also a man whose very name will al lay instead of exciting the distrust that disturbs the industrial interests of this country. [Applause.] He must, of course, as gentlemen have eloquently said from this platform to-night, be a friend to human liberty, to equality of rights. [Cries of "Elaine" from the gallery and all over the house.] He could not be a Republican if he was not. He must believe, as it has been well said, in the protection of American citizens at home as well as abroad. Not only that, but he must be a man who can find under the Con stitution and laws of this country some method whereby the brutal butcheries of Danville and Copiah may be prevented. [Applause.] Not only must he be lieve in these things, but there is one thing in which our platform reminded us to-day that he must not believe in, and that is, a substantial reduction of the duties on iron and steel and wool. On the contrary, he must believe, and that, too, in the most unqualified sense, just as we have declared here to-day, in the protection of American industries, the development of American resources, and in the elevation and dignity of American labor [applause] ; and not only must he believe in these elementary and fundamental propositions of Republicanism, but he must have a record so clear, so bright, as to not only challenge, but defy, criticism and assault, and at the same time make him a representative of all the highest and purest motives and aspirations of the great Republican party; and over and above all this he must be a man in whom the people believe. [Cries of "Elaine, Elaine."] Judge Foraker, continuing: Oh, no, sir, no, sir not simply that he is honest, not simply that he is capable, not simply that he loves Republicanism and hates Democracy, not simply that he is loyal and patriotic, but that combined with all these essential attributes he possesses by reason of his experience that essential qualification that makes him most potent to deliver us from the evils that threaten our present safety. Nominate such a man, and victory is assured ; we will have four more years of Republican rule, during which time this Republic will continue to grow with greatness at home and increased respect abroad. As such a man I nominate John Sherman, of Ohio. [Applause.] The Chair I take pleasure in introducing Judge Holt, of Kentucky. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention : The responsibility resting on this Convention is beyond measure. Over fifty millions of people, living in mil lions of prosperous homes, in this country are demanding of us careful delibera tion and forbidding hasty action. The enthusiasm for a candidate is to be ad mired, but our candidate and the nominee of this Convention should be selected after careful consideration and without bitterness. The people of this country demand that we shall place before them for their indorsement a safe, prudent, experienced man, and a man of the highest type of American politics. [Cheers.] I rise to second the nomination of a man whose history is a part of that of the Republican party of this country, and who has followed its fortunes through its dark as well as its bright hour; followed it faithfully, no matter where it took him, though it might be in front of calumny or disaster, has followed it faithfully through all its hours, and who, by reason of his services to his party, and, above all, to his country, is entitled to such indorsement, and whose nomination by this Convention would sink personal and sectional differences beneath the wave. A quarter of a century ago the name of John Sherman was history in the politics of this country. [Applause.] His name has been written as that of a master upon the legislation of this country and the execution of its laws. During all that time his name has been exposed to the blaze of public opinion, and it has never, never been scorched. But there is another reason, gentlemen, why I came here to second this nomination. Although he was born in a time when great ability was needed for an office of high trust, although .he executed the laws of resumption in such a way as to enroll credit upon our national ban ner and our national history, although that fact perhaps added more to the suc cess of the Republican cause four years ago than any other fact, if there is other reason why he is entitled to honor and credit, what is it ? Speaking as a Repub lican from the South a Republican in the South as long as there has been a Republican party in the South I undertake to say that John Sherman has always been an advocate of freedom of opinion and thought, and of civil rights, and of absolute liberty as against slavery. [Cheers.] As long ago as the days when it was a question whether the Territory of Kansas should be cursed with slavery or blessed with freedom, he was found in the ranks of the Republican party battling for freedom. The Republican in the South has always found in him an advocate, and to-day the civil rights, the political rights of the Republican in the South is a sacred trust to John Sherman. To be brief, in the language of that martyred President who. four years ago presented his name to the Republican Convention in this hall, I present his name to you for your careful consideration and for your indorsement. [Applause.] The Secretary then called the States of Oregon, Pennsyl vania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and then Vermont. The Chairman Ex-Governor Long, of Massachusetts. Mr. President and Fellow-Delegates We are here to discharge a trust. Let us remember that we are to account for it hereafter. I appeal to the unimpas- sioned judgment of this Convention. I appeal from the excitement of this vast concourse to the afterthought of the firesides of the people, and remembering SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 299 that an American audience never fails in fair play, I appeal even at this late hour for an opportunity for brave little Vermont. [Cheers.] Their only need, that in its candidate in the simple elements of his personal and public character it furnish a guarantee of its continued fidelity to itself; their only need, that it respond to the instinct of the people. That done, and its tri umph in the coming Presidential election is as sure as the coming of the election day. [Applause.] But, gentlemen, that instinct must be obeyed. It represents a demand which is as inexorable as fate itself. It recognizes the merits and the services of all the candidates before us. It obtrudes no word of depreciation for any of them. It caves little for issues of expediency or preferences of personal or party liking, but by that awful voice of the people, which is as the voice of God, it sets an imperative standard for its choice and bids us rise to that or fall. [Applause.] We are convened, therefore, in behalf of no man. The country and the party are greater than the pleasures or the interests of any one man, how ever dear or honored to us. [Applause.] We are here as Republicans; and yet brave and broad enough not to be here in the interests of the Republican party alone. Even in this tumultuous excitement we do feel that charged with the most sacred responsibilities that can fall upon the representatives of the people, we are here in the interests of the people and all the people of the country, and the whole country. We are here to select for President a man from our own ranks, but a man whose record and character, whose tested service, whose tried incorruptibility, who is unscratched through the storms and fires of public life, whose approved wisdom is equal to every emergency, whose recognized capacity to put a firm and safe hand on the helm, and whose hold upon the public confi dence of the people make him not a choice for them, but their choice for them selves. He must be one who will command their undivided support. Not merely brilliant qualities on the one hand, for meritorious qualities on the other are enough. He must have all the staying qualities of the sturdiest American character. He must represent no wing or-faction of the party, but the whole of it. [Applause.] He must be one who will hold every Republican to his alle giance; who will rally indifferent and independent voters even into wise, con vinced and earnest front for our line ; one who will stand for every beat that ever throbbed in the national heart for humanity, freedom, conscience and reform ; one who will stand for whatever has been honest and of good report in our na tional history ; for whatever has been done for economy, financial wisdom, clean politics and the integrity of the national life [applause] and above all he must be one whose name will carry in the coming canvass that sense of security to which at each Presidential election the country turns as to a very rock of salva tion. [Applause.] Such a man, honest and capable, will first master the sober judgment and ap proval of the people. Thenceforward he will stir them to the only enthusiasm, my friends, that counts, and that is the enthusiasm of public confidence [ap plause] and then on election day, conscious where their safety lies, the irresist ible uprising of the people, like the mighty unrolling of an ocean tide, will sweep him, never fear, into the highest seat of your public service. [Applause.] That is a measure not of the party but of the country. Meet it and you have done your work and won your victory in advance. Respond here and now to this instinct of the people and they will take care of the result. The measure is high, but the candidate I name rises to it. If there be an ideal American citizen in the best sense it is he. The people know that his character, his abilities, his 3OO SELECTING A PRESIDENT. worth, and his courage are as recognized and familiar as a household word. [Applause.] His fame needs not the kindly " nothing but good" with which death obscures the faults and exaggerates the virtues of public men. Calumny dare not assail him [applause] and if it dare, recoils from him as from a gal vanic shock. Against no other candidate can less be said than against him. But it is not I, it is not the State, nor the delegates whom I here represent who present that name to you. It is presented by the uncounted numbers of our fel low-citizens, good men and true, all over this land, who only await his nomina tion to spring to the swift and hearty M ork of this election. [Applause.] It is presented by an intelligent press from Maine to California, representing a healthy public sentiment and an advanced public demand. It is in the name of one whose letter of acceptance of an unsolicited honor will constitute all the machin ery he will have put into its procurement. [Applause.] It is a name which in itself is a guarantee of inflexible honesty in government, of the best and wisest cabinet the country can afford, and no man in it greater than its head. It is a guarantee of appointments to office fit, clean and disinterested all the way through, a guarantee of an administration which I believe, and which in your hearts you know, will realize not only at home but abroad the very highest conceptions of American statesmanship. It is a name, too, which will carry over the land a grateful feeling of serenity and security. It will be as wholesome and refreshing as the green mountains of his native State; their summits tower not higher than his worth ; their foundations are not firmer than his convictions and truth. The green and prolific slopes that grow great harvests are not richer than the fruitage of his long and lofty labors in the service of his country. [Applause and cries of " Bravo ! " bravo ! "] He is a man of no clans and no pretense, but a man of the people east, west, north and south, because the representative of their homeliest, plainest and best characteristics. Massachusetts, leaping her own borders, nominates him to this great Repub lican Convention as the man it seeks, as the man of its instinctive and honest choice, as the one man whom its constituents everywhere will hail with one un broken shout, not only of satisfaction, but of relief. Gentlemen, I nominate as the Republican candidate for next President of the United States, the Hon. George F. Edmunds, of Vermont. [Great cheers and applause.] George William Curtis, of New York, here seconded the nomination with the following speech : Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention I shall not repeat to you the splendid story of the Republican party a story that we never tire of telling, and that our children will never tire of hearing ; a story which is written upon the heart of every American citizen, because it recounts greater services for liberty, for the country, and for mankind than those of any party, in any other nation, at any other period of time. [Applause.] And what is the secret of this unparalleled history ? It is simply that the Republican party has been always the party of the best instincts, of the highest desires of the American people. This is its special glory. It has represented the American instinct of nationality, American patriotism, and American devotion to labor. Now, fellow-citizens, we approach a new test, and we shall be tried by the undulate whom we submit to the people. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 301 The American people move in their progress from the ocean-bound coast across the continent to the boundless and heaven-arched prairie, and upon us the eyes of that country are fixed at this moment. I say we shall be tried by the candidate that we present. Do not forget that upon the man of our choice the eyes of the country will turn to see who it is that the Republican party honors and respects. It will turn to see what are the objects, what is the spirit, what shall be the method of the continued Republican administration. And therefore our candidate must be in himself a resplendent manifesto of Republican principle, Republican character, and Republican purpose a candi date who is in himself a triumphant victory. [Applause.] We, gentlemen, have been long in power, and prolonged power breeds as we have learned to our cost in the State of New York, as you have learned, therefore, to your cost prolonged power breeds dissension within the party. The times are hard, and every man who feels poor at once blames the administration of the government. The old issues are largely settled and new men with new views are arising around us, and vast questions to which no man can be blind solicit our present attention and sympathy. This is the state of the country, this is the state of the party, and we are confronted with the Democratic party very hungry, and, as you may well believe, very thirsty a party without a single definite principle, a party without any distinct National policy which it dares to present to the country, a party which fell from power as a conspiracy against human rights, and now attempts to sneak back to power as a conspiracy for plunder and spoils. Nevertheless, fellow-Republicans, we have learned, and many of you, whom all our hearts salute, have learned upon a field more peaceful than this, that our foe is not a foe to be despised. He will feel our line to find our weakest point ; he will search the work of this Convention with an electric light ; he will try us by our candidate, and therefore the man to whom we commit the banner that Abraham Lincoln bore must be, like Abraham Lincoln, a knight indeed; and, like the old knight, a knight without fear and without reproach. He must be a statesman, identified with every measure of the great Republican past, and a pioneer in every measure of its future reform, and in himself the pledge that the party will not only put its face forward, but set its foot forward, and a pledge also that that foot will trample and crush, will utterly destroy whatever disgraces the public service, whatever defiles the Republican name, whatever defeats the just expec tations of the country of the Republican party. He must be also and I do but echo the words of the distinguished orator who preceded me he must be also an unswerving Republican, a man, a statesman, not strong in an unrecorded obscurity, but working for many a year ; conspicuous, commanding, upon the heights of eminent place ; in the full sunlight of an unquestionable purity, of personal and of public conduct ; a statesman, as all our hearts assure us; the most eminent, the one pre-eminent Republican about whom Republicans have never differed, and for whom every Republican, every Democrat, every independent voter, every American citizen, who under any circumstances whatever would support the Republican ticket, would gladly vote. This is the man, fellow-Republicans, whom the situation of the country, whom the condition of the party, whom our knowledge of the combat upon which we enter this is the man, the fitting man, in my judgment, the most fitting man indicates to be our leader. Mr. President, in the beginning of the rebellion a Green Mountain boy crossed Lake Charnplain, and, followed by his brave comrades, climbed a sheer preci- 3O2 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. pice and in the name of the Great Jehovah and the Continental Congress de manded and received the surrender of British Ticonderoga. [Cheers.] There is another Green Mountain boy; let us make him our captain in the great contest upon which we enter; make him our captain of the host, the vast host of loyal followers and, indeed, followers we shall be of any man who bears the banner of the Republican party, and in the name of the Great Jehovah and of the Republican party he will demand and receive the surrender of the Democratic party. [Cheers and applause.] His name is in your hearts befjre it leaves my lips; incorruptible, unassailable; a Republican whom every Repub lican trusts to the utmost ; whom every Democrat respects with all his heart ; a candidate who will make every Republican State surer, every Democratic State uneasy, every doubtful State Republican [Cheers] and who will awaken all the old conquering Republican enthusiasm of principle and character. This is the candidate whose name has been presented to us by the old Bay State, and the candidate whose nomination, on behalf of every American citizen who be lieves that political honesty is the best political policy, I proudly second, in call ing the name of George F. Edmunds, of Vermont. [Long continued cheers.] Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, then moved that the Convention proceed to ballot. Mr. Stewart said if the purpose of the motion was to econ omize the time of the Convention he moved to amend the mo tion to the effect that the Convention proceed to take five ballots before adjournment. [Loud cheers and laughter.] Mr. Thurston, of Nebraska, said he was so overwhelmed with the tide of eloquence that he wanted a little time for quiet, deliberate, honest, conscientious reflection before voting. He then demanded that the roll of States be called, which was done, the motion to adjourn being lost again by 410 nays and 391 yeas. Stewart, of Pennsylvania, moved adjournment until 1 1 o clock, upon which some member called for the roll. While this was being discussed, the anti-Blaine men dis covered that the Blaine men had means to keep the Conven tion up all night, and they consented to the adjournment until 1 1 A. M. The speech of Judge West placing Mr. Blaine in nomina tion, while an eloquent effort, cannot for a moment be com pared with that of Mr. Robert Ingersoll in Cincinnati, in 1876, SELECTING A PRESIDENT, 303 nominating Mr. Blaine. So much is this speech a model of a nominating speech that I reproduce it here, and also with the view of answering the oft-repeated question : Why is Mr. Blaine called the Plumed Knight ? Mr. Ingersoll said : Massachusetts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow; so am I. But if any man nominated by this Convention cannot carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this Convention cannot carry the grand old commonwealth of Massachusetts by 75,000 majority I would advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as a Demo cratic headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory. The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader, in the great contest of 1876, a man of intellect, a man of integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinion. They demand a statesman. They demand a reformer after as well as before the election. They demand a politician in the highest and broadest and best sense of the word. They demand a man acquainted with public affairs, with the wants of the people, with not only the requirements of the hour, but with the de mands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to comprehend the re lations of this government to the other nations of the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and prerogatives of each and every de partment of this government. They demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the United States. One who knows enough to know that the national debt must be paid through the prosperity of this people ; one who knows enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single dollar ; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough to know that the people of the United States have the industry to make the money and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they make it. The Republicans of the United States de mand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they can come, must come together. When they come they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels ; hand in hand past the open furnace doors ; hand in hand by the flaming forges ; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fires. This money has got to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by pass ing resolutions in a political meeting. The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that his government should protect every citizen at home and abroad ; who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders and will not protect its protectors is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and schools. They demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star, but they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a Confederate Congress. The man who has in full habit and unbounded measure all these splendid qualifications is the present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party, James G. Blaine. Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past and prophetic of her future ; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man who is the grandest com- 304 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. bination of heart, conscience and brain beneath the flag. That man is James C Elaine. For the Republican host led by this intrepid man there can be no sue] thing as defeat. This is a grand year a year filled with the recollection of th Revolution ; filled with proud and tender memories of the sacred past ; filled wit the legends of liberty a year in which the sons of freedom will drink from th fountain of enthusiasm ; a year in which the people call for the man who ha preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon the field ; a year in which w call for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of slander ; man that has snatched the mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion a man who, like an intellectual athlete, stood in the arena of debate, challenge< all comers, and who, up to the present moment, is a total stranger to defeal Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Elaine marched dowi the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full and fai against the brazen forehead of every defamer of this country and maligner of it honor. For the Republican party to desert that gallant man now is as thougl an army should desert their general upon the field of battle. James G. Elaine i now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred standard of the Republic I call it sacred, because no human being can stand beneath its folds without be coming and without remaining free. Gentlemen of the Convention, in the name of the great Republic, the onl Republic that ever existed upon this earth ; in the name of all her defenders an< of all her supporters ; in the name of all her soldiers living ; in the name of al her soldiers that died upon the field of battle, and in the name of those tha perished in the skeleton clutches of famine at Andersonville and Libby, whos suffering he so eloquently remembers, Illinois nominates for the next Presiden of this country, that prince of parliamentarians, that leader of leaders, James G Elaine. CHAPTER XIV. THE FOURTH DAY AND THE END BEGINNING TO BALLOT THE ATTEMPT TO STAY THE TORRENT BLAINE THE WINNER A NlGHT SESSION AND LOGAN. AFTER many years of patient waiting, nerved by eager longing, the ripened fruit of preference has been at last yielded into the hands of James G. Elaine. The populace, clamoring in the amphitheatres of old Rome, proclaimed the riumph of the fierce arena with a wild, tumultuous shout of Habet ! " Out of a contest as desperately vital without its bloody peril pitched in party battles of a dozen years, the white plumed knight, whose sword and lance have oft been Broken in defeat, stands proudly now to hear the modern cry of " habet." In very truth he has it. It is the common rule of life to give the greater honor to the newest comer. The spirit that in elder times presumed the king could never die, and hailed him living while it still declared him dead, abides, n but a varied fashion with us now, and they who looked to ee another rising chief turn from defeat to touch the blade >f victory. , At the close of the third ballot the result was no longer in question. Then ensued an uproar. An attempt was made to tern the torrent. Delay, however, was now a useless ex- >edient. The indulgence was more the unwillingness to bow o the inevitable, than the result of a hope that any combina- (305) 306 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. tion could now be effected to turn back the surging tidi Such an effort was made, nevertheless. The forlorn hope w? pursued to its extremity, and while a babel of sounds held tb business of the hour in abeyance, there was a hurrying hith< and thither of party leaders, a fitful holding of conference earnest and angry consultations, the Convention yielding i self to the element of paroxysm flung down from the gallerie These conferences were sometimes hotly urged, and in or instance there was imminent danger of a disgraceful person; encounter between members of two extreme delegation There is but one word to convey an idea of a scene so tho oughly indescribable it was a pandemonium, wherein raptui and dismayed excitement were the spirits of fierce contentio By the greatest exertion of muscular power in pounding h desk, and through the energetic services of the sergeants-a arms, the Convention was finally reduced nearly enoug toward a state of calm to permit the taking of the fourth an final ballot. It was slowly conducted, with all the retardir possible to diplomatic device, but it progressed with such steady drain of vital elements to the Blaine interest that tl impetuous, overwrought audience could not restrain the vi< lent working of enthusiasm, or repress the inclination to sei; the full-fledged opportunity for noise, and when Illinois loose the flood-gates with a gift of thirty-four votes to Blain rapidly followed by thirty from Indiana, the bridles of reasc were snapped and the mad career of violence began. Ii sanity could not make more monstrous demonstration th? marked the rush from that time to the overwhelming tumu that recorded the nomination against the battlements of spac The lofty tops of the hoary pines that ward the Atlantic passion from the peaceful breast of Maine never tossed moi fiercely in the tempest shock than did the moving particles c SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 307 his great hall before the violent sweep of wild emotion iroused by the success of the favorite son of Maine, now made he people s choice. Factions ceased to be with the triumph f the vote. The Convention had warned its chief, and out f the discord came the white spirit of amity, touching the ninds of difference, brushing away the interest of prejudice, ind with the great opposition leader asking that his friends ally to the standard of the greater choice, contention forgot ts voice, and harmony was reverenced again. The party ight is ended, and principles awake again. Men give way to jnds ; the Convention makes way for the nation. Le roi est nor 1; vive le roi. The Convention was called to order at 11.19 by Chairman (Henderson, who said : " The Convention this morning will be ! ppened with prayer by the Rev. Henry Martyn Scudder, of phicago." Mr. Scudder, pastor of Plymouth Church, Chicago, offered :he following prayer : Almighty and ever blessed God, we worship Thee as the author of our being, is the creator of our mortal bodies and of our immortal spirits, and we adore Thee as the inexhaustible personal source of all light and love and truth and iberty and peace and gladness, and we do glorify Thee as the supreme law giver and as the only rightful sovereign of all hearts and all consciences, and we :lo thank Thee with reverence and gratitude for the benignant providence which :rom the very beginning has watched over our beloved country. We thank Thee r or its manifold deliverances in times of national peril, for its grand victory over slavery, for its symmetric development under Thy protecting care and for its present advancement among the nations of the earth ; and we do also bless Thee for our just laws and liberal institutions, for our civil and religious liberty, for our fertile lands and abundant resources, for our great cities and our happy homes. We bless Thee, Lord God of Truth and Grace, for the great faith and for our Christian churches and for our educational privileges, and for the privileges that Thou dost continually grant to our people, for their growth in the knowledge, virtue and power that constitute genuine national humanity, and we ask Thee to pronounce Thy benediction upon this Convention, and grant it to-day Thy inval- aable support, and that what is done here may be done in righteousness and truth ind in the spirit of patriotism, and may every man in this Convention be en- iowed with the true inspiration of loyalty and truth and fidelity to the highest interests of our great republic. And now, finally, Great and Holy God, we pray SELECTING A PRESIDENT; Thee that this Convention may be led with unanimity to select for nomination t the Presidency of these United /States the right man, and when he is selected b this Convention may he thereafter be elected by the American people to th Chief Magistracy of this country, and after he is elected, if that be Thy will, ma his life be precious in Thy sight, and may he be so endowed with every gift ths he may give the country an administration that shall be an honor to this Cor vention, to the Republican party and to the whole American people, and a lesso to mankind, an administration which shall be acceptable in Thy sight, oh, Lor of Hosts, Thou who art the Lord God, and we ask it in the name of our Lor and Redeemer, Jesus Christ. Amen. The Chair " Gentlemen of the Convention, the Secretar will call the roll of the States and Territories that have nc yet given in the names of the members of the National Com mittee and which were passed yesterday." A delegate from California " I desire to offer a resolutio without comment." Mr. Davis, of Illinois " I demand the regular order, object to this resolution." The Secretary then proceeded to call the roll of States fc National Committee men as follows : California, Horace Davis; Colorado, passed for the present Florida, passed; New Hampshire, Edwin H. Fallett; Ter nessee, W. D. Brownlow; District of Columbia, no choic yet; New Mexico, Col. Wm. H. Ryners. A delegate from California " I desire to withdraw the res olution which I had in mind. I do so at the request of th members of my delegation." The Chair " Gentlemen of the Convention, there is noi nothing in order except to call the roll for the nomination o a candidate for the Presidency." Turner, of Alabama " Mr. President, is that call of th roll for balloting ? " The Chair " For balloting the nomination of a candidate. The Secretary then proceeded to call the roll of States fo the nomination of a candidate for the Presidency, the firs ballot resulting as follows : SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 309 THE FIRST BALLOT. States and Ed- J. Sher- Haw- Lin- W. T. Territories. Blaine. Arthur. mimds. Logan, man. ley. coin. Sherman Alabama I 17 ... I Arkansas 8 4 2 California 16 Colorado 6 Connecticut 12 Delaware 5 i Florida 7 Georgia 24 Illinois 3 40 Indiana 1 8 9 I . . 2 Iowa ; . . . 26 Kansas 12 4 I I S/4 16 2 / 2 I I Louisiana 2 IO Maine 12 Maryland IO 6 . . Massachusetts I 2 25 Michigan 15 2 7 . ! Minnesota 7 I 6 . ! Mississippi i 17 Missouri 5 10 6 10 i .. Nebraska 8 2 ) Nevada 6 : New Hampshire New Jersey 9 4 4 6 i 2 2 New York 28 31 12 I North Carolina .... 2 19 I . . Ohio 2 25 . . Oregon 6 Pennsylvania 47 II I I .. Rhode Island 8 South Carolina. j 17 Tennessee 7 16 i Texas ii 2 . Vermont 8 . . . 1 Virginia 2 21 i . . . 1 West Virginia 12 Wisconsin 10 6 6 Arizona .... 2 Dakota 2 Idaho 2 Montana I I New Mexico 2 Utah 2 Washington 2 Wyoming 2 . . Dist. of Columbia. . I 1 Totals 334^ 2 7 8 "93 ~6^ 2 ^30 ~7J ~4 ~~2 3IO SELECTING A PRESIDENT. During the roll-call there were numerous calls for a poll of the delegates, which necessitated the calling by the Secretary of the names of the individual delegates in the States from which these calls proceeded. This caused great delay in bal loting. After the announcement of the vote by the Secretary the Chair said : "A ballot for a candidate for the Presidency having beer had without securing a nomination, according to the rules the Convention will now proceed to another vote. The Secretary will call the roll." The Secretary called the roll of States for the second ballot which resulted as follows : THE SECOND BALLOT. States and Ed- Sher- Haw- Lin- W. T. Territories. Arthur. Elaine, munds. Logan, man. ley. coin. Sherman Alabama 17 2 . . I . . . . . . . .^ Arkansas 3 1 1 . . . . . . . . . . "> California 16 Colorado 6 . . . . . . . . . . : i Connecticut . . . . . . . . 12 . . -. Delaware I 5 . . . . . . . . . . . jj? Florida 7 I . . . . . \ Georgia 24 Illinois i 3 40 Indiana 9 18 I ... 2 Iowa 26 Kansas 2 13 . . 2 . . I .... 4- j Kentucky 17 5 .. 2 I .. I Louisiana 9 4 2 . . . ". . . Maine 12 Maryland 4 1 2 Massachusetts 3 I 24 Michigan 4 15 5 2 Minnesota I 7 6 Mississippi 17 I . . . . Missouri 10 7 5 8 I Nebraska 2 8 . . ^ Nevada 6 . . . . . . New Hampshire 5 . . 3 New Jersey 9 6 .. I . . 2 New York 31 28 12 I SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 31! THE SECOND BALLOT Continued. States and Ed- Sher- Haw- Lin- W. T. Territories. Arthur. Elaine, munds. Logan. man. ley. coin. Sherman. North Carolina 18 3 . . I Ohio 23 . . . . 23 Oregon 6 . . j Pennsylvania II 47 1 I Rhode Island 8 South Carolina 17 I .. Tennessee 16 7 . . I Texas II 13 . . 2 Vermont . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . Virginia 21 2 .. I .. .. .. .. West Virginia 12 . . Wisconsin 6 n 5 Arizona 2 . . . . Dakota 2 . . Idaho 2 . . . . Montana I i New Mexico 2 . . . . Utah 2 Washington 2 . . Wyoming 2 District of Columbia. . i I . . Totals 276 349 85 61 28 13 42 When the announcement was made of the result of the sec ond ballot, owing to the gain shown by the Elaine column, there was wild cheering, which did not subside for several minutes. Upon the partial subsidence of the noise some dele gates shouted for the regular order. The Chair No nomination having been made, the Conven tion will now proceed to the third ballot, and the Secretary will call the roll of States and Territories. INCIDENTS OF THE BALLOT. While the roll was being called for the third ballot the count in Kentucky and Massachusetts was challenged, but upon dissatisfaction being expressed each of the gentlemen challenging withdrew the challenge. When eighteen votes 19 312 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. were announced for James G. Blaine from the State of Michi gan there was tremendous cheering. When the State oi Nebraska was reached Mr. Thurston arose and said : " Mr. Chairman, Nebraska, with her fifty thousand Republi cans " Here again a profound hostility appeared to prevail among the audience against further oratory, and it was manifested ir the most vociferous manner. The Chairman finally succeedec in getting order, and Mr. Thurston continued : " Casts ten votes for James G. Blaine," and sat down amic tremendous noise. While the roll was proceeding, and after the State of Ne vada had been called, delegates were seen rushing througt the aisles in various directions. When North Carolina wa< reached there was a great deal of uproar, and the Chair said " The gentlemen in the aisles will please take their seats, anc the sergeant-at-arms will please see that they do so." Ar assistant sergeant-at-arms rushed around at a terrific pace in sisting with vehemence that the order applied with peculiai force and especially directed to the reporters. When the vote of Pennsylvania was announced Mr. Magee and Mr. Flinn, of Pennsylvania, both challenged the vote and insisted on a count. While the roll was being called Mr. Baker, of Indi ana, arose and said : " Mr. Chairman, I demand that the lobbyists who have taken possession of these aisles shall go to their places in stantly." The Chair The gentlemen will resume their seats. Mr. Aidy, of Kansas The New York delegation belongs on the other side of the hall. Mr. Butcher, of New York Yes, the New York delega tion belongs over here. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 313 Mr. Burleigh, of New York I rise to a point of order, and that is that ex-Senator Spencer is among the delegates, and he has no right to be there. Mr. McCook, of New York I suggest that there are gen tlemen not delegates sitting among the New York delegates, and I rise to inquire in reference to it. Mr. Collins, of New York Name the men and put them out. The Chair The gentlemen will take their seats. After a season of great confusion, during which the audi ence materially assisted with their feet and their voices in swelling the tumult, quiet was restored, and the Secretary proceeded with the call of the roll. When the State of Penn sylvania was reached the chairman of the delegation reported its vote. The vote was immediately challenged, and a call of the roll of the State delegation was ordered by the Chair. The following was the result : THE THIRD BALLOT. States and Ed- W. T. J. Sher- Haw- Lin- Territories. Elaine. Arthur, munds. Sherman, man. ley. Logan, coin. Alabama 2 17 .. .. .. I Arkansas 1 1 3 Arizona.... 2 California 16 Colorado 6 Connecticut .. .. .. . . * 12 Delaware 5 I Dakota 2 Florida I 7 Georgia 24 Illinois 3 I . . 40 Indiana 18 10 . . . . 2 . . . . . . - Iowa 26 Kansas 15 .. .. I 2 Kentucky 6 16 I 21 Louisiana 4 9 .. 2 Maine . . .12 .......... 314 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. THE THIRD BALLOT Continued. States and Ed- W. T. J. Sher- Haw- Lin- Territories. Elaine. Arthur, munds. Sherman, man. ley. Logan, coin. Maryland 12 4 Massachusetts I 3 24 Michigan 18 4 3 .. I Minnesota 7 2 5 Mississippi I 16 Missouri 12 u 4 .. .. .. 4 Nebraska 10 . . . . Nevada 6 . . . . . . . . . . . . . New Hampshire 5 3 New Jersey n i .. .. .. .. .. 6 New York 28 32 12 North Carolina 4 18 Ohio 25 .. .. .. 21 .. .... Oregon 6 .. .. .. .. .. .. ..^ Pennsylvania 50 .. .. .. .. I Rhode Island 8 j South Carolina 2 16 . . . . . . . . . % . Tennessee 7 17 . .. .. .. .. " . . Texas 14 u .. I Vermont . . 8 . . . . . . . . . . Virginia 4 20 . . . . . . . . . . . West Virginia 12 Wisconsin n 10 .. I Idaho i i . . . . . . . . . . . . ;". Montana i . i New Mexico 2 Utah 2 Washington Territory. 2 .. .. .. .. .. .. .... Wyoming 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . District of Columbia. . i i .. .. .. .. .. .., Totals 375 274 69 i 25 13 53 7 When the result of the third ballot was announced there was another scene of wild confusion and cheering. When opportunity offered, Judge Foraker, of Ohio, was recognized by the Chair. Judge Foraker " I move that we take a recess until half- past seven o clock this evening." Mr. Du tcher, of New York " I second the motion for a recess." SELECTING A PRESIDEN 315 Mr. Stewart, of Pennsylvania " Mr. Chairman, I make an amendment. The opposing forces of this Convention have already passed beyond the skirmish line and there is one phalanx [Here the speaker s voice was drowned in the uproar of voices.] Mr. Roosevelt, of New York " Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point of order. The motion is not debatable or amendable." Mr. Phelps, of New Jersey " We do not wish to debate it. We only wish to wait until we have done the work for which we are here." Mr. Stewart, of Pennsylvania " Mr. Chairman ! Mr. Chair man ! I have the floor. Mr. Chairman ! You recognized the gentleman from Pennsylvania and I have the floor." Mr. Roosevelt, of New York " The motion is not amend able or debatable." Mr. Stewart " We are ready for the brunt of battle. Mr. Chairman, let it come." [Cheers from surrounding delega tions.] The speaker s voice was again lost in the confusion. The Chair " The motion before the Convention is that the Convention now take a recess until half-past seven o clock this evening. All those in favor say aye," to which a few re sponses were given. "All those opposed say no," to which a deafening response was given, seemingly from every part of the building, including the audience and galleries as well as delegates. The Chair " The nays have it." Judge Foraker " I demand the call of States." Mr. Roosevelt " I ask for a call of the roll call the roll." Mr. Russell, of New York " What is the call of the roll on ? " [Cries from the Alabama delegation of " Let us have the roll-call."] Mr. Roosevelt " Mr. Chairman, I demanded the roll-call 316 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. on the question of adjournment. We have a right to have it. Mr. Chairman " Cries of " Sit down ! Sit down ! You are too late." Mr. Packard, of New York " It is never too late." Mr. Roosevelt " Mr. Chairman, I demand a roll-call on the question of adjournment." A delegate from North Carolina " I rise to a question of information in behalf of the delegates from Alabama. We do not understand precisely what you are voting upon now." The Chair " The roll will be called on the ballot for Presi dent." [Applause.] Mr. Butcher, of New York " New York demanded the call of the roll of the States on the question of adjournment before the Chair decided the question." The Chair" Was it seconded by two States ? " Mr. Dutcher " Yes, sir ; it was seconded by over six States." , The Chair " The roll will be called for balloting for Presi dent." Mr. Dutcher " Fair play, fair play, sir." [Great confusion and uproar.] The Chair " Give the names of the States seconding the motion and they will be recorded." Mr. Dutcher " They were New York, Alabama and Ohio." A delegate from New York, Mr. Sheard " I rise to a point of order that the roll-call having taken place there is no other business but a continuation of the same." The Chair inquires of the gentleman from New York, Mr. Dutcher, to know whether New York called for the vote to be recorded. Mr. Dutcher " New York did call for the vote to be re corded." SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 317 The Chair" What States seconded ? " Mr. Butcher " They were New York, Ohio, North Caro lina [cries of No ! No ! ], Alabama and Mississippi." A delegate from New York " I rise to another point, that the State of New York has not been polled for the roll-call and therefore no gentleman has the right to demand it in her name." Mr. Keyes "All right ; now proceed with the roll." Mr. Roosevelt " New York, North Carolina and Missis sippi have seconded the motion for the roll-call of States on the question of recess." Mr. Carr, of Illinois " Mr. President, I rise to a point of order, and that is, that pending the roll-call no person can be recognized by the Chair except the person from the State which has been called. Alabama has been called. I ask that no person be recognized or permitted to make a motion until Alabama shall have expressed herself on the call. Alabama has the floor now, and nobody else can be recognized." Mr. Spooner, of New York " My point of order is on the motion to adjourn and that the call of the roll should be or dered by the Chair." Mr. Husted, of New York " I rise to a point of order. My point of order is that the demand for a vote by States was not made until after the Chair had decided the motion which was lost, a few moments ago, on the viva voce call." Mr. Roosevelt " I made a motion for the call of the roll of States on the question of adjournment, but in the noise the Chair could not hear me." [Great confusion and uproar here ensued, in the midst of which the Chair recognized Mr. Mc- Kinley, of Ohio.] Mr. McKinley " Mr. President and gentlemen of the Con vention, I hope no friend of James G. Elaine will object to 318 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. having the roll-call of States made. [Cries of Good Good ! and cheers.] Let us raise no technical objectioi [Cries of That s right ! and cheers.] And as a friend o James G. Blaine I insist that all his friends shall unite in hav ing the roll of States called and voting against adjournment. [Loud cheers.] The Chair " Very well." Mr. McKinley "And then we can vote the propositioi down." [Loud applause.] Mr. Conger, of the District of Columbia " We accep that, Mr. Chairman." On the question of adjournment there were more delays occasioned by the demand from certain of the. States for ; polling of the vote. The result on the vote was ayes, 364 noes, 450. This announcement produced another season oi wild cheering. Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, again rose in his seal Mr. Foraker, of Ohio " I move that the rules of this Con vention be suspended and that James G. Blaine be nominate* by acclamation." [Loud applause and great confusion.] Mr. Roosevelt, of New York " It cannot be done." [Louc cries of " Roll-call, roll-call," and continued confusion.] Mr. Winston, of North Carolina " I move that we procee( with the order of business proceed to call the roll fo another ballot." [Loud cries of " Call the roll, call the roll, and great confusion.] Mr. Houck, of Tennessee " I desire to inquire how Mr Cassell, of Tennessee, is recorded." [Continued confusioi and cries of " Too late, too late," and " Roll-call, roll-call."] Mr. Foraker " My motion is that the rules of this Con vention be suspended and that James G. Blaine be nominatec by acclamation." [Loud and long continued cheers and grea confusion.] SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. Roosevelt, of New York " I ask for the roll-call." [Continued confusion.] Mr. Burrows, of Michigan " I demand the regular order and a call of the roll." [Loud cheers.] Mr. Roosevelt, of New York" On behalf of New York I ask for a call of the roll." [Great confusion.] Mr. Burrows, of Michigan " I demand a call of the roll and I move that we proceed to ballot." [Continued confusion and commotion in the hall.] In the midst of the confusion Mr. Foraker, of Ohio, got the floor. " In order," he said, " that the time of this Convention may be saved, at the request of gentlemen members I with draw the motion I made." There were cries of " Good, good," applause and great confusion and commotion, in the midst of which the chairman directed the clerk to call the roll of the States for the fourth ballot. THE OLD GUARD NEVER SURRENDERS. During the fourth ballot, when the State of Arkansas was called, Mr. Burrows, of Michigan, arose and said : " I rise to a question of order. It is utterly impossible to hear a word unless order is restored. Unless that order is restored I shall move that this Convention adjourn to a hall by itself to finish these proceedings." [Great applause, confusion, and laughter.] The vote of Florida was polled on the fourth ballot. When the name of Joseph E. Lee, of Florida, was called, he said : " The Old Guard dies, but never surrenders Chester A. Arthur." [Applause.] When Georgia was called the chairman of the delegation, Mr. Buck, said : " Before coming into this Convention the delegation from Georgia agreed to act as a unit. A majority of the delegation are still for Chester A. Arthur, and unless a : SELECTIVE A PRE5IDEXT. vole is called I ifciB announce 24 votes for Arthur.** 1 i*l1 iIjBM T and cries of * Good, good.**] like Chair "Is there any contest in Georgia?" [Loud cries of - No, no/*] The Chair - Georgia then cub her 24 votes for Chester A. Arthur." LOGAX Ttmss ix FOR \\lien Illinois as called die chairman of the delegation, Mr. S. M Cullom, said: " I ask leave of this Convention to -. "-. : :. :. - :. : / : . . . "... . . . :-: . . ~ . ~ : - -. _" :r _ m Grarial John A. Logan, addressed to the Illinois delegation." [Loud cries of - Regular order, regular order,*" -\\eobject," -Cafl the roll,"" and great confiision.] Mr. Cullcm ~ To the Republicans [load cries of " Order, caH the roll, regular order""} I am directed by Gcmnral Logan to read it to this Convention and shall send the dis patch to the desk to be read.* 9 [Loud cries of * No, no!* =. r~. : ^ - -~ ::""-- : ~ Mr. Burrows, of Michigan" I make the point of order that the reading of the dispatch is not in order and nothing tat the announcement of die vote is in order." [Load ap- The Chair -The Chair sustains the point of order." [Loud applause.] Mr. Cullom ~ The Illinois AkgjJkm then Uiihaps the --.--. - ~-_- - : j v- --.:.-- ^ . - .-, - - " - Logan 7, and fix- Arthur 3." [Loud jppliuy and loud i - . * - When the State of Ohio was called. Judge Foraker arose and said: - For what I %n|i|iinil to be the best iatnrsls of this party. I ynMMiuA the name of John Shfinun to this SELECTING A PRESIDENT. $21 Convention; also supposing it to be for the best interests of [the party we have until now favorably and most cordially sup- Sported him. Now, also, in the interests of the party we with draw him and cast for James G. Elaine 46 votes." [Tremend ous outburst of applause.] The ballot resulted as follows : THE FOURTH BALLOT. States and Ed- W. T. J. Sher- Haw- Lin- Territories. Elaine. Arthur. munds. Sherman, man. ley. Logan, coin. Llabama 8 12 irkansas n 3 California 16 . . . . . . Colorado 6 . . Connecticut . . 12 )elaware 5 I "lorida 3 5 reorgia 24 linois 34 3 . . 6 ndiana 30 . . owa 24 2 . . Kansas 18 . . Kentucky 9 15 I I .ouisiana 9 7 . . . . . . taine 12 . . laryland 15 I [assachusetts 3 7 18 [ichigan 26 _. . .\ linnesota 14 . . ;issippi 2 16 . . . . tissouri 32 .. Nebraska IO . . . . . . evada 6 . . ew Hampshire../. 3 2 3 . . ew Jersey 17 .. I .. ew York 29 30 9 .... 2 . . I r orth Carolina 8 12 I hio 46 . . ! regon 6 . . . . . . ennsylvania 51 8 I .hode Island 7 I outh Carolina 2 15 I ennessee 11 12 exas 15 8 ermont . . 8 irginia 4 20 322 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. THE FOURTH BALLOT Continued. States and Ed- W. T. J. Sher- Haw- Lir Territories. Elaine. Arthur. mumls. Sherman, man. ley. Logan, col West Virginia 12 . . . . . . ^ . .. . . Y j Wisconsin 22 . . . . . . 4 Arizona 2 . . . . . . . . \ Dakota 2 .. .*j Idaho 2 .. .rf Montana 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . Jj New Mexico. 2 . . . . . . . . . , .- j Utah 2 . . J Washington Territory 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . . j Wyoming 2 . . . . . . . . . . . . .*j District of Columbia. I I . . . , .^ Totals 541 207 41 . . . . 15 7 2 The Secretary s announcement of the votes for James ( Elaine got no further than the hundreds, for his voice w; lost in the whirlwind of applause that followed the announc ment of the fact of Blaine s nomination, which had been certainty ever since Shelby M. Cullom had tried to read h telegram from John A. Logan. Every person in the audienc delegates and visitors alike, rose to their feet simultaneous!; and all being Blaine men shouted and sang their delight ; the success of the man from Maine with demonstrations c joy such as had not been seen before in the Convention, took nearly thirty minutes to get to business. The Chair " Gentlemen of the Convention," [the ushei making diligent efforts to restore quiet] " order." At thi point the booming of the cannon was heard; which caused n newed cheering. The Convention at length becoming corr paratively quiet the chairman resumed: "James G. Blain< of Maine, having received the votes, of a majority of all th delegates elected to this Convention " The chairman at thi point finding himself unable to make his voice heard in th confusion that prevailed handed the written announcement t the secretary, who read it as follows : SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 323 " James G. Elaine having received the votes of a majority )f all the delegates elected to this Convention, the question low before the Convention is, shall the nomination of Mr. Elaine be made unanimous ?" [Cries of " Yes."] "On that notion the Chair recognizes Mr. Burleigh, of New York." Mr. Burleigh, having taken the platform, said : Mr. President : In behalf of the President of the United States and at his re- [uest, I move to make the nomination of James G. Elaine unanimous, and I romise for the friends of President Arthur, who are always loyal at the polls, nd for Northern New York 20,000 Republican majority, and I promise you all lat we will do all we can do for the ticket and for the nominee, and will show ou in November next that New York is a Republican State. It elected James i. Garfield, and it will elect James G. Elaine, of Maine. [Applause.] The Chair " The gentleman from Minnesota has the floor." Mr. Sabin, of Minnesota, having the floor, said : Mr. Chairman, four years ago, in this very hall, and as a delegate to the ational Republican Convention, I was opposed to Chester A. Arthur and to the ements with which he then associated. Since then he has been called, under ic most trying circumstances, to fill the first place in the gift of the people of iis country. So well, so nobly, so faithfully has he fulfilled that trust, and so appily has he disappointed not only those of his opponents, but his friends; so ally has he filled the position of the scholar and the gentleman, that he is pos- essed of that great, good common sense which has made his administration a reat and pronounced success, that he has grown upon me, until to-day I honor nd revere Chester A. Arthur. [Applause.] As a friend of his, I no less honor nd revere that prince of gentlemen, that scholar, that gifted statesman, James r. Elaine, whose nomination it affords me the greatest pleasure to second, with ie prediction that his name before the country in November will produce that ime spontaneous enthusiasm which will make him President of the United :ates on the 4th of March next. [Loud and prolonged applause. Cries of urtis.] Mr. Plumb, of Kansas " Mr. Chairman, this Convention as discharged two of its most important trusts, and is now, otwithstanding the length of time it has been in session and ie exciting scenes through which it has passed, in thorough ood humor, and I believe we are ready to go on and con- lude the business which brought us all here." [No, no.] Mr. Houck, of Nebraska " There is a motion to make the omination unanimous. That is the question before the Con- ention, and I call for the regular order." 324 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. Mr. Plumb, of Kansas " Before proceeding with that ] desire to respond to the sentiment which pervades the entire Convention. I move that this nomination be made unanimous and I hope there will not be a dissenting voice in all this vasl assemblage." The Chair I have been requested to read to the Conven tion the following telegraphic dispatch : The President has sent the following dispatch to Mr. Elaine HON. JAMES G. ELAINE, Augusta, Maine : As the candidate of the Republican party, you will have my earnest, cordial support. The Chair " Shall the motion to make the nominatior unanimous prevail ? All those in favor of that will say aye. [The tremendous shout of " aye " sent up by the vast multi tude clearly demonstrated the fact that the nomination was made unanimous.] Mr. Husted of New York " I move that this Convention do now adjourn until 8 o clock this evening," which motion prevailed. NOMINATING LOGAN. There was a very large attendance, as well of delegates as of spectators, at the evening session. The galleries were hardly less crowded than at any of the preceding sessions ; but there was a marked absence of any other feeling than one of simple curiosity. It was 8.15 o clock when the Chairman s gavel fell, and announced that prayer would be offered by Rev. Dr. Charles O Reilly, of Detroit. Dr. O Reilly is treasurer of the Irish National League of America, and is the first Catholic to open a Republican National Convention with prayer. It may then be said that the Republicans have intro duced two new features in this Convention a colored man as temporary chairman and a representative of the Catholic Church invited to participate in the official proceedings on an SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 325 equality with Protestant ministers. Dr. O Reilly is a life-long Republican. At the conclusion of the prayer, the Chair called for the names of members of the National Committee which had not been already sent up. Florida announced the name of Jesse G. Cales ; District of Columbia, Col. Perry Carson. A resolution was passed permitting the State Central Com mittees to name the members of the National Committees not already named. Mr. Conger, from the District of Columbia, said the name of Carson had not been agreed upon by the delegation. The Chair decided the gentleman was out of order. Mr. Conger wanted to know whether the voice of the Dis- rict of Columbia is to be suppressed by the Chairman. The Chair " I very much wish I could do so." [Laughter.] Mr. Conger insisted on speaking, amid much laughter and confusion. When order was restored, it was announced on >ehalf of New Mexico that Stephen B. Elkins had been sub- tituted as a member of the National Committee for the gentle man previously announced, owing to the resignation of the atter. Mr. Conger, of the District of Columbia, again inquired whether Carson s name had been put on the roll as a member f the National Committee. The Chair" It has." Mr. Conger again protested, but without success. A resolution limiting the speeches of nomination to ten ninutes was passed, and the clerk then proceeded to call the oil of States for nominating. No response was received till Illinois was reached, when Senator Plumb, of Kansas, came forward. He said the Convention had completed two of its most seri- 326 SELECTING A PRESIDENT. ous duties the adoption of a platform and the nomination of a candidate for President. The platform was one on which all good Republicans could unite, and the candidate one who can beat any Democrat living or dead ; but it was still im portant that the best possible man should be named for second place. It was but a matter of just recognition to the great body of soldiers of the war for the Union that a repre sentative from their number should be placed as second name on the ticket. The Grand Army of the Republic had enrolled more than three-quarters of a million of men who lately wore the blue. In presenting a name from their ranks the speaker would mention a man fitted in every way for the first place ; a man who would add strength to the ticket and justify the hopes and expectations of the party. That man was Gen. John A. Logan. [Loud applause.] The speaker did not present him on behalf of Illinois nor of any other State, but of the whole United States. He belonged no more to Illinois than to Kansas, where seventy-five thousand soldiers would receive the news of his nomination with shouts of gladness. The speaker was commissioned by the State of Kansas to make this nomination. [Applause.] Judge Houck, of Tennessee, in seconding the nomination, said, that while the convention had not chosen his first choice, it had done well, and the speaker proceeded to pay a tribute to the plumed knight of Maine. He hoped the convention would come to an understanding and agreement for second place on the ticket. When the wires should timnsmit the news of the nomination of General Logan to the soldier boys of East Tennessee there would be rejoicing among them, as there would be everywhere. On the Presidential nominee his delegation was somewhat divided, but when they came to name John A. Logan they were united and strong. SELECTING A PRESIDENT. , 27 / Mr. Thurston, of Nebraska, also seconded the nomination. He wanted the Republican party to write upon its banner the invincible legend, " Elaine and Logan." [Applause and cries of " Time, time."] Mr. Lee, of Pennsylvania, in further seconding the nomina tion, said the convention had chosen as its candidate for Pres ident a native of Pennsylvania, whose fame had grown to be commensurate with that of his native State and also with the greatness of the nation. Congressman Horr, of Michigan, from the head of his dele gation, further seconded the nomination, saying that in nomi nating John A. Logan the convention would light the soldiers camp-fires from end to end of the country. Clancey (colored), of North Carolina, in seconding the nom ination, said that with Elaine and Logan his State could be carried for the party by 5000. After further nominations from Georgia and Kentucky, a motion was made to sustain the rules and make the nomina tion of Logan by acclamation. It was put to a vote and a majority voted for it, but as two-thirds were necessary the Chair ordered the roll called in order to ascertain the numbers at the request of a delegate, who said there were others who wished to speak for General Logan. Bradley, of Kentucky, eulogized the statesmanship and sol dierly qualities of the man whose name was before the con vention, and predicted that if he were nominated for the second place the ticket would sweep the country. Mr. Lee, of South Carolina, said his State had raised the first colored soldiers to fight for the Union, and their hearts would rejoice at his nomination. A Tennessee delegate, interrupting: "In the name of three^ 328 SELECTING A -PRESIDENT. quarters of a million soldiers who did not stay at home during the war, I nominate Black Jack Logan." Several other nominating speeches were made. Mr. O Hara, of North Carolina I suggest that we pro ceed to nominate General Logan, and allow others who want to talk the privilege of printing their speeches. [Laugh- ter.] A Virginia delegate said that in the absence of General Ma- hone, owing to illness, he would undertake to speak for Vir ginia. He could not, like many who preceded him, appeal in behalf of the Union soldiers for Logan s nomination, but he would speak for 30,000 Confederate soldiers, of whom he was one, and who would rally to the support of Elaine and Logan. General J. S. Robinson, of Ohio, seconded the nomination on behalf of his State, and moved to suspend the rules and make the nomination by acclamation. The question being put to a vote, it was declared carried. Great confusion fc Al lowed. The Kansas banner was brought again, with portrait of Logan added to that of Blaine. When quiet was restored Congressman Davis, of Illinois, demanded the call of roll on the nomination, and the motion being seconded, it was so or dered. When New York was reached George William Curtis announced that his delegation was not quite ready, and asked that time be given to make the count. The request was granU d and the call proceeded with the remaining States. A lau;_h was raised when the District of Columbia was reached and its two delegates rose in turn and voted for Logan, this beii g the first time since the opening of the convention on which they voted on the same side on any question before the house. The roll being completed New York was again called, arid Mr. Curtis announced the vote of that State as one vote for SELECTING A PRESIDENT. 329 Foraker, of Ohio, six votes for Gresham, of Indiana, and sixty votes for Logan. The vote was unanimous with the exception of these seven from New York, Logan s total vote being 779. The nomination was then made unanimous. The thanks of the convention were tendered to the temporary and permanent officers, and the convention then adjourned sine die. CHAPTER XV. ELAINE AT HOME RECEIVING THE NEWS OF HIS NOMINATION His RESI DENCE AT AUGUSTA CONGRATULATIONS BY THE TOWNSPEOPLE AN AF FECTING SCENE WHAT HIS PEOPLE THINK OF HIM. FRIDAY afternoon, June 6th, Chicago was in a ferment. Within the great exposition building ten thousand men struggled with their pent-up emotions. Anticipating what was about to occur, they were wild with feverish excitement to see it happen. Eagerly craning their necks, they listened to the call of the roll on the fourth ballot. They were morally certain of the result, and yet they held their breath in a strained impatience to hear that result made history. The perspiration rolled down the foreheads of the workers on the convention floor. The long months of energy and activity were about to culminate in victory. The great National Republican Con vention presented at that moment the most inspiring scene to be seen in the varied round of American history. That Con vention was about to proclaim the nomination of the great leader of the Republican party for the highest office in the gift of the American people. The sunshine streamed in the western windows and illumi nated the scene one never to be forgotten, never to fade from the eyes of those who witnessed it. As State after State was called on the roll the swelling tide of victory was increased by vote on vote, the excitement grew apace, it became painfully intense. The desperate desire of men to vent their joy who (330) HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 333 knew they had but a moment to wait to get the opportunity was something remarkable. Excitement had possession of the very air and suspense was in command. Slowly, amid the applause of the floor and the roar of the galleries, the roll went on 250, 300, 320, 380, then 404, and then 418, and the nomination was finished. James Gillespie Elaine had received more than the half of the 820 delegates who crowded the Convention floor, and the end was not yet. Still the roll kept mounting, still the good work went on. At length the agony was over, the nomination was made, and in one last and sky-crowding shout the result was thundered forth to the outside world. Fifteen hundred miles from Chicago on the same afternoon the sunshine covered everything softly upon the banks of the blue-eyed Kennebec. Over the hills at the back of the city blew the Western breeze, around the dome of the State House it toyed with the flag of the State, significant of power united in the strongest bands of liberty. It blew gently across the grassy lawn and under the beau tiful trees at Mr. Elaine s home. Beneath an apple-tree which looked like a huge bouquet of white blossoms there swung a hammock. In that hammock sat the owner of the place; near him was his wife and some of his children. Mrs. Elaine and Miss Dodge, " Gail Hamilton," were present, and his nearest neighbors, the Homan family, added three to the group. They were all laughing, joking, discussing and commenting upon the reports from Chicago as they came in in rapid suc cession. Down in the heart of the city, James G. Elaine, Jr., was at the telephone, and in the house at the other end of the line stood Miss Margaret Elaine receiving the news. That one of the group on the lawn that should have shown the most interest gave no sign that he was especially concerned in what 334 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. was transpiring. He was calm, cheerful, plainly content to abide the result whatever it might be. Suddenly a shriek came from the house, out ran Miss Mar garet and flung herself impetuously into the arms of her father without a word. Gently, quietly he raised the excited girl and kissed her. Then he kissed his wife and his children and Miss Dodge and the other ladies present, and shaking hands with Mr. Roman he passed into the house without one word upon the great honor that had fallen at that moment at his feet. It was indeed something to contemplate. Before him stood the certainty of rulership. For four years, fifty millions of people were to look to him for care and counsel. An honor greater than that enjoyed by any monarch or ruler of the world was there at his right hand. Was it a wonder then that he looked the question in the face and for a moment gave no sound? He had no time, however, for contemplation. The fast crowding thoughts that rushed across his brain the inci dents, the battles, the marches, the sieges, of the thirty years preceding his nomination were forced aside, driven out by the immediate and tremendous clamor that rose upon the evening air. Whistles, the ringing of bells, the shouting of happy people aroused him to the exigencies of the moment rather than to the fortunes of the future or the histories of the past. A cannon was procured somewhere by some one and soon its thunder of applause joined in the noises. Windows and doors were suddenly filled with flags bearing the name of Blaine. A thousand horns awakened the echoes of the river, and the demonstrations that were then started seemed to gather strength from their own utterance. As the evening wore on the friends and fellow-citizens of Augusta gathered about his house where already his imme- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 335 diate neighbors had long since gone. His home was the Mecca of the instant. A perfect tide of humanity surged up and around his door. It seemed as if every man, woman and child in the city had turned out to return their cordial con gratulations to their townsman. The most complete enthu siasm prevailed, and the people of Augusta before long were reinforced by the arrival of special trains from Bath, Bruns wick, Bowdoinham, and all the rest of the towns [along the line of the Maine Central Railroad. A procession immedi ately formed and moved to Mr. Elaine s residence. The houses and streets along the route were illuminated. As soon as the multitude had gathered in its plenitude, crowding the sidewalks and streets and lawns all around, " Three cheers for the next President of the United States," was shouted, and they were given with such a will as has seldom been seen in the heart of that Kennebec town. The door opened and the man in whose honor all this was done appeared. All demonstration was quickly hushed and he said: " My Friends and My Neighbors : I thank you most sincerely for the honor of this call. There is no spot in the world where good news comes to me so gratefully as here at my own home among the people with whom I have been on terms of friendship and intimacy for more than thirty years; people whom I know and who know me. Thanking you again for the heartiness of the compliment, I bid you good night." To the later delegation he spoke as follows : Gentlemen : I am sure that T must regard this as a compliment totally unpre cedented in the history of politics in Maine. [A voice: "True."] I do not dare to take the compliment all to myself, but I recognize the earnestness with which you are prepared to enter the pending national campaign, and I have the pleasure to announce to you from a dispatch which I have just received that I have myself the honor to be associated on the Republican ticket with that brave 336 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. and honorable soldier, that eminent Senator and true man, John A. Logan, of Illinois. [Tremendous applause and cheers, three times three, for Logan, and a voice: "You can t beat that team."] I am sure, gentlemen, that I can add nothing by my speech to that fact, and you would hardly expect me to do more on this occasion than to express to you the very deep obligations I feel under for the extraordinary compliment you have paid me in coming from your homes in distant parts of the State on the announcement of the action of the National Con vention. I wish my house was large enough to contain you all, as my heart is. [Shouts of "Good," and cheers.] I am sorry that the elements are not as auspicious as they might have been, for your viUt [A voice : "We have been waiting for this shower eight years "] and the way you stand it is good proof, I am sure, that you are not fair-weather soldiers, but are as ready to come out in the storm as in the sunshine. Your energy and earnestness of this evening give good augury of your successful work in the canvass in which you will so soon enter. This was at Mr. Elaine s home. Let us look for a moment at it. The house is a large, roomy house which he has occu pied during the past nineteen years. Additions have been made to it which have entirely altered its original character, and given it that of a family mansion. It stands in a large open site straight across from and under the shadow of the State House of the Maine Capital, in which building Mr. Blaine won his early political honors. To look at this house we can readily see why it has proved so much of a pleasure to its owner. It is painted pale brown, and after you pass its wide portal, with its old-fashioned columns, you enter a large and roomy hall which stretches away through the house. To the left is a large parlor made by throwing two rooms into one, taking away the original partition between, and substitut ing fluted columns supporting a girder. The effect therefore is particularly pleasing. This room is exceedingly elegant in furnishing, though quiet. The wooden floor is almost covered by brilliant Turkish rugs; tables are adorned with Turkish cloths in all their varied embroidery. Chinese porcelains with their curious processions of a hundred wise men adorn the tables, and the hundred wise men gaze at you in painted astonishment. Cairo portieres partially shut off a bay window HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 337 and behind the portieres you see the black walnut bookcases that contain much of Mr. Elaine s library. Upon the walls are pictures, landscapes and portraits, and among the portraits your eye instinctively singles out that of the great Commoner of Kentucky, Henry Clay. His curious, hard, yet winning features gaze down on you with a benign expression which seems to say, " I approve of this." While below Clay, and resting its back against the works of Homer, is the comfortable face and unexampled features of the first Napoleon. In this particular portrait of him, his face wears a smile such as it wore only in his hours of tremendous triumph. Elbowing the tomes of the Grecian hero is " The Bread-Win ners," the latest novel, holding equal place with the oldest poet, showing how well Elaine of Maine can enjoy a ramble with the author of the Iliad, or become cognizant of the latest portraiture of the working classes of his native land, for he is never too great or too busy to forget the humble individual in his care for the great populace. Charles Sumner was once invited to meet a distinguished Russian gentleman at the house of a friend. He declined in a note, stating that " his time was so taken up with problems for benefiting the human race that he had not leisure to pay attention to individuals," and, under this statement, which his would-be host yet preserves, she had written : " When last heard from the Maker of the universe had not yet reached this lofty plane." The implied rebuke of this stinging sarcasm can never be aimed at James G. Elaine, and hence upon his table the dweller in literary fields will find no wider mead, no more charming meadow, no more delightful wood or river- bank. On the other side of the hall from this room is the dining-room, large and ample, thoroughly in sympathy with the generous hospitality that forever flows from it. The side- 338 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. boards and furniture are simple and homelike. There is no show nor parade. In front of this dining-room, overlooking the street, is a reception room, in which the same care and taste, and the same evidences of gentler hands than those of the man, pre vail amid the sober and softening colors. Bookcases, pictures, marbles, together with bronzes, embellish and ornament this place. At the extreme end of the hall, in an extension back of these rooms, is the library Mr. Elaine s workshop proper. A desk, a table, a lounge, some comfortable and unpretentious chairs, and some bookcases, over one of which is the ivory gavel of his earlier days as Speaker, complete the place. Large open windows picture to the occupant a view of the lawn, with its long and gorgeous shadow cast athwart the green sward. The bookcases are filled with volumes of refer ence, Congressional records, financial documents, department reports, with a thousand manuals and encyclopaedias, that serve to make the position of a statesman impregnable, line the shelves. It is here that Mr. Elaine works, it is here that he spends much of his time. Up-stairs are the large and airy bed-rooms, which were built for comfort when the house was erected, and which no amount of addition has yet been able to improve. At the rear of the house additions in the way of stables, play-rooms, etc., and rooms for the servants, have also been built, and the surroundings of the house are made up with everything essential to comfort, and the brightest kind /of home-life. The nomination found Mr. Elaine busy and thoroughly wrapped up in the preparation of the second volume of his work, "Twenty Years of Congress;" it found him so happy in this and in the contemplated prosecution of future literary work, that for jHrfomcnt the interruption, which was to change HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 339 the whole course of his being, came unwelcomed. It was fol lowed, naturally, by a flood of congratulations. Two thou sand telegrams were showered upon him in the first twenty- four hours succeeding the fourth ballot at the Republican Convention. The telegrams were followed up by as many letters, and the torrent that began to pour upon him June 6th has not yet abated one jot or tittle of its fierceness. Bushels of letters are brought to the house and dumped upon the floor beside Mr. Blaine every day. He tries to look at them all, a task for half a dozen men. These letters cover every subject in the political decalogue : congratulations, advice, opinions, predictions, suggestions, and everything else that the brain of man can conceive. By far the large majority are congratulations. They come from every corner of the United States, and are written by men in every position of life. All of them indicate the warm regard in which the people hold him, and the extreme satisfaction with which the party looks on the work of its chosen Convention. Some of these which came by wire are worth reprinting here : EXECUTIVE MANSION, WASHINGTON, D. C., June 6th, 1884. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE: As the candidate of the Republican party, you will have my earnest and cordial support. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. To which Mr. Blaine replied as follows : HON. CHESTER A. ARTHUR, PRESIDENT U. S., WASHINGTON, D. C. Accept my sincere thanks for your cordial assurance. JAMES G. ELAINE. To HON. J. G. ELAINE: I most heartily congratulate you on your nomination. You will be elected. Your friend, JOHN A. LOGAN. Mr. Blaine sent the following dispatch to Mr. Logan : To JOHN A. LOGAN : I am proud and honored by being associated with you in the national campaign. JAMES G. ELAINE. 340 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. WASHINGTON, D. C., June 6th t 1884. HON. J. G. ELAINE: Accept congratulations and cordial support. JOSEPH R. HAWLEY. INDIANAPOLIS, IND., June 6th, 1884. J. G. BLAINE: Accept my heartiest congratulations on your nomination. \Ve will give you the vote of Indiana. B. HARRISON. NEW YORK, June 6th, 1884. J. G. ELAINE: Accept cordial congratulations, and rest assured of the most loyal and enthusiastic support in the Empire State. ALONZO B. CORNELL. On the Monday following the delegation from the State of Maine arrived at Augusta, accompanied by that from Califor nia. The men from the Pacific Coast, desiring to mingle the congratulations of the Golden Horn with the shouts of the men of the Kennebec, a procession was formed and proceeded to Mr. Elaine s house, where already a large and enthusiastic crowd had gathered. It was a notable assembly ; men like Hannibal Hamlin stood shoulder to shoulder with men of no reputation beyond their own street in one generous and spon taneous outburst of enthusiasm. There were many in the crowd who had waited patiently for years for just this thing; there were others who had but that night caught the fever which invariably possesses every friend of the Plumed Knight, and all that stood there on the lawn crowded together, joyous, happy, earnest, hearty in their demonstration of good-will and God-speed. They seemed indeed triumphant spokesmen for the great body of American freemen. Mr. Elaine, upon his appearance, was greeted with ringing cheers, and on their sub siding, he spoke with a dignified manner, quietly, gently, in such a strong way as to win everybody to a hush, and make them all feel as if they were in the presence of a great leader. His speech was cordial and significant of his appreciation of their testimonial. It was brief and to the point. A sort of HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 341 informal reception followed, and on the day following the delegates departed. A few days later he visited Mr. Eugene Hale, at Ellsworth, in company with General Logan, his fellow-nominee. At Bangor they were tendered a spontaneous reception, and there, when the cheers had subsided, Mr. Elaine spoke as follows : I have had many causes for great gratitude to the people of Maine in these many years past for their friendship, their support and their confidence, but I never was so profoundly touched as I have been by the manner in which I have recently been received by all classes, and I might say all parties in this State, for I have to recognize, beside the friendship of my own political associates, the courtesy and kindness manifested by those who have in the past been opposed to me politically. Whatever may be the issue of the pending campaign, of which it would indeed be unbecoming of me to speak, I can say that by the people of this State I have, in this supreme crisis of my public career, been already hon ored in a manner that gave me the most intense satisfaction. There is, after all, an embarrassment in addressing those with whom one has been associated for long years on intimate terms. My self-esteem is not sufficiently developed to make me think that this vast assemblage has come together so much to see me as to see my gallant associate on the Republican ticket, General Logan. As a final response for your most generous reception, I will present to you the gallant hero from Illinois. To this brief glimpse of his home I will add as of value to-day an opinion of Mr. Elaine by his neighbors. Says the Kennebec Journal, April 21, 1880: A keen observer of human nature says the best test of a man s real character is his home standing. "Ask what his friends, neighbors and townsmen think of him," said Rufus Choate, "if you want to know what the man really is." This is exactly the question which we propose to answer. Mr. Elaine has been a citizen of this place for more than a quarter of a century, living here since he was twenty-three years old. Indeed, his whole life as a man has been identified with this people. We have known him in every relation of life, closely and intimately, through all these years. And in every relation of life, we say in the presence of his daily associates, Mr. Elaine has had a spotless career. As hus band, father, neighbor, friend, citizen, business man, every one in this commu nity, without regard to party lines, would yield unstinted praise. In personal morals, in habits of temperance and uprightness, in steadfast devotion to all or dinary as well as extraordinary duties, Mr. Elaine has been a pattern to our young men. He has been fortunate in life, but his good fortune has always been the logical result of good habits and good sense ; and he has been so gen erous, not only with money, but with time and sympathy, that envy and jealousy have not followed him. He has an elegant, refined, Christian home, open to 342 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. every demand of hospitality; and there is not a poor man in town who hesitates to enter it for relief or who goes away empty-handed. Mr. Blaine has always been a model of honor and uprightness in his financial dealings. His word is as good a^ his bond, and no debt was ever underpaid or grudgingly paid or evaded by him. This whole community will attest his abso lute integrity and liberality, and will bear witness how wisely and constantly he has ^iveu of his resources to all good and worthy objects. The necessities of a political campaign may tempt mud-throwers to assail Mr. Elaine s character ; but against all such efforts we present a man who has the universal respect, confi dence ami attachment of the neighbors who have known him throughout his whole career and who know that he has been a centre of good and not of evil all the days of his life, a man who has a State behind him of absolute unanimity and who has to-day a more devoted and enthusiastic personal following than any other living man in the United States. Thus the city of his residence sends greeting to the young Republicans of Massachusetts ! On Saturday morning, June 21, the longest day in the year, the official committee appointed by the National Convention assembled in Augusta to formally notify Mr. Blaine of his nomination. The committee, composed of one from each State and Territory and one from the District of Columbia, met at 1 1 A. M. and proceeded in a body to Mr. Elaine s resi dence, where they were received by Mrs. Blaine. As the day was oppressively hot, and the rooms of the mansion were crowded almost to suffocation, it was suggested that the pre sentation of the address be made upon the lawn. Accord ingly the committee and guests proceeded to a well-shaded portion of the grounds, where a semi-circle was formed and all present stood with uncovered heads, making an impressive scene, the rustling of spreading branches of great elms and the buzzing of insects being the only sounds to disturb the stillness. When all was in readiness Mr. Blaine was escorted to the lawn, where he stood within the arc of the semi-circle. Gen eral Henderson then stepped forward and presented the ad dress of the committee. Reading from manuscript he spoke as follows: HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 343 Mr. Elaine : Your nomination for the office of President of the United States by the National Republican Convention, recently assembled at Chicago, is al ready known to you. The gentlemen before you, constituting the committee, composed of one member from each State and Territory of the country and one from the District of Columbia, now come as the accredited organ of that Con vention to give you formal notice of nomination and to request your acceptance thereof. It is, of course, known to you that besides your own several other names, among the most honored in the councils of the Republican party, were presented by their friends as candidates for this nomination. Between your friends and friends of gentlemen so justly entitled to the respect and confidence of their political associates the contest was one of generous rivalry, free from any taint of bitterness and equally free from the reproach of injustice. At an early stage of the proceedings of the Convention it became manifest that the Republican States whose aid must be invoked at last to insure success to the ticket earnestly desired your nomination. It \vas equally manifest that the desire so earnestly expressed by delegates from those States was but a truthful reflection of the irresistible popular demand. It was not thought nor pretended that this demand had origin in any ambitious desires of your own or in organized work of your friends, but it was recognized to be, what it truthfully is, a spontaneous expression by a free people of love and admiration of a chosen leader. No nomination would have given satisfaction to every member of the party. This is not to be expected in a country so extended in area and so varied in interests. The nomination of Mr. Lincoln, in 1860, disappointed so many hopes and over turned so many cherished ambitions that for a short time disaffection threatened to result in open revolt. In 1872 discontent was so pronounced as to impel large masses of the party in organized opposition to it. For many weeks after the nomination of General Garfield, in 1880, defeat seemed almost inevitable. In each case the shock of disappointment was followed by " sober second thought." Individual preferences gradually yielded to convictions of public duty. Promptings of patriotism finally rose superior to irritations and animosities of the hour. The party in every trial has grown stronger in the face of threat ened danger. In tendering you the nomination it gives us pleasure to remember that those great measures which furnished causes for party congratulations by the late Convention at Chicago, and which are now crystalized into the legislation of the country measures which have strengthened and dignified the nation while they have elevate l and advanced the people at all times and on all proper oc casions received your earnest and valuable support. It was your good fortune to aid in protecting the nation against the assaults of armed treason. You were present and helped to unloose the shackles of the slave. You assisted in plac ing new guarantees of freedom in the Federal Constitution. Your voice was potent in preserving the national faith when false theories of finance would have bin sled national and individual prosperity. We kindly remember you as the fast friend of honest money and commercial integrity. In all that pertains to the security and repose of capital, dignity of labor, man hood, elevation and freedom of the people, the right of the oppressed to demand and the duty of government to afford protection, your public acts have received t!ie - unqiialified indorsement of public approval. But we are not unmindful of the fact that parties, like individuals, cannot live entirely on the past, however splendid the record ; the present is ever charged with its immediate cares, and the future presses on with its new duties, its perplexing responsibilities. Parties, like 344 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. individuals, however, that are free from stains of violated faith in the pa>t, are fairly entitled to a presumption of sincerity in their promises for the future. Among promises made by the party in its late convention at Chicago, are econ omy and purity of administration ; protection of citizens, native and naturalized, at home and abroad ; prompt restoration of the navy ; a wise reduction of surplus revenues, relieving the taxpayers without injuring the laborer; the pres ervation of public lands for actual settlers; import duties, when necessary at all, to be levied not for revenue only, but for the double purpose of revenue and protection; regulation of internal commerce; settlement of internal differences by peaceful arbitration, but coupled with the reassertion and maintenance of the Monroe doctrine as interpreted by the fathers of the Republic; perseverance in the good work of civil service reform to the end that the dangers to free institu tions which lurk in the power of official patronage may be wisely and effectively avoided; honest currency, based on coin of intrinsic value, adding strength to public credit and giving renewed vitality to every branch of American industry. Mr. Bl.iine, during the last twenty-three years the Republican party has builded a new Republic a Republic far more splendid than that originally designed by our fathers. Its proportions, already grand, may yet be enlarged ; its foundations may yet be strengthened, and its columns be adorned with beauty more resplendent still. To you, as its Architect-in-Chief, will soon be assigned this grateful work. Mr. Elaine listened to General Henderson s address standing under an elm tree, with his arms folded on his chest and his eyes cast down, but at times wandering about and scanning the faces of the audience. General Henderson had concluded speaking when Walker Elaine, the candidate s son, stepped forward and handed his father the manuscript of an address in reply to that of the committee. Mr. Elaine then read as fol lows : Mr. Chairmnn and Gentlemen of the National Convention : I receive not with out deep sensibility your official notice of the action of the National Convention, already brought to my knowledge through the public press. I appreciate more profoundly than I can express the honor which is implied in the nomination for the Presidency by the Republican party of the nation, speaking through author itative voices of duly accredited delegates. To be selected as a candidate by such an assemblage from the list of eminent state>men whose names were presented fills me with embarrassment. I can only express my gratitude for so signal an honor and my des;re to prove worthy of the great trust reposed in me in accept ing the nomination, as I now do. I am impressed I am also oppressed with the >ense of the labor and responsibility which attach to my position. The burden is lightened, however, by the host of earnest men who support my candidacy, many of whom add, as does your honorable committee, cheer of personal friendship to pledge of political fealty. More formal acceptance will naturally be expected, and will in clue season be communicated. It may, however, not be inappropri ate at this time to say that I have already made careful study ol the principles HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 345 announced by the National Convention, and that in whole and in detail they have my heartiest sympathy, and meet my unqualified approval. Apart from your official errand, gentlemen, I am extremely happy to welcome you all to my house. With many of you I have already shared duties of public service, and have enjoyed most cordial friendship. I trust your journey from all parts of the Great Republic has been agreeable, and that during your stay in Maine you will feel you are not among strangers, but with friends. Invoking the blessings of God upon the great cause which we jointly represent, let us turn to the future without fear and with manly hearts. 21 CHAPTER XVI. PEN-SKETCH OF J. G. ELAINE His PECULIARITIES SOME POINTS IN His CAREER His RELIGIOUS PROCLIVITIES WHAT is THOUGHT OF HIM IN WASHINGTON His MANNER. TAMES GILLESPIE ELAINE is a man five feet eleven J inches tall, of massive frame, and possessed of considerable flesh ; he has silvery gray hair and a gray moustache and beard, which last he wears trimmed to a point. Every lineament of his face, which has a large nose, brilliant, piercing brown eyes, set deeply beneath the strong brows that overlook a char complexion and a glowing cheek, is a strong one. If you look at his^face in repose, it seems somewhat severe; if you look at it when it is animated in conversation, you can find no more gentle expression nor one more insinuatingly, inviting to confidence than his. His manners are charming. He is a man of wonderful magnetic quality; if you shake him by the hand once you will never forget the touch of his fingers. 1 1 is manners are supple and easy ; the movement of his body brisk and live. He has a manner thoroughly frank and American, yet not in the least devoid of dignity. He is full of sudden and dexterous turns of phrase and gesture. He is ah\ ; ys apropos and quite often witty. He is a fine type of an Amer ican, and devoid of respect or sympathy for those freezing con ventional ities which disfigure the manners of European statjs- (346) HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 347 men, yet withal full of a proud culture and staid refinement much too rare among politicians of the present day. His is a good temper and temperament, though with a cer tain intellectual vehemence that might sometimes be mistaken for anger, of strong physique, ample powers of endurance and of recuperation, of great activity and industry, kindly and frank, easily approachable and ready to aid all good causes with tongue, pen and purse. His studies have been largely upon political questions and political history. Everything connected with the development of the country interests him, and he is a dangerous antagonist in any matter of American story espe cially the United States since the adoption of the Federal Constitution. He is an intense believer in the American Re public, one and indivisible ; jealous and watchful for her honor, her dignity and her right of eminent domain ; ready to brave the wrath of the East for the welfare of the West, as in the Chinese question ; ready to brave the wrath of the Radicals rather than permit the indefinite suspension of the writ of habeas corpus ; ready to brave the wrath of the Conservatives for the rights of the Southern blacks, as in his opposition to President Hayes Southern policy, and ready ever to do and dare the right. These qualities, added to his magnetism, make him curiously attractive to strangers, who judge, of course, American as foreign types. Standing once in a brilliant company at a Washington reception, an Englishman of my acquaintance who was near by asked me to point out Mr. Elaine. I did so. "What ! " he said, " that gentleman ? I might have imagined it, for I naturally supposed him to be a noticeable figure, but that man burns like a flame in the crowd." This happy temperament of Mr. Elaine s, his faculty for winning confidence with a look, draws to him hosts of friends. It is the healthy quality in life for which we all sigh, and when 34-8 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. we find it in others we not only appreciate but admire. It i this that makes him a hero with the crowd. The people lik to have their ideal a bon enfant. They like to have him eas; and familiar without derogating from a proper decorum ; the; want him fond of witticisms and even catch-words; they wisi him to stoop down to the level of the crowd, without actuall; descending to it. The masses despise awkwardness and re straint ; they admire crisp, off-hand manners when combine* with earnestness and backed up by a brilliant and solid repu tation. They tire readily of sphinxes ; they have no time t read riddles. Of course they know that deeds are better thai words, but they like to discover a happy combination of botl in the character of the man whom they lift up to a higl position. As a conversationalist Mr. Blaine has few equals. He ha a keen appreciation of fun, and can tell a story with wonderfu simplicity. There is no dragging prelude, no verbose details preceding a stupid finale. A story is presented always dra matically, and fired almost as from a gun when the point i reached. Mr. Elaine s ability to entertain a private circle, as well a a public audience, shows that he has powers as an actor ; ye even in his private talk he does not fall into the habit of tin average public man of making speeches or soliloquizing. H< is quite willing to listen when any one has anything to say and never appears more at his best than when he is taking part in a running fire of bright, sharp talk. He has a fund o; personal anecdotes which he employs in the most apt \va) upon every occasion, and he tells his stories as if he enjoyec them himself, and they very often emphasize his meaning a; no heavier argument could do. " Mr. Blaine," wrote Mr Ramsdcll, in 1880, " is the most popular of men. The charn: HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 349 of his manner is beyond expression, and nobody comes within the circle of his presence that is not overcome with his fascin ations. With his great brilliancy, he has that exquisite show of deference to his companions, a sort of appeal to them to verify or deny his words, which is very taking. He is also a very good listener, and has a familiar way of speaking one s name, and of placing his hand on one s knee, that is an agree able salve to one s vanity. There is no acting in the hearti ness of his manner; he is an impulsive man, with a very warm heart, kindly instincts and generous." The best thing about him and it is one that should not be forgotten is the fact that he is an American. He is a Re publican in the best sense of the word. There is nothing for which he has so sincere a contempt as for affectation of any kind, and he believes in every man s right to think as he chooses. Singularly enough, to him of this independence of character and generosity for if Mr. Elaine has a weak point it is that he is too generous has been presented a peculiar annoyance in the attempt to make political capital against him by charging that he is a member of the Roman Catholic church. The smallness of such a charge it is not necessary to state ; but the great big heart answered the question fully and fair and free, in a letter written to Dr. James King, of Pittsburg, dated Washington, March loth, 1876. To Dr. King he said : " I agree that the charge of my being a Catho lic is very provoking, considering the motive that inspires it, and very exasperating when I see it connived at, if not, in fact, originated by men who sat with me in the Presbyterian Bible class when I was a student and you a Professor in Washing ton College. But, while thanking you for what you have jdonc to set my Pittsburg friends right on this question, I will inevcr consent to make any public declaration upon the sub- 35O HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. ject, and for two reasons : First, because I abhor the intro duction of anything that looks like a religious test or qualifi cation for office in a republic, where perfect freedom of con science is the birthright of every citizen; and, second, because my mother was, as you well know, a devout Catholic. I would not for a thousand Presidencies speak a disrespectful word of my mother s religion, and no pressure will draw me into any avowal of hostility or unfriendliness to Catholics, though I have never received, and do not expect, any political support from them." And upon this question, Dr. King, Surgeon-General of Pennsylvania during the war, writes this further statement : I was a member of the faculty of Washington College when Mr. Blaine was a student there. He entered the preparatory department when only twelve years of age, and from that time until his graduation, he was a constant attendant upon the service of the Presbyterian church, which had, and still has, the exclusive control of the college. There was no Catholic church in the town. Attendance upon church service was required of the students, and their absence from it was noted, and it was said, and I believe it to be true, that Mr. Blaine never missed attending church a single Sunday during his entire collegiate course. It was also true that he was never absent from a recitation during his whole course; and this boyhood punctuality must have followed him into public life, for I have often seen it stated in the papers that during his Speakcrship of six years he was never out of the chair for a single day. Mr. Blaine graduated in 1847, before he was eighteen years old, in a large and well-remembered class. Mr. Blaine s father came from a well-known and distinguished Carlisle family, of the old Colonial and Revolutionary stock a family specially marked in all its branches for strict adherence to the Presbyterian faith. His mother, a talented, beautiful, widely-beloved and truly Christian lady, was from an equally prominent Catholic family, and this fact has probably given rise to all the unfounded gossip about Mr. Blaine having been a Catholic. No one knew better than his mother that he was a firm Protestant, for I very frequently conversed with her upon the matter during the last twenty-five years of her life for the greater part of which I was her Attending physician. Mr. Bl.iine simply followed the traditionary faith of his father s family, and when, in his early manhood, he settled in New England, he naturally attended the Orthodox Congregational church, of which he was a member for more than twenty years. In his domestic life Mr. Blaine has been remarkably blessed. He is veiy happy in his family. None of his children appear to regard him as more than a big brother, to whose tender HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. solicitude they can at all times turn. He is essentially a family man, and unless called out by a dinner or some social gathering is always at home. When in Washington, he be longs to no club, and keeps more to himself than a man of his social instincts might be expected to do. He does not even play the game of poker, which is so general an accom plishment with public men. He has nothing of the reputation of the prude, but in reality his private life is as irreproachable as the most rigid moralist would ask. He is one of the few men in public life whose name has never been coupled with any intrigues of a social character. He is a very temperate man at the table. He occasionally drinks a glass of wine, but he never joined the whiskey-drinking ranks in either the House or the Senate. Yet you would not notice Mr. Elaine s temperance, as there is no assumption of especial virtue put upon it ; he says nothing about it, and when asked to partake socially with his public associates, he has invariably managed to avoid indulgence without giving the idea that he has any wish to criticise another. He married, as I have related elsewhere, Miss Harriet Stan- wood, of Augusta, and as a result of this union six children have been born. The first, Stanwood Blaine, named for his mother, died when a little less than two years old. The next son was Walker Blaine, named for his uncle. This young gentleman is now twenty-eight years of age, a graduate of the Yale Law School, and he has already won his spurs in public life. He was appointed by President Garfield and his ap pointment was almost the last official act of the unfortunate President the Third Assistant-Secretary of State, an office which he filled with credit for one year, when he resigned. During that time, in company with Mr. Trescott, Mr. Walker Blaine made his celebrated trip to South America, for the pur- 35 2 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. pose of attempting a mediation between Chili and the con quered State of Peru. It was this journey, as much as any thing, which led to criticism of Mr. Elaine s foreign policy, and it was revised so promptly by the Secretary s successor, Mr. Frelinghuysen, that Messrs. Blaine and Trescott were placed in an exceedingly awkward position, from which they re treated with commendable tact. It was hardly to be supposed that Mr. Blaine could continue in the service of a government which had so signally rebuked him. Mr. Walker Blaine at present holds the position of second solicitor on behalf of the government before the Alabama Claims Commission. Mr. Blaine s third child was a son, Robert Emmons Blaine, named after the distinguished jurist, with whom his grand father, Jacob Stanwood, had had such close business relations, who is at present twenty-six years of age. He is a graduate of the Harvard Law School, but not caring for the profession of the law, and possessing his father s distinguished abilities for business, he entered a mercantile life, and at present is one of the minor officers in the service of the Chicago and Northwestern Railway, at Chicago. The next child, a daugh ter, Alice, a charming girl, who inherits her father s spirit with her mother s good sense, is twenty-three years old, and was married nearly two years ago to Lieutenant Coppinger, of the United States Army. A child was born to them last winter, Mr. Blaine s first grandchild. The next daughter, Margaret, is nineteen years of age, and is a girl of charming manners and address, who certainly has inherited her father s distin guished talent for making friends. She is a bright brunette, and is of great assistance to her mother. James Gillespie Blaine, Jr., who bears his father s distinguished name, is fifteen years of age, and is an agreeable lad just preparing to enter the doors of Harvard College. Then there is one younger, HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 353 " the baby," Harriet, named for her good mother, twelve years old this summer. This completes the list of Mr. Elaine s chil dren. A happier band of brothers and sisters it would be hard to find. They belong to and are thoroughly in sympa thy with that long-headed and sensible class of our people who believe in standing by each other. In addition to his home in Augusta, Mr. Elaine is the owner of a house in Washington. The Blaines have been a promi nent family at the Capitol for nearly a quarter of a century. When he first appeared there, in 1862, he went at once to housekeeping, occupying a small residence on Ninth street, near F, in a stuffy and unfashionable quarter of town. Later, when Speaker, his circumstances having so improved that he was able to live in more comfortable style, he rented a house in Fifteenth street, near McPherson square, in one of the most fashionable quarters of the city. It was here that he lived until two years ago, and here his three youngest children were born. It was in this house, also, that he lived while Secre tary of State under the short administration of President Gar- field, and it was one night while he and Garfield were talking and walking lovingly together from his residence to the White House that Guiteau lay skulking in an alley, determined to assassinate the President but unable to screw up his courage to the deed. About three years ago he bought an expensive lot fronting on Dupont Circle, in the extreme northwestern por tion of the city, and proceeded to erect upon it one of the finest houses in the District, where he had intended to live as Secretary of State, but the untimely death of the President prevented the carrying out of this plan, and, moreover, he found it more expensive than was prudent. The house was complete in style and appointments, but was so large as to re quire a dozen servants to properly conduct it. This gave 354 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. Mrs. Elaine a vast amount of trouble, and she and her husband finally determined to rent the house, a customer being found in the person of Mr. Leiter, of Chicago. Mr. Blainc then rented a house on Jackson Square, next door to that occupied by General Beale, and opposite to the historical residence of General Sickles. On another side of this square lives Mr. Corcoran, and the White House fronts it on the south. It is a famous square, partly for its prancing statue of Andrew Jackson, and with horticulturists for its variety of shrubs and trees, the largest in any small park in the country. It was in this quiet scene that Mr. Blaine wrote his history, with Bancroft s house within a stone s throw in one direction and the executive mansion as near in the other. The house is of plain substantial brick, with a brown stone front and mansard roof. The second story of this house was Mr. Elaine s work room. Across the end nearest the window is a long table, littered with books and papers in about the order one would find upon the desk of a working editor. The rest of the furniture is that of a plain bed-room, for this work-room by day was a sleeping-room by night. Here when engaged upon his book he worked with his private secretary, and threw into the labor persistent energy. The better portions of the book and those that stirred his nature to a deeper depth he wrote with his own hand ; for he believes that dictation can only be successfully employed for pure narrative, and that to compose anything in the way of an essay or in the line of pure thought, to attain the higher range of literature, the author must write with his own hand, if he is seeking to create a work which is to live. In the preparation of his book he worked as steadily as ever did Anthony Trollope. Fifteen hundred words he considered a good day s work. More than this he did not average, although at times he has spurted up HON. JAMES G. BLAINES WASHINliTDN RKSIDENCE. HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. 357 to the limit of eight thousand words, with the aid of his sec retary. When he retired to private life, through the unfor tunate directness of the assassin s bullet, he at first contem plated going back to his old editorial work ; but the cost of a metropolitan newspaper and the doubtful possibilities con nected with it made him hesitate. He thought also of a political weekly, but it was the history which finally captured his mind. With a modest investment required for the pur chase of several quarts of ink, numerous reams of paper and boxes of pens and the labor of five or six hours a day for nearly two years, Mr. Elaine will realize what even in these days must be regarded as a handsome fortune. His present fortune is one that has been the subject of a great deal of gossip. The romancers have stated it to be as high as two millions of dollars. This is an enormous ex aggeration. He is in easy circumstances, and has enjoyed for years a liberal income from his coal properties. He is not an avaricious man, nor is he niggardly in his expenditures. He seems to have joined to the liberal and hospitable friendliness of the West the conservative carefulness of the East. His style of living at Washington has always been comfortable, never extravagant. His carriages and his horses, of which he is very fond, would never attract notice anywhere, while at the same time they are plenty good enough for any gentleman to use. In his manners, as before stated, he is essentially a democrat, as he has never shown any pride of person. He is simple and unaffected. He harbors few if any resentments. The general public have supposed him to be an enemy of the ex- Senator from New York, Roscoe Conkling. This is not true. He has a most intense spirit and a fiery temper when provoked, but when his rage explodes no slumbering resentment is left 358 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. behind. He does not believe in the statesmanship of revenge. Upon this subject he said one day : " Life is too short to lie and wait for personal retaliation for injury received. If you can strike out a good strong blow at the time, well and good ; but the world moves too fast for one to waste his life in wait ing for an opportunity to gratify mere personal revenge." Summing up one finds so much to admire in his varied in formation, his social culture, his power and individuality as a statesman in the true sense of the word, that one is continually tempted in the direction of extravagant eulogy. If one wishes to be Mr. Elaine s enemy, he must keep away from him, beyond the reach of his voice, and close his eyes and ears to anything but the ancient stories of the calumniators. " Criticism of this brilliant and able man," wrote a dis tinguished journalist recently, " should be left to those who know that they are better than he ; by men who have never made any mistakes ; by those who have always done right, and who think the United States is the kingdom of Heaven^ and whose one regret in life is the sorrowful fact that the majority of men are not like unto them in goodness." CHAPTER XVII. WHAT OF THE FUTURE? ELAINE AS A STATESMAN His POLICY A RE FORMER DISTRIBUTING THE SURPLUS A PREDICTION. WHAT of the future? Mr. Elaine has been nominatec and endorsed by the Republican party. When th< nomination reached him at Augusta, coming in a vivid flasl over the electric wires, he paused to look back. For years th< White House, the legitimate apex of his brilliant career, ha: been in the distance. Fight after fight has been waged in hi: behalf looking to his nomination for the Presidency, and figh after fight has been lost. At two Conventions his follower: had signally failed, and a third time, unaided by him in evei so much as the lifting of a finger or the uttering of a word they had pushed forward and won a brilliant victory, and th< echoing shout that proclaimed their success from Los Angele: to the Maine woods had laid at his feet an echo of a grea triumph. Yet he could not hear it without a feeling of sad ness. Although his career could have no legitimate outcom< other than this, he was hardly prepared for it ; in the depth: of his heart he did not want it. Not that he scorned th< honor, not that he wished to avoid the dignity, not that h< failed to appreciate the greatness that had been tendered tc him ; not that he underestimated the belief and respect fo him entertained by his fellow-citizens ; but, standing on th< threshold of the highest dignity that can be obtained in ar (359) 360 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. American career, he paused with the same feeling of awe that came over him when twenty-eight years before he had trem blingly stood up before his fellow-citizens and cast his gauntlet into the ring in behalf of his country and the tight. He paused now, not through fear, but in a doubt that pos sibly in the four burdensome years to come he might not be able to reach the high ideal that he himself believed to attach to the office of President of the United States. Mr. Elaine s political sympathies and his profound love for America and Americans had taught him that the trusts of the Presidency were such as no man could decline, and that every man should accept with a profound sense of their importance. Then, too, the first wave of resounding applause brought with it the undertow of slander. There were those ready and more than willing to denounce him as possessed of a venal nature, and willing to sacrifice for base considerations the interest he has sworn to defend. It is not necessary here to review these charges or to recount them. From time to time* as they came up, they were met instantly, eagerly by Mr. Blaine, and every investigation ended in a triumphant victory for him. When he was elected to the Senate, in 1867, he was elected in the face of an accumulation of every charge that had ever been brought to bear against him. The papers of the oppo sition had filled their wide columns with all the accusations they could hear or manufacture, and these papers were sent into his native State, where men knew him, by the thousands upon the eve of the election. What was the result? The Maine Legislature carefully considered every charge, revised every story, and then elected Mr. Blaine unanimously. Is any further confirmation of Mr. Blainc s integrity needed in the face of this? I think not. HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 31 Eight years ago, the Hon. Nelson Dingley, of Lewiston, presented this well-drawn picture of the man of the hour. The portrait has not been rendered in the least out of date by the years that intervene. In his paper Mr. Dingley said : The popular instinct, which is often quicker and sharper than the perception of partisan leaders and pretentious publicists, keenly discerns the strong qualities of Hon. James G. Elaine as the Presidential candidate to lead the Republican party to victory in the approaching national contest. His clear comprehension of the national duties and necessities, his thorough appreciation of the vulnerable points of the enemy, and the fenrless directness with which he aims his blows, have awakened the popular enthusiasm to a degree that is disturbing the nerves of sleepy conservatives, and exciting the fears of the Confederate politicians of the South and their Democratic allies of the North. His rising popularity has a substantial cause, which timid politicians do not seem to comprehend. A certain cla>s of individuals, of limited numbers, while admitting that the popular tide is rising in his favor, try to break the force of this fact by asserting that the masses are not capable of correctly estimating him that he is a sagacious politician, but not a statesman. Men s standard of statesmanship varies greatly, according to tem perament and moral and political education. That of some persons, assuming to be judges, is very peculiar. There have been Englishmen who have regarded Sir William Temple a wiser statesman than Lord Chatham. Of the former Ma- caulay remarks: " \Ve must own that many statesmen who have committed very great faults appear to us to be deserving more esteem than the faultless Temple." For in truth his faultlessness is chiefly to be ascribed to the dread of all respon sibility. He never puts himself prominently before the public eye except at conjunctures where he was almost certain to gain and could not possibly lose. But to all sensible minds the placid, cautious, timid statesmanship of Temple seems diminutive in contrast to the bold measures of cabinet and rugged, aggres sive parliamentary eloquence of Lord Chatham. Not un frequently in our politi cal history have these assumptions of superior judgment been made by certain professed teachers of the people. When Daniel Webster, with the massive force of his logic and eloquence, crushed into impalpable dust the errors in political economy and the heresies of Calhoun and Hayne, he was declared to be no statesman, but merely a disturbing agitator, a New England politician not to be followed. \Vhen John Quincy Adams boldly defended the sacred rights of peti tion in the National House of Representatives, where it had been repeatedly trampled beneath the despotic heel of the Southern and Northern Democracy, he was declared to be merely a noisy demagogue who was reopening an unprofitable question and exciting unpleasantness among Southern brethren, to the general injury of the country. In the eyes of these good-natured quielists, Edward Everett, uttering his polished, elaborate platitudes, which carried with them no lightnings of heated indignation against national injustice, were thought to be more statesmanlike than the bold and scorching words of Charles Sumntr on the barbarism of American slavery, and the strong and fearless denunciation of Herry Wilson and Salmon P. Chase against the fugitive slave law. The calm, noble declarations of a " Higher Law," by William H. Seward, were regarded as conclusive evidence of his unfitness for Whig leadership, while his bold an- 362 HON. JAMES G. BLAINE. nouncement of the " irrepressible conflict between slavery and freedom," anc its endorsement by Abraham Lincoln in the debate with Stephen A. Douglas showed these two Republicans utterly destitute of statesmanship. Men unac customed to the stubborn work of genuine public life pronounced Millard Fi.l more, John Bell, Horatio Seymour, and other men of mere platitudes, the mos\ pacific and wise national leaders. Standing now as the most influential member of the Republican party of th Union, Mr. Elaine holds a leadership he has fairly won after twenty years of manly, vigorous effort, growing in wisdom and strength with each succeeding year equal to every occasion on which he is called to play a part. Yet there art those who concede his popularity and the consummate ability and tact with which he confronts, out-generals, and defeats the Democratic party and is lead ing the Republicans to success, yet insists that he is no statesman that he is only a politician. Very singular ideas these wonderful critics have of statesmanship. "What do they really mean by their use of terms? Webster defines a statesman: "A man versed in the arts of government; one eminent for political abilities." Brought to a practical test, we doubt if there is another man in the country more thoroughly acquainted with all the forms, methods, and workings of the States and national government of this country than James G. Blaine. There are men who in action and available power are much less than their written or spoken words ; there are others whose speech is less than their deeds. The latter have a reserved force which their words do not measure, but is always made to tell when the hour of effort and trial comes. What Mr. Blaine has accomplished, when brought to the test, shows that he does not belong to the former class. He was early in life a political student of re markable insight and application, then an able and popular journalist with rare opportunities for political culture and experience, repeatedly the Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, fourteen years a member of Congress, for six years the Speaker of the National House of Representatives, with a success equalled by none since Henry Clay, sixty years ago, occupied the position, and not surpassed by the great Kentuckian himself. The scope, the power, the suc cess of Mr. Blame s present leadership of the Republican minority the country new scans for itself, and can make up its opinion. With a remarkable memory of all salient facts in the political history of the country, with a know^dge of the men in different sections of the Union surpassed by no living American, with a personal magnetism rarely equalled, he gathers men quickly around him and holds them with a great tenacity. His administrative qualities are of the highest order. With an astonishing capacity for work, all his powers under thorough discipline, with a complete mastery of all necessary details, few men can accom plish so much. A born leader of men, buoyant, resolute, indefatigable, he always proves equal to what is expected of him. If chosen President, his administration would be one of the most able and successful in the history of the government. His would prove a practical, comprehensive, sagacious statesmanship, thus show ing how utterly mistaken have been the comments of a special cla>s of critics, that he is a consummate master of political tactics, an able parliamentarian, but no statesman. Fortunate will it be for the country and for the Republican party if he becomes the next national executive. The admiration felt for Mr. Blaine by the multitude is of a HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 363 passionate character a remarkable fact when it is remembered that this feeling is strongest precisely in that section of the people to which we have been taught to look for the truest exemplars of the homely and uncorrupted virtues of American citizenship. He is emphatically the candidate of the people. A second reason for Mr. Elaine s great popularity is to be found in his vitality. He is alive as is no other man who has been named for the Presidency of the United States ; he is alive from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet, and wherever he goes there is sure to be activity. He keeps the most indifferent spectator on the watch and gives zest and color to life. If Mr, Elaine is elected, he will give the country a live ad ministration, as was that of Andrew Jackson ; he will centre the public attention on his doings and lift public life out of the common place. The timid and the foolish say that he will involve us in a war, or at least will keep us in hot water with every power on either side of the Atlantic. Nothing is more improbable. The President s power is much too limited for this. Mr. Elaine at heart is a conservative. People who are ready to assert themselves never have quarrels. The school boy who is ready to fight at the first word rarely has that first word offered him. But he would certainly keep the Old World awake to the fact that there is a country called the United States as it has not been since the treaty of Washington was signed. He will settle several serious questions of international impor tance, and he will settle them in a somewhat different fashion from that taken by the Administration he will succeed. This will be a great gain to the world, as it would to the United States. His foreign policy justifies this thought. He has defined the intent of the foreign policy of President Garfield s Admin- 22 364 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. istration to be first, to bring about peace and prevent futun wars in North and South America ; second, to cultivate sucl friendly commercial relations with all American countries a; would lead to a large increase in the export trade of the Unitec States by supplying those fabrics in which we are abundantl) able to compete with the manufacturing nations of Europe It was for the purpose of promoting peace on the Westen Hemisphere that it was determined to invite all the independen governments of North and South America to meet in a peace conference at Washington on March 15, 1882. The projeci met with cordial approval in South America, and, had it beer carried out, would have raised the standard of civilization, anc possibly, by opening South American markets to our manu factures, would have wiped out $120,000,000 balance of tradt which Spanish America brings against us every year. The invitations to this important conference were subsequently sent out by President Arthur, but in a short time they were recalled after some of the countries had actually acceptcc them. It was to pave the way toward a peace conference thai William Henry Trescott and Walker Blairie were sent as spe cial envoys to Peru and Bolivia upon the appeal of Peru, and, under instructions approved by President Arthur in the hope of obtaining an amicable settlement of the differences between the belligerents. Secretary Elaine s instructions to General Hurlbut, United States Minister to Peru, specially cautioned the minister against committing his government to any line of action in regard to the Cochet and Landreau claims against the Peruvian Government by the citizens of this country; and again he wrote, warning Mr. Hurlbut against lending his lega tion s influence to the Credit Irrdustriel of France, the Peruvian Company of New York, or any other schemes for reorganizing the finances of Peru. In Secretary Elaine s correspondence HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 35 with Lord Granville in the early summer of 1881 he set forth the position of the United States as holding the right to feel and express deep interest in the distressed condition of Peru, with which this country had maintained cordial relations for many years, and while with equal friendliness to Chili, the United States would not interpose to deprive her of fair ad vantages of military success, this country could not regard with unconcern the destruction of Peruvian nationality a movement which threatened the liberal civilization of all America. Of equal importance with the cultivation of friendly and commercial relations with the South American countries was and still is the necessity of taking some steps toward protect ing the interests of the United States involved in the construc tion of a canal across the Isthmus of Panama. In Secretary Elaine s instructions to Mr. James Russell Lowell, minister to England, is the following summary of the changes in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty of 1850 necessary to meet the views of the United States government : "First. Every part of the treaty which forbids the United States fortifying the canal and holding the political control of it in conjunction with the country in which it is located to be cancelled. "Second. Every part of the treaty in which Great Britain and the United States agree to make no acquisition of territory in Central America to remain in full force." The admirable and forcible chain of reasoning by which Mr. Blaine led to these conclusions forced the English news papers to admit that he had made out a good case upon Brit ish precedents, and that the right of the United States to con trol the Panama Canal was stronger and the necessity of such control greater than the right and necessity of England to 366 HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. control the Suez Canal. Wherein is this policy wrong, unwise or mischievous ? Mr. Elaine is in favor of civil service reform. In discussing this topic before a public audience at Winterport, Me., in 1882, he said: There are many reforms which I should be glad to see, and which I have for many years believed in. I should be glad to see every federal officer, however honorable, appointed for a specific period, during which he could not be removed except for cause, which cause should be specified, proved, and made matter of record. I should be glad also to see the tenure of all subordinate officers made longer at least than a Presidential term, so that the incoming of a new adminis tration should not be harassed, annoyed, crippled and injured by the distribution of offices. Seven years would be a good length of term, and would effect the desired end. It would break joints with the Presidential term, and would avoid the evil of which I have spoken. There are a great many honest advocates of reform in the civil service who believe in a life-tenure for all subordinate officials. I have never been able to persuade myself that this would be wise, even if prac ticable, and I am quite sure that it is not practicable. Life-tenure means a pen sion in the end to the incumbent, and with a hundred thousand office-holders this would impose an intolerable burden on the taxpayer. It would create what might be termed a privileged class, which is always sure in the end to prove un popular and odious in the eyes of the people. Nor do I believe it was ever de monstrated that life-tenure insures the best, most faithful and most honorable service. It may often be wise to retain a man in office for all the years of his active life, but I believe he will be a better officer if his commission shall expire at stated periods and his efficiency shall be his claim of reappoinlment and con tinuance in our administration of State and county office. The gentleman who has practical charge of the treasury of Maine has been in his position for forty- one years, his appointment being annually renewed in recognition of his ability and fidelity. Even with his strict integrity, I do not doubt that he has been a more careful officer than if he had been originally appointed for life, or a term of forty-one years. In the county of my residence we elected the same man annually for thirty-three years. He was a better officer than though he had been origin illy chosen to serve for the full generation during which he honorably dis charged eveiy duty. I believe, therefore, from such instances as these, and many others which I could name, that it will prove a far easier task to educate public opinion to a renewal of appointment to efficient and valuable officers, with suffi cient salaries to enable them to lay by something for a rainy day, than it will be to get popular consent to life-tenures, with pensions to a large civil list, con stantly growing in numbers and amount, and constantly provoking opposition in the popular mind. The election takes place on the 4th of next November, and at the polls then the great question will come up for settle- HON. JAMES G. ELAINE. 367 ment. Viewing it now at this distance, and remembering all that precedes this, I have no hesitation in predicting for the nominees of the Republican party a most substantial victory, and for the country four years of peace and prosperity in the administration of the most popular American that ever lifted his voice in behalf of the American people! CHAPTER XVIII. THE PRESIDENTS THE MEN WHO HAVE OCCUPIED THE WHITE HOUSE GEORGE WASHINGTON OLD HICKORY MARTIN VAN BUREN GARFIELD AND ARTHUR. NO volume that proposes to deal with the Presidency could be said to half cover its subject that did not present to its readers some view retrospective or statistical of the men who have graced the chair of Washington ; and re membering this desire on the part of our readers, I present here a brief sketch of each of the Presidents in turn, from the illustrious " Father of his Country " down to the man who holds the office now, and who, on the fourth of March next, gives way in favor of James G. Blaine. GEORGE WASHINGTON, 1789-1797. George Washington, the illustrious founder of American independence, was born February 22, 1732, in county of Fairfax, in Virginia. At the early age of twenty-one he was first employed officially by General Dinwiddie in remonstrat ing with the French commander on the Ohio, for the infrac tion of treaty between the two nations. After the unfortunate expedition of General Braddock, whom he served as aide-de camp, in which he displayed great military talent, he re tired from the service ; but, while engaged in agriculture, he was elected to a seat in the first Continental Congress. At the commencement of the Revolutionary war he was chosen, (368) FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 369 as the fittest man, for the post of commander-in-chief of the provincial forces. From the moment of taking upon himself this important office, in June, 1775, he employed the great powers of his mind to his favorite object, and by his prudence, his valor and presence of mind, he deserved and obtained the confidence and gratitude of his country, and finally triumphed over all opposition. The record of his services is the history of the whole war. He joined the army at Cambridge in 1775. The battle of Long Island was fought on the 27th of August, and the battle of White Plains on the 28th of October, 1776. On the 25th of December he crossed the Delaware, and soon gained the victories of Trenton and Princeton. The battle of Brandy wine was fought on September II, 1777; of German- town, October 4; of Monmouth, February 28, 1778. In 1779 and 1780 he continued in the vicinity of New York, and closed the military operations of the war by the capture of Cornwallis, at Yorktown, in 1781. When the independence of this country was established by the treaty of peace, Wash ington resigned his high office to the Congress, and retired into private life. On the organization of the government he was called upon, in 1789, to be the first President of the States which he had preserved and established. It was a period of great difficulty and danger. Washington, by his prudence and firmness, subdued insurrection, and silenced dis content. He completed, in 1795, the business of his office by signing a commercial treaty with Great Britain, and then voluntarily resigned his power at a moment when all hands and all hearts were united again to confer upon him the sover eignty of the country. Restored to the peaceful retirement of Mount Vernon, he devoted himself to the pursuits of agri culture. He died, after a short illness, on the I4th day or" December, 1799. As every American knows, Washington 37 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. sprang from among the people ; he only claimed command and authority as long as they were willing to concede them ; he ruled only because .he deserved to rule, and history mentions no man of equal ability who possessed that deter mination to do his whole duty to God, to man, and to his country, which ever characterized the conduct of the PATER PATRICE. JOHN ADAMS, 1797-1801. Justice has scarcely been rendered to the memory of the second President of the United States. He possessed more of that enthusiasm which filled the breast of Luther than any other Revolutionary leader, and one of the most able men America has produced ; he was the colossus who carried through that bold Declaration, and he sunk into the arms of death with " Independence forever " upon his lips. He was born at Braintree, October 19, 1735. He was edu cated in the best schools, and afterwards sent to Cambridge College. He studied law, and in 1761 was admitted a barris- ter-at-law, and commenced practice. The attempts of Eng land to coerce the colonies into obedience, which had exas perated them into most bitter indignation and hatred, were opposed by Mr. Adams from the outset, and on all the ques tions which arose between the two countries, he was on the side of the wronged and oppressed. Yet his was not a mere partisan zeal, but the just excitement of one who thought and felt earnestly and deeply. When, therefore, the resistance of the colonists broke out into open war, Adams. was prepared to take an intelligent and an active part in the defence. In 1769 he was appointed chairman of the committee, appointed by the town of Boston, to draw up instructions to its repre sentatives to resist British encroachments, at the very time the town was invested by an armed force both by sea and by FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 3/1 land. In 1770 he was sent to the legislature, where he took a prominent part in every important measure. In 1774 he was one of the committee who prepared the celebrated resolutions on the Boston Port Bill. The same year he was elected to the first Continental Congress, held in Philadelphia. From the outset he announced himself the friend of independence, and when, therefore, in 1775, the first blood was shed at Lex ington and Concord, he was ready for war, and suggested the name of George Washington as commander-in-chief. In 1776 he was appointed, with Jefferson, Franklin, Sherman and Livingston, on the committee which reported the immortal " Declaration of Independence." He was sent as commis sioner to France and England, and was appointed, in 1785, the first minister to England. After his return he was elected first Vice-President of the United States, and re-elected in 1793. In 1797 he was elected President. His administration was a vigorous and important one, but not without embarrass ments and opposition. In 1801 he was defeated by Jefferson, and retired to his farm at Quincy. He died July 4, 1826. He was a man of intrepid and honest character, great indus try, and high order of talent, and the most elevated Christian sentiments; a most immaculate patriot; a skillful diplomatist; a sound statesman, and a magnificent orator. THOMAS JEFFERSON, 1801-1809. Thomas Jefferson, the United States most influential states man, was a native of Shadwell, in Virginia, where he was born 1743, and was brought up to the bar. In 1769 he was elected a member of the provincial legislature, and in 1775 he entered Congress, and took a conspicuous and very decided part in opposition to the measures which England had adopted towards her American colonies, and it was he who drew up 37- FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. the famous Declaration of Independence. In 1776 he retired from Congress, and was chosen Governor of Virginia for two years. He was sent as envoy to Paris in 1785, and then to London. He returned to Paris, where he remained till 1789, zealously pursuing whatever was beneficiaPto his country. He subsequently filled the office of Secretary of State under Washington until 1793, when he resigned and lived in retire ment four years. He was then elected Vice-President, and in iSoi chosen President. At the expiration of eight years he again retired to private life, and on the 4th of July, 1826, he died. He was the acknowledged head of the Republican party, and an acute politician, eloquent and persuasive in con versation. He ever retained his belief in the capability of man for self-government, and firmly opposed those statesmen who were disposed to follow in the beaten path, which the monarchies and oligarchies of the old world had so long pur sued. His policy triumphed over that of his opponents, and at this day parties do not take sides for or against it, but con tend, like children, as to their legitimate descent from the " apostle of democracy." JAMES MADISON, 1809-1817. James Madison, one of the fathers of the Revolution, and one of the most conspicuous of those who framed the Con stitution and secured its ratification, was born March 16, 1751, in Prince George county, Va. ; was educated at Princeton Col lege, and studied law in his native State. In 1776 he was chosen a member of the Convention which formed the Con stitution of Virginia, and of the State Legislature, by which he was appointed to the executive council. He was a delegate to the Continental Congress of 1780. In this body he strongly opposed the issue of paper money by the States; as chairman PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 375 of the committee to prepare instructions to the United States foreign ministers, drew up an able paper in support of our territorial claims and the free navigation of the Mississippi, and zealously advocated in 1783 the establishment of a system of general revenue. Member of the Convention which in 1787 formed the United States Constitution, taking a promi nent part, in the debates and supporting it in a series of able essays in the Federalist and also in the Virginia Convention of 1788. Member of Congress 1789-97, uniting with the Repub licans as a moderate opponent of the administration of Wash ington. He opposed the alien and sedition laws of 1798. Secretary of State in 1801-9; elected President in 1808; and re-elected in 1812. On taking his office, March 4, 1809, he found the United States involved in disputes with the British government upon the impressment of her seamen, the search ing of her vessels for deserters, and upon commercial re strictions by orders in council. Non-intercourse was decreed in May, 1810, and war was declared June 1 8, 1812. Canada was invaded; Washington was captured and the capital burned in Aug., 1814; and Jan. 8, 1815, Jackson achieved a splendid victory at New Orleans. A treaty of peace was signed at Ghent, Dec. 24, 1814; but the right of search was not relin quished. After his retirement he passed his days on his farm at Montpelier. JAMES MONROE, 1817-1825. James Monroe was born in Virginia in 1759, and was edu cated in William and Mary College. At eighteen he joined the patriot army as a cadet ; was engaged at the battles of Harlem and White Plains ; and at Trenton rose through the rank of lieutenant to that of captain. He was present at the battles of Brandywine, Germantown and Monmouth. Resum ing the study of the law he entered the office of Mr. Jefferson, 3/6 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. and, after being a member of the assembly of Virginia and the council, he was elected, in 1783, a member of the old Con gress. In 1790 he was elected a member of the Senate of the United States, in 1794 went as minister plenipotentiary to France, and in 1799 was appointed Governor of Virginia. In 1803 he was appointed minister extraordinary to France, and was a party to the purchase of Louisiana, in the same year minister to London, and in the next minister to Spain. In 1806 he was again appointed, in conjunction with Mr. Wm. Pink- ney, minister to London. He was subsequently Governor of Virginia; in 1811 was appointed Secretary of State, and con tinued to exercise the duties of this department, and for some time those of the department of war till 1817. In that year he was chosen President of the Union, and in 1821 was re- elected by a unanimous vote, with the single exception of one vote in New Hampshire. His administration was energetic, harmonious and prosperous ; the army and navy were strength ened ; surveys and plans of fortifications were made ; the ces sion of Florida from Spain was obtained ; the independent States of South America were recognized ; and the bold de claration, known as the " Monroe Doctrine," was made to the world that European interference in respect to American States would not be tolerated. Vigorous efforts were made to suppress the slave trade; pensions for the Revolutionary soldiers were voted ; and an acknowledgment was made of the great services of Lafayette. He died in New York on July 4, 1831. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, 1825-1829. John Quincy Adams, emphatically a child of the Revolu tion, was born and educated amid its exciting scenes. He first saw the light July 11, 1767, at Quincy. The position of his father gave him great advantages of education, PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 379 which he diligently employed. He was abroad with his father before 1780. He studied law and practised at Boston, obtaining distinction as a political writer. From 1794 to 1801 he was successively minister to Holland, England and Prussia. In 1802 he was elected to the Senate of Massachu setts, and in 1803 to the "Senate of the United States. In 1806 he was appointed professor of rhetoric in Harvard. Min ister to Russia in 1809 his influence at that court induced its offers of intervention which culminated in the treaty of peace between England and the United States. He was one of the commissioners to negotiate that treaty at Ghent in 1814. From 1817 to 1825 he was Secretary of State to President Monroe, whom he succeeded as President in 1825, being chosen by the House of Representatives, no choice having been made by the people. In 1829 he retired to private life, but in 1831 was sent to Congress, where he was continued by successive re-elections until his death, which occurred suddenly in the capitol. Mr. Adams administration favored the application of all the super fluous revenues of the country to internal improvements. He looked upon slavery as an unmitigated curse. His voice was heard on nearly every important question before the House. When more than fourscore he was yet " the old man elo quent." Independent, manly and patriotic, he never swerved from what he believed to be the path of duty, leaving behind him a high reputation for purity and disinterestedness. ANDREW JACKSON, 1829-1837. Andrew Jackson, the hero of the Creek war and of New Orleans, the idol of the people, was a native of South Caro lina, born in 1767. At fourteen he joined the Revolutionary army. At the close of the war he became a law student, and was thus enabled to discharge efficiently some high legal 380 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. offices in Tennessee, to which he was subsequently appointed. On the breaking out of the war with England in 1812 he took vigorous measures for the defence of the menaced territory; in 1 814 he was appointed major-general; and among other exploits, which raised him to the highest point of popularity, he gained the decisive victory over the English, Jan. 8, 1815, at New Orleans, which put an end to the war. The same success attended his arms against the Creek tribes, whom he repeatedly subdued. In 1821 he was appointed Governor of Florida ; and his gallant deeds being still fresh in his coun trymen s recollection, he was brought forward by the Demo cratic party as a candidate for the Presidency, elected in 1 829, and returned in 1833. His period of office is chiefly remark able for the extension of Democratic principles which took place during it. He obtained from France the payment of an indemnity of twenty-five millions of francs for injuries done to the commerce of the United States during the empire. His refusal to renew the bank charter in 1833 led to one of the most violent financial struggles on record. General Jackson was endowed with inflexible will, an ardent -patriotism, and was always the idol of the people. He died in 1845. MARTIN VAN BUREN, 1837-1841. Martin Van Buren was the first of the Presidents born after the struggle for independence. His success was due to his abilities as lawyer, politician and statesman. He was born at Kinderhook, N. Y., December 5., 1782; died there July 24, 1862. He enjoyed only a moderate education, and in 1796 began the study of law, which he continued until 1803, when he was admitted to the bar. He had meanwhile taken an active part in politics, and in 1808 was appointed Surrogate of Columbia County. In 1812 he was elected to the State FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 381 Senate. He continued a member of that body until 1820, having been, during that period, a supporter of the war and the canal project. A portion of this time he also held the office of Attorney-General. He was a member of the Constitu tional Convention of the State of New York in 1821, and in February of the same year he was elected to the United States Senate, and re-elected in 1827, serving until 1829. The following year the Gubernatorial Chair of the State of New York became vacant by the death of Governor Clinton, and Mr. Van Buren was selected as the candidate for that office by the Democratic party of the State. He was elected, but his career as Governor was brief, for he soon afterwards accepted from President Jackson the office of Secretary of State. He received a large majority of the electoral votes for Vice-President in 1832, which office he continued to fill during President Jackson s term. In 1835 he was unanimously nom inated for the office of President by the Democratic Conven tion, and in November, 1836, was elected. Great commercial distress prevailed at the time of his inauguration, and two months afterwards the banks suspended specie payments. Financial questions and measures were the subjects of interest during his administration. Its leading measure was the inde pendent treasury system, recommended in his first message to Congress at the extra session of May, 1837, and persistently urged by him until it became a law on June 30, 1840. The presidential canvass for the successorship was conducted with unprecedented activity and excitement. The Whig candidate was General William H. Harrison ; and Mr. Van Buren received the unbroken support of his party in the Democratic Convention and at the polls. Mr. Van Buren received but 60 electoral votes, against 234 received by his successful com petitor. In 1848 he accepted the presidential nomination 382 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. from the Free-soil party, and in that way divided the Demo cratic party in New York, and contributed to the election of General Taylor, the Whig candidate. The remainder of his life he passed in retirement on his farm at Kinderhook. WILLIAM HENRY HARRISON, 1841. William Henry Harrison, recommended to his countrymen by a long train of public services chiefly in the field, was born in Virginia, in 1773, his father being one of the most conspic uous among the patriots of the Revolution. He studied for the medical profession ; but participating in the general excite ment which prevailed throughout the country against the bar barous mode of warfare at that time practiced by the Indians on the Northwestern frontiers, he joined his brethren in arms as an Ensign in the United States Artillery in 1791. During the years 1811, 1812, and 1813, General Harrison assembled a body of militia and volunteers and marched against the Indians, who, under Tecumseh, had created serious disturb ances on the frontier. The most signal success crowned his efforts, and he was appointed by Mr. Madison to negotiate with those enemies against whom his military skill had been so ably directed. In 1828 he was sent as United States Min ister to Colombia; and in 1840 he was elected President. But one month after his accession he was seized with an ill ness, and died April 4, 1841. JOHN TYLER, 1841-1845. John Tyler, the successor of President Harrison, was born in Virginia in 1790. He had barely attained to manhood when he was elected to the State Legislature. Five years afterwards he was elected to Congress, and in 1826 to the FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 383 Gubernatorial Chair of his native State. Before the expiration of the term of his office he was chosen to fill a vacancy in the Senate of the United States, where he officiated as President pto tern, of that body. He served in this capacity till a differ ence of opinion having arisen between General Jackson and himself, he resigned his seat in 1836. In 1840 he was selected by the Whig party as their candidate for Vice-President. He was elected to that office by a large majority, and entered upon the discharge of his duties in March, 1841, when the death of the President, General Harrison, shortly after raised him to the Chief Magistracy of the Republic. His term of office expired in 1845, after which he lived in retirement in Virginia until early in 1861, when he reappeared at Washing ton as a delegate to the Peace Congress, of which body he was President. A few weeks later he became a member of the Virginia Convention which passed the ordinance of seces sion, and subsequently of the Confederate Congress. He died in Richmond, January 17, 1862. JAMES KNOX POLK, 1845-1849. James Knox Polk was the unflinching supporter of the ^ olicy inaugurated by General Jackson and earned out by Van Buren. His native place was in North Carolina, where he first saw light in 1795. He became a member of the bar in Tennessee in 1820, and soon took a first rank among his colleagues. He was elected a member of Congress in 1825, where he was distinguished for his firmness and industry, and where he was chosen Speaker for three several terms. His opinions coincided with those of the Democratic party, by which in 1844 he was chosen President. It was during his administration that the annexation of Texas was effected, the 23 384 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. war against Mexico successfully terminated, and the general Democratic policy maintained. He died in 1840. ZACHARY TAYLOR, 18491 Zachary Taylor was one who, previous to his election to the Presidency, never held a civil office. He was born in Virginia, in 1786. His father, who had fought at the side of Washington during all the war of independence, at its con clusion settled in Kentucky, and conducted his family to their forest-home, where his son, amid the perils of savage life, had ample opportunity of developing those military qualities of which he afterwards gave so signal a proof. At the out break of the war with England, in 1807, he hastened to join the army, and was appointed to guard the banks of the Wabash. In 1812, while in command of the garrison of Fort Henderson, consisting only of fifty-two men, he was suddenly attacked at midnight by a hostile party, who suc ceeded in setting fire to the fort. But Taylor, with his handful of men, extinguished the flames, and forced the enemy to retreat. For this exploit he was raised to the rank of major. In the war against the Indians, both in Florida and Arkansas, he passed successively through all the grades of his profes sion, till he reached the rank of general. Nominated, in 1846, to the command of a corps of observation on the frontiers of Mexico, an attack of the Mexicans gave him an opportunity of crossing the Rio Grande, and of gaining his first battle, at Palo Alto. The victories of Resaca de la Palma, Monterey and Buena Vista, proved him at once a valiant soldier and an able general, and marked him out to the suffrages of his coun trymen for the Presidency. Chosen in November, 1848, he entered on his high office March, 1849; but he had only filled the chair for sixteen months when he was attacked by the cholera, and died July, 1850. FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 385 MlLLARD FlLLMORE, 1850-1853. Millard Fillmore is a brilliant illustration of one grand result of our free institutions. His progress from the factory to the Presidential mansion should be attentively studied by every American who would appreciate the full value of our republican form of government. He was born in Cayuga county, New York State, January, 1800. He was the son of a farmer in humble circumstances, and in his youth enjoyed no advantage of education. Apprenticed to a clothier, and afterwards to a wool-carder, in his native town, he bought the o right to his last two years of service, and entered on the study of the law. In 1821 he walked to Buffalo almost pen niless, and there continued his legal studies till he was ad mitted to the court of common pleas, two years later, and commenced practice at Aurora, Erie county. In 1827 he was admitted as an attorney, and in 1829 as a counsellor in the Supreme Court; and in 1830 he removed to Buffalo. In 1829 he took his seat in the Assembly of the State as a member from Erie county, being elected by the anti-masonic party. He served three terms, and distinguished himself by his efforts for abolishing imprisonment for debt, which resulted in the passage of the act. In 1832 he was elected to the lower house of Congress as an anti-Jackson candidate, and served one term. In 1836 he was re-elected on the Whig ticket, and served till 1842, when he declined a renomination. In Con gress he supported the internal improvement and protective tariff policy of the Whig party. He supported Mr. Adams in the struggle upon the question of the reception of peti tions for the abolition of slavery ; opposed the annexation of Texas with slavery ; favored the abolition of the slave trade between the States, and of slavery in the District of Columbia. He was substantially the author of the tariff of 386 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 1842. He then resumed his profession in Buffalo; was in 1847 elected State comptroller; in 1848 was nominated and elected by the Whigs as Vice-President, and remained in that position until the death of President Taylor, July 9, 1850, by which he was elevated to the Presidential chair. As Vice- President he presided during the controversy on the " Omnibus Bill " with his usual impartiality. During his Presidency, the compromise measures, embracing substantially the provisions of Mr. Clay s bill, were passed. His administration is distin guished by the expedition of Commodore Perry to Japan, which sailed in 1852, and which resulted in a favorable treaty with that country. Opposed to intervention in the affairs of other nations, he did not hesitate to denounce the suggested incorporation of Cuba into the Union as impolitic and danger ous. He visited Europe in 1855-6. In 1856 he was the candidate of the American party for the Presidency, but was defeated. He died in 1874. FRANKLIN PIERCE, 1853-1857. Franklin Pierce sprung from a family well known in the military annals of the republic. He was born in Hills- borough, N. H., 1804, and died in 1869. He studied law under Levi Woodbury; was admitted to the bar in 1827, and moved to Concord in 1838. He was member of Congress in 1833-7; United States Senator 1837-42; he refused the offices of Attorney-General and Secretary of War tendered by Mr. Polk ; vigorously supported the annexation of Texas; was made Colonel of i6th United States Infantry after the breaking out of the Mexican war; appointed brigadier-general March, 1847; commanded a large reinforcement for the army of Gen. Scott. He presided over the New Hampshire Constitutional Convention in the winter of 1850-1. At the FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. National Democratic Convention, the prominent candidates for the Presidency were Cass, Buchanan, and Douglas. After thirty-five ballots, without decisive result, the name of Gen. Pierce was proposed, and he was nominated on the forty-ninth ballot. He was elected for the term of 1853-7. ^ n his inau gural he denounced the agitation of slavery. His admin istration was signalized by the acquisition from Mexico of Arizona ; the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska, by which the Missouri Compromise Act was re pealed, and slavery permitted to enter those Territories a measure which aroused the indignation of the free States, and created great excitement; and by the troubles in Kansas, caused by the efforts to make of it a slave State, contrary to the wishes of a large majority of its citizens. January 24, 1856, he sent a message to Congress representing the forma tion of a free-State government in Kansas as an act of rebel lion. During the Rebellion he was strongly in sympathy with the Secessionists. As a lawyer he acquired an extensive practice. JAMES BUCHANAN, 1857-1861. This President was born in Franklin county, Pa., 1791, and died near Lancaster, Pa., in 1868. He was admitted to the bar in 1812, and practised at Lancaster. Beginning as a Federalist, he was a member of Congress in 182131 ; Min ister to Russia in 1832-4; United States Senator, 1834-45; Secretary of State under President Polk in 1845-9, opposing the anti-slavery movement; United States Minister to England, 1853-6. In 1856 he was Democratic candidate for President, and was elected. In Congress he favored a tariff merely for revenue. As President he soon announced his intention to make it his special study to suppress the slavery agitation, and to restore the harmony between the States that had been dis- 388 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. turbed by sectional violence. His well-intentioned efforts ir this direction were not successful. It was clear long before the close of his administration that a severer struggle thai: the country had yet gone through was fast becoming inevi table. In his last message, December, 1860, Buchanan cas! on the Northern people the blame for the disruption of the Union, then imminent, and declared that the Constitution die not delegate to Congress or to the Executive power to coerce or to prevent the secession of a State. Most of the slave States seceded in the winter of 1860-1, and nearly all the forts, arsenals, and custom-houses within their limits were seized by the insurgents, the movements of the disunionists to found and fortify a Southern Confederacy being facilitatec by the outgoing administration. He withdrew to private life March 3, 1861. ABRAHAM LINCOLN, 1861-1865. Abraham Lincoln s ancestors were Quakers from Bucks county, Pa. His parents migrated to Kentucky, where theii son, the future President, was born in 1809, and then removed to Indiana, where Abraham was occupied on his father s farm Having received at intervals about a year s schooling, at nine teen he made a trip to New Orleans as a hired hand on a flat- boat. In 1830 he accompanied his father to a new home in Macon county, Illinois, where he assisted in building a log- house and in splitting rails to fence the first field the famous rails from which, years afterwards, he received his name of " the rail-splitter." After working in a country store he was appointed Postmaster of New Salem ; began to study law, and engaged in surveying. He was in the Legislature from 1834 -1841. Licensed to practice Li\v, he opened an office at Springfield and rose rapidly to distinction, and \vas fur many FACTS ABOUT OUR 1 RESl DENTS. 389 years a prominent leader of the Whig party in Illinois. Mem ber of Congress from 1 84749, he voted for the reception of anti-slavery memorials, the expediency of abolishing the slave-trade in the District of Columbia, to prohibit slavery in the territory to be acquired from Mexico, and in favor of the Wilmot Proviso, and finally submitted a plan for the compen sation of sla^e-owners. At the Republican National Conven tion in 1856 he was a candidate for the nomination to the Vice- Presidency. At the Republican National Convention held May 1 6, 1860, he was nominated for the Presidency, and in the following November was elected to that station. The secession of the Southern Slave States followed, and President Lincoln was inaugurated under the most gloomy auspices. He found the credit of the government greatly impaired, its navy scattered, its war material in the hands of secessionists, who had seized forts, arsenals, mints and vessels ; its small army disbanded and sent home by slow and devious routes as paroled prisoners, and the garrison of Fort Sumter nearly starved. The attempt to supply the garrison was frustrated by the rebel batteries, and after thirty-three hours siege, the fortress was surrendered on April 14. On the I5th a call was issued for 75,000 men. April 19, the ports of the seceded States were declared under blockade, Washington was strongly garrisoned, and Congress met in extra session July 4. His proclamation of emancipation took effect January I, 1863; re-elected to the Presidency in 1864. Victory crowned the national arms during the succeeding winter, and the war was substantially closed, when the assassin, creeping stealthily from behind, as the President sat in his box in the theatre on the night of April 14, 1865, inflicted a wound with a pistol ball, which in a few hours ended his life. This event created unparalleled excitement. Nine of the persons implicated 390 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. suffered condign punishment; while the funeral honors pai< to the deceased Chief Magistrate surpassed anything of th kind in the history of the world. ANDREW JOHNSON, 1865-1869. Andrew Johnson, the seventeenth President of the Unite States, was born at Raleigh, N. C, in 1808. At the age of te was apprenticed to a tailor in Raleigh. Without a singl day s schooling he taught himself to read. In 1826 h removed with his mother to Tennessee, where he married an settled in Greenville. His wife taught him to write an cipher. He was elected alderman, mayor, member of th Legislature, and finally a member of Congress in 1843-5; Was Governor of Tennessee from 1853-1857, and Unite States Senator from 1857-63. The resolute opponent o secession, he was unwearied in his efforts to uphold th national cause during the early stages of the rebellion, and o the reoccupation of Nashville in 1862, he was appointed b President Lincoln Military Governor of Tennessee; was noir inated Vice-President by the Baltimore Convention of 1864 and on the assassination of President Lincoln, succeeded hir in the Presidential chair. At first he displayed a spirit o much severity to the rebels, but was afterwards so favorabl to them, and so hostile to the reconstruction policy of Cor gress, that he was impeached by that body ; tried and ac quitted May 26, 1868 thirty-five voting him guilty, ninetee voting not guilty. During his Presidency the submarine tele graphic cable was successfully laid, and congratulatory mes sages were exchanged July 28, 1866. ULYSSES S. GRANT, 1869-1877. Few careers have been more remarkable than U. S. Grant : FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 391 He was born of poor parents in Ohio, April 27, 1822. As soon as Ulysses was able to help his father he was put to work, to the neglect of his education. Between driving a team and helping his father in the tan-yard, the boy grew up into the broad-shouldered youth, and fate seemed to have des tined him to become a tanner, nothing more. But his father succeeded in getting him an appointment to West Point, which he entered in 1839. Despite his numerous and terrible disad vantages in preparation he graduated honorably. He learned the art of war under General Scott before Vera Cruz, and dis tinguished himself in the subsequent battles of the Mexican war. Being stationed after the Mexican war in Oregon, then our remotest frontier, he resigned in 1854 and settled on a farm near* St. Louis. His farming did not prosper, and his chief income was gained by hauling wood. He gave up his farm and joined his father in the leather business. At the outbreak of the war Grant offered his services to the govern ment, and though not accepted at first, was appointed in 1861 Brigadier-General. Placed over Southern Missouri, he won a victory at Fort Donelson, which was the first real success of the war, and captured Vicksburg, for which he was made Major-General, and achieved victories in the Chattanooga valley. Made Lieuteuant-General, he assumes general com mand of the forces and leads his forces against Richmond, and by its capture ends the war. Towards the close of Johnson s term the Republicans nomi nated Grant as candidate for the next President by acclama tion ; and in November, 1868, he was elected by an over whelming majority. His duties as President were, in the main, those that belong to all Presidents, such as reporting the state of the country, making appointments, receiving foreign embassies, and suggesting various minor reforms in the gov- 39 2 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. ernment, etc., etc. He was called to the Presidency in a most trying time, and we doubt whether there was another man in the country who could have carried us through that period as successfully as he did. Tlu great Centennial at Philadelphia will ever be a conspic uous landmark in the future history of his administration. Having finished his eight years of public life as President, he visited the Old World to study its governments, and enjoy the freedom and rest which travel gives to the overtasked mind. In all countries he was received with the highest dis tinctions and greatest courtesies, and he showed himself well able to support the dignity of the American Republic. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES, 1877-1881. Rutheiford B. Hayes, descended from New England ances try, was born at Delaware, Ohio, in 1822. Brought up under the care of a refined and cultured mother, in a harmonious family, he enjoyed the best educational advantages; graduated at Kenyon College in 1842 ; and, studying law at the Harvard Law School, he practised in Fremont, Ohio, afterwards re moving to Cincinnati, where he met with great success. His temperament, his self-education, his inherited and sturdily trained character, all forbade him to seek office, but he was soon compelled to serve as City Solicitor for several years. \Yhen the war began he accepted the majors hip of the Twenty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry. Promoted for his bravery, he rose to the command of a division, being breveted major-general. At the close of the war he resigned his com mission and retired to Cincinnati, having proved himself to be an honest man, a faithful soldier, and a stainless patriot. In December, 1865, he entered Congress, where he at once made himself quietly felt as a thorough and diligent worker. PRESIDENTS OF THE UNITED STATES. FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 395 He was re-elected, but resigned to accept the Governorship of Ohio in 1869. Three times he was elected governor, an honor never before conferred on any citizen of Ohio. While in office he proved a practical civil service reformer, and ex hibited the qualities of an able administrator. The Republican Convention of June 16, 1876, nominated him for the Presidency. The canvass was of an unusually partisan spirit, and the result was a disputed one, the electoral votes of Florida, South Carolina and Louisiana being claimed by both parties, one of Oregon also being disputed. An Electoral Commission was appointed to decide the question, and they decided, by a vote of eight to seven, in favor of Mr. Hayes. During his administration specie payments were fully re sumed. After his term had expired he retired, amid universal respect, to his home in Ohio, where he still lives. JAMES A. GARFIELD, 1881. Not far from Cleveland, Ohio, on November 19, 1831, a very humble home was brightened by the birth of a son, now known to the world as James Abram Garfield. Living on the frontier, his early life was one full of the struggles that accom pany poverty. On the farm helping his mother ; at the car penter s bench ; on the canal, he studied hard, reading all the while. At eighteen years old he was fitted to teach country- school, and became a popular teacher. From 1851 to 1854 he studied at Hiram Institute, Ohio, teaching in the winter, working as a carpenter, in the haying or harvest fields, in summer and autumn, keeping up with his studies. He entered Williams College, Massachusetts, in 1854, and graduated in 1856, having accomplished his " definite purpose," but he was five hundred dollars in debt. He was soon elected President 396 FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. of Hiram Institute. His success as an instructor was marke While attending to his multifarious duties as teacher, givir lectures on a great variety of subjects, preaching on Sunday he began, in 1857, the study of law. By the year 1859 h strength of mind and character, and his ability as an orat< were so well known, that he was elected to the State Senat and immediately took high rank as a speaker and debater. In 1 86 1 he entered the army and proved a thorough brave and efficient officer. He was engaged chiefly in We Virginia, and Kentucky and Tennessee. He rose to be chi< of the staff to General Rosecrans, in which position he foug] in the celebrated battle of Chickamauga, when he was pn moted to a major-generalship. Elected to Congress he resigned from the army and wei to Washington. From the very beginning General Garfie represented the higher phase of American politics. The L dex of the Congressional Record shows that he participate in the discussion of almost every important question broug] before Congress since 1863. To give a list of his speechi would be to copy many pages of the Index of the Congrc sional Record. They were not speeches made at random, bi with preparation and research. At the Republican National Convention, held June 8, iSS James A. Garfield was nominated for the Presidency on tl thirty-sixth ballot ; and after the election received two hui dred and fourteen of three hundred and sixty-nine elector votes, and secured the highest gift of the nation. He assume his office on March 4, 1 88 1, and the country seemed to fee from the start, the beneficial influence of the policy of refori he inaugurated. But he was soon stricken down by tl assassin s bullet It is needless to give the details ofthe an) ious watching of the nation over the sick President s bedsid FACTS ABOUT OUR PRESIDENTS. 397 during the weary months from July to September. He died amid the universal sorrows and tears of his countrymen, and the regrets of our foreign neighbors. CHESTER A. ARTHUR. Chester A. Arthur, the son of a New England minister, was born at Fairfield, Vermont, in 1830. Early in life his father moved to Troy, New York, and in 1844 sent young Arthur to Union College, Schenectady, New York, then under the presidency of Rev. Eliphalet Nott, one of the ablest men in his profession at that time. He graduated in 1848, and, study ing law, was admitted to the bar in 1850. He distinguished himself in his advocacy of the anti-slavery laws of New York and of the rights of the colored race. On the formation of the Republican party in 1856, Mr. Arthur zealously supported Fremont and afterwards Lincoln, in 1860. On the outbreak of the war he gave invaluable aid in the volunteer service. He was appointed collector of the port of New York by Grant in 1871, and when his term ex pired was reappointed, and the Senate, by a unanimous vote, confirmed the appointment without reference to a committee a high and unusual compliment. In 1880 he was elected Vice-President, and, on the death of President Garfield, in the fall of 1 88 1, was inaugurated as his successor. President Arthur has proved himself a thoroughly efficient executive, and will leave his office with the respect and good wishes of every conservative man in the country. CHAPTER XIX. THE WOMEN F THE WHITE HOUSE WIVES OF OUR PRESIDENTS A Hos 1 ESS OF THE EXECUTIVE MANSION. INHERE is a veritable charm for all Americans in tli theme selected for this chapter, the Women of tli White House, and this volume would lose a segment of ii complete purpose if it should be closed without reference t them. They have played no inconsiderable role in America history, more so, perhaps, during the terms of the earlier Pres dents than during the last half of our first century. For in th earlier days of our republic strong people were so few that ever influence was counted either for good or bad, and no influenc was neglected. MRS. WASHINGTON. The wife of our first President was born a Dandridge c Virginia. This made her heir to a good name and a larg fortune, and brought her troops of suitors before her fir: marriage at the age of seventeen to David Parke Custis. Sh bore him two children before his death, a few years after the marriage. As the Widow Custis, Martha Dandridge rcnewc her old triumphs over the warm hearts of Virginia, an made many new conquests. Among these was the heart c George Washington, then the young and gallant soldier c Mount Vernon. He conquered his way to the love of Ma tha Custis as surely as he did to the battle-flags of the Britisl and in due time the fair widow became the soldier s bride. H (398) MARTHA WASHINGTON. THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 4OI died December 14, 1799: his wife followed him in the spring of 1 80 1, in the seventy-first year of her age. Mrs. Washington was a woman of great sweetness of dis position, and she lived with her second husband on most ex cellent terms, and seldom if ever quarreled with him. She was a very good representative of the higher domestic life of the period as revealed in what we know of its refined elegance, its dignified courtesy, and inflexible morality. She was thoroughly domestic in her habits, was extremely plain in her dress, wearing clothes that were woven by her own ser vants. At General Washington s inauguration in 1789, he wore a suit of fine cloth, the handiwork of his own household. After her husband became President Mrs. Washington ap peared at one of her receptions in a dress made by herself, and composed of cotton striped with silk. " On this occasion," say the journals of the day, " like her illustrious husband, she was clothed in the manufactures of our own country, in which her native goodness and patriotism appeared to advan tage." Her first husband was rich, her second richer, and to the end her face contained the traces of great youthful beauty. She had her trials as the wife of the great President, and once, when passing through Philadelphia, she was insulted by the ladies, who for some reason or other refused to extend her any hospitalities. Her levees in New York were held at No. 3 Franklin Square, and those in Philadelphia took place in a house on Market street between Fifth and Sixth, rented from Robert Morris, who had handsomely furnished it. MRS. JOHN ADAMS. Totally differing in character from Martha Washington was the wife of the second President of the United States. Mrs. John Adams was one of the class whom her grandson, Charles 4O2 THE WOMEN OE THE WHITE HOUSE. Francis Adams said : " Were more remarkable for their letter- writing propensities than the novel-reading and more pre tending daughters of this era." She was Abigail Smith, twenty years old, when she was married to John Adams in 1764. In 1775 she was at her home busy caring for her children: frugal, kind, working with her own hands, often at the spin ning-wheel, and learning French as if in expectation of her destiny. She came of that choice New England stock, which had no sympathy for cowardice, and was ever eager for a fight if the cause was a good one. When the Revolution came on she wrote of the English : " Let us separate, they are unworthy to be our brethren. Let us renounce them, and instead of supplications, as formerly, for their prosperity and happiness, let us beseech the Almighty to blast their counsels and bring to naught their devices." She was the first representative of her sex from the United States at the Court of Great Britain, with her husband, John Adams. She saw George IV. and the Queen, and soon be came a notoriety by her frank and peculiar manners. After wards, as the wife of the second President, she opened the first New Year s reception in the White House in 1801, and her description of Washington City in 1800 is very amusing; she wrote : " You cannot see wood for the trees. Congress comes in but to shiver, shiver, shiver. No wood-cutters of carters to be had at any rate. We are now indebted to a Pennsylvania wagoner to bring us through in the treasury office a cord and a half of wood, which is all we have in this house, where twelve fires are constantly required, and we are told the roads will soon be so bad it cannot be drawn." The health of Mrs. Adams was not sufficiently robust to permit of much entertaining, and feeling that her infirmities THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 403 ather prevented her from executing her duties as mistress of he White House, she returned to Quincy, after a five months esidence at the national capitol. She died October 18, 1818, ged seventy-four. She was one of the remarkable charac- ers of her remarkable age. She did not lack tenderness nor, womanly grace, but her understanding, energy, decision were ntirely masculine in character. She was an eminently fitting nistress for the White House, as she could skilfully take her >art in any affairs, however great or delicate, and never with- ut success^. And all the while she was a thoroughly de- ghtful companion for her husband, giving him at all times hat sympathy and affection, and that womanly assistance I hich confined all his cares to the austere lines of his coun- ry s troubles. Mrs. Adams was indeed a credit to her times. MRS. JAMES MADISON. The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, cached that great dignity a widower. His wife, who was a vidow, Mrs. Skilton, died nineteen years before his inaugur- tion. He held no formal receptions during his eight years >ccupancy of the Executive Mansion. The next Mistress of the White House was the famous Dolly Payne Madison the widow Todd when she accepted he hand and fortunes of James Madison. Mrs. Madison ossessed most courtly manners and great personal charms. he reached the White House at the age of thirty-seven, not macquainted with Washington life, as for eight years she had lispensed great hospitality as the wife of Jefferson s Secretary f State. Her mansion was noted for its choice and liberal able, being always most abundantly supplied. It was always pread as if for some festival, and to a statement of this fact he answered that " she thought abundance preferable to elc- 24 THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. gance, that circumstances formed customs, and custom formed tastes, and as profusion was repugnant to foreig customs, from the circumstances of the superabundance o our country, she did not hesitate to sacrifice the delicacy o European taste for the less elegant but more liberal fashion o Virginia." She did not stay long in the White House, ho\\ ever, as the British in our second war soon appeared befor Washington, captured and burnt the place, setting fire to th Executive Mansion. Mrs. Madison was forced to fly in dis guise in the midst of a storm, and for a while the chief lad; of the land had not where to lay her head. After the retire ment of the British the President rented the house owned b; Colonel Tayloe, on the corner of New York avenue am Eighteenth street. At the last New Year s reception held b; Mrs. Madison, that lady appeared in a dress woven fron American wool. Mrs. Madison was not a learned woman but possessed great natural talents, and was gifted with ; large heart. She lived to a great age, dying on July 12, 1845 at her residence in Washington. MRS. JAMES MONROE. The next woman to reach the White House as its Mistres; was the wife of President James Monroe. She married Sen ator Monroe in 1789, and came to Philadelphia with her hus* band to take his seat in the Senate of the United States. H< was afterwards appointed American Minister to France, when they remained five years, a fact enabling her to enjoy society and study French character. She was tall and gracefull) formed, polished and elegant, and as the wife of a Virginia senator, independent by her fortune, was surrounded bj luxury and prosperity. While she was abroad La Fayettc was captured by the Austrians and thrown into a Prussian THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 405 Jungeon at Wesel on the Rhine, where he was terribly treated. Mrs. Monroe took a deep interest in the illustrious prisoner, md secured an interview between the General and his wife, vho had herself been condemned to death. La Fayette was eleased from prison at the end of five years, and his wife at he end of twenty-two months. In 1817 President Monroe, ifter his election, removed to the White House, where he re- ided during his eight years term, made quite memorable by VTrs. Monroe s hospitality. The President and his wife had >rought with them from France certain foreign customs and nanners, and their levees were quite distinguished, although y democratic. Foreigners spoke of the cordiality of the ^resident and his wife. After he retired from office President Monroe was engaged with the other two ex-Presidents, Jeffer- on and Madison, in establishing the University of Virginia ; .nd Mrs. Monroe was never so happy as when entertaining he throng of visitors who delighted to do honor to the three x-Presidents of the United States, as they met together under ler roof. She died suddenly in 1830 at an advanced age. MRS. JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. Mrs. Louisa Catherine Adams, wife of John Quincy Adams, vas the sixth lady of the White House, and with her closed be list of the official women of the American Revolution. >he was born in the city of London, February 11, 1775, her ather, Mr. Johnson, of Maryland, then living in England. Like her husband s mother she was what might be called a Dublic woman from her marriage, and this will account for :heir uncommon posterity. John Quincy Adams first saw ler in her father s house in 1794. On the 26th of July, 1797, :hey were married at the church of All Hallows. In 1801, ifter the birth of her first child, she embarked with her hus- 408 THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. on April 4, 1841. She was born in 1776, and named Ann Semmes, near Morristown, New Jersey, and she was marrie to Captain Harrison in 1795. After the death of the Pres dent she remained at her old home until 1855, when she r< moved to the home of her son, Hon. A. Scott Harrison, fi\ miles below North Bend, Indiana, dying on February 2 1864, in the eighty-ninth year of her age. Mrs. Harrison We a very estimable lady, and was much beloved by those th; knew her. MRS. JOHN TYLER. When John Tyler succeeded to the dignities and trouble the honors and the responsibilities of the President s office, h had as wife the daughter of Robert Christian of Virgini; This gentle lady died on the iQth of September, 184; Nearly two years later, June 26, 1844, the President was mai ried a second time to Miss Julia Gardner, the ceremony takin place at the Church of the Ascension, New York city. Mr Tyler did the honors of the White House for eight month only, yet she left the memory of a very graceful and charrr ing presence, and an open-handed hospitality that completel won the many visitors to the President s residence. MRS. JAMES K. POLK. Mrs. James K. Polk, who came into the White House o the 4th of March, 1846, was born near Murfreesboro, Tennej see, September 4, 1804, the daughter of Captain Joel an Elizabeth Childress. She possessed all of the best of souther traits of character, and therefore made an admirable hostes: She was of the Spanish order of beauty, and was gifted wit a stately, .attractive presence, which, if it did not immediatel win the visitor, yet impressed him with a subtle charm tha lingered long in the memory. After leaving the Whit THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 409 House Mrs. Polk retired with her husband to his home at Nashville, where she still lives in a golden old age. MRS. MAJOR BLISS. Mrs. Zachary Taylor was another of the ladies who never presided at or managed the White House. Her husband was elected President of the United States in 1848, and among those who bitterly opposed his election was Mrs. Taylor. When it was understood that she would not assume the re sponsibility of going to Washington as its presiding lady, her daughter, Elizabeth Taylor, twenty-two years of age, was an nounced as her mother s substitute. She had just been mar ried to Major Bliss of the regular army, and was educated in Philadelphia. The inauguration of " old Rough and Ready " was one of the most brilliant ever seen in Washington : the Whigs having mounted into power after a long absence from office. Mrs. Taylor was never visible in the reception rooms of Mrs. Bliss. She received her visitors in her private apart ments, and so escaped observation. The political revolution made the receptions of Mrs. Bliss very attractive, and the lady well understood the art that heightens the charm of a joyous social gathering. The administration of her father, however, lasted but a year. From becoming overheated at a celebra tion President Taylor took a chill and died on July 9, 1850, in the sixty-third year of his age. Mrs. Taylor died six weeks after her husband. Major Bliss soon followed, and two years later his widow who was childless married again, and under her new name passed from the pages of history. MRS. MlLLARD FlLLMORE. Mrs. Millard Fillmore, who succeeded Mrs. Bliss, was born in 1798 and died at Willard s Hotel, Washington, March 30, 410 THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 1853, a Ifttle over three weeks after the termination of her husband s term of office. She proved a very acceptable Mis tress of the Presidential Mansion, and dispensed her hospi tality with much quiet dignity and grace. During her final illness, which was somewhat protracted, her place at official ceremonies was taken by the only daughter of the President, Miss Abigail Fillmore, who passed away on the 28th of July, 1854. Miss Fillmore was a graceful woman, and she met the onerous burdens of her position with commendable courage and intelligence. MRS. FRANKLIN PIERCE. With the assumption of state duties by Mrs. Franklin Pierce, the cloud that so often hovered over the life of the White House occupants returned again. While on their way to Washington to the inauguration the President-elect, Mrs. Pierce, and their little boy met with a railroad accident which resulted in the death of the lad. Mrs. Pierce had for some time been in ill-health, and the death of the boy proved a shock that shadowed her entire career in Washington. She appeared at some of the state dinners and receptions, but preferred retire ment, and absented herself when possible. She remained in Washington until the close of her husband s administration, made a tour of Europe with him, and then returned to New Hampshire her and his native State. She as Jane Means Ap- pleton, was born March 12, 1806, at Hampton, was married to Franklin Pierce in 1834, and died at Andover, Massachusetts, on the 2d of September, 1863. Her husband survived her six years and a month. Miss HARRIET LANE. Succeeding Mrs. Pierce came Miss Harriet Lane, the niece MRS. LINCOLN. THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 413 of President James Buchanan, a lady of rare accomplishments and such charm that in her hands the White House hospitali ties achieved a fair immortality. Miss Lane was remarkably well equipped for the duties of her position, and her grace, tact, and talent are well attested in the memory of many who enjoyed the Executive Mansion during the four years from 1857 to 1861. She accompanied Mr. Buchanan to England when he was minister to that country, and did him and the nation notable credit. She married a Mr. Johnston and still lives. MRS. MARY TODD LINCOLN. During the four years following 1861, and the beginning of Mr. Lincoln s second term, the White House hospitalities were in the hands of Mrs. Mary Todd Lincoln ; but the smoke of the great conflict that blew over Washington shrouded everything in the grim atmosphere of horrid war, and precluded all but the fewest formalities. The finer phases of life were postponed until the happy coming of peace there was no time for gayety and mirth. Mrs. Lincoln s life at Washington was a constant strain of trouble, a constant contact with anxiety, ending in heart-rending sorrow by a martyr s bedside. From the White House which Mrs. Lin coln occupied for a short while after the President s assassina tion the unhappy lady removed to Springfield, Illinois, where her husband is buried. Here through varying vicissi tudes, almost always those of sorrow, she remained with the exception of a short trip to Europe until death removed her last year. MRS. PATTERSON AND MRS. STOVER. Mrs. Andrew Johnson, like Mrs. Taylor, Mrs. Pierce, and Mrs. Fillmore, was rarely seen at the White House during the time her husband occupied the chair of the Supreme Execu- 414 THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. tive. His two daughters, Mrs. Senator Patterson and Mrs. Stover, attended to the duties that fall to the Mistress of the Presidential Mansion. Mrs. Stover succeeded Mrs. Patterson before the close of Mr. Johnson s administration. Mrs. Pat terson was a woman of great good sense, and had a very deli cate appreciation of her sudden and unexpected importance. When she found herself the first lady in the land she said : " We are plain people from the mountains of Tennessee, called here for a short time by a national calamity. I trust too much will not be expected of us." And when the grief- distracted Anna Surratt threw herself prostrate on the floor of the White House, imploring to see Mrs. Patterson, the lady sent this message : " Tell the girl she has my sympathy and my tears, but I have no more right to speak than the servants of the White House." During President Johnson s term of office not much was demanded of its Mistress, and not much accorded. The troubles of the President s career, and of the country, rather weighted down his social life, and proved a drawback to much of the brilliancy that he occasionally at tempted to kindle. MRS. ULYSSES S. GRANT. The hero of Appomattox married, when yet a lieutenant in the service he was destined so much to adorn, a Miss Dent. As Mrs. Grant she managed the White House from 1869 to 1876 a period during which she received her official callers with courtesy and liberal hospitality. At the conclusion of her official career she accompanied General Grant around the world, and then settled down in New York, where she erected a home. MRS. RUTHERFORD B. HAYES. Mrs. Rutherford B. Hayes, who came to the \Vhite House MRS. ULYSSES S. GRANT. MRS. LUCRETIA RUDOLPH GARFIELD. THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 417 as its Mistress in 1876, made her career remarkable by the enforcement in official life of the principles governing her private career. Her belief in temperance was so strong that she did not permit the duties and demands of official hospi tality to overcome her personal opinions. She saw no differ ence between Mrs. Hayes at home and Mrs. President Hayes at Washington ; and the creed of Father Mathew and John B. Gough had full sway within the historic walls of the Exec utive Mansion. MRS. JAMES A. GARFIELD. Mrs. James A. Garfield was the daughter of a Maryland farmer, Zebulon Rudolph, from the banks of the Shenandoah, and Arabella Mason, of Hartford, Connecticut. Lucretia Rudolph s uncle so runs the Rudolph tradition served with distinguished bravery in the Revolution, and after sheathing his sword here he went to France to draw it in the service of Napoleon. So well and happily did he fight that he rose to be Michel, Duke of Elchingen, Marshal Ney. Miss Rudolph was a school-teacher when in 1858 she mar ried James A. Garfield. She had but little time to acquaint herself with the duties of the White House before the terrible 2d of July plunged the nation into mourning, and began for her a summer of weary sorrow. Upon the President s death and burial she returned to Mentor and took up her residence at that quiet town on Lake Erie. MRS. McELROY. The present Mistress of the Executive Mansion is the sister of our President, and manages most acceptably. The Presi dent s wife died some time before he was nominated for Vice- President. Mrs. McElroy has continued and revived the best traditions of the Women of the White House by her gentle 41 8 THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. manners, courtly grace, and thorough hospitality. She is an ornament to the social life of the capital, and to the nation over which she presides. MRS. JAMES G. ELAINE. When, in the first quarter of the present century, a good many of the settlers of Massachusetts moved into other States, farther away from the common centres at which they at first gathered, one of those who moved from Massachusetts to Maine was Jacob Stanwood, of Ipswich. The beauties of the Kennebec valley attracted him, and finding there a fair pros pect of conducting his business that of buying and selling wool with success, he chose Augusta as a residence, for at that time the wool trade of the country was done by the mer chants living practically in the wool-growing districts, and obtaining from the farmers their small and varying crops. His first partner was Benjamin Davis, but subsequently Judge Robert Emmons, at that time a distinguished jurist of the Pine Tree State, who furnished the means to carry on the concern. Before coming to Maine, in 1822, he had married Sallie Caldwell, of Ipswich, his second wife, and who bore him eight children. Of these the seventh was named Harriet. Her youth was passed in the manner usual with New Eng land girls of that period. She attended the common schools of the town, and received a clever education, graduating well up in her class. She was resolute, full of self-helpfulness, and fully imbued with the spirit which has had large development among New England women, namely, that women had a mis sion of usefulness to fill in life, that the demands of the age were for work, and to escape the inanity of idleness it was necessary to do something which should make their fellow- beings wiser and better. It is true that behind this rational THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. 421 conclusion there was a practical motive : that the necessities of her family required her to be dependent upon her own resources. At this time she had a companion who was as intimate with her as though she had been a sister, Miss Abigail Dodge, and together, actuated by the common purpose to win in the world, they boldly journeyed a thousand miles towards the wild West in search of an occupation. Fate had it that they should drift to Kentucky, and fate had it also that while there they should meet James Gillespie Elaine, fresh from the western end of Pennsylvania, enthusiastic in his pursuit of the future. He was at that period well educated, brainy, and singularly agreeable in conversation and manners, and as a teacher he was particularly popular. In due time, as related elsewhere in this volume, she was married to Mr. Blaine, and from that day to this she has been ever at his side. Coming from good old Massachusetts stock, she inherited all the virtues and vig orous qualities of mind which have so distinguished those from the soil of that State, and throughout his life she has been to Mr. Blaine a help-meet in every sense of the word. With a clear head she has assisted him in almost every undertaking of his life. She has encouraged him when he needed encour agement ; she has restrained him when he was impetuous and needed restraining ; she has soothed him when attacked ; she has defended him when slandered ; she has stood by him in the hours when he most needed such assistance and comfort, and she has been to him a perfect wife. Mrs. Blaine is a rather large woman, with fine features, bright gray eyes, and fine color. She dresses always in ex cellent taste ; she is interested in the housekeeping, and makes a good housekeeper. She possesses a profound love for her children, and is to them a most tender mother. Her 422 THE WOMEN OF THE WHITE HOUSE. voice is soft and sweet, and her manner exceedingly gracious. Long contact with the world, especially the heterogeneous world of politics, has made her cosmopolitan in character, and impressed upon her insensibly the great fact that the best pol itician is he who always wears a smile. Her husband s guests, be they big or little, are made to feel thoroughly at home ; are made to feel that in the person of Mrs. Elaine they have an immediate friend, and one to whose sympathetic heart any tales may be told in the assurance of a kindly reception. When in the course of events Mr. Elaine shall have taken up the reins of government and his residence at the White House, the visitor there will find in the new hostess of the Executive Mansion a woman admirably planned by nature for that position. She will grace the official life of the head of the nation, and will bring to her husband s regime a credit, in matters of less grave a nature than those with which he will have to do, that will not be inconsiderable. Unfortunately some of the ladies who have been mistresses of the White House have hardly appreciated their position and the importance of conducting their official life with the dignity and cordiality demanded by our system. With Mrs. Elaine as the presiding genius we have no fear. There will have been none from the earliest times to the present who will ex ceed her in the excellence of her administration and the dig nity and charm with which she will surround Washington life. 4 CHAPTER THE WHITE HOUSE WHERE THE PRESIDENT LIVES SOMETHING ABOUT THE > EXECUTIVE MANSION. X THE reader who has followed the fortunes of the next. President through the many pages preceding this would not, I am sure, be satisfied if I did not furnish a glimpse, at least, of where our President resides when he is at home to the nation. The White House is one of the very few, if not the only one of the public buildings in this country which is substan tially the same now as in the days of George Washington. All other public buildings long since became unfitted for the volume of business they were called upon to accommodate, and were either enlarged, rebuilt or abandoned altogether in favor of newer and better structures. With the exception of the northern portico which was added when the structure was repaired after the British invasion of 1814, and the various decorative restorations that have been undertaken in the in terior, the White House building is in 1884 just what it was designed to be in 1792, when the corner-stone was laid by the Masons of the adjacent county before the interested eyes of George Washington. The architect was James Hoban, an Irishman who had established himself in Charleston about 1786 and had been quite successful in building houses on the Battery for South Carolina planters and the wealthy tradesmen of the town. A (425) 426 THE WHITE HOUSE. prize of $500 had been offered in 1791 for the best design for the President s House. Hoban being young and ambitious, at once entered the competition. He had not seen much of the world, and his experience was therefore limited. One of the best houses he knew of was that of the Duke of Leinster, in Dublin, a house built in imitation of those spacious and stately villas which the Italians learned to build when the rest of Europe was living in uncouth piles of brick or gloomy fortified castles. This house of the Duke s was Hoban s model. His design therefore was simple and unpretentious. He did not strive after effects ; he did not combine the hideousness of half a dozen styles with the beauties of half a dozen others ; he did not try to build a temple, a cathedral or a castle. He drew a plan for a spacious and dignified dwelling, arranging thick walla to secure warmth in winter and coolness in summer, large windows to admit plenty of sunlight and breeze, and widfl doors so that people could pass in and out without jostling or inconvenience. Hoban s plan, which was eminently practical and praise worthy, was so well received by the committee having the matter in charge, and by President Washington, that the prize was awarded to the young Irishman, and he was requested to come to the capital and superintend the erection of the struc ture. It was at first proposed to call it The Palace, but the announcement of the intention elicited such a lively protest from those who feared this was aping the ways of courts and kings that Congress decreed the title of the structure to be the " Executive Mansion : " mansion being at that time a term in common use for the better-class dwellings in Virginia and Maryland. Just when the Mansion was given its more pop ular name of the White House is not exactly known ; but it probably first had currency in the rebuilding of the structure^ THE WHITE HOUSE. 427- after the British soldiers had attempted to destroy it, when the Mansion was painted white to hide the black traces of smoke and flame upon the freestone walls. This act of vandalism was attempted in August, 1814, when General Ross and Admiral Cockburn came marching across the country from the Patuxent river, dispersing the militia or ganized at Bladensburg to oppose them, and captured the capital. Washington was then a long, rambling, uncouth village, and the unfinished Executive Mansion was an unsightly pile, standing in the midst of unkept grounds, surrounded by a cheap paling fence. After the soldiers had burned the cap- itol, and just as they were about to countermarch to their ships, having pillaged the house quite at their leisure for twenty-four hours, they brought fire from a beer-shop and set it ablaze. Luckily not so much damage was done as the invaders had intended, and the rebuilding commenced at once. It was at this time that it was painted white : a color it has ever since retained, and a color that has given it a name re cognizable and known the world over. The first to occupy the Executive Mansion was President John Adams, Washington s immediate successor. He was not, however, as thoroughly comfortable as a chief magistrate should have been. Mrs. Adams relates in her letters how she used the unfinished East Room for drying clothes, and that she had a house-warming of a very vigorous pattern in order to take the dampness out of the walls. Since Adams twenty Presidents have lived within its walls, and known its hand some rooms. Their history has been that of the nation in that they represented the contending forces of our national life, the birth, triumph and downfall of the issues of an hundred years. Adams, Jefferson, Jackson, Buchanan, Lincoln, Grant, Gar- field what a world of memories these names evoke ! no less in their victories than in the defeats of their competitors. 25 428 THE WHITE HOUSE. The ground-plan of the White House is the following : I In earlier times the Mansion was furnished so stiffly a< give the place the appearance of a hotel. It was thought : ficient to have thick carpets on the floors, and strong, p] furniture, with a few decorative pieces too heavy to be can off by servants during the quadrennial migration. Wit the past two years the interior of the house has been redec ated throughout in modern style. The long corridor, wh leads from the East Room to the Conservatory, and fr which open the Red, Green, and Blue Rooms, is a good ex; pie of this. The light is admitted through a partition wrinkled stained-glass mosaics, and as it falls upon the gil< niches, where stand dwarf palmetto trees, upon the silvery i THE WHITE HOUSE. 429 work of the ceiling, and upon the sumptuous furniture, the effect is at once marvelously soft and gorgeous. It makes the beholder feel that this great American Republic can at least provide its representative with the luxury that our best citizens introduce into their homes. Viewing this corridor we are no longer impressed with the idea, as formerly, that because we have a republican form of government we must of necessity treat our Presidents as poorly as possible, and in order to pre vent the founding of a monarchy we must remove from the life of the chief executive all that favors elegance or furnishes com fort to the senses. The East Room is one of very magnificent proportions. It was intended by Hoban for a banqueting-hall, and he un doubtedly thought that Presidents of the United States would now and again give mighty feasts like those given by kings and princes and powerful noblemen of the old world. Prob ably neither Hoban nor Washington, who undoubtedly en couraged the architect s plan, imagined that the room would be needed, and besides be much too small for the miscella neous crowd which in another generation would overflow the Mansion at public receptions. This East Room is nearly now what it was during Grant s time, when the ceiling was broken into three panels by heavy beams supported by columns, and profuse gilding was done,. The furniture in this room is ebony and old-gold. The Red Room is used as a reception-parlor by the ladies of the President s household, and it is furnished with those articles that give it a thorough home-look. A piano graces one corner, and a handsome embroidered screen, presented by the Austrian commissioners at the Centennial Exhibition, decorates another. An imposing carved wood mantel, thir teenth century style, set off with tiling of tortoise-shell glass, 43O THE WHITE HOUSE. is over the fireplace, and is covered with handsome ornamen Some beautiful work adorns the ceiling and the walls, \vhic with a matching carpet, gives the room a warm and rich ti Opening from this room is the State dining-room, only us when large companies are entertained at dinner. In eai times this room was called the " Company dining-room " distinguish it from the family dining-room just across t hall. The long table in this room seats thirty-eight persoi In the middle sits the President, and opposite him the mistrc of the Mansion. No order of precedence is observed going in to dinner or in seating the guests. Something this sort was attempted in the early days of the republic, b promptly abandoned as not practicable, and, perhaps, also ri sensible in a country professing democratic institutions. The upper floor of the White House is approached by t\ stairways, one leading from the grand corridor, used only 1 the family and their guests, and the other coming down frc the office part of the building to the small hall between t vestibule and the East Room, forming a general passagew for all people having business with the President or his seci taries. A broad hall runs from end to end of the seco story, terminating in semi-circular windows ; but the fi effect of the ample length and width of this corridor spoiled by two low cross partitions : one long ago put in keep the throng of Congressmen and place-hunters from blu dering into the family rooms ; the other lately erected to g< additional office-room. It was no part of the plan of t White House that it should be a public office ; but with t growth of the country and of the political patronage syste the proper use of the building as a dwelling for the chi magistrate has been more and more subordinated to its offic use as a bureau of appointments and a rendezvous for t THE WHITE HOUSE. 431 >oliticians of the two Houses of Congress. The family sitting- oom and parlor is the oval library above the Blue Room a pacious and comfortable apartment. The second room be- r ond is the bedroom occupied by Lincoln and Grant, and the me made historic by Garfield s long illness. President Arthur ccupies as a bedroom a chamber across the hall looking to- vard Pennsylvania Avenue, and he has fitted up for a private ffice one of the adjoining chambers, and transformed the road corridor, between the two lines of sleeping-rooms, into i picture-gallery, promenade, and smoking-room. Social life at the White House varies with different admin- strations. President Johnson gave a public reception once a /eek during the winter season, and even in the stress and gony of war time President Lincoln shook hands with a nob of two or three thousand people surging through the Mansion as often as once a fortnight. Now one or two re- eptions during a session of Congress are thought sufficient. \ New-Year s Day reception is a regular thing, and has )een an unbroken custom since 1 80 1. To this come the nembers of the Diplomatic Corps first, all arrayed in their plendid uniforms, covered with gold lace and decorated with ;tars and crosses innumerable. After the showily uniformed gentlemen follow the Judges of the Supreme Court, the Sen- itors and Congressmen, officers of the Army and Navy, Bureau officials, and last the general public. They enter at he door and out of a window on a temporary bridge. Once :>r twice each season a reception to Senators and Representa- ives in Congress and their families is given. For these occa sions cards are usually sent out. Not long ago this custom vas disregarded, and in place of cards an announcement of :he event was published in one of the newspapers. The wife :>f an Eastern Congressman, appreciating the situation, said, :d 43 2 THE WHITE HOUSE. when presented to the host, " Mr. President, you advertised for me and I am here." Formerly it was thought the duty of the President to invi each Senator and Member of Congress to dinner once a year but as the Houses have grown in membership this burdensome custom has fallen into disuse. President Johnson was the] last to adhere to it. If a President s dinner invitations include in a single season the Senators, the Justices of the Supreme] Court, the Members of the Cabinet, the foreign Ministers and a sprinkling of the influential members of the lower Housej with the distinguished officers of the Army and Navy, he is now thought to have done his duty with sufficient liberalit)| Much of the best of White House sociability is found at in formal dinners and lunches at which only a few guests art present with the President s family, and at evenings " at home," for which no cards are sent out. Then there is cool versation and music, and one may meet a score of famoul men with their wives and daughters. Some Presidents ait remembered for the number of their state dinners, others fof their receptions, and others for the cordial social tone theft gave to the life of the Mansion by small entertainments, by being accessible to all the world and by making people fe thoroughly at home. Perhaps the most important innovation in long established precedent was made by President Grafl| who broke through the traditional etiquette which forbade a President to make visits. Formerly a President saw the Mr side of no house but his own, and was in some sort a prisoner during his term of office. He could drive out or go to the theatre, but he could not make a social call or attend a re ception at a friend s house. Now, with good sense, he goes out, makes calls, dines with other people as freely as any citizen. Indeed the present tendency of White House cuf 1 THE WHITE HOUSE. 433 toms is less toward formality and more in favor of ease and freedom of social intercourse, a tendency which is most ad mirable when it is remembered that the aristocracy of wealth in our large cities is aping the manners of European courts and copying eagerly every form of flunkeyism and snobbery. No servant of the White House wears a livery, unless the coachman s coat can be called one, and the ways of the Ex ecutive Mansion are much simpler now than in the days of George Washington, whose gilded coach, powdered and be- wigged coachman and footmen would create a great sensa tion should they appear in the Washington of to-day. And probably the reader can remember the lively fuss that was raised in 1840, when it was known that Martin Van Buren eat with gold spoons. Presidents no longer smoke corn-cob pipes, as Andrew Jackson did, or put their feet on the table while talking with visitors, but they are expected to be quiet and unpretentious gentlemen in their manners and surround ings, nothing less nor more. No coats of arms adorn their coach panels and no soldiers clear the way or ride at their heels. Lincoln had a guard of cavalrymen, but because it was a period of raids, surprises and murderous plots. No other President has ever employed soldiers about him. And with the coming into use of the telephone the two cavalrymen who used to wait at the portals of the White House to gallop with messages to the Capitol or the departments have disap peared for ever. It will doubtless surprise many people to learn that hospi tality, save in the restricted sense of giving dinners, is almost an impossibility to the President of the United States, for the reason that he has no beds for guests. There are only seven sleeping-rooms in the Mansion, other than those in the base ment occupied by the servants. If the President has a mod- 434 THE WHITE HOUSE. erately numerous household, as had Presidents Grant, Haye and Garfield, he can hardly spare for guests more than the bii state bed-room. A President may wish to invite an ambas sador and his family, or a party of distinguished traveller from abroad, to spend a few days at the White House, but h cannot do so without finding lodgings elsewhere for member of his own household. Congress should hasten to remed this by providing the President with offices or build him new dwelling and give up the White House exclusively t business. The present office system in the White House is an affa of quite recent growth. Before President Johnson s time n records or files were kept and there were no clerks. Pres dent Lincoln had two secretaries, Mr. Nicolay and Col. Hay but the law recognized only one, the other being an arm officer detailed for special duty, and extra clerical work wn done by clerks detailed from one of the departments. No^ there are four rooms occupied by the private secretary an his stafT of clerks. Big ledgers of applications for office ar posted up every day, numerous pigeon holes are filled wit letters and petitions, the newspapers are read and scrap book made ; one room is devoted to telegraph and telephone service in short here are all the paraphernalia of a busy public offio One of the files of letters would furnish curious reading t students of human nature. It is called the eccentric file, an contains the epistles of advice, warning and gush mailed t the President by cranks, fanatics, absurd egotists and wouk be philanthropists, and how numerous these peculiar peopl are only those in high station know. A President gets tw or three hundred letters a day, and probably not one-fourt of them are upon any subject that can properly be brougr directly to his personal notice. THE WHITE HOUSE. 435 The reader might well suppose that in the White House, rhere the clerks and servants come into close relations with :he President, there would be numerous changes with each lew administration ; indeed, there would be more excuse for >tation in office here than in any other branch of the Gov ernment ; for a President might naturally prefer to have old friends in whom he had learned to confide in care of his house id correspondence ; but the wise rule of service during good >ehavior obtains here to a greater extent than in any one of :he departments, except perhaps the Department of State. >ne of the servants dates back to Fillmore s time and has seen thirty years of service ; one of the clerks and one of the loor-keepcrs were appointed by Lincoln ; others came in under rrant. The private secretary is, of course, always the per sonal friend and confidant of the President, and goes out with lis chief; but the rest of the staff remains, as a rule, and :onstitutes an efficient working force, familiar with the pre- :edents, customs, and etiquette of the Presidential office, and valuable on this account to a man entering upon its try- fng duties. Visitors who have business with the President wait in the intechamber, or walk impatiently back and forth in the hall. |riie President receives in the Cabinet Room not the historic oom where Lincoln signed the Proclamation of Emancipation. Vlr. Johnson converted that into the private secretary s room, |ind took the former anteroom for the Cabinet meetings. At :he door stands a quiet, sagacious, gray-haired man, who has in instinct for distinguishing people of consequence from the general multitude. Senators, judges, governors, and other nen of note find their cards taken directly to the President ; :rsons of small account are referred to a polite man of color, 436 THE WHITE HOUSE. who is the warden of the private secretary s door. Thei business must be explained to the secretary, and few of then ever get any nearer to the seat of power. The hours for caller are from ten to one, save on the days of regular Cabinet meet ings. In the afternoon the President sees visitors by specia appointment, and most of his evenings are filled in the sam way, the business in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred con cerning the disposition of offices. The late President Garfieli once said that he was obliged to see an average of about thirt persons for every office to be filled. If the question was on of removal, the number was much greater, including the friend of the incumbent as well as the candidates for the place. Ther is an amusing story, not a new one by any means, of thi method Mr. Lincoln adopted to settle a contest over a post mastership which had greatly annoyed him. There were twi candidates in the field, and petition after petition had pourei in upon the weary President, and delegation after delegatiol had rushed to the White House to argue the claims of th rival aspirants. Finally, after he had been bored for half ai hour by a fresh delegation, Mr. Lincoln said to his secretar) " This matter has got to end somehow. Bring a pair of scales. The scales were brought. " Now put in all the petitions am letters in favor of one man and see how much they weigh, am then weigh the other candidate s papers." It was found tha one bundle was three-quarters of a pound heavier than th other. " Make out the appointment at once for the man wh< has the heaviest papers," ordered the President, and it wa done. Such is the White House and the ways of its occupant And there is probably no building in the world where, in les than a century, more of history has centered than in thi THE WHITE HOUSE. 437 shining White Mansion, screened by trees on its city side and booking out from it s southern windows upon the soft blue waters of the Potomac and the historic hills of Virginia beyond. The shrine of the highest American ambition, it remains to-day unsullied by unworthy deed and glorified by acts that were as immortal as they were great and grand. CHAPTER XXI. JOHN ALEXANDER LOGAN His BIRTH AND PARENTAGE How THE Be BEGAN HIS CAREER FIERY INSTINCTS AT SCHOOL THE WAR WITH ME; ico HOME FROM THE FIGHT. HALF a century ago Illinois was not very much bette than the wild West. It was so considered by the dwel ers in the older East, and almost every person then living withi the borders of the State led largely the life of a frontiersmai Settlers were scarce and few and far between ; roads wei bad; forests were dense; wild animals were plentiful, i refining and softening civilization was yet a long way oi There was about everything the hard, crude influences whicl crushing together, eventuate great men. The long procession of settlers was rapidly finding its wa from the more crowded domains of the East, and among th earlier ones to come into the new State was a cultivated Irisl man by the name of John Logan, a gentleman who practise medicine, and had not, as common report has so often asserte( one single drop of Indian blood in his veins. He purchase a home near the present town of Miirphysboro , a little plac among the hills that hem in Jackson County. He was n sooner settled than he bestirred himself to find a gentle hcai who was willing to share the humble home with him. Hi pursuit resulted in meeting Miss Elizabeth Jenkins, a Tenne* scan, and likewise a pioneer. She evidently possessed simile views to those held by Dr. Logan, for on his making a forme ofifer of his hand it was promptly accepted. (43*) ^^ <^//. <*>< " . GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. On the 9th of February, 1826, their first child, a boy, was orn to them, and was christened John Alexander. It is the areer of this infant, now an honored member of the United >tates Senate and the Republican nominee for Vice-President, hat we propose to consider here. Schools being scarce in llinois in those days, Dr. Logan took the education of his oungest boy on himself, or placed him in the log school-house whenever the itinerant teacher of those days was about. It vas not until his fourteenth year that he received any steady chooling, when he entered an academy bearing the pre- entious title of Shiloh College an institution under the are and influence of the Methodist Church. Three years ompleted his course of instruction at Shiloh, and he gradu- ted from there fairly well up in his class. As a boy and lad he was courageous, full of pluck and eady to fight, fond of out-door and athletic sports, a good dlow, and, while not over-fond of his books, yet of sufficient rinciple to induce a hard study of them. During the three ears that followed his graduation we lose sight of him. He eturned home and devoted himself to the preliminary study >f the law. In 1846 the country was excited over the Mexican War. Although it had been foreseen, there was still enough of xcitement about the actual inception of war to attract to the ervice many of the able-bodied men of the day. Young .ogan was eager for the fight, and, though but twenty years f age, was chosen the lieutenant of a company of the First llinois Volunteers. The Mexican campaign, upon which he low entered, constitutes the most brilliant epoch in the his- ory of the American army previous to the year 1861. That campaign was the means of forming nearly all the military chiefs who have, on one side or the other, been noted in the combats of the Rebellion. It inspired the stories of the 442 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN, bivouac fifteen years later, when the captain and the lieutenan of 1847, now in command of volunteer army or army corps found themselves opposed to the companions of their earliei experiences in armies. The War of 1812 had not been < glorious one. That of Mexico, on the contrary, was a seriei of successes scarcely interrupted by a few insignificant checks which offered to the soldier all the interest of a regular war fare with its pitched battles, the names of which can b< mentioned and their trophies shown, and at the same time al the attraction that adventurous spirits find in fighting in country but half civilized. Lieutenant Logan found himself in what he afterward came to believe as strange company. Among the most earnest ir Mexico and the cause was Colonel Jefferson Davis, at th< head of the regiment of Mississippi volunteers. Ambitious intriguing, and eloquent, this old West-Pointer was trying tc achieve, at the same time, popularity with his party and the military reputation which, when the crisis came, was to place him in possession of the War Department. General Kearney General Fremont, General Wool, General Taylor, Captair Braxton Bragg, Sherman, Thomas, Reynolds, French, Hum phrey Marshall, Lee, Ewell, McClellan, Beauregard, Sumner were among those who carried the American flag so victo riously to the centre of the country of the Aztecs. What 2 comradeship then and in 1861 ! With them, and in a modest yet thoroughly brave way, John A. Logan bore his part. At the engagements of Resac2 de la Palma, Molino del Rey, Chapultepec, and before 4he massive walls of the convent of San Pablo de Churubusco, al Palo Alto, and Vera Cruz, and at the City of Mexico, he fought his ever-victorious way. His bravery and conduct earned him promotion, and he returned a quartermaster. He brought with him, also, a record that thoroughly fitted him GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 443 the fights that were to follow. Upon the unhealthy soil of e neighboring republic he acquired those qualities for con- icting a combat that so well distinguished him when at cksburg and before Atlanta, and in the early glory of eneral Logan s Mexican career we find an undimmed diance cast across his second experience of war, his later reer of arms in defence of his country. Upon his return home from the cactus-fields of Mexico he termined to pursue a career in the law in earnest, to which s mind had already been turned upon leaving Shiloh College, lis study presented to his disposition the attractiveness of a no less than the pleasures of a conquest. He began work the office of his uncle Alexander M. Jenkins, a Jacksonian emocrat and a great man in the southern portion of his ate. Mr. Jenkins had been Lieutenant-Governor of Illinois, d his career was yet full of promise. While thus employed hn A. Logan was elected, in November, 1849, clerk of his itive county an office which he held with considerable edit until 1850, and into the canvass for which he was led / his love of conquest. During that year, in a further pros- ution of his disposition to excel at the Bar, he attended a urse of law-studies at Louisville, and at the conclusion of ese he received his sheepskin. This completed his law- aining. He then returned to his home and entered into actice as a partner with his uncle. His practical mind and easing address, his exceeding marked abilities as a public eaker, speedily rendered him a general favorite, and in 1852, llowing his ever-onward path, he was elected Prosecuting ttorney of the then Third Judicial District of Illinois, and tablished his residence at Benton. During the autumn of the same year he sought the busy lirl of politics, into which he naturally gravitated, and was ected to represent Jackson and Franklin Counties in the 444 GEN - J OHN A - LOGAN. State Legislature. He was chosen as a Democrat, to whi party he gave full allegiance. In the Legislature he cut decided figure, and his bold self-assertion which was tempered by experience nor in the least retarded by t robustness of his character made him a bold debater a a thoroughly earnest man for whatever cause he chai pioned. As if by a singular chance of fate, in 1856, like the prese distinguished head of the Republican ticket, General Log was brought into his first contact with the machinery oi Presidential election. The Ninth Congressional District Illinois selected him Presidential Elector on the Buchana Breckenridge ticket. In the following fall he was re-elect to the Legislature, and he continued there his more th excellent service until 1858, when the Democracy suppo ing the Douglass branch chose him as Representative frc Illinois in the Thirty-sixth Congress. This promotion was natural one, rewarding the young lawyer s active work on t stump with the crown of rank. His election was contested wi considerable spirit, but at that date the Republican party h hardly begun its really victorious march. Congressman Log received 15,878 votes, against 2796 votes for Phillips. Durii the winter of 1860, his county having been thrown out of 1 old district and added to another, he removed his residen to Warren, Williamson County, in order that he might st be in his district. He was promptly re-elected to the Thirt seventh Congress, his career having so satisfied his constit ents that he received 21,381 against 5439 votes for Tinegi his Republican opponent. Though he was a Democrat and believer in the Democratic doctrine of the day, at the fii open intimation of the coming trouble with the South 1 boldly asserted that although he thought and hoped th Mr. Lincoln would not be elected to the Presidency, y GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 445 f-he were "he would shoulder his musket to have him naugurated." The patriotism of Mr. Logan was not of a superficial char- icter. To him, as to others, the- Civil War came as a thunder clap out of a clear sky. He did not believe that the sectional trife that was waged so hotly could culminate in so great a catastrophe. To him it seemed almost impossible that such nadness could take possession of the South. He did not idicule its gravity; but even when it commenced, he re- Carded it as something that would soon subside. He )elieved that the election of Lincoln would intensify this lostility and increase the danger, but that it was the thing o do. He knew the elements were gathering for an explo sion, and that Destiny was weaving the threads of one of her Drofoundest dramas. The spirit of the old war-horse was iroused in him, and he determined to give his life for his :ountry if need be. His resolution never faltered from that lour. 26 CHAPTER XXII. CIVIL HONORS MINISTER TO MEXICO AGAIN IN CONGRESS ATTACKING ANDY JOHNSON DEFENDING HIS OLD COMMANDER CUBA AND THE CUBANS. BEFORE passing to the field of battle and the brilliant % deeds of General Logan, we will follow him in his Con gressional career; for, though he is more endeared to the hearts of the masses of the American people by his military achievements, there can be no question but that his civil record was one of marked distinction. In 1865 he was appointed Minister to Mexico, but declined the honor, and promptly too, as a greater was close at hand. He was elected to the Fortieth Congress from the State at large as a Republican, receiving 203,04$ votes from the Illinois electors, as against 143,058 given to his Democratic oppo nent, .Mr. Derkey. He was re-elected to the Forty-first Con gress, making his total term in the Lower House from March 4, 1867, to March 4, 1871. In the latter year he was elected to the United States Senate to succeed Richard Yates, a Repub lican. At the expiration of his first term a strong fight was made against his return by the Democrats and some degene rate Republicans, and the result was the election of David Davis. Mr. Logan resumed the practice of law in Chicago, but the next year (1878) he was again called to the United States Senate to succeed R. J. Oglesby, Republican, and he took his seat on the 4th of March, 1879. His term of office expires on the 3d of March next, when he will assume the (446) GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 447 duties and honors of a higher place as President of the Senate. Of his service in Congress we may say he at once took front rank as a debater and was at the very lead in the dis cussion of all the great measures for the reconstruction and rehabilitation of the Union. Of course he could not be a Republican and not have been as strong as was possible. His memory of the insults he had received for standing by the Union was keen, and his soul was more or less embittered. The ugly wounds which had fallen upon him were not calcu lated to soften the touch of the hand he laid upon the South. And in all of what are now regarded as the severe and ultra measures of his party he stood with Morton and Stevens and Wade and the other Radicals in their advocacy. To-day his brother-representatives in those fights are gone. He stands almost alone, but his voice never falters when the principles for which he fought are assailed, or the liberties and rights of the enfranchised race are endangered. He was one of the managers of the impeachment trial of Andy Johnson, being elected by the House over the late President Garfield, who was at first proposed. He was long a member of the Military Committee, which had so much to do with reconstruction and with settling the business of the war. His fine legal attain ments also placed him on the Judiciary Committee a place that he was eminently fitted for by his wonderful activity and excellent judgment of the country s needs. At an early period of his later Congressional career he found himself one of the leaders of the House, and that position he held both in the House, and subsequently in the Senate to the present day. Though strong in his Republicanism, and to some extent a bitter partisan, he has never yet sacrificed his sense of right to party consideration. His financial views have always been the subject of more or less criticism in the Eastern press, but 448 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. they have usually represented the sentiments of his constitu ency ; and, while we may question the wisdom of this course, its expediency is unquestioned. In 1866 he made his first financial speech, in which he took strong grounds in favor of the payment of the national debt, both bonds and greenbacks, in gold coin. This position he held until the inflation fever of 1874, when he followed the popular Western movement, was carried away by the tide, and voted for the Inflation Bill, which was afterward vetoed by President Grant. In the following year he had come to wiser conclusions and better understanding, and he was a member of the Senate Commit tee on Finance and favored the Sherman Resumption Act, which went into effect January 9, 1879. General Logan was always a leader in securing pension legislation. He was one of the most urgent advocates of the Arrears of Pension Bills, and he. has never failed at each meet ing of Congress to present a bill for the equalization of boun ties. He has been a radical on the subject of internal improvement, and has always voted for liberal appropriations for rivers and harbors and given his support to railroad land- grant measures. His personal honesty, however, through it all has never been doubted, and his poverty is the best evi dence of his integrity. Having been in public life almost since he reached his majority, he has had no time to engage in lucrative employment for the prosecution of business ven tures. As a result, his entire accumulation of fortune does not exceed thirty thousand dollars. From the summary of what Mr. Logan has done at the national capital let us turn to his speeches, a specific part. And here I regret the limitations of this volume will permit of only a limited acquaintance with his work ; for, while he is much more of a worker than a speechmaker, and does not load the Record \\r\\\\ "great speeches," he has, however, GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 449 spoken when the occasion demanded it, and in no uncertain method. When the managers of the impeachment trial of Andrew Johnson were chosen from the House of Representatives, Mr. Logan s activity as a member of the Judiciary Committee naturally prompted him for the place, and he was so chosen. From his argument on this occasion I extract the following, which well samples his style and methods of speech, while showing the methods of his intellectual life and the weight of his reasoning. This first speech was delivered in the Sen ate during the trial : I wish to assure you, Senators I wish most earnestly and sincerely to assure the learned and honorable counsel for the defence that we speak not only for ourselves, but for the great body of the people, when we say that we regret this occasion and we regret the necessity which has devolved this duty upon us. Heretofore, sirs, it has been the pride of every American to point to the Chief Magistrate of his nation. It has been his boast that to that great office have always been brought the most pre-eminent purity, the most undoubted integrity, and the most unquestioned loyalty which the coun try could produce. However fierce might be the strife of party; however clamorous might be the cry of politics; how ever desperate might be the struggles of leaders and of fac tions, it has always been felt that the President of the United States was an administrator of the law in all its force and example, and would be a promoter of the welfare of his coun try in all its perils and adversities. Such have been the hopes, and such has been the reliance, of the people at large; and, in consequence, the chief executive chair has come to assume in the hearts of Americans a form so sacred and a name so spotless that nothing impure could attach to the one and nothing dishonorable could taint the other. To do aught or to say aught which will disturb this cherished feeling will be to destroy one of the dearest impressions to which our people cling. 45O GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. And yet, sirs, this is our duty to-day. We are here to show that President Johnson, the man whom this country once hon ored, is unfitted for his place. We are here to show that in his person he has violated the honor and sanctity of his office. We are here to show that he usurped the power of his posi tion and the emoluments of his patronage. We are here to show that he has not only wilfully violated the law, but has maliciously commanded its infringement. We are here to show that he has deliberately done those things which he ought not to have done, and that he has criminally left un done those things which he ought to have done. He has betrayed his countrymen that he might perpetuate his power, and has sacrificed their interests that he might swell his authority. He has made the good of the people subordinate to his ambition, and the harmony of the com munity second to his desires. He has stood in the way which would have led the dismembered States back to pros perity and peace, and has instigated them to the path which led to discord and to strife. He has obstructed acts which were intended to heal, and has counselled the course which was intended to separate. The differences which he might have reconciled by his voice he has stimulated by his exam ple. The questions which might have been amicably settled by his acquiescence have been aggravated by his insolence; and in all those instances whereof in our articles we com plain, he has made his prerogatives a burden to the common wealth instead of a blessing to his constituents. And it is not alone that in his public course he has been shameless and guilty, but that his private conduct has been incendiary and malignant. It is not only that he has notori ously broken the law, but that he has criminally scoffed at the framers of the law. By public harangue and by political arts he has sought to cast odium upon Congress and to ensure credit for himself; and thus, in a Government where equal respect and dignity should be observed in reference to the power and authority conferred upon each of its several depart ments, he has attempted to subvert their just proportions and to arrogate to himself their respective jurisdictions. It is for these things, Senators, that to-day he stands impeached; and GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 45 I it is because of these that the people have bid us prosecute. That we regret it, I have said ; that they regret it, I repeat ; and though it tears away the beautiful belief with which like a drapery they had invested the altar, yet they feel that the time has come when they must expose and expel the sacri- egious priest in order to protect and preserve the purity of :he temple. . . . There has been too much dallying with treason already. [f, but a few short years ago, traitors had been quickly seized and speedily punished, there would never have been a shot fired in rebellion. If plotters had been made to feel the early gripe of the law, there never would have been a resort to arms. When we looked back and recalled the memories of our battlefields ; when we saw the carnage amid the slain, the unutterable woe of the wounded; when we remembered the shriek of the widow and the sob of the orphan ; when we reflected on the devastation of our land and the burdens now on our people ; when we turned us about and saw in every direction the miseries and the mischiefs which follow every war, no matter how just, and when we remind ourselves that all this would not have been had treason been executed for its overt acts before yet its hands were red ; and when we felt, as we do all feel, that to delay might bring all this and more upon us, we could not, and did not, pause. We urged this trial at " railroad speed." In view of such results, self-preser vation would have dictated that we should ask for " lightning speed." Ought he to complain ? If he is guilty, then there is no speed too great for his deserts. If he is innocent, there is none too great for his deliverance. . . . Mr. President, in the case at bar, are we to be told that this violation of law carries with it no bad motive that the law was broken merely to test its strength ? Is a man to be per mitted to break a law under the pretence of testing its con stitutionality? Are the opinions of a man against the sound ness of a law to shield him from punishment for the violation of said law ? If so, the opinion of the criminal becomes the rule by which you are to try him, instead of the law which he has broken. If this doctrine be established, every traitor in the land will find a complete justification for his many 452 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. crimes against the Government of the United States in this that he believed that secession was no violation of the Con stitution. Doubtless every robber and murderer has some reason by which he justifies himself in his own mind for the commission of his crimes. But is that a justification or excuse in law ? Had Booth the assassin been captured alive, doubtless on his trial he would have said that he thought he *was doinsr no wrong 1 in murdering" the President could he o o > thereby have advanced the interests of his friends in the South, and would have also stated, no doubt, that he was advised by his friends to commit the act. And the accused claims the same as an excuse for his conduct. He claims that he was advised by his ministers at the heads of the different branches of the executive department. But, sir, in neither case can such an excuse be considered as in the least manner forming any justification or excuse in law. This plea, answer, or excuse pleaded, if believed by the President and his learned counsel as being an>? excuse whatever for his violations of law, we may here get some clue to the hesitancy in the trial of Jefferson Davis, the great criminal of the rebellion, inasmuch as he certainly believed that he was doing no wrong in break ing the law, as his opinion was that he was maintaining a great principle. As the counsel, or a part of them, who now defend the President on this principle must prosecute Jeff Davis against this principle, it would seem that by adopting this theory they will succeed in releasing both instead of con victing either. Sirs, adopt this new theory, and you thereby unhinge the law, open wide the prison gates, and give safe-conduct to every criminal in the land, no matter how high or low his position, or how grave or small his offences. . . . At the time of the formation of our Government, so jealous were the people of their rights, and so fearful lest the Presi dent might assume undue authority and obtain the power of a monarch, that it was only by the most strenuous exertions of the friends of the proposed Constitution, in triumphantly showing that this power of removal made him subservient to Congress, that the public mind became reconciled and the Constitution was finally accepted by the people. They seemed GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 453 ven then to well understand their rights. The great danger ttending the appointing power was perceived. Then, as now, he people feared the enormous patronage of the Executive : left unrestricted, and they appreciated the fact so patent o-day that lust for power would be likely to corrupt officials md cause them to " Crook the pregnant hinges of the knee, Where thrift may follow fawning." . . . Human genius has not yet been able to frame a rule for government in which all the powers are so perfectly defined nd balanced as to be literally equal. Our own Constitution more nearly approaches such a form than any other that has >een given to the world; but even in this instrument, framed >y the wisest patriots of the age, one branch in the Govern ment is made superior to the others. This superiority follows rom the nature of the duties with which each branch is ntrusted and the necessity of some controlling influence the exponent of the people s will in order to check usurpa tions and correct abuses which in a republic are likely to arise in departments not directly responsible to the people. The grand object to be attained by our Constitution was the con solidation of the several States into one nation by such a compact as would secure " the greatest good to the greatest number." It was to be a Government of the people for the people. The experience of ages had shown the necessity of a division of powers, and that one of these powers should possess an influence superior to that of the others ; but no one power was made supreme or wholly independent of its contemporaries. The judiciary is eminently "conservative" in its character ; it is dependent upon the executive and legis lative for its existence and perpetuity, is without creative authority, and its duties are mainly those of an advisory character. That controlling influence in this great trinity of powers which form our Government is the people, acting through their chosen Representatives in Congress assembled. Even the most casual reader of the Constitution must see that such was the intent of its framers, from the wide range of 454 GEN - JOHN A. LOGAN. authority delegated, even to regulating the executive and judiciary. The Constitution lays down this great fundamental princi ple : "All power is derived from the people." Congress is the only branch in our Government chosen directly from and by the people. The frequency of elections enables the people to change or ratify any policy that Congress may adopt by retiring its members or endorsing their acts by re-election. This makes the legislative the mouthpiece of the people; to the people alone is Congress responsible, and it is through Congress the people are immediately represented in the Gov ernment. The magnitude of the duties assigned to the legis lative, and the authority given that branch over the executive and judiciary, aside from the imperative necessity, fully sus tain the assumption that the legislative is the superior power in the three departments of Government mentioned in our Constitution. Indeed, upon no other theory could the Gov ernment be sustained. This control of the people in their Government is the great feature in republicanism ; this power of the many is the distinctive character of our Constitution. While the power of the executive is qualified and restricted by the legislative, the authority of the latter is uncontrolled by any other department. It makes and unmakes ; it removes presidents, judges, and other civil officers who may be guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors, and sweeps away all obstacles in the way of the nation s advancement and pros perity, and from its verdict, in a case of trial as this, there is no appeal. . . . It is a fundamental principle of this Government that there shall be a known rule and law by which not only the conduct of the citizen, but all officers, including the Chief Magistrate of the nation, shall be regulated and governed. This is a Gov ernment of laws, and not of men. It is this principle which distinguishes this republican form of Government of ours from the monarchies of the Old World. I repeat, sirs, this is a Government of laws, and not of men. Never before, I believe, was it known in this enlightened country that the executive head of the nation had the arro gance to take upon himself not only the executive, but the GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 455 judicial, functions of the Government. No, sir! Under the smiles of that merciful Providence who had watched over and guided the destinies of the people we have hitherto been ex empt and I trust in God shall hereafter continue to be from the affliction of that most direful scourge a Chief Executive with full discretionary powers to execute a law or declare it unconstitutional at will. It is not that which pleaseth nor that which is most consonant with the humor and inclination of the President, but the law, which should be the rule of his conduct. I trust, sirs, that the time will never again come in the history of this nation when by elevation to the Presidency any one will become so infatuated as to imagine himself inde pendent of that rule, or to set up his own private judgment or opinions as the only standard by which he will be guided or governed. Then, sirs, whether we shall in the future witness this attempt in other Executives depends upon your decision upon the issues in this case involved. Being the grand tri bunal from which there can be no appeal, you should properly reflect the law and the testimony. The pure stream of public justice should flow gently along undisturbed by any false pre tence on the part of the defendant or false sympathy upon your part. The President should not be permitted to play the necro mancer with this Senate as he did with the country through the law department of the executive branch of the Govern ment, whereby he raised a tempest that he himself could not control. Well might he have exclaimed, " I am the rider of the wind, The stirrer of the storm ; The hurricane I left behind Is yet with lightning warm." But, thanks to the wisdom of our far-seeing patriot sires, you, Senators, are by our constitution made the great power that shall calm the tempest and so direct the lightning that its strokes shall be warded off from the people and fall only upon the head of their oppressor. Yes, Senators, we fervently hope and confidently rely upon you to calm the storm and prevent the temple of Liberty being dashed to earth by the hurricane. We cannot, will not, believe that we are or will be mistaken in those in whom we 456 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. now place our trust. Methinks I hear a voice coming up from the lowly pillows of patriotism s immortal martyrs, say ing, " Be of good cheer, all will yet be well." We cannot, will not, believe that the respondent s unjust appeals will avail him now. He appeals to the truth of history to vindicate him in the acts of former Executives, but Truth itself rises up from the midst of the mass of testimony here adduced, and says even in this appeal he has polluted God s holy sanctuary; and when on justice" he relies to protect him and lift him up out of his difficulties, Justice comes forward in all her majesty and declares that he has not only trampled the laws of man, but of God, under foot. When he indirectly asks that the mantle of charity shall by you be thrown over his shortcom ings and violations of law, Clemency steps forward and with a loud voice cries, " Forbearance has ceased to be a virtue. Mercy to this criminal would be cruelty to the State." From the I4th day of April, 1865, to this day, as shown by the testimony, he has been consistent only with himself and the evil spirits of his Administration. False to the people who took him from obscurity and conferred on him splendor, who dug him from that oblivion to which he had been con signed by the treason of his State, and gave him that distinc tion which, as disclosed by his subsequent acts, he never merited and has so fearfully scandalized, disgraced, and dis honored ; false to the memory of him whose death made him President; false to the principles of our contest for national life; false to the Constitution and laws of the land and his oath of office ; filled with all vanity, lust, and pride ; substi tuting, with the most disgusting self-complacency and ignor ance, his own coarse, brutalized will for the will of the people, and substituting his vulgar, vapid, arid ignorant utterances for patriotism, statesmanship, and faithful public service, he has completed his circle of high crimes and misdemeanors; and, thanks to Almighty God ! by the embedded wisdom of our fathers found in the Constitution of our country, he stands to-day with all his crimes upon his head, uncovered before the world, at the bar of this the most august tribunal on earth, to receive the awful sentence that awaits him as a fitting pun ishment for the crimes and misdemeanors of which he stands GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 457 npeached by the House of Representatives, in the name and n behalf of all the people. Here, Senators, we rest our case ; here we leave the great riminal of the age. In your hands, as wisely provided by le charter of our liberties, this offender against the Constitu- on, the laws, liberty, peace, and public decency of our country i now left to be finally and, in the name of all the people, we umbly trust, disposed of for ever, in such manner as no more ) outrage the memories of an heroic and illustrious past, nor dim the hopes, expectations, and glories of the coming future. Let us, we implore you, no more hear his resounding footfalls in the temple of American constitutional liberty, nor have the vessels of the ark of the covenant of our fathers polluted by his unholy hands. Let not the blood of a half million of heroes who went to their deaths on the nation s battlefields for the nation s life cry from the ground against us on account of the crimes permitted by us and committed by him whom we now leave in your hands. Standing here to-day for the last time with my brother-managers to take leave of this case and of this great tribunal, I am penetrated and overwhelmed with emotion. Memory is busy with the scenes of the years which have intervened between March 4, 1861, and this day. Our great war, its battles, and ten thousand incidents, without mental bidding and beyond control almost, pass in panoramic view before me. As in the presence of those whom I have seen fall in battle as we rushed to victory, or die of wounds or disease in hospital far from home and the loved ones, to be seen no more until the grave gives up its dead, have I en deavored to discharge my humble part in this great trial. The world in after-times will read the history of the admin istration of Andrew Johnson as an illustration of the depth to which political and official perfidy can descend. Amid the unhealed ghastly scars of war; surrounded by the weeds of widowhood and cries of orphanage ; associating with and sus tained by the soldiers of the republic, of whom at one time he claimed to be one ; surrounded by the men who had sup ported, aided, and cheered Mr. Lincoln through the darkest hours and sorest trials of his sad yet immortal administration men whose lives had been dedicated to the cause of justice, 458 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. law, and universal liberty, the men who had nominated and elected him to the second office in the nation at a time when he scarcely dared visit his own home because of the traitorous instincts of his own people, yet, as shown by his official acts, messages, speeches, conversations, and associations, almost from the time when the blood of Lincoln was warm on the floor of Ford s theatre, Andrew Johnson was contemplating treason to all the fresh fruits of the overthrown and crushed rebellion, and an affiliation with and a practical official and hearty sympathy for those who had cost hecatombs of slain citizens, billions of treasure, and an almost ruined country. His great aim and purpose has been to subvert law, usurp authority, insult and outrage Congress, reconstruct the rebel States in the interests of treason, insult the memories and resting-places of our heroic dead, outrage the feelings and deride the principles of the living men who aided in saving the Union, and deliver all snatched from wreck and ruin into the hands of unrepentent, but by him pardoned, traitors. But, all honor to the servants of a brave and loyal people, he has been in strict conformity to the Constitution arrested in his career of crime, impeached, arraigned, tried, and here awaits your sentence. We are not doubtful of your verdict. Andrew Johnson has long since been tried by the whole peo ple and found guilty, and you can but confirm that judgment already pronounced by the sovereign American people. Henceforth our career of greatness will be unimpeded. Rising from our baptism of fire and blood, purified by our sufferings and trials under the approving smiles of Heaven, and freed, as we are, from the crimes of oppression and wrong, the patriot heart looks outward and onward for long and ever- increasing national prosperity, virtue, and happiness. In 1870 the House of Representatives had under consider ation the Cuban question. It was impossible for such a ques tion to pass Mr. Logan unnoticed. And, as Cuba is again on the tapis and her unfortunate condition again a matter of dis cussion, I am tempted to quote Mr. Logan s remarks rather fully. It was on June 15 when he said: GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 459 I tell that gentleman to-day that I have in my hand a copy f their constitution, and it is, as General Banks says, as good constitution in some respects as that under which we live, lie twenty-fourth article of that constitution is in these words : "All the inhabitants of the republic of Cuba are absolutely free." It is a constitution at war with slavery and despotism and i favor of freedom. You talk to me about my sympathies, tell you I am in favor of this struggling people in favor of berty and opposed to monarchy and slavery everywhere. And all of us should be the same, if we were as we were a few months ago. A vote to-day for the independence or for the recognition of the fact that there is war in Cuba is a vote for freectom against slavery, a vote in favor of republican prin ciples and republican institutions and against monarchy and oppression. That is one of the questions which is to-day before us and the American people. It is not a question as to who wrote the message or who issued the Cuban bonds, or what we have done or what any body has done that is not the issue ; but there is a higher and a greater issue, and that issue is the liberty of man, free dom of speech, freedom of the press, universal liberty of white and red and black. The rights of all men to meet together and organize themselves into a free government, to be free as you and I are free that is one of the issues which is before this House. But it is said they hold no seaport, and if you undertake to go to see them, to make them a visit, you must go through the Spanish lines. How strange that is ! Does the gentleman from Massachusetts [Mr. Butler] remember that a few years ago, when he and I were on the same side of a similar ques tion, President Juarez of Mexico was up in the mountains of Chihuahua with only twenty pack-mules, carrying the gov ernment of Mexico in his hat, while Maximilian held the country with more than forty thousand men ? What was I in favor of doing then ? What was the Grand Army of the Union in favor of doing? What were we all in favor of then? I was appointed Minister to Mexico, and I refused to accept the position for reasons which it is not 460 HEX. JOHN A. LOGAN. necessary to mention now. There was no republican govern ment in Mexico ; it had no army there nothing except what Juarez carried in his pocket. The government there was the government of Maximilian, and that was a monarchy. Did the American people fail to discriminate then ? Was there an American soldier [turning fiercely upon Butler] who was then willing to recognize Maximilian, or indulged in sneers at the bonds of the Mexican republic ? And how was it when Texas rebelled against Mexico, although Mexico then had a government republican in form? Every man who did not favor the independence of Texas, who did not take the ground that she ought to be free, went down doomed in the gloom of political night, and has never been heard of again. You say, again, that the Cubans have no seaport and collect no revenues. Let me apply to your argument your own logic. How many seaports had the Southern Confederacy in 1863 and 1864? Where did they have one not guarded by us? We blockaded them everywhere along the immense line of coast. They had no ports anywhere that they could control so as to collect revenues from imports. Still, they were recog nized as a power by every nation on earth 4 I believe, except our own, and, although we conquered and crushed them, we nevertheless recognized them as having the rights of belliger ents. As I have said, the question, then, is this : If there is war in Cuba between the people there termed insurgents and the monarchy of Spain, it is our duty to side with the one or the other, and the question is now for us to decide which. But Spain is a government, says the gentleman. We must recog nize it, furnish it with gunboats, with powder and munitions of war to be used against the Cubans. Yes, Spain is a gov ernment, so called, and the woman who was at its head a short time ago has been driven from her throne and is now a wan derer upon the face of the earth, not permitted to return to her home. Yet to-day that government is a monarchy controlled by a " ring" comprised of Prim and others. And while it stands forth patent before the world that this so- called government of Prim Co. is nothing more nor less GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 461 ban a struggling anarchy within itself, scarcely knowing from ne day to another who is at its head or who is its ruler, you ecognize it with all its oppressions ; you must aid that old, roken-down, effete ghost of a government to oppress and onquer these brave people who are pouring out their blood nd treasure in behalf of liberty and independence. But, sir, I think I can show the reason why there is so nuch opposition to recognizing the belligerency of Cuba. It 3 not because we are afraid of a war. Has Spain made war with the other powers that have recognized Cuba? Did we make war with Spain when she recognized the Southern people who were fighting against this Government? No, sir; what is proposed is simply to recognize the Cubans as having the rights of civilized warfare. That is all there is in the proposition. Now, let us see the reasons of this opposition. Certain gentlemen want Cuba. They are reaching out for it now. They almost have their grasp on it or, at least, a portion of it. I can now in my imagination see that fair island of the Antilles as it glides away from under the possession of the monarchical rule of Spain and from the control of the people who are contending there, and slide into the hands of Somebody I cannot say whom over in New York. It is a nice little job, and out of the transaction large sums of money will be made and increase of individual power- and influence be gained. Does not the gentleman from Mas sachusetts [Mr. Butler] know that if we recognized Cuban belligerency those men in that island will have an independ ent Government of their own ? They do not want to annex themselves to us ; they want to be free and independent, as they ought to be. But if you recognize Cuba, what is the result ? Why, the result is, or will be, that its patriotic inhab itants will escape the personal and predial tithes or tribute of the ring which has this fruitful island in their mind s eye. A certain gentleman has gone from New York to Madrid in the interest of a few individuals-, and is there to-day, perhaps making a bargain with Prim for the purchase of Cuba if they can hold it under the protection of the Spanish government. If it can be purchased, what then ? It is to be turned over, 27 462 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. against the consent of the Cubans, to the United States Gov ernment for the trifle of one hundred million dollars; this to be collected out of the revenues of that island. This is the secret, this the " milk in the cocoanut," this the " meat in the egg/ Now, let the gentleman say, if he can, that this is not the fact that Somebody is now at Madrid trying to make this arrangement. I happen to know some thing of the secret workings of these plans. There is no value to these Cuban bonds which are afloat in such profusion, as the gentleman says; but if they get the island of Cuba in their hands, there will be no necessity for bonds. Then the island itself is as rich a treasure as the mines of Golconda. Cuba, with its broad acres, its beautiful vales, its rich soil, its count less resources, is expected to pass into the hands of a few men to whom it will be a mine of wealth. Let me appeal to this House not to allow this scheme to be carried out. While this brave band of patriots are wrestling for the dearest rights known to man, the right of self-govern ment, should we hesitate to make the simple and single decla ration which will save them from being robbed and murdered day after day? Can we, with all our boasted principles of liberty, justice, and equality to all men, stand tamely by and witness these people, within sight of our own shores, follow ing the example which we have furnished, hanged, drawn, and quartered with most atrocious brutality, without the protection of any flag on God s earth, and not raise our voice against the inhumanity so much as to declare that there is a contest a war? This poor boon is all they ask, and in my judgment it can be denied to them by none but heartless men. In what I am saying I have no contest with the President. I am his friend, as I ever have been. I have no contest with Mr. Fish, or with anybody else. I have no warfare with those who differ from me; they have their opinions, and I am enti tled to mine. I look upon General Grant as a good man, but I think that on this questions he is deceived. I think if he had not been fishing up in Pennsylvania when this message was written, he would not have signed it so readily as he did. I do not think it was necessary to go to Pennsylvania for more fish. We have all we need here. I think it is a message not GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 463 veil considered, and I do not believe he examined it well >efore signing it. It does not state the case correctly, and I m sorry to see him put upon the record as misstating the aw. I entertain the highest respect for the President and his idministration, and I do not purpose that any man shall put ne in a false position. I do not intend to allow myself to be laced in antagonism with the Administration, nor do I intend o allow any man or set of men to howl upon my heels that I lo not support the Administration, and am therefore to be lenounced. No, sir ! I am supporting the Administration ; am maintaining the former views of the President, and I jthink his former views on this question are better than his later ones. Once we held like opinions on this question of j Cuban belligerency, and I see no reason on my part to change those opinions. If he has changed his, I find no fault with him ; but I prefer to stand by his former judgment, formed when he was cool, when he deliberated for himself, when he jhad not men around him to bother and annoy him with their peculiar and interested notions, when he thought for himself and wrote for himself. I believed then as he believed; I believe now as I believed then, and I do not propose to change. Now, Mr. Speaker, I think the Republicans on this side of the House owe it to themselves to take the side of the oppressed. I wish to say to the Republican party, as the friend of this Administration, that the most friendly act toward this present Administration is to let this message go before the country, so far as the opinion of the President is concerned. Do not let us make any war upon it. Let it appear to the country that we differ from the President in this matter honestly. Let us as Republicans, notwithstanding the message, declare that we will accord to these people all the rights of civilized warfare. Let us do this, and I have no doubt the country will say, " Well done, good and faithful servants !" If your action be taken in the interest of free dom ; if you shall help the oppressed and act on the side of liberty and humanity ; if in a contest between despotism and a people struggling bravely for independence you give the 464 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. preference to the latter; if in doing this you should happen to commit error, and that error should happen to be on the side of humanity and liberty, there is no country in the world which can, or ought to, find fault with you. In ques tions tried before our juries they are always instructed to give the benefit of the doubt in favor of the prisoner; in tiiis case, if there be any doubt, I implore the House let it be in favor of Cuba. By taking the side of Cuba against Spain we are true to the instincts of our organization in sympathizing with a people suffering under oppression. It will show that you do not sympathize with despotism. It will show that now, as heretofore, the Republican party sympathize with struggling humanity seeking freedom and independence. Your record is clear in the past. We have had too much sympathy of late years for great monarchies. Indeed, there seems to be too great a disposition in some quarters to sym pathize too much with monarchy, and to sympathize too much with the exercise of arbitrary power in opposition to justice and liberty. And why is this ? Because these are great gov ernments, and controlled by the great ones. These monar chical governments have mighty fleets floating upon the high seas. They have ministers residing in our midst. They have pleasant men who can afford to give splendid entertainments. They are genial men at the dinner-table, and facile in the art ful manoeuvres of diplomacy. They are what was known in the time of Louis XIV. and the " Fronde" as honncte men. They have all the appliances for making good their cause when they wish to crush out people who are struggling for independence. They are heard, and they have official access to our Government, which is denied to all others. But never let it be said that the Republican party sympa thizes with the oppressors against the oppressed. I warn you that no statesman and no political party ever had a long life in this country which did not love liberty, no matter from where the cry came, whether from South America, or from Mexico, or from our own slaves when they were held in bond age. When the South American states raised the standard of rebellion against Spain, we sympathized with them; when Mexico did the same thing, she also had our sympathy ; and GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 465 gentlemen should not forget that it was the Republican party that gave freedom and franchise to four million slaves in our own midst. Let gentlemen carefully examine the history of this country before they cast these people off and consign them to the merciless horrors of a Spanish inquisition. Read and mark well that no party ever succeeded which refused jus tice or sympathized with the oppressor against the oppressed. If the party which abolished slavery, the party which in the spirit of justice gave citizenship to those who were freed by it, the party which has always held itself to be the great expo nent of free principles and justice to all, of liberty and human ity, if that party shall now turn its back upon its former glorious record and lend moral support and material aid to Spain in its cruel crusade against the revolutionists of Cuba, it must inevitably go down under the indignation of the peo ple who now make up its formidable numbers. If, however, we shall give the aid which is asked to encourage and sustain struggling humanity ; if we shall help these Cubans fighting for independence ; if we shall do that which every dictate of justice demands of us in the emergency; in a word, if we are true to the doctrines and principles we have enunciated, then the Republican party will live to ride safely for many years to come through the boisterous storms of politics, and will over ride in the future, as it has done in the past, all such theories as secession and rebellion in our Government, and all that is antagonistic to the universal liberty of man. It will overcome every obstacle that stands in the way of the great advance, the great civilization, the great enlightenment, the great Christian ity, of this age. And whenever you fail to allow it to march onward in the path in which it has started and undertake to impede it in its efforts to press onward, you strike a blow at your own party, your own interests and safety; for I tell you that whenever you halt or shirk the responsibilities of the hour as Republicans, the Democrats will overtake you. The Democrats were once formidable so far as the questions of the day were concerned. They are far behind you now ; and I say to you, Republicans, do not let the Democrats beat you to-day as regards the position they take in favor of liberty. If you do, the country will perhaps give you reason GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. to learn after a while that you have forgotten the trust that was reposed in you, and have failed to perform the duty with which it has honored you, but allowed it to slip from your hands to be discharged by others. For these things you must answer before the great forum of the people; and if they adjudge you recreant in the sup port of the principles reposed in you and false to the require ments of the present, they will not find you worthy of confi dence in the future. From Cuba to General Grant is an easy transition ; and when the subject of the Hero of Appomattox is mentioned, no one of my readers but what can instantly guess where General Logan would be on any question affecting his old commander. The Senate, on June 3, 1872, having under con sideration a motion by Mr. Pomeroy to postpone indefinitely the bill making appropriations for sundry civil expenses, Sen ator Logan said : Mr. President, we did go forth and fight the oligarchy of slavery. The Senator fought it here in the Senate-chamber. Time and again have I been filled with pride and have I been made to respect and honor and love the Senator from Massa chusetts as I saw him engaged in the severe and fierce battles which he fought against the oligarchy of slavery. I have seen him when he fought it face to face, so far as language and oratory were concerned. But, sir, let me reply to him, Slavery was not destroyed by his speeches ; slavery was not destroyed by his oratory ; slavery was not destroyed by his eloquence ; slavery was not destroyed by his power ; slavery was not destroyed by his efforts, but by war. By the sword in the hand of Grant and the bayonets that were held by his followers, the chains of slavery fell and the manacles dropped from the limbs of the slaves. It was not done by the Senator alone, but by the exertions of the army, led on by this man against whom the Senator has made the most vile assault that has ever been made in this or any other deliberative body. Mr. President, at the close of the war, in 1865, on the 22d day of May, when the armies were marshalled here in the GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 467 streets of Washington, as we passed by this Senate-chamber and marched down Pennsylvania Avenue with the officers at the head of their columns, I* remember to have read on the outer walls this motto : " There is one debt this country can never repay, and that is the debt of gratitude it owes to the soldiers who have preserved the Union." Little did I think then, sir, that within seven years afterward I should hear an assault like this upon the leader of that army within these very walls. Mr. President, is that debt of gratitude so soon forgotten ? Shall the fair fame and reputation of the man who led those armies be trampled in the dust by one man, who claims so egotistically here that he organized the party which made the war against the oligarchy of slavery? But, sir, that attempt has been witnessed here, to our great sorrow. The eloquence, the power, the education all that belong to the Senator from Massachusetts has been brought to bear, not in consonance with that motto, not in keeping alive in the bosoms of the people of the United States that feeling- 6f gratitude to the men who saved the country, but of ingrati tude, and, worse, of want of decent respect which should be shown either for the memory of the dead or for the character of the living. The next division of the speech of the Senator from Massa chusetts is in reference to " Presidential pretensions," and in discussing Presidential pretensions he draws himself to his full height and exclaims, " Upon what meat doth our Caesar feed, that he assumes so much?" That is the language of the Senator from Massachusetts. I might reply to the Sena tor and ask : " Upon what meat doth this our Caesar feed, that he is grown so great ?" The Senator says that the camp is not the training-school for a statesman that a different training must be given a man for the purpose of making him a statesman from that which is required to make him a soldier. I shall not appeal to the Senator from Massachusetts on that point, but I oV appeal to the people of this country. I appeal to the million and a half of soldiers who are living; and if I could reach the ears of the dead, I would appeal to the three hundred t-hou-Sartd that lie beneath the sod who fell fighting, and fi^ht tig fell 468 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. that their country might live, to know why a soldier cannot be a statesman and why a statesman cannot be a soldier. Sir, if the object of the Senator from Massachusetts is to exclude all soldiers from civil life, if every soldier in this land is to be excluded from civil position because he has had the training of a soldier, then I say, Soldiers in this chamber, depart. Return to your homes war is your profession and your element and let the Sumners maintain themselves as Senators and make laws which you must obey. I appeal to the world to say, if there had been no other kind of statesmen or soldiers save that of the Senator from Massachusetts, would you have had a Government ? would this country have been united ta-day, or would it have been severed and in frag ments ? It was because of the patriotism in the breasts of statesmen and in men who are not statesmen, it was because the land was filled with patriots, and because those patriots went to the field, whether they were or they were not states men, that our country has been saved. I am not of the opinion that a man has to be educated and crammed and stuffed day after day with Greek, with Latia, with French, with Spanish, with German, with mathematics > and with everything else, until when he comes into the Senate-chamber and makes a speech you would think he was some magazine of undigested dictionaries, pamphlets, and musty histories of past ages, exploding upon the Senate, instead of sending forth the well-digested matter elucidating some mooted question. I am in favor of education, but I am in favor of that education which is compatible with common sense, which gives judgment to deal with men and things. Now, I want to compare the statesman of Massachusetts with the poor little dwarfed soldier of Illinois who is now President of the United States. According to the Senator from Massachusetts, he is ignorant; according to the Senator from Massachusetts, he is a mere soldier. Before the war he followed the occupation of a tanner and received but a small pittance for his labor, and during the war he served his country in the camp and in the field, and did not have the opportunity to fit himself for President of the United States. That was the language of the Senator. In other words, no GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 469 man who has ever worked at the tanner s trade should be President; no man who was ever a shoemaker should be a Senator; no man who was ever a carpenter should be a legis lator; no man who was ever a farmer should aspire to position or honors from the people. In other words, the laboring, work ing classes are, according to his theory, the " mudsills of society," as was once announced by a South Carolinian ; and the announcement was received with the contempt of the whole intelligent North. If no persons but those like the Senator himself are permitted to occupy positions in this land or can be President or Vice-President, how will it be with the poor tanners, the poor carpenters, the poor farmers, the poor printers, the poor everybodies? None of these are fit to be President or Vice-President, or Senators or members of Congress, or Governors ; but they are, according to the theory of the Senator from Massachusetts, only fit to make food for gunpowder as mere soldiers. Now, Mr. President, I desire to draw the attention of the Senate but a short time to some of the specific charges that have been made by the Senator from Massachusetts. He says the President is guilty of nepotism, and, as I said, several pages of his speech are copied for the purpose of showing first the origin of the word. It is necessary for a learned man when he discourses upon a word to show its origin. We then find the origin of the word " nepotism." He shows that it is of Italian origin, and then goes on through the history of the popes, the history of those who once ruled Rome, to show how many nephews and kinsfolk they appointed to office. Then he comes down to President Grant, and he charges the President of the United States with having usurped the power of the Presidential office and made it a mere perquisite and appointed to office his kinsfolk, and for that reason he ought not to be recognized as a suitable candidate for President again. Now, I want to put this question to the country. I admit that he has appointed some of his relatives to office, but I want the Senator from Massachusetts to point his finger to the law that forbids that being done. If it is not in violation of law, is there anything that shows that it is in violation of 4/O GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. good morals ? It seems to me for a man to take care of his own household is not in violation of good morals. It cer tainly is in violation of no law, and I believe we are told that " he who provideth not for his own household hath denied the faith and is worse than an infidel." The Senator does not believe there is anything like wit or genius or common sense in the President. I will repeat a remark that I heard that he had made once that perhaps has aroused the anger of the Senator to some extent. A gentleman once said to the Presi dent that the Senator from Massachusetts did not altogether believe the Bible. The President quietly said there was a reason for that, and that was that he did not write it himself. Mr. President, the speech of the Senator from Massachusetts presented to the country at this particular time is a very sig nificant fact. I wish to call his attention to one point in it, but this suggestion I wish to make in order to show him how fatal to himself this speech may be. He says that at the time he approached Secretary Stanton on his dying-bed, and the Secretary repeated to him the reasons why he had no faith in General Grant s ability to administer the government, he said to the Secretary, "It is too late; why did you not say this sooner?" I repeat the same thing to Senator Sumner. Your speech, to perform the office you intended it, came too late. Hence I am led to the conclusion that it was not intended to perform the office which he says it was intended, but it was to perform a very different office from that which he intimates he intended it should perform that is to say, to advise the American people that President Grant was not qualified to exercise the functions of that office, and hence ought to be supplanted by some one else at Philadelphia. No, sir! If that was the object, it comes too late. That being so, I have come to the conclusion that a man of so much wisdom and of so many pretensions as the Senator from Massachusetts had a very different intention. Sir, his intention was to strangle and destroy the Repub lican party that party which he says he created. If he did, I say to him he performed a great work. If he was the architect and builder of the Republican party, he is a great master-workman its dome so beautifully rounded, its columns GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 4/1 so admirably chiseled, and all its parts so admirably prepared and builded together so smoothly and so perfectly that the mechanism charms the eye of every one who has ever seen it. Since the Senator has performed such a great work, I appeal to him to know why it is that he attempts to destroy the workmanship of his own hands? But let me give him one word of advice. While he may think, Samson-like, that he las the strength to carry off the gates and the pillars of the emple, let me tell him when he stretches forth his arm to cause the pillars to reel and totter beneath this fabric, there are ;housands and thousands of true-hearted Republicans who will come up to the work, and, stretching forth their strong right arm, say, "Stay thou there! These pillars stand Deneath this mighty fabric of ours, within which we all dwell ; t is me ark of our safety, and shall not be destroyed." . . . Now, Mr. President, I should like to ask this country just at this time, on the eve of a nomination, and almost on the eve of the Presidential election, to reflect for a short time and see what, if they follow the suggestion of the Senator from Massachusetts, will be our position in history and how viewed )y the civilized world. Why, sir, a tale as simple as that which a child could tell will give all the facts in a few words as to the position which we will occupy, provided we are nfluenced in our judgment by this slanderous attack on the President of the United States. The question would be stated in this way : The people of the United States of America at one time being in the throes of rebellion, when they saw one by one Senators leaving this chamber, one by one members leaving the other chamber of Congress, when the armies were arrayed on the banks of the Potomac on opposite sides, when disaster and defeat overtook our arms at every point and at every place, and when the United States itself and its preservation trembled in the balance, we found a man who organized out- armies, went by night and by day, by camp-light or by moon light to the field, through sunshine and dreary storms, leading our armies from one victory to another, until finally the shout went up from one end of this land to the other that the triumph Was ours. The banner floated over every foot of territory 4/2 GEN JOHN A. LOGAN. belonging to the United States of America. The Union was preserved. The Constitution itself had not been sacrificed. Our laws were not only unharmed, but had been preserved in every letter and much added to them. Slavery, the accursed relic of barbarism, had drawn itself away from the face of the earth. Freedom reigned, and men came forth from the mid night of slavery and leaped for joy in the beaming sunshine of freedom. And the question would be, Who the man is that led us to these great achievements ? and we would point to Grant. In answer to that, history would respond that after nil these achievements; after all that has been accomplished under his lead ; after the great success of the American people ; after the advance that civilization has received by his success there arose on the last day of May, 1872, in the Senate-cham ber of the United States, a man in whom the people had had confidence, and that man declared before the living world that this man Grant was an ignoramus that ihis man had for feited his right to the respect of the American people by sell ing office, by nepotism, by the various wrongs that man can perpetrate had dwarfed himself in meanness, and by that sunk in infamy and disgrace in the presence of the civilized world; and no one made answer thereto, but allowed all these achieve ments to be blotted from memory by the words of one man. What hearts would be ours? No, sir! These statements will not be permitted to go down to history in future years to mar the well-won fame of the President without being chal lenged and sternly rebuked by the American people, and the recoil will be so great on the author as to brighten the record of Grant and darken and mar his own. I say the history of the world would write the American people down as a people not worthy of trust, as a people without gratitude, as a people who had seen a man hew his way to fame by his own strong arm, and then allowed an ambitious politician to strike him down, down with a merci less blow, and no one to stand by and to say, " The blow is too severe." And I say to the Senator from Massachusetts that while he has struck this blow as he believes, a heavy one on the head of the political prospects of General Grant, GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 473 he has made him friends by the thousand ; strong ones, too, that were merely lukewarm yesterday. He has aroused the spirit of this land that cannot be quelled. He has, in fact, inflamed the old war-spirit in the soldiery of the country. He has aroused the feeling of indignation in every man that warmed his feet by a camp-fire during the war. He has sent through this land a thrill which will return to him in such a manner and with such force as will make him feel it. For myself, I will say that I have sat quietly here for months, and had not intended to say anything; I had no argument to make, intending to await the nomination of the Philadelphia convention, be it Grant or be it whom it might, believing, however, it would be Grant; but when I heard these vile slanders hurled like javelins against the President of the United States, it aroused a feeling in my breast which has been aroused many times before. I am now ready to buckle on my armor and am ready for the fray, and from now until November next to fight this battle in behalf of an honest man, a good soldier, and a faithful servant. CHAPTER XXIII. THE WAR WITH THE SOUTH LOGAN S PATRIOTISM FROM THE HAI.I.S OF CON GRESS TO BULL RUN AT THE FRONT IN COMMAND OF A REGI MENT ATLANTA TO THE SEA. JOHN A. LOGAN was a man who was developed by the war. The cavalry-bugler sounded the key-note of his character, and in an atmosphere of dust and powder he grew great. A country lawyer, a member of Congress from the most be nighted section of Illinois who had found his highest am bition in stirring the sluggish blood of the criminal jury, sprang suddenly to the head of an army without previous military education other than that derived on the experimental fields of Mexico, and by the mere force of his courage and his martial instincts. He was the representative of the loyal millions, the beau-ideal of the volunteer soldier, and as such in history he will live. He rose alone ; he was no man s pro tege and the satellite of no sun. His success was one against opposition, and was acknowledged because it was deserved. His proud assertion that he would shoulder his musket to have Mr. Lincoln inaugurated was not an empty boast. In July, 1861, during the extra session of Congress, and on one of the bright sunshiny afternoons so common to the climate of this country, Washington was the theatre of a scene of brilliancy an event that meant a great deal to every man in the republic. Long lines of troops carrying their glittering bayonets, an endless procession of flags, a loud turmoil of drums and fifes, and the resounding applause of the spectators (474^ GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 475 who thickly lined the sidewalks gave to the nation s capital an air of wonderful interest. The troops were on their way to the front. Mr. Logan had seen them pass the Capitol build ing ; he returned to his seat in the House, but his soul was too deeply stirred for him to sit still. Hastily grasping his hat, he left the halls of Congress, overtook the troops which were marching out of Washington to meet the enemy, and went to Colonel Richardson s regiment. From him he secured a musket and a place in the ranks. He marched straight from the .Capitol to the disastrous affair at Bull Run. It is not necessary to detail here the unfortunate movements of the first pitched battle of the war ; sufficient for us to know :hat Private Logan fought with distinguished bravery and was among the last to leave that treacherous field. With the rest, after the battle which was a misfortune, and never a disgrace he returned to Washington, where the excited condition of affairs deeply impressed him with the neces sity of leading the advance to retrieve the misfortunes of the Union armies. He hastened to his home at Marion in the latter part of August with the determination of offering something in the way of assistance to the Government. In a speech to his fellow-citizens on the 3d of September he an nounced his intention in ringing words to enter the service of the State as a private, if need be, or in any. other capacity in which he could serve his country best. He would, he said, defend the old blood-stained flag over every foot of land in the United States. His eloquent and high personal reputation at once rallied friends and neighbors around him, and on the 1 3th of September, 1861, the Thirty-first Illinois Volunteers was organized, with John Alexander Logan as its first colonel. The regiment was attached to General McClernand s GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. brigade, and seven weeks later, at Belmont, made its first fight, during which Colonel Logan had a horse shot under him and his pistol at his side shattered by rebel bullets. He led the Thirty-first also at Fort Henry, and again at Fort Donclson, where he received a very severe wound, which, aggravated by exposure, disabled him for some time from actual service. Reporting again for duty to General Grant at Pittsburgh Landing, he was shortly after (March 5, 1862) made brigadier-general of volunteers, took a distinguished part in the movement against Corinth in May, and after the occupation f that place guarded with his brigade the railroad communications with Jackson, Tennessee, of which place he was subsequently given command. In the sum mer of 1862 he was warmly urged by his numerous friends and admirers again to become a candidate for Congress, but declined in a letter of glowing patriotism, in which he said, " I have entered the field to die, if need be, for this Govern ment, and never expect to return to peaceful pursuits until the object of this war of preservation has become a fact established." During Grant s Northern Mississippi campaign (1862 and 1863) Logan led his division, exhibiting great skill in the handling of troops, and was honored with a promotion as major-general of volunteers, dating from November 29, 1862. He was afterward assigned to the command of the Third Di vision, Seventeenth Army Corps, under General McPherson, and bore a part in the movement upon Vicksburg, contrib uting to the victory at Port Gibson, and saving the day by his desperate personal bravery, May 12, at the battle of Raymond which General Grant designated as " one of the hardest small battles of the war" participated in the defeat and routing of the rebels at Jackson, May 14, and in the battle of Champion s Hill, May 16. GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. It was at this battle of Champion Hill that Logan sent his lebrated reply to Grant. The commander-in-chief, during .e progress of the fray, sent an aide to his subordinate to quire if he (Logan) could not push his men forward a little. ack came the profane but characteristic reply : " Tell General Grant my division can whip all the rebels lis side of hell, and will push forward till he gives us orders halt." Vicksburg was a great point in the war. It not only pre- ented the navigation of the Mississippi by our vessels, but it onnected the South with its great source of supply. It was lere, says the Count de Paris, that General Grant conceived lis opinion an opinion which, when once expressed, he never ;eased to repeat that the main object of war should be the estruction of the enemy s army rather than the conquest of such or such portions of territory. He saw nothing in such erritory except resources, in men, provisions, and materiel, which the armies could derive from it. He only disputed it with his adversaries so long as it was necessary to deprive them of resources, deeming it more important to cut rail roads, to destroy depots, and to prevent all possible concen tration of provisions, than to occupy a vast extent of country. When the Vicksburg campaign opened, Logan was a division commander; and when it closed, he had risen to the command of the Fifteenth Corps. It is needless to speak here of the movement of the different columns, the bravery of the troops, or the gallantry and daring of regimental officers and men ; the great army surged up against the impregnable works as the sea surges against the rock, and was beaten back as the waves recoil from the impassable barriers that meet them. Again and again, until time demonstrated the Union army to be winner, every corps commander fought his command most brilliantly. Logan, brave, vigilant, and aggressive, won uni- 28 4/8 ^KN- JOHN A. LOGAN. versal applause. Prudent for his men and reckless in expos ing his own person, he excited general admiration. Whei the lines were close, his own headquarters were often scarceb out of sight of the picket, and he generally had a hand ii whatever deadly work might spring up along his front. I was not to be wondered at, therefore, that when Pembertoi capitulated Logan s corps should be selected to lead th march of victory into the abandoned earthworks of the foe. The stirring times about Vicksburg were hardly dissolve! in the restful hours of a temporary truce when General Logai started to scenes of other activity, and to battlefields that wer yet to be fought over and won. He became known to th Army of the Cumberland when the Armies of the Tennessee the Ohio, and the Cumberland united at Ringgold and face< southward for the Atlanta campaign. General Grant hai returned to Washington to take command of the Army of th Potomac, and General Logan s superior officer was Genera William Tecumseh Sherman. As these armies kept along battle-line where for four months the fire never wholly cease by day or by night, everybody came to know Logan ; and i that celebrated campaign which ended at the shores washe< by the blue waves of the Atlantic, General Logan bore conspicuous part. * The care of his men in this campaign, while never for a instant preventing the most brilliant fighting, nor retardini participation in the severest turmoil of the attack, is we! illustrated by an anecdote which belongs to the history o Kenesaw Mountain. With General McPherson he was a General Sherman s headquarters when the assault at Kenesm was decided upon. He at once protested, though at firs scarcely believing that the intention to make the assault wn earnest. When he discovered that it was really contemplated he emphasized his protest, and coupled it with the opinioi GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 481 at to send the troops against that mountain would only suit in useless slaughter. Finding his opinion likely to be sregarded, he went still farther, and declared that such a ovement, in his judgment, would be nothing less than the urder of a great number of men. In all of this he was armly seconded by General McPherson. They did not suc- eed, however, in averting the slaughter ; but afterward, when icers in the Army of the Cumberland heard that General homas s protest in regard to the same matter had been in milar terms to that of Logan, a stronger liking than ever for ogan prevailed among those officers of the Army of the umberland who knew the facts, for, while his heroism was ndaunted, the conservative policy which sought to protect s men whenever he saw they were likely to be needlessly Kposed was a policy not often practised in the War for the nion, and it was the more commendable on account of its xtreme foresight. He led the advance of the Army of the Tennessee in the ovement of Resaca, taking part in the battle which followed, nd, still moving on the right, met and repulsed Hardee s veterans at Dallas, on the 23d of May. He drove the enemy from three lines of works at Kenesaw Mountain, and again, on the 2/th of June, made a desperate assault against the impregnable face of Little Kenesaw. It was against this assault that he protested, as we have just said. In the auto biographic memoirs of General Sherman, in one of the early chapters of the Atlanta campaign, he relates: "On the occa sion of my visit to McPherson on the 3Oth of May, while standing with a group of officers, among whom were Generals McPherson, Logan, Barry, and Colonel Taylor, my former chief of artillery, a minie-ball passed through Logan s coat- sleeve, scratching the skin, and struck Colonel Taylor square in the breast. General Logan did not interrupt his conversa- 4-8- GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. tion, nor the sentence that he was then uttering. The matter had with him no effect On the 22d of July, at the terrible battle of Peachtree Creek, Logan, fighting at one moment on one side of his works and the next on the other, was informed of the death, on another part of the field, of the beloved General McPherson, his immediate superior officer. Assuming the command, as he was in duty bound to do, he dashed impetuously from one end to the other of his hardly-pressed lines, shouting, " McPherson and revenge !" His emotion communicated itself to the troops with the rapidity of electricity, and eight thousand rebel dead left upon the field at nightfall bore mute witness to their love for the fallen chief and to the bravery of his successor. Of this engagement, which has often been called the " Bat tle of Atlanta," and in which, as General Sherman said, " I purposely allowed the Army of the Tennessee to fight it almost unaided," General Logan made the following report : HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT AND ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE. BEFORE ATLANTA, GEORGIA, July 24, 1864. MAJOR GENERAL VV. T. SHERMAN, COMMANDING MILITARY DIVISION OF THE MISSISSIPPI GENERAL : I have the honor to report the following gen eral summary of the result of the attack of the enemy on this army on the 22d inst. Total loss, killed, wounded, and missing, 3521, and ten pieces of artillery. We have buried and delivered to the enemy, under a flag of truce sent in by them, in front of the Third Division, Seventeenth Corps, 1000 of their killed. The number of their dead in front of the Fourth Division of the same corps, including those on the ground not now occupied by our troops, General Blair reports, will swell tiie number of the dead on his front to 2OOO. The number of their dead buried in front of the Fifteenth *- 3MW r v 1 \\\\\\\\\ GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 485 Corps up to this hour is 360, and the commanding officer reports that at least as many more are yet unburied, burying- parties being still at work. The number of dead buried in front of the Sixteenth Corps s 422. We have over 1000 of wounded in our hands, the arger number of the wounded being carried off during the light, after the engagement, by them. We captured 18 stands of colors, and have them now. We also captured 5000 stands of arms. The attack was made on our line seven times, and was seven times repulsed. Hood s and Hardee s corps and Wheel er s cavalry engaged us. We have sent to the rear 1000 prisoners, including 33 com missioned officers of high rank. We still occupy the field, and the troops are in fine spirits. A detailed and full "report will be furnished as soon as com pleted. * RECAPITULATION. Our total loss 3>52i Enemy s dead, thus far reported, buried, and delivered to them... 3,220 Total prisoners sent North 1,017 Total prisoners, wounded, in our hands 1,000 Estimated loss of the enemy, at least 10,000 Very respectfully your obedient servant, JOHN A. LOGAN, Major-General. For this engagement General Logan certainly was entitled o the command of which McPherson had so unfortunately and in such sad manner been deprived. The way that that question was answered is thus related by General Sherman : " But it first became necessary to settle the important question of who should succeed General McPherson. General Logan had taken command of the Army of the Tennessee by virtue of his seniority, and had done well ; but I did not consider him equal to the command of three corps. Between him and General Blair there existed a natural rivalry. Both were men of great courage and talent, but were politicians by nature and experience, and it may be that for this reason that they were mis- 486 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. trusted by regular officers like Generals Schofield, Thomas, and myself. It was all-important that there should exist a perfect understanding among the army commanders, and at a conference with General George H. Thomas at the head quarters of General Thomas J. Woods, commanding a division in the Fourth Corps, he (Thomas) remonstrated warmly against my recommending that General Logan should be regularly assigned to the command of the Army of the Ten nessee by reason of his accidental seniority. We discussed fully the merits and qualities of every officer of high rank in the army, and finally settled on Major-General O. O. Howard as the best officer who was present and available for the pur pose. He was appointed, and his place in command of the Fourth Corps was filled by General Stanley, one of his division commanders, on the recommendation -of General Thomas. All these promotions happened to fall upon West-Pointers, and doubtless Logan and Blair had some reason to believe that we intended to monopolize the higher honors of the war for the regular officers. I remember well my own thoughts and feelings at the time, and feel sure I was not intentionally partial to any class. I regarded both Generals Logan and Blair as volunteers that looked to personal fame and glory as auxiliary and secondary to their political ambition, and not as professional soldiers." There was nothing, however, in the career of General Logan at this time or previously that justified General Sherman in his selection, and on July 28, at the obstinate battle of Ezra Chapel, General Logan handled his troops in a way that was of itself a splendid protest to the commander- in-chiefs view. Upon the fall of Atlanta, General Logan s troops went into summer quarters, and he returned to the North to take part in the Presidential campaign of 1864. He rejoined his corps GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 487 at Savannah, Georgia, when they faced about on their way to the sea. The Fifteenth Corps was under the command of its gallant leader on the march through the Carolinas, and from there until the close of the war General Logan never left it. Of course in all this career the anecdotes and stories told of General Logan were innumerable. A member of the old Thirty-first writes to me a story of the Belmont attack and victory which illustrates Logan s dash and energy: * We embarked at Cairo on transports, and landed secretly a few miles above Belmont. The rebels were in force at Columbus and at Belmont, nearly opposite Columbus. We swooped down on the Belmont outfit, and after a sharp fight cleaned out the town. In those days, the early part of the war, when any body of Union troops had a fight and won, it was thought to be the thing to have a great blow-out, cele brating the event with speeches and bonfires and music, and all that. The Belmont victory was no exception. We had a great time that night. General G. N. McClernand made a roaring speech, and so did Logan, I believe. We had great bonfires and an extra supper and all the bands, and kept it up till pretty near daylight. Then it was found that during the night, while we were celebrating, the rebels had landed a big force from Columbus to our side of the river and cut us off completely from our transports. We were dazed at this, and in a mighty tight place. Logan was the first to realize it, and after some discussion he got permission from McClernand to try to cut his way through the rebel cordon, and opened the road to the transports. This was done in a bayonet charge, and was one of the most valiant feats of the war." While lying wounded at Fort Donelson his devoted wife forced her way to his bedside and nursed him back to health. In a cot next to his, with toes nearly touching, lay William R. Morrison, the present celebrated free-trade Congressman, 488 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. who, while leading the Forty-ninth Illinois, in the same battle had received an ugly wound. Mrs. Logan divided her atten tion between the two men, and was the means of restoring both to health. To this day they are bosom-friends and both enthusiastic admirers of the lady who got the best of a barri cade of red tape on the way to the weary cots at Fort Donelson. I cannot but conclude this recital of General Logan s life, which does but scant justice to his brilliancy and ability, with out relating an event of his army career that raised him high in the estimation of the friends of General Thomas, and among men who believe in the right and like to see it prac tised : " He had been cut off from joining his command for the March to the Sea, and subsequently reported to City Point for orders. He reached there just after the first order for General Thomas s removal before Nashville had been tele graphed to Washington and its promulgation delayed. For the second time General Grant had become exceedingly im patient, and decided to remove Thomas. Upon the appear ance of Logan, Grant ordered him to proceed at once to Nashville and await orders. His instructions contemplated his relieving General Thomas, if on his arrival no attack had been made upon Hood. - Here was a most brilliant position offered that of commander of the Army of the Cumberland just as it had been reorganized and put in order for battle and stood in its trenches ready for the word to advance. Had ambition alone actuated him had he been a political soldier here was the opportunity of a lifetime of active service ; but, instead of obeying the spirit of his instructions, he proceeded with such deliberation as to prove beyond room for cavil that self-seeking was not the motive which controlled John A. Logan in the war. He moved to his new post without undue GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 489 haste. He seemed to appreciate the situation far better than Grant himself. His leisurely journey to Nashville gave time for the battle to open under Thomas ; and when it opened, Logan telegraphed announcing the beginning of Thomas s success, and asking to be ordered to his old command." There is nothing in Logan s military history more credita ble than this. The roll of honor of the Union armies does not contain a name worthy to stand above that of General John A. Logan as the best type of the volunteer officer through all the grades up to the commander of an army of battle. His bravery was of the sterling kind. He never hesitated ; he never believed in retreat ; and if the old warrior who has so recently relin quished the supreme command of the army of the United States had a poor opinion of General Logan as a purely mili tary hero, he never for an instant denied his fighting qualities nor his supreme command of those influences that turn de feat into victory and make a march a triumph. CHAPTER XXIV. JOHN A. LOGAN AT HOME MRS. LOGAN AND HER CARES THE WORK SHK DOES FOR HERHUSBAND A TRUE HELPMEET JUSTICE TO CORRESPOND ENTS. THE narrative of the career of John A. Logan, which we have followed over the battlefields of two wars and through many of the stormier years of Congressional debate and governmental work, could not be brought to a proper close without some more personal reference to the distin guished gentleman and his surroundings. Mr. Logan, I should premise, is not a different man in his own home from what he is in official life, as are so many men in American public position. He is at all times courteous, patient, and affable. Let me attempt a pen-picture of him. He is tall : no hero save perhaps Napoleon was ever short; he is swarthy in complexion, being almost bronze in color. Then, his hair being jet-black and worn long, it is no wonder popular fancy erected him into an Indian, or at least of Indian descent. And to the fancy of the people has been added the brain- fever of the cartoonist ; so that General Logan as a Mingo chief has been perpetuated until he has in this character passed into history. General Logan is broad-shouldered and heavy-framed. He is what imagination would suggest to be a good Indian-fighter. His eye is dark and bright; his moustache is thick, long and drooping, and coal-black. When he rises to speak, there is (490) GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 49 I an air of perfect self-determination and logical positiveness that is remarkable, while it is decidedly impressive. In speak ing he does so clearly, with a sonorous, strong voice and a decided manner that goes a long way toward convincing the hearer. He delights in the work his constituents have in vited him to do, and it is never neglected. He may be on one side or the other, he may be over-impetuous, but nothing is tossed aside as too trivial, no one is dismissed without a hearing. General Logan is a strong personality, and the soldiers who delighted in him and his achievements selected a very signifi cant nickname when they bestowed on him the sobriquet of " Black Jack." It was at once a term of endearment and of admiration. With the reader we will look in on General Logan in his spacious and well-lined library on the evening of June 6, 1884. In the centre of a small group he sits conversing with some friends. The conversation, as was natural, was upon the subject of Chicago and the convention assembled there to make history. In the adjoining front room Mrs. Logan was conversing with a party numbering eight or ten ladies and two or three gentlemen. A card was brought to the general by the colored waiter, followed in an instant by two or three perspiring gentlemen, who seized General Logan s hand and shook it heartily, offering him congratu lations upon something which they were not given opportu nity fully to explain. There was a momentary sound of more excited conversation in the front room, as if something of an agreeable nature had become known to the companions of Mrs. Logan ; and that lady entered the library with the torn envelope and its enclosure in her hand. "Come, papa; here is something," she said as she grasped his hand to lead him toward the light. A shout of three or four hoarse voices was heard from the 49 2 GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. street. A lady clad in pure white passed Mrs. Logan and seized both of the general s hands, being an impressive and evidently very welcome greeting. More gentlemen entered ; loud shouts came from the streets. Some one proposed three cheers for something, and for a moment the result drowned all the voices in the room. "Very happy! Thanks! Very gratifying. Nominated by acclamation, you say ? Great compliment. Very much obliged. Yes, yes ! Oh, I remember you, certainly." The sound of teams approaching from the distance lent its help to swell the noise. The general s face at first salutation wore a look of something resembling surprise, but it gave place to blushes and broad smiles as he was seized by ladies and gentlemen and conducted to the front window in response to a demand from the street below. " Speech ! Speech !" shouted the crowd of thousand white and colored men in about equal proportions. Again the general, now a prisoner in the hands of his agreed captors, took up his march. The way was cleared with difficulty through the hall, down the stairs, and out to the front door, where, standing upon the steps of the mansion, the general was cheered very frequently by his visitors. Silence was secured, and General Logan, in a voice inaudi ble to more than half of the crowd, said, " Friends, I thank you for your kind greeting to-night. I am not prepared to make a speech. Again I thank you. Good-night." General and Mrs. Logan were then conducted back to the parlor of the mansion, and, the doors being thrown open, the crowds pressed in, and, forming in line, filed past, shaking the extended hands of both the general and his wife. In half an hour they were gone, and General Logan had an opportunity GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 493 to read the paper which Mrs. Logan had brought him when the quiet of their home was first disturbed. It proved to be the Associated Press bulletin announcing his nomination by acclamation for the Vice-Presidency. And this closing allusion brings to the reader s notice Mrs. Logan a subject of the most profound interest a woman who has been of the greatest possible assistance to her hus band at all times. Her career is so notable and has exerted such a charming influence upon that of her husband as to demand notice. Let us measure the influences that shaped her career and had so much to do with shaping his. The American ancestry of Mrs. Logan goes back to a sturdy Irish settler of Virginia and a French pioneer of Louisiana. Her great-grandfather, Robert Cunningham of Virginia, was a soldier of the War for Independence, after which he removed to Tennessee, thence to Alabama, and thence to Illinois, when still a Territory, and there manu mitted his slaves. Her father, Captain John M. Cunning ham, served in the fierce Black Hawk War. He was a member of the Legislature of Illinois in 1845 and 1846, and served in the Mexican War. Her mother was Miss Elizabeth Fontaine, of a distinguished family of that name which had arrived in Louisiana during the French occu pancy of that country, and had thence journeyed up the Mississippi River and settled in Missouri. It was here that John Cunningham met his bride, and it was near the present village of Sturgeon then known as Petersburg in Boone County, Missouri, that Mary Simmerson Logan was born, on August 15, 1838. When she was one year old, her parents removed to Illinois and settled at Marion, in Williamson County. It was here that the mother and her oldest daughter, then but nine years old, shared the dangers of a frontier home, and the cares and solicitude of a growing 494 GKN. JOHN A. LOGAN. family, when the husband and father went forth to fight the battles of his country upon the parched plains of Mexico and braved the trials and privations of a miner s life in the sierras of California. This courageous and dutiful little girl relieved her mother, who was not strong, of most of the household work, and still found time to attend the primitive school of the neighborhood and train herself in useful needlework. The father felt a just pride in his eldest daughter. The assistance which she had rendered her mother during his long absence in Mexico and California had even more closely endeared her to his heart, and her love of study had prompted him to give part of his income to her proper education. Accordingly, in 1853, the daughter was sent to the convent of St. Vincent, near Mor- ganfield, Kentucky, a branch of the Nazareth Institute, the oldest institution of the kind in the country. This was the nearest educational establishment of sufficient advancement in the higher branches of knowledge. The young lady was reared a Baptist ; after her marriage she joined the Meth odist Church the Church of the Logan family. Having graduated in 1855, Miss Cunningham returned to her father s home at Shawneetown. In her younger days, when a mere child, she had aided her father as sheriff of the county, clerk of the court, and register of the Land Office in preparing his papers. Those were not the days of blank forms for legal documents. Accordingly, the father depended upon the daughter to make copies for him. While Mary Cunningham was thus aiding her father in his official duties, John A. Logan was prosecuting attorney of the district. He had known Father Cunningham, and was his warm friend ; he had known the daughter as a little girl. In 1855 they were mar ried, and at once went to the young attorney s home at Benton, Franklin County. The bride was sixteen years of age, but her GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 495 young life had already been one of usefulness to her mother and of great service to her father. The young wife immediately installed herself in the place of companion and helpmeet to her husband. She accom panied him on all his professional journeys an undertaking, in those days of wildernesses and no roads, often requiring great endurance and privation. In 1856 the devoted wife saw her husband triumphantly elected a member of the Legisla ture, and in the famous Douglas and Lincoln Senatorial con test he was elected as a Douglas Democrat to Congress. In all these hard-fought political campaigns the noble wife went with her husband, assisting in much of his work of corre spondence and copying, and frequently receiving his friends and conferring with them on the details of the campaign. When Mr. Logan came to Congress as a Representative, Mrs. Logan came with him. She remained with him in Washington until the outbreak of the rebellion, when he resigned his seat in Congress to return to Illinois to go into the service of his country. The war having commenced and Mr. Logan having raised and been assigned to the command of the Thirty-first Illinois Volunteers, Mrs. Logan, with her only living child, then three years old (now Mrs. Tucker), returned to her father s home at Marion. The Illinois troops having been ordered into camp at Cairo, Mrs. Logan joined her husband there. During the fierce battle of Belmont, Mrs. Logan heard the booming of the guns across the turgid flood of the Mississippi. In the midst of painful and anxious suspense for the safety of her own, of whom she felt that he was in the thickest of the con flict, she gave a helping hand to the care of the wounded and suffering soldiers as they were brought back from that bloody field. At Memphis, in the winter of 1862-63, Mrs. Logan again GEN. JOHN A. LOGAN. 499 isits of congratulation from committees and individuals from ill parts of the country. A warm friend of this estimable lady, meeting her soon ifter the nomination, spoke to her concerning the increased vork the campaign would entail upon her, to which she eturned answer in such form that an often-put question has Deen once and for all replied to. Here are her words : "A great deal has been said at different times about the ssistance I render to the general in the performance of his public duties. I aid him by relieving him of many details, iut it is not right to say that I write his speeches, because it 5 not correct. I take charge of his correspondence, and I o this because the general is very conscientious. I read all .is letters and lay all their contents before him. Most public men are at the mercy of their private secretaries, who do not lave their interests at heart, and who often abuse the confi- ence reposed in them. Every correspondent making a easonable request is entitled to some sort of a response, "he general has never deceived any one, because he has :nown the contents of all his correspondence. I have also one much copying, and have marked authorities on various ubjects upon which he proposed to speak. I belong to that lass of American women who feel that the glory of their lusbands is their glory. I choose rather to shine in the reflected light of my husband than to put myself forward. It has always been my sole ambition to be a good and useful wife and a true mother. I have been the companion of my husband, and I think this is the sole ambition of the great mass of American women, as it should be. 29 CHAPTER XXV. THE GREAT ISSUE OF THE CAMPAIGN THE TARIFF WHAT IT MEANS TO THE MASSES. WE have now come to that portion of our work where an intelligent care for the reader s political value, as a factor in this campaign, demands that some consideration shall be given to the great question that to-day divides the two contending parties, the great single issue upon which the campaign of 1884 is to be fought and won the Tariff. It is at best somewhat of a dry topic, but so are many of the most vital subjects of our national existence, a full understanding of which is, however, necessary to intelligent action, and to the successful operation of the political franchise. PROTECTION AND FREE TRADE. The tariff question is the only live question now dividing the two great political parties of this country. The Repub lican party favors a " Tariff for Protection " of American manufactures, and the economic principle which it involves ; the Democratic party favors " Free Trade," and the economic principle involved in free trade, though some members of the Democratic party are in favor of a protective tariff, and still others desire "A Tariff for Revenue Only." Upon this issue the Presidential campaign is usually fought, and it is safe to say it will be the political issue for many years to come. A " Tariff for Protection " means an imposition of " duties (500) THE TARIFF. 5<DI or cash penalties upon goods of foreign manufacture, and the raw material contributing to the same, in order that the price of these goods when sold in the American market shall be so high that the American manufacturer can afford to sell his ^oods at a lower price. In other words the American manu- : acturer is given an advantage by law that he would not have otherwise : he is protected in his industry by his government. The reason for such protection being found in the fact that the foreign manufacturer pays so little for labor, that he has a decided advantage over his American competitor in the first cost of the goods. "A Tariff for Revenue Only" is the imposition of a tax or duty upon imported articles mainly of luxury, such as wines, iquors, and tobacco, in order to raise a revenue to carry on the general government, and in no sense to afford American manu- acturers any government aid or comfort. This doctrine de nies the necessity for government protection in any form to the business of private persons. " Free Trade " means no tax or duty upon imports of any sort or description, and intends that the money needed to carry on the government shall be raised by direct taxation of American citizens, or of articles of luxury such as tobacco and spirits produced in the United States. THE HISTORY OF TARIFF LEGISLATION. The tariff is by no means a question of recent years. It first came to the front in the earliest times of the Republic : the first bill upon the subject passed by Congress having been made a law by the signature of Washington on July 4, 1789. This bill was tentative and experimental. It was intended to protect our industries, but from lack of knowledge of the subject the duties were not made high enough to accomplish 5O2 THE TARIFF. the purpose. Upon the passage of the bill England at once resorted to the most extraordinary measures to meet the policy thus adopted. Stringent laws were enacted by Parlia ment to prevent patterns, machines, or skilled workmen from coming to this country. Congress in a measure retaliated with a succession of statutes to protect American industries. The war of 1812, which placed an embargo on English man ufactures, which had been sold in the United States at a great loss in order to break down the American manufacturer, and destroy his market, gave the first real impetus to manufactur ing industries in this country. This prosperity continued until 1816, when the free traders mustered a majority in Con gress, and forthwith reduced the tariff". With this action a blight fell upon the American manufacturer s business. The triumph of the free traders was purchased at the cost of dis aster to the Republic, which was not retrieved until the Pro tectionists enacted the tariff of 1824. Of these seven years of trouble, enacted by law, James Buchanan said in Congress : " The manufacturers and laborers have both been thrown out of employment, and the neighboring farmer is without a mar ket." So also Henry Clay, the great Kentuckian, selected as the seven years which " exhibited a scene of the most wide spread dismay and desolation, that term of seven years which immediately preceded the tariff of 1824." The reason for the depression and stagnation of American industries during these seven years is graphically described in The League, the organ of the free traders, which, alluding to this period, says, "The foreign manufacturers contrived to reduce the cost of producing their goods, and submitted to a reduction of profits in order to keep as much as they could of American trade by counteracting the tariff. The American manufacturers found their profits diminished -by the rise in the cost of labor and THE TARIFF 503 subsistence, while foreign manufacturers were in the midst of a superabundant supply of labor, which had no competing opening, and which could therefore be had for the asking at the lowest wages on which people could live." The demonstration of this disastrous state of affairs pro duced the tariff of 1824 the first really protective tariff passed by Congress in time of peace. Four years after its enactment the duties were further increased. The policy pursued by the National Government at this time received the endorsement of several State legislatures, including that of New York. That it was a wise and sound policy, a policy well adapted to the needs of the country, is well testified to in the words of Henry Clay : " If the term were to be selected of greatest prosperity which the people have enjoyed since the adoption of the Constitution, it would be exactly that period which fol lowed the adoption of the tariff of 1824. This transforma tion has been mainly the work of American legislation foster ing American industry instead of allowing it to be controlled by foreign legislation cherishing foreign industry." The next marked change in the tariff occurred in 1833, when what was called the " sliding tariff" was enacted. It provided for the gradual reduction of the tariff on a sliding scale till 1842, when a horizontal duty of 20 per cent, was to be the rate. This marked the entrance of politics into this question. Southern sectionalism dominated. The effect was the panic of 1837, perhaps the most disastrous in our history. Farmers sold corn, apples, and potatoes at 12^ cents a bushel; a cow and calf for $7. Agricultural products were exchanged at stores for other articles, and not for cash ; furnace fires went out, and manufacturing ceased. Labor was nowhere in de mand. It was a period of complete prostration and wide- .spread disaster. 5O2 THE TARIFF. the purpose. Upon the passage of the bill England at once resorted to the most extraordinary measures to meet the policy thus adopted. Stringent laws were enacted by Parlia ment to prevent patterns, machines, or skilled workmen from coming to this country. Congress in a measure retaliated with a succession of statutes to protect American industries. The war of 1812, which placed an embargo on English man ufactures, which had been sold in the United States at a great loss in order to break down the American manufacturer, and destroy his market, gave the first real impetus to manufactur ing industries in this country. This prosperity continued until 1816, when the free traders mustered a majority in Con gress, and forthwith reduced the tariff. With this action a blight fell upon the American manufacturer s business. The triumph of the free traders was purchased at the cost of dis aster to the Republic, which was not retrieved until the Pro tectionists enacted the tariff of 1824. Of these seven years of trouble, enacted by law, James Buchanan said in Congress: " The manufacturers and laborers have both been thrown out of employment, and the neighboring farmer is without a mar ket." So also Henry Clay, the great Kentuckian, selected as the seven years which " exhibited a scene of the most wide spread dismay and desolation, that term of seven years which immediately preceded the tariff of 1824." The reason for the depression and stagnation of American industries during these seven years is graphically described in The League, the organ of the free traders, which, alluding to this period, says, "The foreign manufacturers contrived to reduce the cost of producing their goods, and submitted to a reduction of profits in order to keep as much as they could of American trade by counteracting the tariff. The American manufacturers found their profits diminished .by the rise in the cost of labor and THE TARIFF 503 subsistence, while foreign manufacturers were in the midst of a superabundant supply of labor, which had no competing opening, and which could therefore be had for the asking at the lowest wages on which people could live." The demonstration of this disastrous state of affairs pro duced the tariff of 1824 the first really protective tariff passed by Congress in time of peace. Four years after its enactment the duties were further increased. The policy pursued by the National Government at this time received the endorsement of several State legislatures, including that of New York. That it was a wise and sound policy, a policy well adapted to the needs of the country, is well testified to in the words of Henry Clay : " If the term were to be selected of greatest prosperity which the people have enjoyed since the adoption of the Constitution, it would be exactly that period which fol lowed the adoption of the tariff of 1824. This transforma tion has been mainly the work of American legislation foster ing American industry instead of allowing it to be controlled by foreign legislation cherishing foreign industry." The next marked change in the tariff occurred in 1833, when what was called the " sliding tariff" was enacted. It provided for the gradual reduction of the tariff on a sliding scale till 1842, when a horizontal duty of 20 per cent, was to be the rate. This marked the entrance of politics into this question. Southern sectionalism dominated. The effect was the panic of 1837, perhaps the most disastrous in our history. Farmers sold corn, apples, and potatoes at 12^ cents a bushel; a cow and calf for $7. Agricultural products were exchanged at stores for other articles, and not for cash ; furnace fires went out, and manufacturing ceased. Labor was nowhere in de mand. It was a period of complete prostration and wide- .spread disaster. 504 THE TARIFF. Following this came the protective tariff of 1842, which was repealed by the casting vote of George M. Dallas in 1846. Under the tariff of 1842 our iron product rose from 230,000 tons to 765,000 tons in 1846 ; under the ad valorem tariff, en acted that year, it declined until in 1853 it was only 500,000. Certain changes of more or less importance, but relating only to " items" of the tariff, were enacted during the years between 1861 and 1881. The development of trade and its subsequent changes in the cost prices of certain goods, com bining with a wide-spread feeling that the tariff should be re vised upon some systematic basis, led to the appointment, in 1882, of a Tariff Commission authorized by Congress to in quire into the matter thoroughly, and to report a bill that should cover the needed reforms. This was done, resulting in the Tariff Act of 1883, which is the tariff at present in force. During the session of Congress just closed, various attempts were made by the Democrats in the House to return again to the pernicious doctrine of free trade. Mr. Morrison, of Illinois, introduced a bill which made a horizontal reduction of all duties through the whole list. His bill was, however, defeated by the votes of the Republicans and some Democrats under the lead of Mr. Randall, of Pennsylvania, who saw clearly enough to know what were the country s true interests. They saw, and by their votes acknowledged, that the effect of a pro tective tariff and free trade had been uniform. In all cases the country declined under free trade, and gained in prosperity under protective tariffs. There has not been a single break in this uniform experience. The great economist, Henry C, Carey, thus states it : " Protection as established in 1813,1 838, 1842 gave, as that of 1861 is giving great demand for labor, wages high and money cheap, public and private revenues large, and immigration great and constantly increasing, public THE TARIFF. 55 and private prosperity great beyond all previous experience, growing national independence. British free-trade as estab lished in 1817, 1834, 1846, and 1857 bequeathed to its succes sor labor everywhere seeking to be employed, wages low and money high, public and private revenues small and steadily decreasing, immigration declining, public and private bankruptcy nearly universal, ruining national independence." The defeat of the Morrison bill ended the tariff agitation in Congress up to the summer of 1884. The Tariff Act of July 4, 1789, enumerated ninety-nine items of taxation. In 1816 the number of items had risen to 234; in 1842 to 821 ; in 1872 to 1,519, and in 1883 to over 2,000, which shows how carefully the whole question had been analyzed and considered in order that only the most intelligent legislation should prevail. As at present existing the tariff is likely to remain unchanged, except in a few items, for some years to come. LABOR, ITS RIGHTS AND PRIVILEGES. The foundation of our national prosperity is to be found in our labor, the work of the people. This country with its diversified natural resources, its varied climate, its clear-brained inventors and skilled artisans, and with a system of civiliza tion and government under which labor is honorable, offers the best conditions for labor the world has ever seen. It has been estimated that every day each laborer produces at least half a dollar of permanent, solid wealth. We have IO,OOO,OOO of workers. Thus $5,000,000 a clay are added to the wealth of the country. Surely an agency so important and one that is at the very foundation of our prosperity, deserves the most careful and cordial consideration ! The respectability of labor, its honor among the people, its maintenance, the comfort and 5O6 THE TARIFF. intelligence of our workers, all demand the most considerate attention. If labor is degraded, our civilization will be lowered and our wealth will decline. And the moment labor shall fail to receive a fair share of the wealth it shall produce, or shall be compelled to forego home comforts or educational advan tages, we will start on a decline, which will ultimately take away our glory and squander our prosperity. It will not be labor alone that will suffer, but the nation will share its part. Hence,- labor, as the foundation of our wealth, should be maturely studied. All its conditions, every element of strength that attaches to it, and all that shall advance or depreciate it should be looked after. And, as therefore it is the source of all wealth and prosperity, should we not encourage and pro tect it ? Capital, like labor, has certain rights and privileges. We can form an idea of what these are when we accept certain facts. Capitalists regard security first, and will take less for money if the security is ample. Government bonds, our best security, will command capital at three per cent. Railroad bonds command from four to five per cent. ; real estate five to six per cent. ; and less valid securities seven to eight or more. Capital invested in business usually expects from ten to twenty- fivc per cent., because of risks, care, and management. Labor on the other hand asks enough for comfortable support a dollar a day for unskilled, and up to five or ten dollars for skilled labor. These are the primary facts. After these come the competition the law of supply and demand. Labor is a commodity, to be sold in the open market. It is governed, as is any other salable article, by the law of supply and demand. If labor is in greater supply than the market will readily take, the price goes down. If it is in large de mand, the price strengthens. The entire population of the THE TARIFF. 5O/ rorld is capable of producing more than it will consume. [ence, in the dense population of the Old World labor is :heap. While the cost of living, equality considered, in Eu rope equals that of this country, the price of labor is from >ne-third to two-thirds less. Where the European manufac- :urer pays francs or marks, the American manufacturer pays (dollars. The law of supply and demand regulates these [things. Therefore the real threat and danger both to capital and labor, and equally to both, comes from abroad. England has five thousand millions of surplus capital. It could lose a thousand millions of dollars if thereby it could permanently break down our manufactories and control our markets. Eu rope is densely populated, and all kinds of labor are in excess of the demand. This low-priced labor threatens us. Hence both capital and labor are threatened from abroad. Our dan ger is from overcrowded, capitalized Europe. There labor is oppressed and capital powerful. And it is not necessary that foreign capital or labor should come here in their original form to compete with us. So long as the products of cheap labor or of superabundant capital come here and compete in our markets, we have the labor and capital of Europe as really here as though both were bodily transferred to us. If English cotton goods, or iron and steel, can come into our markets and undersell our manufactures, of the same sort, we have English cheap labor and redundant capital competing with us. So with Belgian glass or French silks. Hence this is the great point where labor especially, and weak capital as well, need to be protected. And it can only be done by " Protection." FREE TRADE AND ITS MALIGN INFLUENCE. Let us consider a few evident propositions. I. Our Gov- 508 THE TARIFF. ernment is of the people, for the people and by the people. 2. Its duty is to care for the people. 3. It belongs to and is regulated by the people. 4. Its wealth is produced by the labors of the people ; and this wealth, in the form of capital, is employed in connection with labor to produce other wealth. 5. We have elevated labor higher, as regards intelligence and comfort, than was ever done before. 6. This labor is threatened by the cheap and oppressed labor of Europe. In the face of this danger two lines of policy arc proposed. One by the Democratic party is to open our ports to the free importation of foreign manufactures, which, as we have shown, is the importation of cheap labor and redundant capital of Europe in competition with ours. The other by the Repub lican party is to levy a tax, or tariff, on such imported articles in order that the price may be made to reach the level at which our manufactures can be sold at a profit. The first of these is called free trade. The other, a protective tariff. The two have occasioned elaborate and envenomed discussion. It should be observed that the principle involved is different from that which we believe to be of vital interest to the work ing man. It is trade, not labor, and its remuneration. Free trade is, strictly speaking, free, uninterrupted barter between individuals and nations the mere exchange of products and manufactures and so of labor. But it is well to notice that free trade is not equal trade. The nation that can barter its skilled labor with the unskilled labor of another has the advantage, in that skilled labor produces greater value than unskilled. And the nation that trades with the products of skilled labor always beats those who trade on the product of unskilled labor. Here is the source of England s wealth. Her statesmen saw this point over a century ago. She pre pared to grow rich on the world s trade. How? By chang- THE TARIFF. g her unskilled into skilled labor. To do this she estab- shed manufactories, enacted prohibitory tariffs that is, duties high that the article could not be imported in competition ith her industries. She held her colonies down and kept leir labor unskilled. At last she was able to compete, and len advocated free trade. But even when thus prepared to outtrade the world Eng- nd did not adopt free trade. She maintains a tariff on cer- in articles which gives her a revenue quite equal to what we ceive from ours. She favors free trade where it is to her nterest, and maintains a tariff where that is to her advantage. he policy of England is selfish. She seeks to beat the orld at trade. Why ? Because she must be a bartering ation. She does not raise enough on her own soil to sup- ort her population. So she trades. And she treats, as re gards trade, her colonies as foreign nations to be outtraded and made to contribute to the wealth of the mother country. So the countries where her trade is dominant are poor she is rich. Canada, right alongside of us, and with as rich lands in the great Saskatchewan Valley as we have, and with the ability to feed the world, is poor and develops slowly. Why ? Because England sucks her dry. India, naturally rich, grows steadily poorer. Why ? Because England only aims to enrich herself out of India. South America, where English trade is domi nant, is poor, because it trades its unskilled labor for English skilled labor. Cuba is poor, for the same reason. So trade, were it free, would not be equal so long as one nation has such a start over another. Our great object has ever been to protect and elevate labor. The first attempt at legislation when Congress met under the Republic was in the interest of labor. The aim was to pro tect it against foreign capital and oppressed labor. It took 5IO THE TARIFF. several years to ascertain just what a protective tariff was but it was aimed at from the first. And our history clearly shows that when we have had a protective tariff we have prospered, and when we abandoned it we have gone back. Qur national debt proves this. We have always increased our national debt under free trade, and reduced it under a tariff. The tariff of 1842, for example, was offset for a time by the Florida war. Yet the debt of $27,203,451 in 1843 was re duced to $16,750,926 in 1846, when the Mexican war began. In July, 1857, the debt stood at $29,060,387. In 1860 it had risen to $64,769,703; and in 1861, when Lincoln became President, it was $88,995,810. Even free traders will admit that national finances reflect the average condition of the country. And as under twenty years of protective tariff we have paid a thousand three hundred millions of the debt left by the rebellion, this point is conclusive. When a nation can pay its debts, and its people live prosperous and contented, it is in good condition. And as labor is the basis of that pros perity, it is prosperous. Hence we hold that a tariff is the best arrangement yet devised to protect the interests of labor. And we do this to advance the condition of labor and develop the wealth of the country. The argument for free trade is substantially as follows: Trading is a natural right. The world is the market. In that market all should be free to purchase as cheaply as possible. Certain articles, as iron and stee) in England, and silks in France, can be produced more cheaply than here. Hence we should freely open our markets to those foreign goods, that our people may have the benefit of the lowest prices. Another free trade argument is that protective tariffs build up monopolies, favor the few, and enrich them at the expense of the many. These points fairly state, we think, the current claims of the free traders. THE TARIFF. 511 1. Let us set off against the general statement of the free ade view the equally general statement of the protectionist ew. This is that the rights of the few are subordinate to the ghts and interests of the many. A man has the right to set p a slaughter-house, but if this becomes a nuisance to others can be abated as a nuisance. All protectionists hold to free rade among the States of this Union, We have a common nterest, and hence free trade between the States, because of heir political affinities, is accepted by all. We also favor free :rade in all products which do not come into competition ith those of our people. We import tea and coffee and any other articles in large use free of duty. Why ? Be- ause they are recognized as not in competition with our pro- ucts, and are in general use among our people. We are opposed to free trade where the article traded in, coming from a foreign country, competes with, and so affects those of our own country, interested, directly or indirectly, in the same product or manufacture. So we are all free traders as to home markets, and with regard to foreign products in general use among our people, and that do not compete with us. The issue narrows, therefore, to competitive foreign products. Let this, then, be kept clearly in mind. 2. There is an implied assumption among free traders that some other country practices free trade, and that in adopting it we are reaching up to the highest plane on this subject. v England is usually regarded as a free trade nation, because she advocates it as a theory. England levies a tariff on wines, spirits, tobacco, and other articles, to an extent that gives her a revenue from this source about equal to what this country receives from all sources. There is not, in practice, a free-trading nation in the civilized world. And within the past twenty years, in building up her commercial marine, 512 THE TARIFF. England has employed the protective or subsidy principle so strongly as to compel France, Italy, and Germany to adopt the same policy. So it is an utter absurdity to claim that England or any other is a free-trading nation. She simply wants free trade where her interests call for it, but not any where else. 3. We deny that free trade cheapens the market. This point has been practically tested in this country over and over. We have had so many changes in our tariff laws, from protective tariffs to practical free trade, that this question has been tested several times. Our fathers, on the formation of the government, started out to protect our industries. A number of years elapsed before they could ascertain just what would be a protective duty. In the competitive struggles that ensued prices were marked down. When at last we had pro tective tariffs prices advanced, no doubt, but that of labor ad vanced at least in equal ratio. When the tariff was taken off and the panic of 1837 followed, prices were low, but that of labor was lower, and intense suffering was general. , When the tariff of 1842 was adopted manufactures revived, and while prices advanced, that of labor was again more favored than any other. Under the sliding scale, by which we drifted back again into the ad valorem tariff, labor suffered as indus tries went down. The panic of 1857 found the nation pros trate. The point here is that the cheapness or dearness of a market is not absolute, but relative. What labor will pur chase is the real test not how much a pound each of several articles may cost. If man s work in a week will, in a high market, purchase more comforts for his family than it will in a low market, he is benefited. And it is a well-settled fact that labor cannot be well remunerated when our markets are cheapened through the competition of foreign labor. THE TARIFF. 513 But this point admits of absolute demonstration. It has been found that when our industries have been protected long enough to get on their feet, our manufactures do compete in cheapness and quality with those abroad. We to-day manu facture cotton goods against the world. England has been compelled to adulterate her cotton manufactures in order to lold the Oriental markets against us. And she has even brged the trade-marks of American houses. And coarse cotton cloths, which before the tariff of 1824 sold at 24 cents )er yard, were under it reduced to 7^ cents. Before we had developed the manufacture of steel rails the price was $150 3er ton in gold, equal then to $225 in our currency. Now :hey are $35 per ton. The tariff on steel rails is what brought up this industry in this country, and the uniform experience las been that when our tariffs have been reduced, and the enormous capital of Europe has succeeded in crippling or de stroying our manufactures the prices have been largely ad vanced. We have always been compelled to pay the cost of our ruin. Just as the successful nation in war makes the de feated nation pay the expense, so has it been with our tariff. Germany made France pay a thousand millions of dollars for the war of Sedan. Who knows how much England has taxed us on broken industries ? The strong point with free traders is the assumption that the tariff builds up monopolies, gives capital power over labor, and increases the cost of certain articles. General Grant, when in England, constantly had free-trade sentiments urged upon him in speeches of welcome. He finally was provoked to reply that in this country we remembered that England maintained rigid tariffs until she had established her indus-. tries, and adopted free trade only when she could afford it through the cheapening of her processes of manufacture, and 5H THE TARIFF. probably we would do the same. It ended all allusions to the subject. The falsity of the claim thus set up by free traders may be made evident in several ways. i. Competition is the great cheapener. The larger the number who enter a given line of business the sharper the competition, and the lower the prices. This is a universal law. The time was when railroads in this country were monopolies and charged high rates. When they became abundant the monopolies were broken and rates cheapened, until now freighters have quite as much to say about freight-rates as the railroad companies. The exact object of our tariff is to encourage capital to engage in man ufactures and so produce competition. When England man ufactured for the world she charged her own prices, and only cheapened them when competition threatened. We propose to keep them cheap by maintaining competition. 2. Experience amply teaches that we can have no perma nent monopolies. The nearest to it we have had in steel manufacture was that of Bessemer steel rails. But England was charging $150 per ton, gold, when our plants were es tablished. Now the price is $35 per ton. Why? We mul tiplied Bessemer plants till they could more than supply the demand, and the inevitable law of competition did the rest. This applies to nearly every protected industry. When were goods of all kinds cheaper in our markets than now? W T hy ? Because production, along most lines, has reached a point where it can more than supply the demand. So competition enters in and cheapens prices. Another delusion of free trade is, that our industries could have been more cheaply established in open competition than under protective tariffs. This is untrue. They could not have been established at all. Several facts point to this. I. England was compelled to adopt this very policy of pro- THE TARIFF. 5 r 5 Active tariffs in order to build up her industries. 2. When lis had been done she saw so clearly that this was the rock >f her strength, that she never permitted her colonies to adopt [his policy for fear they would supply their own needs, and so the would lose their markets. 3. Our uniform experience has been that the people, as a mass, have prospered under the liariff and have suffered under free trade. If we could build ip our industries under free trade, it would have been done ; for it has been repeatedly tried, with one uniform result the >rostration of all our industries. PROTECTION: WHAT IT is AND WHAT IT ACCOMPLISHES, A protective tariff rests on certain well-recognized principles which have the force of axioms. Its leading objects may be stated to be the development of latent wealth by protecting labor, capital, and our civilization, as against the competitions and lower civilizations of the Old World. We hold that the plane to which we exalt labor, and the benefits in comfort, education and honor with which we surround it, is a pecu liarity of our civilization to which we attach the utmost im portance. It is universally recognized that consumer and pro ducer should be as near together as possible. This limits transportation, which is absolute loss. Hence true economy, which is at the basis of all wealth, seeks to avoid transporta tion by bringing producer and consumer together. This is precisely the aim of a protective tariff. If we can manufac ture the products of our country and consume them we save the loss of unnecessary transportation, and so of positive waste. But if we must send our raw material abroad for manufacture we lose the cost of transportation. This may be clearly illustrated. We once sent our cotton to England to be manufactured. It received no absolute value 3 THE TARIFF. in the mere process of transportation. But when transported to England, manufactured, and returned, we paid several added costs : transportation, brokerage, manufacture, re-trans portation, and jobbers and retailers profits here. Because of this, the true aim has been to condense the value of articles to be transported, as the distance they are sent to market de- pjnds on it. Raw products can be transformed into manu factured products, and reach farther in trade than in the raw material. Hence the importance of manufacturing as well as producing. The best attainable conditions of prosperity then are to utilize all our labor the unskilled in producing the crude wealth which nature affords, and the skilled in giving to the crude material its higher forms of value, which fit it for the uses of advanced civilization. And the closer the ties of labor the less loss in interchange. But our difficulty is that in other countries, where skilled labor and capital are in excess, they can, despite the distance, flood our markets at cheaper rates than we can at first produce. Shall we leave our labor idle or our wealth dormant or only trade on raw material ? If not, we must build up a wall to keep out the competing products. And for this as well as other reasons we have adopted what is called a tariff. This is simply an impost duty which levels up between the cost of an article abroad and here. It holds our market for our labor. This is limited to such articles as we produce or manufacture. This brings us to some of the root issues in this discussion. Free traders say we should allow every man to buy cheapest. If the idea were to benefit the few this would be true. But our real problem is this : We have a vast country of wonder ful national wealth, and a population of 50,000,000. Is it not to the common advantage that we should do ail possible to THE TARIFF. 517 produce the largest returns, not merely from nature, but also from human skill ? And as we produce wealth, do not all share ? Is it not best to elevate labor by opening larger avenues to skilled labor? And do we not, in all that we purchase abroad of what can be produced here, help foreign at the expense of home labor ? Do we not further advance foreign wealth at the expense of home wealth ? And in so doing do we not benefit others at our own expense ? Free trade is based on selfishness. Protection on the common good. It should not be overlooked in dealing with this problem that wealth is absolute its diffusion partial. Trade diffuses wealth ; labor produces it. The more a country has of wealth the more each person in it is apt to enjoy. The masses of this country have more than was generally the case fifty years ago. We are generally richer, and thus wealth is widely diffused. But trade does not so operate. It is not absolute wealth only its circulation. For what we get abroad we send an equivalent, with the added waste of trans portation. We merely exchange. And here a tariff amounts to nothing as affecting wealth. Tea, coffee, and quinine have been placed on our free, list, on the free trade theory that it would cheapen them to our people to make them free. Pro tectionists admitted that, as we did not produce them, they should be admitted duty free. The result has not been to cheapen those articles here it has only added to foreign profits. So labor is our great element. This we protect, and in doing so we conform to the philosophy of protecting that which produces our wealth. And it is labor. When it is said that protection increases the compensations of labor, the answer of free traders is that the workmen of free trade Europe fare as well as ours. No question has been more exhaustively investigated than this. Secretary Evarts, 518 THE TARIFF. when at the head of our State Department, instructed our Consuls abroad to carefully ascertain the prices of labor and the cost of living and report in detail. This was done with out collusion or scheming. These reports were tabulated, and the prices of labor and cost of living in this country compared. Take England and the several continental countries, and it was found that labor and cost of living closely balanced. But as compared with this country the contrast was amazing. Labor of all kinds commanded on the average about one- half what it did in this country, while the cost of plain food was rather greater there than here. The New York Tribun* followed this two years later with a correspondent, who visited the manufacturing regions of Scotland, England and the con tinent. He not only confirmed the State Department reports, but explained that the small wages of workers compelled them to live in the rudest and coarsest manner. Our un skilled workmen receive as much and live better than skilled laborers in Europe. A Belgian glass-plate polisher in Indiana, in 1880, was asked what were his wages in his own country for labor of his kind. " Sixty-five cents a day," was the answer. How much here? "Three dollars a day," he promptly replied. These are facts. It is, however, alleged that this prosperity is offset by the increased cost of living, and that the seeming benefit is not real. This phase of the subject has also been fully inquired into. The contrast between English and American workmen, as to home life and comforts, is absolutely startling. In Eng land and Scotland whole families husband, wife and children do manufacturing work of the hardest kind. They live in hovels, and use coarse, insufficient food. Their lives are given to slavish toil for a mere pittance. Here the labors of the husband provide home comforts for his family. The THE TARIFF. 519 Children attend school. They receive a good common school education. Abundant and nutritious food and home comforts lire provided. Indeed, the essentials of wealth are his. He [las food to eat, raiment to wear, and a home in which to live. [is home may not be a palace, but it shuts out the heats of summer and the colds of winter and is home. His clothing lay not be made from the products of the best looms of Eu- Irope, but does answer the purpose of the rich man s finer rai ment it covers the nakedness of the body and protects [against the alternations of heat and cold. His food may not be such as would tempt the palate of an epicure, but it satis fies hunger and supports the strength of the body. And in no land have the poor that is, the workers been more per fectly cared for than in this country, when protective tariffs have been in force. And that it was our protective tariffs which gave these results is demonstrated by the fact that in low-tariff periods the results have been absent. We have tested both sides in one century. PROTECTION : WHAT IT HAS ACCOMPLISHED UNDER THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Argument rises to demonstration when, in addition to facts already presented, we show that the era of prosperity in this country has been that of our present protective tariff" the past twenty-three years. The previous tests were limited as to time ; and while twenty-three years is not a long period during which to try a great industrial problem, the facts are, nevertheless, very convincing. These are, that despite a de structive civil war, which continued four years, and involved nine thousand millions of property destroyed, and our whole industrial system deranged, we have, all the same, made greater progress in wealth in the past two decades than in all $2O THE TARIFF. our previous history. And we hold that while other causes may have contributed to the result, the chief element in it is our protective tariff. If evidence on this point is desired we need only point to the incontrovertible fact that we have prospered where our tariff has protected, and declined where it has not. Our manufacturing industries and internal com merce have been protected, and our coastwise marine trade. TJ^ese have prospered. Our foreign commerce and merchant marine have not been protected, and these have declined. And all this has occurred within exactly the same period. The facts are undisputed. Can the force of the argument be turned aside ? It is demonstration. There are so many elements involved in this subject that, in order not to burden it with statistics, we present a few only of the many : 1. Labor is more prosperous here than in Europe. Our labor is generally and regularly employed. In the tables compiled by the State Department in 1878, of seventeen trades, the average weekly wages in England were $7.57; Scotland, $7.22 ; Philadelphia, $ \ 2.70 ; Chicago, $ 1 1 .50. The cost of thirteen kinds of food was in Liverpool, $2.50; New York, $1.30; Chicago, $ 1. 10, for a like quantity. In 1881, it was officially reported that but fifty-nine per cent, of Irish laborers ate meat, and those but five ounces a week. Here all have it. 2. All parts of the country have prospered. In 1868 the lumber marketed from Michigan and the products of her mines were $40,000,000; in iSSo they reached $75,000,000. In 1860 there were 5,235,727 cotton spindles in the country; in 1868, 7,000,000 spindles and 900,000 bales of cotton were used the year ending September, 1868 ; and from 1868 to 1880 the increase of cotton spindles at the South was nearly three- THE TARIFF. 521 >ld. The iron product of Alabama increased 792 per cent, md that of Georgia 245 percent, from 1870 to 1880. The iggregate value of the seven leading cities of the Northwest |n manufactures, machine arts and flouring mills in 1880 was >5 87,000,000. California and Oregon are beginning to manu facture iron and woollens. In the nine Western States, in (1850, there were 24,921 manufacturing establishments, em ploying 1 10,500 persons, and producing $146,348,554 in value. [In 1880 these had grown to 124,763, employing 755,286 per- Isons, and producing $1,189,588,355 in value. Philadelphia is an essentially manufacturing city. Her vast sums invested in industries have produced comfort and happiness to a pop ulation aggregating about a million. And New York is rap idly becoming a manufacturing centre. Thus protection has benefited all parts of the country alike. 3. Particular elements of wealth have been developed. In 1861 our output of coal was sixteen millions of tons; in 1882 it was ninety million tons a gain of 462^ per cent. This means that the effective capacity of the machinery of this country to create wealth is about six times as great as twenty- one years ago. Twenty years more of like progress and our output of coal will exceed that of England or any other coun try, and will give us a capacity of six hundred million human beings. In 1861 we had only 31,000 miles of railroad, mostly single track; now we have 114,000 miles, being a gain in mileage, under twenty years stimulus of a protective tariff, of 83,000 miles. And the value of this increase alone is $4,150,000,000. The gross earnings of these railroads last year was $800,000,000, enough to buy the entire mercantile marine of Great Britain. Turning from particulars to aggre gates, we gained in the net wealth during the civil war. As nearly as can be computed, the war destroyed less by 522 THE TARIFF. $1,000,000,000 than we made. During the panic four years the foreign debt of the country was paid. Our gain during that period has been put at two thousand millions a year. We gave, in a previous article, the items showing a gain in wealth of $5,500,000,000 last year. This represents an earning capacity of 750 a year for every worker. Forty-two years ago the wealth of Great Britain was computed to be five times greater than ours, and now ours exceeds hers in the aggregate by $10,000,000,000, though not equal to hers per capita. And this gain has been largely made in the last twenty years under our protective tariff. 4. Home manufactures and internal commerce are most profitable. Foreign commerce is mere trade, and is the ex change, not the production of wealth. Industry, in the form of manufactures, produces wealth. It requires a less number of persons to produce a given amount of wealth in industrial than in commercial pursuits. New York, with its surround ing cities, supports 250,000 in industries, and the product of these exceeds her exports and imports combined, although the latter are designed for use over the entire country. In other words her industrial population produces more wealth than her commercial population handles. And Philadelphia shows a more striking contrast. The prosperity of the coun try, therefore, is in its industries more than its foreign trade. 5. All classes share in our prosperity. The argument of free traders is that our farmers are oppressed. That they are not is proved by three facts: I. They have a home market for their products. 2. They have cheap transportation for their produce. 3. They can sell in the dearest markets, as Liverpool. So they share in the general prosperity. We send abroad yearly of farmers products at least $300,000,000. We also export our manufactures in large quantities. While Eng- THE TARIFF. 523 land s export trade has declined ours has increased. While the balance of trade has been against her, it has been in our favor. We have sold in the past twenty years more than we bought. This is a healthy state of affairs, and proves our prosperity. We have paid our debts. We have built as many miles of railroad as has the entire continent of Europe. We have established splendid manufacturing plants. Our people have opened up the great prairies of the West and North-west. No doubt vast sums have gone into plants farms, manufactories, railroads, school-buildings, churches, public buildings, and works of internal improvement ; but all these investments will prove profitable to the material, intel lectual, and moral well-being of the people. We are nearer being free from debt than ever before. Our national debt is so reduced that the rapidity of payment is annoying. We have paid a thousand millions on it alone. And yet the era of two decades has been one of general prosperity. What did it? We had all the natural resources before 1861 that we have now. We had population enough to develop our wealth. Why was not the country prosperous before ? All the inventive skill and industry we now have we had then. Why the difference? It is simply that of policy. Under free trade we could accomplish nothing. Our industries languished aud the people drifted into poverty. Under protective tariffs we have flourished. Our resources have been developed until we gain six thousand millions a year. Is not the lesson worth heeding? Should we not continue a policy which has done so much ? Ought we not to keep labor elevated and the country prosperous? And this has been accomplished under the rule of the Republican party, and should not that party therefore be continued in power that the policy of pro tection may be continued in a land where it has done so much ? 5 2 THE TARIFF. Possibly, on reading this statement of the great issue of the present campaign, the reader may care to scan the record of Congress on the subject. Here it is : VOTES ON GENERAL TARIFF ACTS, 1842 TO 1883, by States, in the House of Representatives, on their final passage. STATES. 1842. 1846. 1857- * . I 1 || I* >. 1 rt i ^, - s^ ss 3 M A iJ ^O 1" T . w vo >-S "5 " > Jj 3 " R PC i *A 3 S M 2 | i -* i >, .-. ,~ j -: j r j j y >, r. 8 M J >. - IJ D > >. New England. Maine 4 _ 4 5 3 i i 6 2 i 3 4 3 1 3 9 4 1 ii \ 1 I i i 2 6 i 3 9 i 6 2 ... 3 2 i ? I 3 3 - 4 2 4 3 I New Hampshire. Massachusetts ... Connecticut Rhode Island Middle. New York to 6 2 2 , i 1 i 15 9 4 I 4 - 9 i- 7 i i 7 - I to 2 S 3 ... X - I 9 .i 7 . 8 5 i 6 2 II I I 3 I 8 6 s 2 n i . 4 J i 4 i 2 I 9 I- 4 I t6 i -, S 1 16 j J 9 : - 4 Pennsylvania .... 2 I 3 -. 5 9 4 9 i i .; M-iryland , West Virginia.... Western and Northwestern Ohio I ( ii S 15 B 4 3 . ! . 3 3 3 I 2 1 i i 6 : < i - 1 4 1 9 ^ 2 3 9 4 - I ... j 12 I 3 i i 1 I i -. ^ - | --. 1 7 J 3 7 4 : Illinois - ; Wisconsin . . - Minnesota 1 I 2 i f ... i i i I Missouri - . , , , , i i 1 T Nebraska . Southern and Southwestern Virginia I ( 5 d without ilivision 4 1 2 I 1 I 4 6 3 7 4 4 5 ! 1 7 2 - Smith Carolina.. Georgia A .il)..ma i - : ... .. ... .. .. ... ... ... i 4 Mississippi i Louisiana lex-is ... ... 1 Kentucky I I 7 4 f ... ... - i ( 1 I . Pacific. California .... 1 7 i Nevada 1 ... I Total " 1 ir- 7- i ... 43 48 " 13 |f| ,16 :- - 3,8, . J. - CHAPTER XXVI. How A PRESIDENT is ELECTED THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE PARTY PRINCI PLES IN THE PAST. BEFORE the reader closes this volume, it will be the ex pression of a natural desire if he should ask, " How is a President elected ? " and " What is the Record of the Par ties? " And it would not round out the purpose of this work if it did not contain^just that information, which will make it a guide-book for the campaign no less than a life-history of the coming President and Vice-President. The information has been arranged in as brief a form as possible, consistent with extreme accuracy. The citizens of the United States do not vote directly for their choice for President and Vice-President. In each State there exists an Electoral College, composed of as many elec tors as that State has senators and representatives in Congress. The voters of the Union, therefore, vote directly for the elec tors of the district in which the voters reside at each Presi dential election. These electors meet in convention on the first Wednesday in December, in the year in which they are appointed, and vote for a President and Vice-President of the United States. And though they are not by law bound to vote for any particular person, still they always and invariably do vote as in honor bound for the candidates selected by the party which was victorious in the immediately preceding Presidential election. The electoral college of each State, (525) 526 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. after voting, makes out three certificates of the result, which are signed and sealed by them. Each college then appoints a person to take charge of and deliver to the President of the Senate at Washington, before the first Wednesday in January, one of the certificates. The second is sent to the President of the Senate by mail. The third is delivered to the judge of the district in which the electors assemble. On the second Wednesday of January succeeding the meeting of the elec toral colleges Congress which is in session on that day by direction of the Constitution sees the certificates opened and counted, and the legal result of the election for President and Vice- President officially declared. The certificates are opened by the President of the Senate, and are counted by him. The number of electors in the electoral college, which will meet in December next, is 401, and it will therefore re quire a vote of 201 in the college to elect a President. And from the large vote of New York it will readily be compre hended why New York is a pivotal State. Based upon the present representation in Congress the electoral college in each State consists of : Alabama, 10 electors; Arkansas, 7; California, 8 ; Colorado, 3 ; Connecticut, 6 ; Delaware, 3 ; Florida, 4; Georgia, 12; Illinois, 22; Indiana, 15; Iowa, 13; Kansas, 9; Kentucky, 13; Louisiana, 8; Maine, 6; Maryland, 8; Massachusetts, 14; Michigan, 13; Minnesota, 7; Missis sippi, 9; Missouri, 16; Nebraska, 5; Nevada, 3; New Hamp shire, 4; New Jersey, 9; New York, 36; North Carolina, u; Ohio, 23; Oregon, 3; Pennsylvania, 30; Rhode Island, 4; South Carolina, 9; Tennessee, 12; Texas, 13 ; Vermont, 4; Virginia, 12; West Virginia, 6; Wisconsin, 1 1. Turning from the machinery that has enabled the Republi can Party to give effect to its long series of triumphs at the polls, let us look for a moment at how these triumphs were ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 527 won and the reasons that gave the Republican party its birth and wondrous growth in the hearts of the American people. "Political parties," said the late President Garfield, "like poets, are born, not made. No act of political mechanics, however wise, can manufacture to order and make a platform, and put a party on it which will live and flourish. The Democratic and Republican parties are examples of a genuine and natural method of organizing political parties. The Democratic party in its earlier and better days represented the genuine aspira tions and grand ideas of the American people, and no man can say it was ever manufactured at any particular time by any particular set of men. The Republican party also was a growth springing from the hostility of the American people to slavery, and they" rallied around that central idea, an idea broad enough to reach all the ramifications of our whole institutions." The Republican party was crystallized into existence during the four years following the Presidential election of 1852. At the outset it was formed of the disaffected adherents of other parties Native and Independent Democrats, Abolitionists and Whigs drawn together by their direct and intense oppo sition to slavery. The first convention assembled at Philadel phia, June 1 6, 1856, and nominated John C. Fremont for President and William L. Dayton for Vice-President. This convention of delegates assembled in pursuance of a call ad dressed to the people of the United States, without regard to past political differences or divisions, who were opposed to the repeal of the Missouri Compromise: To the policy of President Pierce s administration: To the extension of slavery into free territory: In favor of the admission of Kansas as a free State : Of restoring the action of the federal government to the principles of Washington and Jefferson. 528 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. It adopted a platform, consisting of a set of resolutions, the principal one of which was : " That we deny the authority of Congress, of a territorial legislature, of any individual, or asso ciation of individuals, to give legal existence to slavery in any territory of the United States, while the present Constitution shall be maintained." And closed with a resolution : " That we invite the approbation and co-operation of the men of all parties, however different from us in other respects, in support of the principles herein declared ; and believing that the spirit of our institutions, as well as the Constitution of our country, guarantees liberty of conscience and equality of rights among citizens, we oppose all legislation impairing their security." The Democratic Convention met at Cincinnati, in May, 1856, and nominated James Buchanan for President, and John C. Breckenridge for Vice-President. It adopted a platform which declared that Congress has no power to interfere with slavery in the States and Territories ; the people of which have the exclusive right and power to settle that question for themselves. At the election which followed, in November, the Republican party found that Buchanan had been beaten by more than 400,000 ballots on the popular vote, and it then acted as if a victory had been won, and prepared at once to continue the contest until victory was an actuality. In 1 860, with the Kansas struggle still a most heated memory, the Republicans named Chicago as a place of meeting, and May 1 6th as the time for holding their second national convention. They had been greatly encouraged by the vote for Fremont and Dayton, and what had now become apparent as an irre concilable division of the Democracy encouraged them in the belief that they could elect their candidates. Those of the Great West were especially enthusiastic, and had contributed freely to the erection of an immense " Wigwam," capable of ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 529 holding ten thousand people, at Chicago. All the Northern States were fully represented, and there were besides partial delegations from Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Missouri, and Virginia, with occasional delegates from other slave States, there being none, however, from the Gulf States. David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, author of the Wilmot pro viso, was made temporary chairman, and George Ashman, of Massachusetts, permanent President. No differences were excited by the report of the committee on platform, and the proceedings throughout were characterized by great harmony, though there was a somewhat sharp contest for the Presiden tial nomination. The prominent candidates were William H. Seward, of New York, Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, Salmon P. Chase, of Ohio, Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, and Edward Bates, of Missouri. There were three ballots : Mr. Lincoln receiving in the last 354 out of 446 votes. Mr. Seward led the vote at the beginning, but he was strongly op posed by gentlemen in his own State as prominent as Horace Greeley and Thurlow Weed, and his nomination was thought to be inexpedient. Lincoln s successful debate with Douglas was still fresh in the minds of the delegates, and every addi tion to his vote so heightened the enthusiasm that the conven tion was finally carried " off its feet " the delegations rapidly changing on the last ballot. Lincoln had been a known can didate but a month or two before, while Seward s name had been everywhere canvassed, and where opposed in the Eastern and Middle States, it was mainly because of the belief that his views on slavery were too radical. He was more strongly favored by the Abolition branch of the party than any other candidate, When the news of his success was first conveyed to Mr. Lincoln he was sitting in the office of the State Jour nal, at Springfield, which was connected by a telegraph wire 533 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. with the Wigwam. On the close of the third ballot a de spatch was handed Mr. Lincoln. He read it in silence, and then announcing the result, said : " There is a little woman down at our house would like to hear this I ll go down and tell her," and he started amid the shouts of personal admirers. Hannibal Hamlin, of Maine, was nominated for Vice-President with much unanimity, and the Chicago Convention closed its work in a single day. Opposed to Mr. Lincoln were Judge Douglas, his old op ponent, nominated by the regular Democracy, John C. Breck- inridge, nominated by the disaffected Democrats, who seceded from the Douglas Convention, and John Bell, nominated by the old embers of the American party. The principles involved in the controversy were briefly these : The Republican party asserted that slavery should not be extended to the Territories ; that it could exist only by virtue of local and positive law ; that freedom was national ; that slavery was morally wrong, and the nation should at least anticipate its gradual extinction. The Douglas wing of the Democratic party adhered to the doctrine of popular sover eignty, an d claimed that in its exercise in the Territories they were indifferent whether slavery was voted up or down. The Breckinridge wing of the Democratic party asserted both the moral and legal right to hold slaves, and to carry them to the Territories, and that no power save the national constitution could prohibit or interfere with it outside of State lines. The Americans supporting Bell adhered to their peculiar doctrines touching emigration and naturalization, but had abandoned, in most of the States, the secrecy and oaths of the Know- Nothing order. They were evasive and non-committal on the slavery question. KI.ECTING A PRESIDENT. 531 1864. Four years later the Republican party found itself consoli dated, strong, confident, and aggressive. It called its conven tion to meet in Baltimore, June 7, 1864. It adopted a plat form which cordially endorsed Abraham Lincoln s discharge of his difficult duties ; encouraged immigration, endorsed the pro posed Pacific Railroad, demanded that the national faith be kept inviolate and thus resolved on the rebellion : Resolved, That it is the highest duty of every American citizen to maintain, against all their enemies, the integrity of the Union, and the paramount authority of the Constitution and laws of the United States ; and that, laying aside all dif ferences of political opinions, we pledge ourselves, as Union men, animated by a common sentiment, and aiming at a common object, to do everything in our power to aid the gov ernment in quelling, by force of arms, the Rebellion now raging against its authority, and in bringing to the punishment due to their crimes the rebels and traitors arrayed against it. Resolved, That we approve the determination of the gov ernment of the United States not to compromise with rebels, nor to offer them any terms of peace, except such as may be based upon an " unconditional surrender " of their hostility, and a return to their allegiance to the Constitution and laws of the United States ; and that we call upon the government to maintain this position, and to prosecute the war with the utmost possible vigor to the complete suppression of the Re bellion, in full reliance upon the self-sacrificing patriotism, the heroic valor, and the undying devotion of the American people to the country and its free institutions. Resolved, That as slavery was the cause, and now consti tutes the strength, of this Rebellion, and as it must be always and everywhere hostile to the principles of republican govern ment, justice and the national safety demand its utter and complete extirpation from the soil of the Republic ; and that 3 1 S3 2 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. we uphold and maintain the acts and proclamations by which the government, in its own defence, has aimed a death-blow at the gigantic evil. We are in favor, furthermore, of such an amendment to the Constitution, to be made by the people in conformity with its provisions, as shall terminate and forever prohibit the existence of slavery within the limits or the juris diction of the United States. Lincoln was unanimously renominated, save the vote of Missouri, which was given to General Grant. Mr. Ilamlia was not renominated. The office of Vice-President wag tendered by Senator Simon Cameron, at Mr. Lincoln s request, to Gen. B. F. Butler, but he declined, and in deference to Southern sentiment it was given to Andrew Johnson, of Ten nessee. Lincoln received 212 electoral votes, against 2 1 for McClellan and Pendleton. 1868. The next convention assembled at Chicago, May 2Oth, 1868, and nominated with unanimity Ulysses S. Grant and Schuyler Colfax. The platform declared against all forms of repudia tion as a national crime ; for reduction of taxation and economy in the administration ; deplored the death of Lincoln ; in favor of protecting naturalized citizens; encouraging foreign immigra tion ; and giving recognition to " the great principles laid down in the immortal Declaration of Independence, as the true foundation of Democratic government ; and we hail with gladness every effort toward making these principles a living reality on every inch of American soil." The Democrats nominated Horatio Seymour and Francis P. Blair, at New York, in July, and the gentlemen were defeated by an electoral vote of 214 to 80. Grant carried every State but eight. ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 533 1872. An issue raised in Missouri gave immediate rise to t"he Liberal Republican party, though the course of Horace Greeley had long pointed toward the organization of some thing of the kind, and with equal plainness it pointed to his desire to be its champion and candidate for the Presidency. In 1870 the Republican party, then in control of the Legisla ture of Missouri, split into two parts on the question of the removal of the disqualifications imposed upon rebels by the State Constitution during the war. Those favoring the re moval of disabilities were headed by B. Gratz Brown and Carl Schurz, and they called themselves Liberal Republicans; those opposed were called and accepted the name of Radical Republicans. The former quickly allied themselves with the Democrats, and thus carried the State, though Grant s admin istration " stood in " with the Radicals. As a result the dis abilities were quickly removed, and those who believed with Greeley now sought to promote a reaction in Republican sentiment all over the country. Greeley was the recognized head of this movement, and he was ably aided by ex-Gover nor Curtin in Pennsylvania ; Charles Francis Adams, Massa chusetts ; Judge Trumbull, in Illinois ; Reuben E. Fenton, in New York ; Brown and Schurz, in Missouri, and in fact by leading Republicans in nearly all of the States, who at once began to lay plans to carry the next Presidential election. They charged that the Enforcement Acts of Congress were designed more for the political advancement of Grant s ad herents than for the benefit of the country ; that instead of suppressing they were calculated to promote a war of races in the South ; that Grant was seeking the establishment of a military despotism, etc. 534 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. In the spring of 1871 the Liberal Republicans and Dem ocrats of .Ohio prepared for a fusion, and after frequent con sultations of the various leaders with Mr. Greeley in New York, a call was issued from Missouri on the 24th of January, 1872, for a National Convention of the Liberal Republican party, to be held at Cincinnati, May 1st. The well-matured plans of the leaders were carried out in the nomination of Hon. Horace Greeley for President, and B. Gratz Brown for Vice-President, though not without a serious struggle over the chief nomination, which was warmly contested by the friends of Charles Francis Adams. Indeed he led in most of the six ballots, but finally all the friends of other candidates voted for Greeley, and he received 482 to 187 for Adams. Dissatisfaction followed, and a later effort was made to substi tute Adams for Greeley, but it failed. The original leaders now prepared to capture the Democratic Convention, which met at Baltimore, June pth. By nearly an unanimous vote it was induced to indorse the Cincinnati platform, and it like wise finally indorsed Greeley and Brown though not with out many bitter protests. A few straight-out Democrats met later at Louisville, Kentucky, September 3d, and nominated Charles O Conor, of New York, for President, and John Quincy Adams, of Massachusetts, for Vice-President, and these were kept in the race to the end, receiving a popular vote of about 30,000. The regular Republican National Convention was held at Philadelphia, June 5th. It renominated President Grant unanimously, and Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts, for Vice- President, by 364^ votes to 321*% for Schuyler Colfax, who thus shared the fate of Hannibal Hamlin in his second can didacy for Vice-President on the ticket with Abraham Lin coln. This change to Wilson was to favor the solid Republi can States of New England, and to prevent both candidates coming from the West. ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 535 The Republican platform declared that the party has " ac cepted, with grand cqurage, the solemn duties of the time. It suppressed a gigantic rebellion, emancipated four millions of slaves, decreed the equal citizenship of all, and established universal suffrage. Exhibiting unparalleled magnanimity, it criminally punished no man for political offences, and warmly welcomed all who proved their loyalty by obeying the laws and dealing justly with their neighbors." The Convention further declared in favor of " complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political and public rights;" of universal peace; of civil service reform; reduction of postage and the abolishing of the franking privilege ; and opposed to " further grants of public lands to corporations and monopolies," with a denunciatory clause concerning repudia tion. 1876. The troubles in the South, and the almost general overthrow of the " carpet-bag government," impressed all with the fact that the Presidential election of 1876 would be exceedingly close and exciting, and the result confirmed this belief. The Greenbackers were the first to meet in National Convention, at Indianapolis, May i/th. Peter Cooper, of New York, was nominated for President, and Samuel F. Cary, of Ohio, for Vice-President. The Republican National Convention met at Cincinnati, June I4th, with James G. Elaine recognized as the leading candidate. Grant had been named for a third term, and there was a belief that his name would be presented. Such was the feeling on this question that the House of Congress and a Re publican State Convention in Pennsylvania had passed reso lutions declaring that a third term for President would be a viola- ELECTING A PRESIDENT. tion of the " unwritten law" handed down through the examples of Washington and Jackson. His name, however, was not then presented. The " unit rule" at this Convention was for the first time resisted, and by the friends of Blaine, with a view to re lease from instructions of State Conventions some of his friends. New York had instructed for Conkling, and Pennsyl vania for Hartranft. In both of these States some delegates had been chosen by their respective Congressional districts, in advance of any State action, and these elections were as a rule confirmed by the State bodies. Where they were not, there were contests, and the right of district representation was jeopardized if not destroyed by the re-enforcement of the unit rule. Hon. Edw. McPherson, the temporary Chairman of the Convention, took the first opportunity to decide against the binding force of the unit rule^and to assert the liberty of each delegate to vote as he pleased. The Convention sustained the decision on an appeal. The ballots of the Cincinnati Re publican Convention, 1876, were as follows: Ballols I 2 j A 5 6 7 Blaine 28 <; 2Q6 2Q2 2Q7 287 708 TCI Conkling Bristow "3 QQ 114 O7 121 QO ^f 126 84 114 82 in 81 21 Morton 124 I 2O Iil 1 08 oc 85 I Inyes 6l 6 6? 68 1 02 I 11 184 Hartranft Jewell 58 1 i 63 68 71 69 So Wnshburne. ... Wheeler. . 1 1 2 3 2 3 2 4 2 Gen. Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, was nominated for President, and Hon. Win. A. Wheeler, of New York, for Vice- Pros i dent. The platform declared among other things that " the United States of America is a nation, not a league ; " that the party was in favor of maintaining uninfluenced and unimpaired the ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 537 national credit; against government aid to sectarian schools ; in favor of the tariff; in favor of investigating Chinese immigra tion ; equal rights for women ; endorsed the administration and thus arraigned the Democracy : We charge the Democratic party with being the same in character and spirit as when it sympathized with treason ; with making its control of the House of Representatives the triumph and opportunity of the nation s recent foes ; with re asserting and applauding, in the national capital, the senti ments of unrepentant rebellion ; with sending Union soldiers to the rear, and promoting Confederate soldiers to the front ; with deliberately proposing to repudiate the plighted faith of the government ; with being equally false and imbecile upon the overshadowing financial questions ; with thwarting the ends of justice by its partisan mismanagement and obstruction of investigation ; with proving itself, through the period of its ascendency in the lower house of Congress, utterly incompe tent to administer the government ; and we warn the country against trusting a party thus alike unworthy, recreant, and incapable. The Democratic National Convention met at St. Louis, June 28th. Great interest was excited by the attitude of John Kelly, the Tammany leader of New York, who was present and opposed with great bitterness the nomination of Tilden. He afterwards bowed to the will of the majority and supported him. Both the unit and the two-thirds rule were observed in this body, as they have long been by the Dem ocratic party. On the second ballot, Hon. Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, had 535 votes to 203 for all others. His lead ing competitor was Hon. Thomas A. Hendricks, of Indiana, who was nominated for Vice-President. 538 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 1880. The Republican National Convention met June 5th, 1880, at Chicago, in the Exposition building, capable of seating 20,000 people. The excitement in the ranks of the Republi cans was very high, because of the candidacy of General Grant for what was popularly called a " third term," though not a third consecutive term. His three powerful Senatorial friends, in the face of bitter protests, had secured the instruc tions of their respective State Conventions for Grant. Conkling had done this in New York, Cameron in Pennsylvania, Logan in Illinois, but in each of the three States the opposition was so impressive that no serious attempts were made to substi tute other delegates for those which had previously been se lected by their Congressional districts. As a result there was a large minority in the delegations of these States opposed to the nomination of General Grant, and the votes of these could only be controlled by the enforcement of the unit rule. Senator Hoar, of Massachusetts, the President of the Convention, de cided against its enforcement, and as a result all of the delegates were free to vote upon either State or District instructions, or as they chose. The Convention was in session eight days. The following were the ballots : Ballots 123456789 Grant 304 305 305 305 305 305 305 306 308 Elaine 284 282 282 28l 28l 28l 28l 284 282 Sherman Edmunds. . . . 93 74 94 72 93 72 95 72 95 95 71 94 72 91 90 Jl Washburne Windom Garfield 30 10 32 10 i 31 10 I 31 JO 3i IO 2 31 IO 2 31 IO I 32 10 32 10 Harrison . . i ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 539 10 II 12 Grnnt 35 305 304 305 309 306 33 305 Blaine .... 282 281 283 285 285 281 283 284 283 Sherman .... 91 62 93 89 88 88 90 92 Edmunds. . . . 30 3i 31 31 3 1 3* Washburne. . 22 32 33 33 35 36 36 34 35 Windom 10 IO IO IO 10 10 10 10 10 Garfield 2 2 i i . Hayes I 2 i i Davis i . . McCrary. . . . 1 Ballots.... ... I 9 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Grant 305 308 305 305 34 305 302 303 306 Blaine . ... 279 2 7 6 2 7 6 275 274 279 281 280 277 Sherman. . . . 95 93 96 9S 98 93 94 93 93 Edmunds. . . . 31 31 31 3" 31 3 1 3" 31 Washburne . 35 35 35 36 35 36 36 Windom. . . . . ... IO IO 10 IO 10 10 10 10 10 Garfield i i j i 2 2 2 2 2 Hartranft. . . . I i i i . . . . There was little change from the 2/th ballot until the 36th and final one, which resulted as follows : Whole number of votes? 755 Necessary to a choice 378 Grant 306 Blaine 42 Sherman 3 Washburne 5 Garfield 399 As shown, General James A. Garfield, of Ohio, was nomi nated on the 36th ballot, the forces of General Grant alone remaining solid. The result was due to a sudden union of the forces of Blaine and Sherman, it is believed with the full consent of both, for both employed the same wire leading from the same room in Washington in telegraphing to their friends at Chicago. The object was to defeat Grant. After Garfield s nomination there was a temporary adjournment, during which the friends of the nominee consulted Conkling and his leading friends, and the result was the selection of General Chester A. Arthur as the candidate for Vice-President. 54 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. The campaign was fought on the principles contained in tiie platform, which, after reiterating the party history, declared anew in favor of the tariff, against government aid to sectarian schools, and polygamy ; against the Chinese, endorsed Mr. Hayes; and thus spoke on States Rights: " The Constitution of the United States is a supreme law, and not a mere contract ; out of Confederate States it made a sovereign nation. Some powers are denied to the nation, while others are denied to States ; but the boundary between the powers delegated and those reserved is to be determined by the national and not by the State tribunals. As this volume is intended to furnish the reader with a complete political hand-book, no less than the histories of the illustrious men who head the Republican ticket, I subjoin here some information of exceeding value. First we have the popular vote for President from 1824 to 1880. Prior to 1824 the electors were chosen by the Legis latures of the different States. 1824, J. Q. Adams. Had 105,321 to 155,872 for Jackson, 44,282 for Craw ford, and 46,587 for Clay. Jackson over Adams, 50,551. Adams less than com bined vote of others, 140,869. Of the whole vote Adams had 29.92 per cent., Jackson 44.27, Clay 13.23, Crawford 13.23. Adams elected by House of Rep- re>fntatives. 1828, Jackson. Had 647,231 to 509,097 for J. Q. Adams. Jackson s ma jority, 138,134. Of the whole vote Jackson had 55.97 per cent., Adams 44.03. 1832, Jackson. Had 687,502 to 530,189 for Clay, and 33,108 for Floyd and Wirt combined. Jackson s majority, 124,205. Of the whole vote Jackson had 54.96 per cent., Clay 42.39, and the others combined 2.65. 1836, Van Buren. Had 761,549 to 736,656, the combined vote for Harrison, White, Webster, and Maguin. Van Buren s majority, 24,893. Of the whole Vote Van Buren had 50.83 per cent., and the others combined 49.17. 1840, Harrison. Had 1,275,017 to 1,128,702 for Van Buren, and 7,059 for Birncy. Harrison s majority, 139,256. Of the whole vote Harrison had 52.89 per cent., Van Buren 46.82, and Birney .29. 1844, Polk. Had 1,337,243 to 1,299,068 for Clay, and 62,300 for Birney. Polk over Clay 38,175. Polk less than others combined, 24,125. Of the whole vote Polk had 49.55 per cent., Clay 48.14, and Birney 2.21. 1848, Tavlor. Had 1,360,101 to 1,220,544 for Cass, and 291,263 for Van ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 54! 35uren. Taylor over Cass, 139,557. Taylor less than others combined, 151,706. Of the whole vote Taylor had 47.36 per cent., Cass 42.50, and Van Buren 10.14. 1852, Pierce. Had 1,601,474 to 1,386,578 for Scotland 156,149 for Hale. Pierce over all, 58,747. Of the whole vote Pierce had 50.90 per cent., Scott 44.10, and Hale 4.97. 1856, Buchanan. Had 1,838,169 to 1,341,264 for Fremont, and 874,534 for Fillmore. Buchanan over Fremont 496,905. Buchanan less than combined vote of others, 377,629. Of the whole vote Buchanan had 45.34 per cent., Fre mont 33.09, and Fillmore 21.57. 1860, Lincoln. Had 1,866,35210 1,375,157 for Douglas, 845,763 for Breck- inridge, and 589,581 for Bell. Lincoln over Breckinridge, 491,195. Lincoln less than Douglas and Breckinridge combined, 354,568. Lincoln less than corn- Lined vote of all others, 944,149. Of the whole vote Lincoln had 39.91 per cent., Douglas 29.40, Breckinridge 18.08, and Bell 12. 6l. 1864, Lincoln. Had 2,216,067 to 1,808,725 for McClellan. (Eleven States not voting, viz. : Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.) Lincoln s majority, 408,342. Of the whole vote Lincoln had 55.06 per cent., and McClellan 44.94. 1868, Grant. Had 3,015,071 to 2,709,613 for Seymour. (Three States not voling, viz. : Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia,) Grant s majority, 305,458. Of the whole vote Grant had 52.67 per cent., and Seymour 47.33. 1872, Grant. Had 3,597,070 to 2,834,079 for Greeley, 29,408 for O Conor, and 5,608 for Black. Grant s majority, 729,975. Of the whole vote Grant had 55.63 per cent., Greeley 43.83, O Conor .15, Biack .09. 1876, Hayes. Had 4,033,950 to 4,284,885 for Tilden, 81,740 for Cooper, 9,522 for Smith, and 2,636 scattering. Tilden s majority over Hayes, 250,935. Tiiden s majority of the entire vote cast, 157,037. Hayes less than the combined vote of others, 344,833. Of the whole vote cost Hayes had 47.95 per cent., Tilden 50.94 per cent., Cooper .97 per cent., Smith .11 per cent., scattering .03. 1880, Garfield. Had 4,449,05 3 104,442,035 for Hancock, 307,306 for Weaver, and 12,576 scattering. Garfield over Hancock, 7,018. Garfield less than the combined vote for others, 313,864. Of the popular vote Garfield had 48.26 per cent., Hancock 48.25, Weaver 3.33, scattering .13. Summary. Of the Presidents, Adams, Federalist; Polk, Democrnt; Taylor, Whig; Buchanan, Democrat; Lincoln, Republican ; and Garfield, Republican, Hid not, when elected, receive a majority of the popular vote. The highest per centage of popular vote received by any President was 55.97 for Jackson, Dem ocrat, in 1828, and the lowest 39.91 for Lincoln, Republican, in 1860; Hayes, Republican, next lowest, with 47.95. Hayes, with the exception of John Quincy Adams, who was chosen by House of Representatives, was the only President ever elected who did not have a majority over his principal competitor, and Tilden the only defeated candidate who had a majority over the President-elect, and a majority of all the votes cast. The votes in the Electoral College next attract attention : The first college assembled in 1789. Then Washington had the vote of all the States, viz.: New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, South Carolina and Georgia ; total 69 votes. 542 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. Adams had all of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, 5 of the 7 of Connecticut, 1 of the 6 of New Jersey, 8 of the 10 of Pennsylvania, 5 of the 10 of Virginia; total 34. 179}, Washington and Adams. Washington had the votes of all the States, viz. : New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Mary land, Virginia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and Georgia; total 132. Adams carried all these States with the exception of New York, Virginia, Ken tucky, North Carolina and Georgia; total 77 votes. 1797, Adams and Jefferson. Adams had the votes of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, I of the 15 of Pennsylvania, I of the 20 of Virginia, I of the 12 of North Carolina, and 7 of the II of Maryland; total 71. Thomas Jefferson had 14 of the 15 votes of Pennsylvania, 4 of the n of Maryland, 20 of the 21 of Virginia, Kentucky, II of the 12 of North Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia and South Carolina ; total 68. 1801, Jefferson and Burr. Had the votes of the States of New York, 8 of the 15 of Pennsylvania, 5 of the 10 of Maryland, Virginia, Kentucky, 8 of the 12 of North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia; total 73. House decided Jefferson President, and Burr Vice President. Adams and Pinckney. Had the votes of States of New Hampshire, Massa chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New Jersey, 7 of the 15 of Penn sylvania, Delaware, 5 of the 10 of Maryland, and 4 of the 12 of North Carolina; total 65. 1805, Jefferson and Clinton. Had the votes of States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Ken tucky and Ohio; total 162. J inckney and King. Had the votes of States of Connecticut, Delaware, and 2 of the II of Maryland ; total 14. 1809, Madison and Clinton. Had the votes of the States of Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 9 ot the II of Maryland, Virginia, II of the 14 of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio; total 122. Pinckney and King. Had the votes of the States of New York, Massachu setts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, 2 of the II of Maryland, and 3 of the 14 of North Carolina; total 47. 1813, Madison and Gerry. Carried Vermont, Pennsylvania, 6 of the II of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Ten- ness-^. Ohio and Louisiana; total 128. Clinton and Ingersoll. Had the votes of the States of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware and 5 of the 1 1 of Maryland ; total 89. 1817, Monroe and Tompkins. Had the votes of the States of New Hamp shire, Rhode Inland, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana and Indiana; total 183. King and Ho-vard. Had the votes of the States of Massachusetts, Con necticut and Delaware ; total 34. 1821, Alonroe and Tompkins. Had the votes of every State in the Union; total 2V- i 5-f,rrt 544 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. Adams and Stockton. Adams had I vote of the 8 of New Hampshire, and Stockton 8 of the 15 of Massachusetts. 1825, Adams and Calhoitn. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, 26 of the 36 of New York, I of the 3 of Delaware, 3 of the 1 1 of Maryland, 2 of the 5 of Louisiana, and I of the 3 of Illinois; total 84 for Adams. Calhoun for Vice- President carried several States that Adams did not carry, and had a total of 182 votes. Crawford. Had 5 of the 36 votes of New York, 2 of the 3 of Delaware, and I of the II of Maryland, Virginia and Georgia; total 41. Jackson. Had I of the 36 votes of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 7 of the 1 1 of Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, 3 of the 5 of Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois and Alabama; total 99. Clay. Had 4 of the 36 votes of New York, Kentucky, Ohio and Missouri ; total 37. No choice by the electoral college, it devolving upon House of Representa tives. A choice was reached on the first ballot as follows: Adams Connecticut, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Hampshire, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont; 13 States. Jackson Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Tennessee; 7 States. Crawford Delaware, Georgia, North Carolina and Vir ginia; 4 States. 1829, Jackson ana Calhoun. Had I of the votes of the 9 of Maine, 20 of the 36 of New York, Pennsylvania, 5 of the II of Maryland, Virginia, North Caro lina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Indiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama and Missouri ; total 178. Adams and Rush. Had 8 of the 9 votes of Maine, Nev/ Hampshire, Massn- chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, 16 of the 36 of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and 6 of the 1 1 of Maryland ; total 83. 1833, Jackson and Van Biiren. Had the votes of Maine, New Hampshire, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, 3 of the 8 of Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama and Missouri; total 219. Clay and Sergeant. Had the votes of the States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Delaware, 5 of the 8 of Maryland, and Kentucky; total 49. 1837, Van Buren and Johnson. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas and Michigan ; total 170. Harrison and Granger. Had the votes of the States of Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Kentucky, Ohio and Indiana ; total 73. 1841, Harrison and Tyler. Had the votes of the States of Maine, Massa chusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsyl vania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana and Michigan; total 234. /",/;; lluren. Had the votes of the States of New Hampshire, Virginia, South Carolina, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri and Arkansas; total 60. 1845, Polk and Dallas. Mad the votes of the States of Maine, New Hamp shire, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, and Michigan; total 170. ELECTING A PRESIDENT. 545 Clay and Frelinghuysen. Had the votes of the States of Rhode Island, Con necticut, Vermont, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio; total 105. 1849, Taylor and Fillmore. Had the votes of the States of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana and Florida; total 163. Cass and Butler. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Virginia, South Carolina, Ohio, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Mis souri, Arkansas, Michigan, Texas, Iowa and Wisconsin; total 127. 1853, Pierre and King. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hamp- s 1 ire, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela ware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Alabama, Missouri, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Texas, Iowa, Wisconsin and California ; total 254. Scott and Graham. Had the votes of the States of Massachusetts, Vermont, Kentucky and Tennessee; total 42. 1857, Buchanan and Breckinridge. Had the votes of the States of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, Louisiana, Mississippi, Indiana, Illinois, Ala bama, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Texas and California; total 174. Fremont and Dayton. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hamp shire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa and Wisconsin; total 114. Fillmore and Donelson. Had the votes of the State of Maryland ; total 8. 1 86 1, Lincoln and Hamlin. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, 4 of the 7 of New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota and Oregon; total 180. Breckinridge and Lane. Had the votes of the States of Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Ar kansas, Florida and Texas; total 72. Douglas and Johnson. Had the votes of the States of Missouri, and 3 of the 7 of New Jersey; total 12. Bell and Everett. Had the votes of the States of Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee ; total 39. 1865, Lincoln and Johnson. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Vermont, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Missouri, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia and Nebraska; total 212. McClellan and /Vw&fe*. Had the votes of the States of New Jersey, Delaware, and Kentucky ; total 21. Eleven States did not vote, viz.: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia. 1869, Grant and Colfax.llzd the votes of the States of Maine, New Hamp shire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Ohio, Tennessee, Indiana, Illinois, Mis souri, Arkansas, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Kansas, West Virginia, Nevada and Nebraska; total 214. 546 ELECTING A PRESIDENT. Seymour and Blair. Had the votes of the States of New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Georgia, Louisiana, Kentucky and Oregon ; total 80. Three States did not vote, viz. : Mississippi, Texas and Virginia. 1873, Grant and Wilson. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hamp shire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Ala bama, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Mississippi, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, West Virginia, Nebraska and Nevada; total 286. G reeky and Brcnvn. Had the votes of the States of Maryland, Georgia, Ken tucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Texas; total 63. Three electoral votes of Georgia cast for Greeley, and the votes of Arkansas, 6, and Louisiana, 8, cast for Grant, were rejected. 1877, Hayes and Wheeler. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, South Caro lina, Ohio, Louisiana, Illinois, Michigan, Florida, Iowa, Wisconsin, California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, Nevada, Nebraska and Colorado; total 185. Tilden and Ilendricks. Had the votes of the States of Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Kentucky, Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Texas and West Virginia; total 184. 1881, Garfield and Arthur. Had the votes of the States of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Iowa, Wisconsin, I of the 6 of California, Minnesota, Oregon, Kansas, Nebraska and Colorado; total 214. Hancock and English. Had the votes of the States of New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Lou isiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri, Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, Texas, 5 of the 6 of California, West Virginia and Nebraska; total 155. 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. FtB 1 ^i ,mol \5^prV^ DEC 6 1946 MAY 22 1947 r^cr/^^r^ f D Rr.C LJ t-l- APR 8 19bO MAY 24 1947 APft oo ijft 9.1ay 60MJ Mrrt 4,3 194Q KEC D LD MA/ , i ^tlQfirt ^a* >o | - 49Ht REC D 1 P T l.rPjlQH I |"\ f^ X^ *^ JA ^ g 64 -i> ^ ; LD 21-100m-12, 43 (8796s) ID UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY