OF HISTORIC AMERICANS SKETCHES OF THE LIVES AND CHARACTERS OF CERTAIN FAMOUS AMERICANS HELD MOST IN REVERENCE BY THE BOYS AND GIRLS OF AMERICA, FOR WHOM THEIR STORIES ARE HERE TOLD BY ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS Author of" Historic Boys," "Historic Girls," "The Century Book for Young Americans," the " True Stories " of Washington, Grant, and Franklin, " A Son of the Revolution," etc., etc., etc. NEW YORK : 46 EAST 14711 STREET THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY BOSTON: 100 PURCHASE STREET OF CAUF. rJimARY TO* COPYRIGHT, 1899 BY THOMAS Y. CBOWXU. & Co. PREFACE. IT is not the intention of these stories of Historic Americans to go into the details of the lives and public services of each. It has, rather, been the desire of the author to touch briefly upon their careers, but to indicate, by the story or pen-picture of some pivotal event, the chief characteristic or impulse that led each man along the way of patriotism. There are published lives, in plenty, of these Historic Americans. Cyclopaedias and biographical dictionaries give all needed dates, statistics, and summaries ; but if these brief glimpses " snap- shots," as it were, at our grandest Americans shall arouse anew an interest in our greatest fellow-countrymen, or shall lead the boys and girls of the Republic to familiarize themselves with the more extended life-stories of the noblest figures in the gallery of America's worthies, the purpose of this book will have been fully answered. It might better be called Scenes from the Lives of the Builders and Makers of the Republic. ELBRIDGE S. BROOKS. BOSTON, February, 1899. 2125638 CONTENTS. PAGE JOHN WINTHROP 1 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN 18 JAMES OTIS 34 V GEORGE WASHINGTON 46 SAMUEL ADAMS 60 PATRICK HENRY 73 JOHN ADAMS 86 THOMAS JEFFERSON 100 ALEXANDER HAMILTON . 115 ROBERT MORRIS . . . . * 130 JOHN JAY 146 JOHN MARSHALL 161 JAMES MADISON 175 JAMES MONROE 188 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS 202 ELI WHITNEY 218 ANDREW JACKSON 231 DANIEL WEBSTER . . 247 viii CONTENTS. PAGE WASHINGTON IRVING 263 HENRY CLAY 277 JOHN CALDWELL CALHOCN 291 SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE 305 HORACE MANN 320 ABRAHAM LINCOLN 335 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW 354 ULYSSES S. GRANT . , 369 HISTORIC AMERICANS. T. THE STORY OF JOHN WINTHROP, OF BOSTON, CALLED " THE WASHINGTON OF COLONIZATION." Born at Groton, England, January 22, 1588. Died at Boston, Massachusetts, March 26, 1649. " When his life shall have been adequately written he will be recognized as one of the very noblest figures in American history." John Fiske. ON a calm, clear April morning many years ago three high-sterned, square-rigged ships were slip- ping out of the English channel, their prows headed west. Cowes and Yarmouth had long been left behind, the Needles were far astern, and the misty coastline of England became less and less distinct to starboard, as one by one the little ships steered into the broader waters of the widening channel. It was good-by to home at last ; and men, women, and children hung gazing over the rail, curious, hopeful, regretful, determined, or sad, as their natures and desires varied. 2 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Suddenly, through the startled air, down from the masthead of the " Arbella," admiral of the fleet, came the warning cry of the watcher in the top, Hello ! the deck ! " " Ay, ay ! What d'ye see aloft ? " went back the response to the topman's hail. " Eight sail, sir ; well astern," the lookout reported. "Look like Dunkirkers, sir." Up from his cabin bustled Capt. Peter Mil- bourne, master and part owner of the "Arbella." He had heard the report. " Eight of 'em, eh ? " he remarked, peering under shaggy eyebrows to where, far astern, the keen eyes of the lookout in the top had marked the sus- picious sail. "Must be those Cap'n Lowe told us he had seen off Dunnose last night." He studied the weather with anxious eye. The wind came light, though fairly steady, from the north, but the practised skipper could see unmis- takable signs of dropping. He turned to one of his company, a staid but pleasant-faced gentleman of two and forty, plainly though richly dressed, who, with a boy at either hand, was looking off toward the filmy, almost imperceptible outlines of the 'men- acing masts far astern. " Well, governor, what say you ? " Captain Mil- bourne demanded. " You think them to be Dunkirkers ? " queried the governor. " Like as not, like as not, sir," the skipper re- JOHN WINTHROP. 3 plied. " The Spaniards are swarming along shore hereabouts, from Dunkirk to the Lizard. Cap'n Lowe saw a good ten of 'em off Dunnose last night, he said. Yonder rascals may be 'em. I warned you of the risk, you know, governor." " I know, I know; and we took the risk, you as well as I," the governor replied. " But, for the end, we must be knit together in this work as one man. Therefore, Master Milbourne, we are in your hands. What you say, we do." " Then, if needs must, it 's fight," the skipper de- clared stoutly. " They have the wind of us, and can show a better foot than we can heels. Mate, clear the deck for action ; unsling the hammocks, free the gun-room, have the ordnance well shotted, hoist up the powder-chests and fireworks, order out the small-arms, quarter the landsmen among the seamen, let twenty-five act as marksmen, and have every man told off for his quarter. Then let 'em come. We '11 give the Dons as good as they send, or my name is not Peter Milbourne." " Master of the ' Arbella ' and admiral of the fleet! " added the governor with emphasis. " Count every landsman among us a fighter, master. 'T was hereabouts that Englishmen laid the Armada by the heels, thanks to God's mercy, the very year I was born. With the Lord's help we may do it again this day. Shall I bid those of us who may not fight the women and children, master to go below?" 4 HISTORIC AMERICANS, " Not yet, not yet, governor," the watchful skip- per replied. "The Dons are far astern yet and the wind may shift. They can't be a-foul of us for hours, even if this "wind holds." Little Adam, the younger of the two boys, looked up at the governor, his father, with wide-open eyes. " Don't let them come, sir, the wicked Spaniards. I am afraid," he said. "Oh, send them off, sir! You are the governor." His brother, the twelve-year-old Stephen, re- garded the smaller boy with the lofty superiority of three years' seniority. " Be not afraid, Adam, while father and I are here," he said. " My fowling-piece is in the great cabin. Shall not Adam go below to the Lady Ar- bella, father? I will stay here and fight the Dons with you." Capt. Peter Milbourne laughed the sailor's hearty laugh and clapped the governor's son on the shoulder. " Spoken like a chip of the old block, lad," he cried. "The governor will make you general of his forces when he is come to New England. There's spirit for you, governor." " Pray Heaven there be no fighting, lads ! " the governor made answer. "But if the Spaniards come, my brave Stephen shall rather keep up the little lad's heart below the decks. There is duty everywhere, my sou," he added. But Stephen already, had scampered to fetch his fowling-piece. CAPT PETER MILBOURNE LAUGHED, AND CLAPPED THE GOVERNOR'S SON ON THE SHOULDER. JOHN WINTHROP. 5 So through the morning the preparation for fight went on ; but, even as noon came, the light north wind dropped, as the captain had feared, and the sea lay calm. What little wind there was held with the pursuing craft, and nearer and nearer they came. Then the " Arbella " signalled her consorts, the " Talbot," the " Ambrose " and the " Jewel ; " and as they drew together Captain Milbourne hailed the other masters and bade them clear for action too. On each of the little ships the preparations for defence went quickly forward. Upon the " Ar- bella " the cabin houses were taken down so as to give a clear deck to the guns ; bedding and other inflammable stuffs were tossed overboard ; the long- boats were made ready for launching, and the crew and landsmen drawn up for action. The governor was foremost in all these musterings ; and for one of them Captain Milbourne made ready a fire-ball which he shot across the water to try the marks- men at the fire-arrow. The governor went about exhorting, enlivening, and strengthening, bidding the men stand fast for God and England, and seeing that the women and children were removed to the lower deck for safety and security. And so brave were his words, so lofty was his spirit, so serene his faith in the issue, that something of his courage and steadfastness was communicated to all on board that threatened ship ; for, as he himself 6 HISTORIC AMERICANS. assures us, "it was much to see how cheerful and comfortable all the company appeared ; not a woman or child that showed fear, though all did apprehend the danger to have been great if things proved as might be well expected." So much may one great-hearted leader do toward strengthening those who rely upon him. All being at last ready, as he had comforted the women in the cabin, he now inspired the men on deck ; for, when they were ready to fight, then the governor addressed them. " They are eight against four, my brothers," he said, " and the least of them, so our captain reports, carries thirty brass pieces. But we have beaten back the Spaniards before, even as our fathers, by God's grace, overthrew the Armada. Trust me, we shall do it again, for our trust is in the Lord of Hosts and the care and courage of our captain. Quit ye like men, my brothers, and neither Spain nor Dunkirkers shall prevail against us." And then, the governor tells us, " We all went to prayer upon the upper deck." Strengthened by the governor's brave words and stout bearing, the whole company awaited the issue in confidence, while plucky Captain Milbourne, audacious in his devices, suddenly gave order to the whole little fleet to come about and boldly sail straight against the foe. "If we fight, we fight," he said, "and let us begin it. I '11 have this over before night comes JOHN WINTHROP. 7 down, for delay is ever dangerous. The English- man's to-day is better than the Don's to-morrow." So, straight against the foe they sailed at high noon of that April day. The gunners stood at their pieces, matches in hand. Seamen, landsmen, gen- tlemen, and comrades ranged themselves for fight, conscious of their danger, yet grimly resolved to defend valiantly to the last their precious freight of women and children and the cause they upheld. For the governor had put spirit into them all. The league of distance lessened to a mile, to a half, to a quarter ; and then captains and gunners, gentlemen and seamen, echoed the glad cry that came from the watchers in the tops. " Friends ! They are friends ! " was the cry, and Captain Milbourne led off his men in a ringing English cheer caught up and echoed by both the nearing fleets. " Ship, ahoy ! " he shouted as the foremost vessels drew together. " Where from and whither bound ? " And soon they knew them all for friends indeed the " Little Neptune " of twenty guns, with her two consorts, bound for the Straits, a ship of Flushing, a Frenchman, and three other English ships, bound for Canada and Newfoundland. And, as they met, each ship saluted; the mus- keteers fired their pieces in air ; greetings and god- speeds were exchanged ; the " Arbella " and her consorts tacked about and headed again for the open sea, while the governor said, " God be praised! " 8 HISTORIC AMERICANS. and hurried below to join his little sons, reassure the Lady Arbella and the other women of his com- pany, and write down in his journal the whole ex- citing story of that day's adventure and how, again, " God be praised," he wrote, " our fear and danger were turned into mirth and friendly entertainment ! " And this is our introduction to the Worshipful John Winthrop, gentleman, late of Groton, Eng- land, but now, in this year of grace 1630, governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay, of which Emigration Company those four small ships were the advance fleet, bound for that wild and scarcely known section of the western world called New England. A faithful keeper of a journal was the Worship- ful Governor John Winthrop, and it is because of that remarkable diary that the world to-day knows so much of the Puritans of New England, and, reading between the lines, can so well acquaint itself with the bearing, the character, and the wisdom of that great and noble American, John Winthrop, of Boston town, " the forerunner," so the English historian Doyle assures us, " of Washington and Hamilton." The coming of John Winthrop and his Puritans to Boston was not like the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth. For they landed near the famous rock in midwinter, when u The woods against a stormy sky Their giant branches tost;" JOHN WINTHROP. 9 but Governor John Winthrop's Puritan emigrants went ashore in strawberry-time, when all the fair land along Massachusetts bay looks brightest and greenest, in beautiful June, and when, after a few weeks at his first settlement, called Charles- town, he could write to his scarcely less famous son, still in England, that he could see but little difference between Old and New England. " Here is as good land," he wrote, " as I have seen there, but none so bad as there. Here is sweet air, fair rivers, and plenty of springs, and the water better than in England." But sorry days were in store for the governor and his companions. Unused to the harsh New England winter that came in due season many sickened and died pneumonia then as now being the fatal visitor. Among others his diary records the early death of the fair dame for whom had been named the ship that had brought over the governor ; in which she, too, had been a passenger when, with the governor's consent, the little vessel had come about and sailed straight in the teeth of the supposed Spaniards. This was the gracious and gentle Lady Arbella Johnson, of whom Cotton Mather, the great Puritan preacher, quaintly and touchingly said, "She took New England on her way to heaven." But times bettered as the days went by. The hermit clergyman, the Rev. William Blackstone, who had a farm across the river on what is now 10 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Beacon hill in Boston, told the governor of an excellent spring-lot near his farm, where now stands the big granite Boston post-office, and, so says Winthrop's diary, "the governor, with Mr. Wilson and the greatest part of the church, removed thither; whither also the frame of the governor's house was carried. There people began to build their houses against the winter ; and this place was called Boston." That very summer of 1631 brought over the gov- ernor's dear wife, Margaret Winthrop, a gracious and in many respects a remarkable woman. How glad the governor was his faithful diary records. For it tells how the governor went down to Nan- tasket to meet his wife and children ; how they were received with salutes as they landed ; and how all the people welcomed Mrs. Winthrop so heartily that, as the proud governor records, " the like joy and manifestation of love had never been seen in New England." Even Governor Bradford, of Plym- outh (another remarkable man who also kept a remarkable diary), came to pay a visit of congratu- lation to "his much-honored and beloved friend, the governor of Massachusetts," - - for in that day Plymouth of the Pilgrims was a distinct settlement from Boston of the Puritans. From that time until his death, in 1649, John Winthrop, with but a few breaks, was governor of Massachusetts. With the same serene and even disposition that we see in Washington, Lincoln, JOHN WINTHROP. 11 and other great men, he met with patience all the worries, disasters, and troubles, and welcomed with modesty all the joys and triumphs, that came to the governor of a new and growing settlement, to which flocked all manner of men, and in which were all sorts of opinions. There were rivalries and dis- putes which only he could settle ; there were dif- ferences of political opinion and religious belief which called for his wisest counsel and calmest de- cision ; there were troubles within and without the borders of the little colony that demanded some- times stern measures, and sometimes cautious handling, by this clear-headed, large-hearted, noble- minded man. Winthrop's reputation in England as a respon- sible and honorable man, as a man of business abil- ity, firmness, justice, and wise administration, made men believe in the future of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and influenced the large emigration that came over the sea to Boston. The colony he had organized grew and prospered ; and though it went through many experiences in bigotry, selfish- ness, and unwise legislation, it is well to remember that to none of these was John Winthrop a party, although, frequently and against his better judg- ment, he felt the wisdom of compromise, and knew that peace and prosperity could only come by yielding to the will of the majority. He let Roger Williams go, consented to the banishment of Anne Hutchinson, and did not agree with the methods 12 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of young Sir Harry Vane. But for every such action he had a good reason, and above even his own desires he placed the welfare and unity of the colony. Under his wise administration the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony "grew and waxed strong;" settlements sprang up along the curving shore of the bay and pushed boldly toward the hill-country to the west ; while, for all the firm footing and dawning prosperity of its early days, the Bay State may ever femember with reverence and pride the steadfast, loyal, level-headed, and great-hearted governor whom men have rightfully called " The Father of Massachusetts." During one of the breaks in his own service, when his bitterest rival, Thomas Dudley, was governor, certain charges were brought against Winthrop because, as magistrate, he had sent to jail certain offenders against the law. His action had been just and lawful, but he appeared in answer to the complaint and refused to sit upon the bench, to which seat of honor his rank entitled him. The place for an accused prisoner, he said, was within the bar, and there he sat " uncovered " while for weeks the trial or "impeachment," as it was termed, went on. He was acquitted, of course, for he was in the right and his accusers were in the wrong. They were punished by fines and censure, and then only, his trial over, did Winthrop consent to take his proper seat on the bench. JOHN WINTHROP. 13 But as he did so he asked permission to make " a little speech ; " and that speech has lived to this day as one of the noblest utterances of America, fit to be classed with Washington's farewell address and Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg. Wise, calm, forcible, dignified, and convincing, it is noble in its language, direct in its argument, patriotic in its motive, and almost prophetic in its statement. For in that speech, which is really a definition of true liberty, John Winthrop voiced the same high sentiment which, one hundred and thirty years later, led the patriots of the American Revolution to make their immortal stand for justice, liberty, and right. "There are two kinds of liberty," said John Winthrop in this remarkable speech. " One is nat- ural liberty, common to man and beast alike, which is incompatible with authority and cannot endure restraint. This liberty," he said, " if unrestrained, makes men grow more evil, and it is the great enemy of truth and peace, needing the laws of God and man to restrain and subdue it." This is the fancied liberty that reckless and evil men, in our own day, falsely call liberty, and seek to break down just and proper laws in their efforts to obtain it. It is not liberty ; it is license. " The other kind of liberty," said noble John Winthrop, " I call civil, or federal ; it may also be termed moral, in reference to the covenant between God and man, in the moral law, and the politic covenants and constitutions amongst men them- 14 HISTORIC AMERICANS. selves. This liberty is the proper end and object of authority, and cannot subsist without it ; and it is a liberty to do that only which is good, just, and honest. This liberty you are to stand for with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be. Whatsoever crosses this is not authority, but a distemper thereof. This liberty is maintained and exercised in a way of subjection to authority ; it is of the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ has made us free." Is not this a noble and righteous utterance of a great truth ? How noble, right, and true it was, and how deeply it was burned into the hearts of all true patriots and loyal Americans, you can see if you will read this verse from a notable poem, spoken in the days of the Republic's stress by a young and patriotic American, two hundred and sixteen years after John Winthrop had made his " little speech ; " it was spoken, too, within the walls of that very college " at Cambridge, in Massachusetts," which John Winthrop helped to found : " Law, fair form of Liberty, God's light is on thy brow ; O Liberty, thou soul of Law, God's very self art thou ! One the clear river's sparkling flood that clothes the bank with green, And one the line of stubborn rock that holds the waters in ; Friends whom we cannot think apart, seeming each other's foe, Twin flowers upon a single stalk with equal grace that grow. O fair ideas ! we write your names across our banner's fold ; For you the sluggard's brain is fire, for you the coward bold ; O, daughter of the bleeding past ! O, hope the prophets saw ! God give us Law in Liberty, and Liberty in Law ! " JOHN WJNTHROP. 15 And how like an echo of the great Puritan governor's solemn words " This liberty you are to stand for with the hazard not only of your goods, but of your lives, if need be " sounds that brave closing assur- ance of the immortal Declaration of Independence, of July 4, 1776 : " For the support of this Declara- tion, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and bur sacred honor " ! how like its echo too rings the closing verse of that same Commencement poem in the battle-year of 1861 : " 0, mothers, sisters, daughters, spare the tears ye fain would shed, Who seem to die in such a cause, ye cannot call them dead ; They live upon the lips of men, in picture, bust, and song, And Nature folds them in her heart, and keeps them safe from wrong. O, length of days is not a boon the brave man prayeth for ; There are a thousand evils worse than death or any war : Oppression with his iron strength fed on the souls of men, And License with the hungry brood that haunts his ghastly den ; But, like bright stars, ye fill the eye, adoring hearts ye draw, O, sacred grace of Liberty ! 0, majesty of Law ! " So the centuries clasp hands, and the words of the great governor live again in the hearts of all true Americans to-day. " It is the same kind of liberty wherewith Christ has made us free," said John Winthrop in 1640. ' ; In the name of humanity, in the name of civilization, in behalf of endangered American interests which give us the right and the duty to speak and act, the war in Cuba must stop," 16 HISTORIC AMERICANS. wrote William McKinley in 1898. Liberty is not license, for liberty is law. Twelve times was John Winthrop elected gov- ernor of Massachusetts. As governor, magistrate, and soldier he gave to the organizing, upbuilding, and development of that struggling but successful colony the life and strength, the grace and wisdom, of twenty busy years, and when on the twenty- sixth of March, 1649, aged only sixty-one, he died at his house on Spring lane, in Boston (where to-day stands the tall Winthrop building), all the colony . mourned. " A governor," said Cotton Mather, the preacher, " who had been unto us as a mother, parent-like distributing his goods to brethren and neighbors at his first coming, and gently bearing our infirmities without taking notice of them." What he did for his colony has blessed all America. His hatred of intolerance, his bold stand for freedom of speech? his wisdom and generosity in business methods, his leniency and brotherliness toward all, his devotion to duty whether it were small or great, his high respect for law, his pas- sionate love of liberty, his honesty in business dif- ficulties, his silence under abuse, his modesty in victory, his courtesy toward strangers, his devotion to his family, his loyalty to his friends, his great desire for unity among all the American colonies, his firm faith in the future of the land he had made his home, his detestation of bigotry, his courage in JOHN W1NTHROP. 17 time of danger, his serenity, his diligence, his public spirit, his self-denial, and his foresight all unite in making him not alone a great man, but a great and historic American, worthy to stand, as one of his chroniclers declares, " as a parallel to Washington." II. THE STORY OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, OF PHILADELPHIA, CALLED BY ALL EUROPE " LE GRAND FRANKLIN." Born at Boston, Massachusetts, January 17, 1706. Died at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, April 17, 1790. " No American has attained to greatness in so many ways or has made so lasting an impression on his countrymen." John Bach McMaster. IN the very heart of the great city of Philadel- phia, near where, to-day, the massive City building towers above the town, there stood, one hundred and fifty years ago, a humble cow-shed. Built as a shelter for the cattle which grazed upon the public " commons " thereabout, that cow-shed, from a certain June day in 1752, was destined to become one of the most famous buildings in all America. For, on that June day of 1752, a stout, middle- aged gentleman of forty-six, and a fresh-looking young fellow of twenty-two, walked straight for the cow-shed on the commons. The younger man carried under his arm what looked like a bottle ; the older man bore a good-sized kite. 18 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 19 There was thunder in the air ; the clouds were gathering fast; there was every indication that a shower was coming up ; rather an odd time to go kite-flying for fun ! But these two gentle- men did not look as if they were about to fly a kite for fun. Indeed, the younger man appeared just a bit foolish, for he was something of a "swell," and seemed just a trifle troubled lest some one might catch him at such childish sport. Even the older man glanced around as they neared the cow-shed, with the bottle and the kite, as if fearing that some one might recognize them and poke a little fun at him and his " toys." But if there had been such a person about and he had looked at the kite the stout gentleman held so gingerly he would have seen that it was no common kite. It was a good-sized one, made of a big silk handkerchief, and from the end of the central upright stick there extended a piece of iron wire, sharpened at the end. The wind was strong and the silken kite, after a few attempts at raising, caught the current and sailed finely upward, while the young man, step- ping into the cow-shed, set down the bottle and then stood watching his father's kite for the two were father and son. The storm came, surely enough, just as they expected, and the two slipped within the shelter of the cow-shed, and "out of the wet," anxiously watching the kite and the flying thunder-clouds. 20 HISTORIC AMERICANS. The kite had been raised on a strong hempen string, but if you had been there too you would have noticed that when the kite was well up the young man's father, who was flying the kite, held in his hand, attached to the hempen kite-cord, a silken string from which hung a big door-key. A heavy cloud came sailing directly over the kite. " No lightning in that, father," the young man observed critically. " None yet, Billy," his father replied. " But wait a bit. It may come." The rain came pouring down and the younger man looked around uneasily. " I 'm afraid people will think we 're a couple of crazy folks, flying kites in the rain," he said. But his father smiled serenely. " There are crazier folks than we are, Billy," he answered, anxiously scanning the cloud. " You know what Poor Richard says, ' Let thy discontents be thy secrets.' Don't you fret, my boy, if there is no one by to fret with you. I don't fret about folks ; I 'm watching for that lightning. If it does n't come we 're beaten for to-day." It seemed for a while as if they were beaten, if their desires depended upon the lightning, for there appeared to be no electricity astir in that black cloud. But they waited patiently. Then, sud- denly, just as the kite-flyer had given a sigh of dis- content, his face brightened. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 21 " Look, Billy ! " he cried. " See the string ! The fibres are rising. It 's there, my boy, it 's there sure enough, and I 've caught it ! " Something was there certainly. One by one the fibres of the hempen string began to rise, very much as you can see the hair rise 011 the head of one who stands upon the insulating stool when the teacher experiments in the natural philosophy class. " Quick, Billy ! Have the jar ready ! " the experi- menter cried, as he applied his knuckle to the key. " Hurrah ! See that ! Did you see that, Billy ? A spark, a spark, and a good one, too ! Here, take the string and try it yourself. There ! Did you feel the shock ? I 've proved it, boy ! I Ve proved it ! Charge the Leyden jar ! " Spark after spark was drawn from the pendent key by the knuckles of the excited pair. Then the Leyclen jar the prepared bottle that " Billy " had brought along was held close to the key and charged with the electricity drawn from the thunder- cloud. And as it was charged both father and son received and felt through their sensitive frames an electric shock that well-nigh knocked them over; indeed, the same electrical test, tried soon after by a Russian professor, quite knocked the life out of him, so strong and fatal was this dangerous experiment. But neither father nor son thought of danger. The philosopher had proved his theory. He had actually drawn down the lightning from heaven ; he had demonstrated the fact that electricity did 22 HISTORIC AMERICANS. exist in and could be captured from the clouds, and for the sake of that victory he would have risked being knocked over by his captive a hundred times. At last the clouds broke, the reservoir was ex- hausted, the wet kite was hauled in, and father and son went back to their pleasant home on Chestnut street, drenched but happy, to publish to the world the success of the great experiment of Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, a success that was to startle and arouse the whole scientific world of that unscientific day. For that philosophical kite-flyer was Benjamin Franklin, of Philadelphia, one of the most remark- able men that has ever lived in all the world. In- deed, there never was a man who knew quite so much about so many things and knew, also, how to turn his acquired knowledge to such good ac- count. From the day when as a boy, in a Boston pond, he showed his playfellows how to tow them- selves through the water by the aid of a kite, to the day, seventy-five years later, when he formed the first anti-slavery society in America, he was always busy over something that should lighten the labors or improve the condition of his fellow-men. What he knew he had learned for himself through long and sometimes hard experience ; but failure never discouraged him, nor could disaster keep him down. He was absolutely what we call a self-made man. The son of a hard-working soap and candle maker SPARK AFTER SPARK WAS DRAWN FROM THE PENDENT KEY. BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 23 of Boston, he was born in the very shadow of the Old South Church ; but his schooling stopped alto- gether before he was ten years old. His self-edu- cation had, however, begun even at that early age ; it never stopped until the day of his death. But when that day came, late in his busy life, he had by patience and persistence, through steady applica- tion and often through harsh experiences, raised himself from an ill-used "printer's devil" to the lofty position of the most learned, the most versa- tile, and the best-known man of his day in all America, the best-known American in all Europe. A certain clever and admiring Frenchman once said of Benjamin Franklin, " He snatched the thunderbolt from heaven and the sceptre from tyrants." I have told you how, by the aid of his kite and his key, he did the first ; let me try to tell you how, by wit and patriotism, he did the second. He was one of the very first Americans to teach his fellow-countrymen the lesson of liberty. For twenty-five years, from 1732, the year in which Washington was born, to 1758, when Franklin was sent to London as the spokesman or agent for the colonies, this cheerful philosopher published a yearly pamphlet which he called " Poor Richard's Almanack," and which, besides talking about dates and the weather, was full of wise maxims and clever proverbs. These the people of America speedily learned by heart. You know some of them yet: 24 HISTORIC AMERICANS. "-Early to bed and early to rise Makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise." That was one of them. "Haste makes waste," " three removes are as bad as a fire." These all are familiar to-day. But he had other sayings that had even deeper meanings: "God helps them that help themselves," he said ; " forewarned is forearmed," " deny self for self's sake," " there is no little enemy," " well done is better than well said," "one to-day is worth two to-morrows,'' "diligence is the mother of good luck," and many, many others, just as short, but just as strong. No one knows just how much they helped to educate the children of one generation to be the self-respecting, self-helpful patriots of the next. Mr. Bigelow declares that "for a period of twenty- six years, and until Franklin ceased to edit it, this annual was looked forward to by a larger portion of the colonial population and with more impa- tience than now awaits a President's annual mes- sage to Congress." Another student of American history has set it down as his judgment that there would have been no American Revolution if there had been no " Poor Richard's Almanack." So wise a man could not be spared from public service. Long before the Revolution he had been called to responsible duties. He was the first American postmaster to make the post-office use- ful to the people and to make it pay also. His advice, if taken, would have saved the colonies BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 25 from the disgrace of Braddock's defeat; he was the first to propose that actual union of the colo- nies which came finally when, in 1776, the Conti- nental Congress, which Franklin had also favored, established the United States of America. He was one of the most important signers of the Dec- laration of Independence, and when the help of other nations was sought it was Benjamin Franklin who was made " sole Plenipotentiary of the United States to the Court of France," and it was the exertions of this wise and tactful but determined republican that wrested from a king and court who despised republicanism open recognition for the struggling Republic, money to carry on the war, and, finally, an alliance with France that sent over men and yet more money to America, brought about Yorktown and victory, and overthrew for- ever in America the power of King George of England and all his royal successors. Now do you not see how the second part of the clever Frenchman's assertion was true? Franklin had indeed "wrested the sceptre from tyrants." His was a busy life through eighty-four impor- tant years. Let me tell you, briefly, just how his life was spent. Born, as I have said, in Boston in the year 1706, he was a bright, wide-awake, rather mischievous boy who, at ten years old, was set to work at candle-making, and at twelve years old peddled his own ballads on the streets of Boston. Then he was apprenticed to 26 HISTORIC AMERICANS. his brother as a printer ; but because he had to do all the work without even thanks for pay he deter- mined to stand it no longer. So he set out to run away to sea, and did get as far as Philadelphia, where he went to work as a printer. There he was patronized by a good-for-nothing royal governor who sent him to England on false pretences, but where, because he had a trade, he did not starve, but worked for two years as a printer in London. At last he managed to get back to Philadelphia, where he set up a printing-office of his own on Market street, started a newspaper, became a bookseller, and published an almanac. Then he went into politics. He was made clerk of the Colonial Assembly, next postmaster of Philadel- phia, and, at forty-six, the king's postmaster- general for all the American colonies. When Pennsylvania got into trouble with her rulers across the water she sent Benjamin Franklin to London as her agent or representative, and there he served his home colony so well that his native colony of Massachusetts asked him to act as her agent also. Still other colonies followed suit, so that, in 1770, he was agent or representative in England for nearly all the American colonies. He faced the Parliament of England, before which he was summoned to answer many leading questions about the colonies. But he told that proud body the truth about America, and after remaining in England a dozen years or more he saw that war BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 27 was coming and returned to America just in time to be sent to Congress and sign the Declaration of Independence. That same year of 1776 he was sent across the sea again as minister to France, and there, as I have told you, he secured the friendship and aid of England's greatest enemy, and thus ended the Revolution. Then, after ten years' residence in France, he came home again to be made president or governor of his own State, after which he was sent once more to Congress, where he helped to frame the Constitution of the United States, of which he was the oldest signer. Three years later, in 1790, he died at his dearly-loved home in Phila- delphia, at eighty-four, and closed a life remarkable for great achievements and noble work for man- kind. That was a busy life indeed ! Sixty years of his eighty-four were spent for the good and glory of his native land. Three times he saved it from destruction, defeat, and anarchy, and he was the only man in all history who signed, in the course of his life and in the way of duty, four such great and immortal documents as the Declaration of In- dependence, the treaty of alliance between France and America, the treaty of peace between America and Great Britain, and the Constitution of the United States of America. Is not that a great record for a great American ? But Franklin's services to his country were but 28 HISTORIC AMERICANS. a part of what he accomplished; his services to humanity make an even longer catalogue. Even at the risk of being tedious I wish to give you a partial list of what America's "grand old man" did for the comfort, convenience, and bettering of mankind. He improved the printing-press and introduced stereotyping and manifold letter writing ; he sug- gested the practical use of kites, now being studied by many scientific men ; he cured chimnies of smoking ; improved the shape and rig of ships ; saw and explained the practical use of the Gulf stream ; and told sailors how to keep provisions fresh at sea. He improved soup plates for men and drinking- troughs for horses and cattle; he drained swamp lands and made them fertile and fruitful ; he im- proved fireplaces, studied out an excellent system of ventilation, and invented stoves. He showed how to heat public buildings, and invented automatic fans to cool hot rooms and drive away flies. He made double spectacles for near-sighted and far- sighted people, invented a musical instrument, and improved an electrical machine. He taught men that lightning was electricity, robbed it of its terrors, and made it do the will of man ; he invented lightning-rods, and was the first advocate of the painless killing of men and animals by electricity what we call electrocution. He started the first spelling reform ; he got up a system of phonography and shorthand ; he improved car- BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 29 riage wheels, windmills, and water-wheels ; he made a new departure in roofing and roof-covering ; he showed how oil on water would calm a rough sea ; suggested the discovery of the North Pole, and a northwest passage to Asia. He tested the pain- killing effects of ether ; he improved lamps and street-lighting, and showed how heat could be stored and put to practical use. He developed salt mines, invented sidewalks and street-crossings for Phila- delphia, and showed how the streets of a city could be swept and kept clean. He founded the first philosophical society in America, laid the foundation of our present post- office department, founded the first improvement club in America, the first free school outside of New England, the first public library, the first fire company, the first organized police force, the first periodical magazine, and the first Pennsylvania volunteer militia. He first told the world about the living poison in the air what we call microbes or germs. He in- troduced the idea of humanity in war, and the decent treatment of prisoners. He protected the Indians, founded the first anti-slavery society, and introduced into America from Europe seeds, vines, and vegetables never before grown in this land. I am not sure that I have given you a complete list ; but a few forgotten things will scarcely count in so long and remarkable a catalogue of the efforts of one man toward the bettering of his race. Do 30 HISTORIC AMERICANS. you wonder that I have called him one of the most re- markable men that has ever lived in all the world ? Even his enemies praised him, and he outlived all his foes. Real enemies indeed Franklin could not have. They simply could not remain enemies to such a man. " I have," he said, " some enemies in England ; but they are my enemies as an American. I have also two or three in America who are my enemies as a minister ; but I thank God there are not in the whole world any who are my enemies as a man. For, by His grace, through a long life, I have been enabled so to conduct myself that there does not exist a human being who can justly say, ' Ben Franklin has wronged me.' ' That was a grand record, was it not? But it was Franklin's record in all things. Lord Brougham, one of the ablest of English statesmen and scholars, declared that Franklin stood alone in combining the character of philosopher and politi- cian "the greatest," he said, "that man can sus- tain. For, having borne the first in enlarging science by one of the greatest discoveries ever made, he bore the second part in founding one of the greatest empires in the world." His life is full of charming stories which all young Americans should know how he peddled ballads in Boston, and stood, the guest of kings, in Europe ; how he worked his passage as a stow- away to Philadelphia, and rode in the queen's own litter in France; how he walked the streets of BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 31 Philadelphia, homeless and unknown, with three penny rolls for his breakfast, and dined at the tables of princes, and received his friends in a palace ; how he raised a kite from a cow-shed, and was showered with all the high degrees the colleges of the world could give ; how he was duped by a false friend as a boy, and became the friend of all hu- manity as a man ; how he was made Major-General Franklin, only to resign because, as he said, he was no soldier, and yet helped to organize the army that stood before the trained troops of England and Germany. These all are stories just as wonderful in their way as are the marvellous tales of the "Arabian Nights ; " but most marvellous of all is the simple fact of this Boston boy's career, for it can tell to the boys and girls of America the oft-re- peated story that in this Republic none can ever aspire too high, none need ever despair of success, if head and heart, brain and hand, be healthy and well-conditioned. This poor Boston boy, with scarcely a day's schooling, became master of six languages and never stopped studying ; this neglected apprentice tamed the lightning, made his name famous, received de- grees and diplomas from colleges in both hemi- spheres, and became forever remembered as " Doc- tor Franklin," philosopher, patriot, scientist, phi- lanthropist, and statesman. Self-made, self-taught, self-reared, the candle- maker's son gave light to all the world ; the street 32 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ballad-seller set all men singing of liberty ; the run- away apprentice became the most sought-after man of two continents, and brought his native land to praise and honor him. He wrought himself into the history of America. For, as McMaster says of him, "his face is as well known as the face of Washington ; and, save that of Washington, is the only one of his time that is now instantly recognized by the great mass of his countrymen. . . . Franklin was in truth the greatest American then living ; nor would it be safe to say that our country has, since that day, seen his like." We give him therefore a front place among his- toric Americans, because he really was such a great one great in heart as well as great in deeds. For Benjamin Franklin was the most evenly balanced man in all America. Witty, but never malicious ; inflexible, but never obstinate ; strong-willed, but never tyrannical ; the wisest man of his day, but never conceited ; a statesman, but never a mere politician ; an office-holder for over fifty years, but never an office-seeker, Benjamin Franklin had all the attributes of greatness with none of its vices, all the simplicity of success with none of its selfish- ness. With great intelligence and wonderful understanding he had still greater common sense, and while seeking few favors for himself, no man ever set on foot so many works of real and practi- cal benevolence. He lived at peace with the world, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 33 and his one regret when his long life came to an end was that he could not live fifty years longer to see the great advances in science and the world's good which he was sure would come in the nine- teenth century. He built America ; for what our Republic is to- day is largely due to the prudence, the forethought, the statesmanship, the enterprise, the wisdom, and the ability of Benjamin Franklin. He belongs to the world ; but especially does he belong to America. As the nations honored him while living, so the Republic glorifies him when dead, and has en- shrined him in the choicest of its niches the one he regarded as the loftiest : the hearts of the com- mon people, from whom he had sprung j^and in their hearts Franklin will live forever. III. THE STORY OF JAMES OTIS, OF BOSTON. Born at West Barnstable, Massachusetts, February 5, 1725. Died at Andover, Massachusetts, May 23, 1783. " From men like Otis, Independence grew; From such beginnings empire rose to view." Thomas Dawes. IT was a^aw February day in Boston town, and Mr. James Otis, advocate-general of the Colony of Massachusetts, buttoned his brown surtout closely about him, as he passed out through the round-topped doorway of his house on Court street and walked briskly on toward the Royal Exchange tavern, or Stone's, as the tavern was called "for short,"- on State street. It was at Stone's that the lawyers and politicians of old Boston met to talk things over before court was opened in the State House across the way. But though the day was raw the sturdy advocate- general did not feel nearly so much the sharp sea- turn that came in from the bay, damp and pene- trating, as he did the responsibility that was laid upon him and the pinch of the struggle between 34 JAMES OTIS. 35 duty and inclination. For Mr. Paxton, collector of customs for the king in Boston town, had deter- mined to put a stop to the "tax-dodging" of those merchants of Massachusetts who denied the king's right to collect such duties, and who smuggled or secreted goods in their own houses in order to avoid the dues. Under the laws made for the colony, in England, such places could be searched and, if resistance were made, the officers, under the authority of a paper called a Writ of Assistance, could request or compel any citizen to assist them in their forcible search of a private house. This law enraged the good people of the Bay Colony, but Mr. Paxton, the collector, was deter- mined to force his order through, and he had peti- tioned the Supreme Court, sitting in Boston, to grant these writs of assistance. It was the duty of the advocate-general to argue such a case as this before the court and secure the writ. So Mr. Paxton called upon Mr. James Otis, as advocate- general, to argue the case for the crown. But Mr. James Otis, the advocate-general, did not wish to do his official duty. He did not believe in the right of king or council to make such a law. "A man's house is his castle," he declared, "and while he is quiet he is as well guarded as a prince. If these writs of assistance are made legal no man is safe the privilege of safety at home is anni- hilated. Officers may enter our houses whenever they please and we cannot resist them. It is 36 HISTORIC AMERICANS, wrong ; it is totally wrong. No act of Parliament can make such a writ stand. I cannot I will not be party to it.*' James Otis was an impulsive man, of quick tem- per and of hasty speech, but he was a lover of right and justice and liberty. When he made up his mind, however, he was quick to act, and before the short walk between his house and " Stone's " was over he had determined upon his course. He would refuse to argue the writ. "But as judge-advocate you must argue it," said his friend Mr. Thacher, great lawyer and true patriot. " Your argument is right. The writ is not legal. Even what is binding in England cannot be used against us in America. But that is not for you to say. As advocate-general for the crown you must argue for the benefit of the crown ; there is no other way." " But there is a way, Thacher ! " cried James Otis, turning on his friend. " It is the way of every honest man out of a dishonest situation. Here, Master Stone" he demanded in his im- pulsive way, and the landlord of the " ordinary " hurried up to answer Mr. Otis's summons ; " some paper and a quill, quickly, please I " Then seated at a table in a quiet corner, while Mr. Thacher stood beside him, James Otis dashed off a few hasty lines and showed the letter to his friend. " That 's the way I can fix it," said he. JAMES OTIS. 37 It was the resignation of James Otis as advo- cate-general of the colony. It meant the loss of much practice, for which the crown paid good fees, but in the eyes of James Otis .loss of money was not to be compared with loss of honor. No sooner was the fact of this resignation known than the merchants of Salem and Boston, the two ports most affected by this odious search law, ap- plied to James Otis to take their case and argue against the writ. It would be before this very court, in which, as advocate-general, it would have been his duty to argue in behalf of the writ, and the opportunity was one which his impulsive nature could not resist. " I shall be glad to do it, gentlemen," he said to those who sought his aid ; but when they offered liberal fees in payment of his services Otis was as quick tempered as he had been with his friend Thacher. "Fees?" he cried; "fees, do you say? In such a case, gentlemen, I despise all fees," and he would take none ; for, in this case, resistance to what he considered tyranny was duty, and not a matter of business. This feeling grew within him as the time of the trial approached, and when, on a late day in that same month of February, 1761, he entered the court- room in the Old State House on State street, where the writ was to be argued, he was so inspired by 38 HISTORIC AMERICANS. his theme that he made one of the famous speeches of the world. The court-room they still show it to visitors, in the east end of the famous Old State House, pre- served as a memorial of patriotism by Boston town was filled with lawyers and interested listeners as Otis rose to speak, for the case was one that affected the safety and manhood of every citizen of the Bay State. Down upon this opponent of kingly prerogative looked the full-length portraits of Charles and James, kings of England both, who held to that ridiculous theory that " the king can do no wrong." Five judges in scarlet robes, wide bands, and mighty wigs, sat to hear the case, and central among them as chief-justice was Thomas Hutchinson, who combined in his single person the lucrative offices of lieutenant-governor of Massachusetts, chief-justice of the Superior Court of the colony, governor of the castle, mem- ber of the council, and judge of probate. Mr. Thacher, the friend and associate of Otis, had just completed an able, but mild and moderate speech when the " champion of the people " sprang to his feet. Already he was tingling with his theme ; at once he burst into an indignant protest against the drag the king would place on liberty. '' I take this opportunity to declare," Otis burst forth, "that, to my dying day, I will oppose with all the faculties God has given me, all such instru- JAMES OTIS. 39 ments of slavery on the one hand, and villany on the other, as this writ of assistance." This stirred the people. One young man, who later became a great factor in America's indepen- dence and progress, John Adams, of Quincy, was so aroused and electrified by the words he heard that, fifty-seven years after, he could repeat almost word for word the speech of Otis a speech which so aroused and awakened his patriotism that, as his grandson declared, "that speech of Otis was to Adams like the oath of Hamilcar administered to Hannibal." It made of the young man an instant patriot. "I was solicited," continued Otis, "to argue this cause as advocate-general ; and because I would not I have been charged with desertion of my office. To this charge I can give a very suffi- cient answer : I renounced that office, and I argue this cause from the same principle. . . . It is in opposition to a kind of power the exercise of which in former periods of English history " (here he glanced significantly to the two royal portraits on the wall) " cost one king of England his head and another his throne. ... I cheerfully sub- mit myself to every odious name for conscience' sake ; and from my soul I despise all those whose guilt, malice, or folly has made them my foes. Let the consequences be what they will, I am determined to proceed. The only principles of public conduct that are worthy of a gentleman or a man are to 40 HISTORIC AMERICANS. sacrifice estate, ease, health, applause, and even life, to the sacred call of his country." Then he went deeply into the case and for four hours the speech went on. Into it James Otis put all the strength of his mind, all the force of his indignation, all the splendor of his eloquence, all the brilliancy of his magnetic power. Parliament, he said, could not legalize tyranny. " Though it should be made in the very words of the petition," he declared, " it would be void, for every act against the Constitution is void." " Every man," he declared, "is individually inde- pendent. His right to his life, his liberty, and his property no created being can rightfully contest ; these rights are inherent and inalienable." It was just such language as this that, years after, opened the Declaration of Independence, which James Otis thus inspired. Individuals, he said, when associated together as a nation for mutual protection and defence did not surrender their natural rights. " Our ancestors, as British subjects," he said, " and we their de- scendants, as British subjects, were entitled to all those rights, and we are not to be cheated out of them by any phantom of virtual representation or any other fiction of law and politics." Then Otis explained what taxes were, when they were just, and laid down the doctrine that brought on the American Revolution. " Taxation without representation is tyranny." Acts imposing unjust JAMES OTIS. 41 or oppressive taxation, he declared, were tyrannical, and never had and never could be executed in America. " If the king of Great Britain, in per- son," he declared, " were encamped on Boston Com- mon at the head of twenty thousand men, with all his navy on our coast, he would not be able to ex- ecute those laws. They would be resisted or eluded." He grew bolder and more impassioned as he con- cluded. He denounced the taxation and revenue laws of England, "made by a foreign legislature without our consent, by a legislature which has no feeling for us and whose interest prompts them to tax us to the quick." Then he went on reproach- ing the British nation, Parliament, and king with injustice, illiberality, ingratitude, and oppression in their conduct toward the people of America, in a style of oratory, so John Adams reported, " that I have never heard equalled in this or any country." The grounds that James Otis took and the sen- timents he uttered in that famous five-hour speech do not sound strange to us. We have been brought up to believe in personal liberty, no taxation with- out' representation, and the security of house and home ; we have no need for such impassioned ap- peals or such attacks on royalty. We have no fear of royalty to-day, and we have a way of speaking our minds if things do not go to suit us in matters of state. But in that day it was treason to criticise ; it was crime to talk of liberty ; and the words of 42 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Otis came like a strong wind blowing down from the heights of freedom. " I do say in the most solemn manner," John Adams declared fifty years later, " that Mr. Otis's oration against writs of assistance breathed into this nation the breath of life." It set people thinking ; it gave them courage ; it put into expression that feeling that something was wrong in the acts of Great Britain, which, later, took definite shape at Lexington and Concord, and burst into the protest of freemen in the Declaration of Independence. " This was the opening scene of American resist- ance," John Adams wrote to a friend. " It began in New England and made its first battle-ground in a court-room. A lawyer of Boston, with a tongue of flame and the inspiration of a seer, stepped for- ward to demonstrate that all arbitrary authority was unconstitutional and against the law. Then and there, in that court-room, the child Indepen- dence was born." The judges were against him and their decision was adverse ; but the writs were not issued pub- licly. The people were aroused, and the seeds planted by the words of Otis in time burst forth, grew, and blossomed into a righteous and successful resistance to tyranny. His speech made patriots, and those patriots in time made America free. The story of James Otis is one of the tragedies of the American Revolution. His was a brief but JAMES OTIS. 43 brilliant career, as sad in its ending as it was prom- ising at its opening. Born on Cape Cod, a student* of law in Boston, with excellent connections, oppor- tunities, and abilities, he sacrificed, as he declared himself ready to do in that impressive speech, "estate, ease, health, applause, and even life, to the sacred call of his country." Enlisted on the side of the people he devoted himself to their cause. He neglected his private practice to labor in their behalf. He served them in the Legislature of Massachusetts, and wrote and spoke on the rights of the colonies and the evils of taxation without representation. He proposed and largely brought about the first Colonial Congress, of which he was a member, and when the rising spirit of resistance alarmed the British government and induced it to send troops to America and quarter them upon the people of Boston, Otis protested with all his fiery eloquence. . . . When the Superior Court met in the State House and found a body of British troops posted outside the building, and even quartered within it, Otis moved at once that the court should adjourn to Faneuil hall, for, he declared, " it is utterly deroga- tory to this court to attempt to administer justice at the points of bayonets and the mouths of can- non." He advocated the appointment of a com- mittee to remonstrate against the occupation of the town by an armed force, and to demand of the governor that this force be removed " by sea 44 HISTORIC AMERICANS. and land, out of the port and the gates of this city." The boldness of his stand and the vigor of his language raised up many enemies for him in Massa- chusetts, especially in Boston, where British troops were stationed and Tories abounded. Otis was neither careful of his words nor cautious in his actions, and on the evening of the fifth of Septem- ber in the year 1764 he was set upon by certain Tories and British sympathizers in a Boston tavern, and so brutally beaten over the head as to make him ever after an irresponsible and often crazy invalid. He was the first eminent martyr to the cause of American independence. For nearly fourteen years he lived this almost useless life, rousing at intervals and flaming up into the most fervid patriotism, only to break down at the most important moment and drop again into semi-insanity. At last, on the twenty-third of May, 1T83, the very year that saw the triumph of his principles and the dawn of independence for America, he was struck by lightning as he stood in the doorway of his sister's house at Andover, and died at once, a brilliant intellect weakened by his own careless- ness and the assault of a brutal enemy. To-day, historians in their study of American history agree in proclaiming James Otis as the prophet and forerunner of American independence. He vindicated the rights of Americans to represen- JAMES OTIS. 45 tation, justice, and liberty ; he was their open and acknowledged leader in the dawning days of resist- ance to British tyranny ; he led the way to organi- zation and action and became at once the oracle and guide of the patriots of struggling America. He was full of faults and contrasts of character, but to-day these all are forgotten. Impetuous and commanding, sound and just in his advice as a statesman, self-sacrificing and devoted in his stand as a patriot, he won a foremost place among those historic Americans who bore the colonies upward to protest, to revolution, and to victory, and by his burning words, which made him, as John Adams declared, " a flame of fire," he set alight the spark that burst at length into the glorious beacon-fire that lighted the world forward on its path of liberty, progress, and achievement. IV. THE STORY OF GEORGE WASHINGTON, OF MOUNT VERNON, CALLED THE "FATHER OF HIS COUNTRY." Born at Wakefteld, Virginia, February 22, 1732. Died at Mount Vernon, Virginia, December 14, 1799. " No nobler figure ever stood in the forefront of a nation's life." John Richard Green. ON a breezy hill-slope, overlooking a broad and beautiful river, there stands to-day, as it has stood for fully two hundred years, a comfortable stone farmhouse, with low, sweeping roof, wide gables, and ample chimneys. All about it are well-kept lawns studded with warlike memorials ; about it press close the life and bustle of a vigorous- river- town; while beyond it, on a sightly crest, rises a massive outlook the tower of Victory. The place is Newburgh-on-the-Hudson ; the house is the old Dutch homestead known as the Has- brouck house, but forever famous throughout Amer- ica as Washington's headquarters. Within this stone farmhouse on a pleasant May day in the year 1782, in a long, low room pierced 46 GEORGE WASHINGTON. 47 with seven doors and but one window, sat a noble- looking man. Big-framed, large-featured, strong of face and stout of limb, his general's uniform of buff and blue well displayed his commanding figure, while the natural dignity of his bearing made all about him small by comparison, and noticeable only by contrast. That man was Gen- eral George Washington, commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States. The general sat at a long, rough table upon which had just been served a simple meal in keep- ing with the plainness of the room. The single dish of meat had not yet been removed; the re- mains of a great pie still smoked on the platter; beside the plates stood the half-emptied glasses and silver goblets ; while the Spartan dessert of winter apples and nuts, supplied by the farmers of the Hudson valley, lay scatterd about the fru- gal mess-table of the commander of the American forces. The general drummed silently upon the table with his fork a favorite motion of his or ab- stractedly picked away at the nut meats, talking meanwhile with his much-loved comrade-in-arms, General Knox, who was dining with him that day. Farther down the table, Mrs. Washington and Mrs. Knox discussed with Major Villefranche, the French engineer, the best plan for trimming and decorating the great arbor under which the general and his guests were to joyfully celebrate the next 48 HISTORIC AMERICANS. week the birth of that unfortunate prince whose sad fate is even yet a mystery, the dauphin of France, son of that King Louis XVI. who, by the influence of Benjamin Franklin, had become the ally and friend of the struggling Republic. The general was troubled. For, now that York- town had been won and the Republic had tri- umphed, the strain of the actual strife was over and the soldiers of the new Union had time to grumble and leisure to complain. It is always thus with every victorious army in the space between the close of fighting and the establishment of peace. In this case there were ample reasons for dis- satisfaction and complaint. The freemen of the United States were jealous of a trained army, fearful of its power, and with the lessons of the past in mind, anxious to have it disbanded before it might misuse its strength. Their representa- tives in Congress shared this anxiety, and yet had no immediate means to pay the arrears due to the soldiers for years of faithful service, or even to satisfy their immediate needs. Unpaid, poorly fed, and still more poorly clothed, with their families at home suffering for the very necessities of life, and longing for the return of the bread-winners, both soldiers and officers chafed under the delays and negligence of an apparently unconcerned Congress and clamored for relief. At times this clamor broke out into indignant de- mands, even into open revolt, stilled or compro- GEORGE WASHINGTON. |9 mised only by the great influence of Washington, who recognized the injustice of the treatment accorded his veterans, while at the same time he appreciated the financial and political weakness of Congress and the country. He, too, was aware of the possibilities of his trained soldiers for evil, if once they asserted their power and determined, as an army, to take matters into their own hands. Already mutterings of re- volt and threats of extreme measures had reached him, and he knew that, should he but speak the word, those mutterings and threats would crystallize into instant action, and the liberty the army had fought for might be turned into anarchy or military despotism. When a man knows his power and is still a patriot, that is a sign of moral as well as of personal greatness. So, as he talked over the situation with General Knox and sought for some method of relief or of compromise, his great heart was troubled, and he drummed the table abstractedly. Just then Billy, the faithful body-servant, approached him. " Letters, general," he said. " Colonel Tilghman, sir, says a courier from below has just brought you this," and he handed the general a letter, with the inquiry, " Shall I take it to your study general ? " " No, Billy ; if the ladies will pardon me I will read it here," the courteous commander replied ; and, on the sign of assent, he turned from the table and began to read the letter. 5U HISTORIC AMERICANS. As he read, a flush sprang to that pale face, and the signs of worry that sometimes marked those strong, calm features gave place to astonishment, anger, and disgust. He read the letter through, laid it down, reread it, and then with a quick motion handed it to General Knox. " Read that, general," he said, and watching his friend's face resumed again the fork-drumming that was the accompaniment to deep thinking. " Another, eh ? " said Knox, as the first words of the letter met his eye. He looked at the signa- ture. " From Colonel Nicola, at the camp. I 've heard him talk before. Well, what does he say ? " And the hero of Trenton, Monmouth, and York- town, the great general's faithful comrade and friend, dashed through the letter with characteristic speed. Even as he read, the frown on the face of Wash- ington deepened and then disappeared ; the flush of anger reddened perceptibly, and then faded from cheek and brow ; dignity and calm came again to a countenance not often marked by the passionate nature that, nevertheless, lay deep in the heart of this remarkable leader of men. Then, as the eyes of Knox sought those of his chief in faith and inquiry, Washington took the letter from his hand and, without a word, rising from the table he passed into the room that served him as a study. The ladies turned an inquiring eye upon the general of artillery. GEORGE WASHINGTON. 51 " His Excellency laid no ban upon me, ladies," Knox said in reply to those questioning glances. " I think I betray no confidences when I say that he has received the most singular and uncalled-for letter I have ever known to be sent him. Colonel Nicola, ladies, despairs of the Republic. He urges the general to use the army for the setting-up of an energetic government, and, it would seem, in its name, invites George Washington, of all men, to make himself king of America." That, indeed, was in substance the contents of the letter brought by special courier to Washing- ton, as he sat at dinner in the Hasbrouck house at Newburgh on that May day in 1782. It was the opportunity that had come to great leaders before his day, that has come to them since. Csesar, Crom- well, Napoleon, all were tempted with this dream of power, and each one of them either dallied with it, and compromised, or yielded to it, and fell. But George Washington was made of nobler stuff than either of these men, great and noble though they were. The dream of sovereign power found no place in his unselfish heart. He hesi- tated not a moment. Indeed, he spurned the prop- osition, so Professor Channing assures us, " in a manner which has separated him from all other successful leaders in civil strife since the. days of the Roman republic." At once he despatched his answer to the veteran who had sought to swerve him from the duty of patriotism. 52 HISTORIC AMERICANS. " With a mixture of surprise and astonishment," he wrote Colonel Nicola, " I have read with atten- tion the sentiments you have submitted to my perusal. Be assured, sir, no occurrence in the course of the war has given me more painful sensa- tions than your information of there being such ideas existing in the army as you have expressed, and which I must view with abhorrence and repre- hend with severity. ... I am much at a loss to conceive what part of my conduct could have given encouragement to such an address, which to me seems big with the greatest mischiefs that can befall my country. If I am not deceived in the knowledge of myself you could not have found a person to whom your schemes are more disagree- able. . . . Let me conjure you, if you have any regard for your country, concern for yourself or posterity, or respect for me, banish these thoughts from your mind, and never communicate, as from yourself or any one else, a sentiment of the like nature." That settled the king-making idea. Never again did a man dare, by such a proposition, to assail the honor or misjudge the patriotism of George Wash- ington, gentleman. To me, boys and girls, that instant of surprising temptation, righteous anger, and indignant reply marks one of the greatest moments in the life of America's greatest man " the only man, in fact," so Lord Brougham, the Englishman, declared, GEORGE WASHINGTON. 53 " upon whom the epithet ' great,' so thoughtlessly lavished by men, may be justly bestowed." The story of the life of George Washington, soldier, statesman, and patriot, is known to all Americans. But let us briefly recall it here. It can never be told too often. In a plain little farmhouse, set in the midst of broad acres bordering upon a beautiful river, George Washington was born on the twenty-second of February, 1732. To-day the place is known as Wakefield. It is in Westmoreland county, in the State of Virginia, and a trim white shaft now marks the site of the long-vanished farmhouse of Augus- tine Washington, the father of America's mightiest man. There was nothing in the surrounding of George Washington, or in his upbringing or advantages, that could have foretold the future greatness of the small boy who played upon the green banks of the Potomac. But he grew slowly, through a healthy and happy boyhood, to a helpful and noble man- hood. He was the best kind of a boy : manly, if sometimes self-willed ; generous, if sometimes over- masterful. He was fearless, daring, good-natured, quiet, and orderly, a boy that hated a lie, never did a mean or underhanded action, and early learned the lesson of obedience to parents, respect toward older people, and kindness to all. He was a strong and active boy. In all the section in which he lived there was no better run- 54 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ner or rider, wrestler or athlete. He loved the sea, but gave up his wish to become a sailor be- cause his mother needed him at home. He became a surveyor, tramped over the broken and forest- fringed lands of Virginia, until he was as much at home in the wood as a trapper, and knew and loved that free, health-giving forest life. Even at sixteen he was a sinewy, athletic, handsome young fellow, almost 'six feet tall, well-shaped though a trifle lean, long-armed, energetic, strong, and mus- cular. He had light-brown hair, grayish-blue eyes, a firm mouth, a frank and manly face, and he had a way about him that attracted people to him and made them like him, even though he was quiet, undemonstrative, and retiring, while there was in his face a look that compelled people to obey him whenever he was in a position to direct, counsel, or command. Such a position came to him even while he was a young man. He was brought into active service as one of the promising young fellows of the Colony of Virginia, simply because he was to be relied upon, and knew just what to do in times of trial or danger. The young surveyor became a soldier and led an expedition against the French trespassers on English territory when he was but twenty-one years old. He displayed an ability in leadership that set people to talking about him even then, and when, by his bravery and coolness alone he saved from utter massacre that disgraceful defeat GEORGE WASHINGTON. 55 of Braddock which Benjamin Franklin, as I have told you, tried to prevent, people talked about young George Washington all the more, and began to look to this strong, quiet man for advice and guidance. When at last trouble actually did come between the thirteen American colonies and their mother country, England, and war at last began, the Ameri- can people needed a leader to command their armies and fight their battles. At once this strpng-souled, persistent, manly Virginia colonel was selected. He left his beloved home at Mount Vernon beside the broad Potomac, answering the call of Con- gress, and thus at forty-four George Washington became the general-in-chief of the undisciplined but patriotic American army. You know the story of his military career. For seven years he was alike leader and mainstay of the Americans through the long and bitter war for independence known as the American Revolution. Slowly but surely he developed into a great gen- eral. Others might doubt the issue, but his faith grew ever firmer; others might despair, but he clearly saw the end; when others wavered he stood unmoved, serene, and confident. He made an army out of a mob; he wrested victory from defeat and made even his disasters incentives to fresh effort. He was never cast down by failure, never dismayed by treachery, never headstrong in the hour of triumph. He planned 56 HISTORIC AMERICANS. perfectly. His retreats were victories, his surprises were successes, even his defeats were steps toward mastery. Jealousies did not move him, conspira- cies did not weaken him, treason did not unman him. Alike through defeats and successes he kept steadily on along the path of duty, striking telling blows where they were most needed and when they were least expected, until by his patience, his per- severance, his confidence, and his ability, he carried the struggling people who trusted him and the army who followed him implicitly on from the masterly siege of Boston to the final victory at Yorktown, and was hailed as deliverer and con- queror, the patriot of patriots, and the Father of his Country. When the new nation was at last firmly estab- lished, and the Constitution of the United States which he had helped to frame became the law of the land, George Washington, by the voice of the whole people, was chosen to direct the affairs of the Republic. He was twice elected president of the United States, and through eight trying and burdensome years he served his country as its chief executive with the same unselfishness, the same pure patriotism, the same high sense of duty, the same wisdom and ability, that had made him the successful leader in the war for independence, and went into history as America's greatest soldier and mightiest man in the early days of the Repub- lic. GEORGE WASHINGTON. 57 Then, his duty done, his labor over, his great life-work completed, he became once again a farmer and country gentleman at his dear Mount Vernon home, and there, on the fourteenth of December, in the year 1799, he died at sixty-seven, beloved by America and honored by all the world. " The purest figure in history," Mr. Gladstone, the Englishman, has called him ; and while all nations are divided in opinion as to their greatest men, all the world unites in elevating George Washington to the undisputed place which one thoughtful studerrt of mankind has given him " the greatest man of our own or any age." Let all the young people of America who may question the enthusiastc verdict of Washington's own coun- trymen as " a bit biased " read the glowing lines of Byron, the poet of England's supremacy, in which he described for Englishmen the great American : " Where may the wearied eye repose When gazing on the Great, Where neither guilty glory glows Nor despicable state ? Yes, one the first, the last, the best The Cincinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate Bequeath the name of Washington, To make men blush there was but one ! " t Truth is not always the real truth when told by flaw-hunters. The " true George Washington " is something nobler than latter-day critics can draw 58 HISTORIC AMERICANS. for us, and as you seek to sum up the life of the most historic of Americans you can set down this of George Washington: He had his failings, as all men have ; but no man in all the world had so few, or was so completely the conqueror of himself. As a boy he was honest, upright, truthful, obedient, and brave, the leader of his playmates, a boy whom all his comrades admired, looked up to, and followed. As a young man he was reliable, adventurous, courageous, manly, pure, and strong, never a grum- bler, a shirker, or a boaster, never a bully, a time- server, or a self-seeker. As a man he was what we call a leader of men ; he was clear-headed, clean- hearted, seeing what was to be done and doing it, or setting others to do it when he had shown the way, never trying to get the best of others, never jealous himself or disturbed by the jealousies of smaller men, however hard they tried to upset his carefully laid plans or assail his reputation ; he was a planner of great things and a doer of them as well just the man for just the work demanded in well laying the foundations of a great nation. A lover of children, a lover of his country, a lover of liberty, of order, and of law, a patriot in the highest sense of the word, such was George Washington. The fanner boy of the Potomac be- came the noblest of rulers. In truthfulness, in integrity, in endurance, in wisdom, in justice, in devotion to duty and loyalty to purpose, he stands supreme, at once the model to those in authority, GEORGE WASHINGTON. 59 an ideal and example for us all. " First in war, first in peace, first in the hearts of his country- men," he will ever stand a noble and enduring memory, and the boys and girls of America can never go far wrong or be untrue to the Republic so long as they read and reread and take to heart in all honor, reverence, and love the glorious story of George Washington, of Mount Vernou. V. THE STORY OF SAMUEL ADAMS, OF BOSTON, CALLED "THE FATHER OF THE REVOLUTION." Born at Boston, Massachusetts, September 27, 1722. Died at Boston, Massachusetts, October 2, 1805. u A man whom Plutarch, if he had only lived late enough, would have delighted to include in his gallery of worthies, a man who, in the history of the American Revolution, is second only to Washington Samuel Adams." John Fiske. THE fugitives paused on the crest of a ridge just beyond Granny's hill, and looked back toward the town. In the east the day was just breaking, for the dawn comes early about Lexington in April ; through the scant spring foliage they could catch glimpses of the vanishing forms of Sergeant Munroe and his guard of eight minute-men, from Captain Parker's Lexington company, for this escort had left the fugitives on the Woburn road, and had at once hurried back to join their comrades on the Common. Only a little while the watchers waited ; then there came to their ears from the village green the indistinguishable command which all the world has 60 SAMUEL ADAMS. 61 heard now, better than did those listening fugitives on the distant hill : " Disperse, ye rebels ! ye cow- ards, lay down your arms and disperse ! " Then followed other indistinguishable shouts, the fatal pistol shot, never yet explained, the rattle of arms, and the historic, unanswered volley that made up the battle of Lexington. And as these sounds climaxed in the volley of British guns one of the fugitives on the hill turned on the other and made what is set down as " one of the few exultant out- bursts of his life." " What a glorious morning is this for America ! " he exclaimed ; for he knew that the result he had long foreseen had come at last, and in what he con- sidered the right way. The British soldiers had fired first ; the blame and the responsibility were theirs ; conciliation was impossible ; the conflict had begun. England was in the wrong. For a brief space they stood, listening intently ; then, not knowing what orders concerning them the vindictive Gage had given his redcoats, the two fugitives hurried on to Burlington, and thence to Billerica, where they made a substantial dinner off cold salt pork and boiled potatoes, served in a wooden tray. Then they were up and off again. And so at last they made their risky way to Phila- delphia and the Continental Congress. For those two fugitives on the Lexington hill on that nineteenth day of April, in the year 1775, were two historic Americans Samuel Adams, the 62 HISTORIC AMERICANS. patriot, and John Hancock, whose bold signature we know so well as it heads the signers of the Declara- tion of Independence. And it was Samuel Adams who made the enthusiastic remark, as upon his ears fell the crack of the British guns at Lexington. He had long been preparing for that important event. Away back in his college days he had felt it coming. For at Harvard he had made resistance to tyrants the theme of his Commencement oration : " Is it lawful to resist the supreme magistrate if the Commonwealth cannot otherwise be protected ? " And the young A.M. distinctly announced that it was not only lawful but imperative. From that day forward the right of Americans to resistance and to liberty had been his chief thought, even when others repudiated the idea of independence, and reiterated their loyalty to the king. But Samuel Adams educated the people to re- sistance. To the neglect of his business and his personal comfort and desires he took up the grand idea of personal liberty and direct representation, and drew his fellow-countrymen away from old to new truths. Samuel Adams was Boston born and bred. Reared in his father's fine old house on 'Purchase street in that sturdy, democratic old town, he was instructed in its schools, developed amid its in- fluences, and early called to share in its affairs, as a sober-minded, well-balanced, public-spirited young man. SAMUEL ADAMS. 63 He was an associate of James Otis in all plans that touched the public welfare, distancing even that ardent and impulsive patriot in his opposition to British measures and methods. He made the life of the royal governor Bernard a burden and finally forced him from his post ; he waged a never- ending feud with Hutchinson, chief-justice and later governor ; he fought with vigor the kingly attempts to fasten a state church upon Puritan New Eng- land ; he succeeded to the leadership of the patriot party when Otis had been beaten into insanity ; he denounced unsparingly and unceasingly the quar- tering of British troops in Boston, and, after the Boston massacre, actually succeeded in having the obnoxious regiments removed from the rebellious town; he led and strengthened public opinion through the colony by his advice to the towns and his practical use of the great power of the town- meetings those assemblies in which New Eng- land people freely spoke their minds ; he organized the opposition of the people against the hated Stamp Act and advised the action that led to the famous " Boston tea party ; " by letters and speeches, by conferences and counsel, he drew his countrymen into a union for mutual protection against the en- croachments of the British crown ; he helped form the Committees of Correspondence by which the different colonies came into touch and accord with each other on the subject of concerted action; he advocated the Congress of the Colonies which James 64 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Otis had first proposed, and he labored to bring it about ; he went as a delegate to the first Continen- tal Congress at Philadelphia, and there took a stand as the uncompromising opponent of all concessions to the British crown and as the open advocate of independence ; he recommended and took part in the Provincial Congress of Massa- chusetts at Concord, and when, in the Continen- tal Congress, 'fears were expressed lest the bold stand of the colonies should lead to an open rupture with England, it was Samuel Adams who bravely declared, "I should advise persisting in our struggle for liberty though it were revealed from heaven that nine hundred and ninety-nine were to perish and only one of a thousand to survive and retain his liberty. One such free- man," he said, " must possess more virtue and enjoy more happiness than a thousand slaves ; let him propagate his like and transmit to them what he has so nobly preserved/' So bold and outspoken an enemy to kingly au- thority could not but be a marked man, and it is no wonder that the British government wished to silence him, or that Gage, the British commander in Boston, sought to arrest and imprison Samuel Adams as a rebel to the king. That watchful patriot was wary, however, and the general was slow to act. But when Adams saw that more soldiers were coming from England he warned the people to be ready for them and to oppose, if need be, an ex- SAMUEL ADAMS. 65 pedition of troops out of Boston to search for con- cealed arms or warlike supplies. It was this warning that led to the active prep- arations of the New England militia, and especially of the minute-men of Massachusetts ; it was this, therefore, that induced the rallying of the minute- men when Paul Revere and his compatriot, William Dawes, galloped out from Boston to warn the country towns of the coming of the regulars ; and it was because of this that we may claim for Samuel Adams the credit and responsibility for the now immortal battle of Lexington. When that clash came Samuel Adams saw that his determined and persistent efforts had at last borne fruit ; he felt that resistance to tyranny had indeed taken form, and that the spirit of the people was aroused for a stand for right, for justice, and for liberty. Do you wonder, then, that, as he and John Hancock, arch-rebels both, and fugitives from British oppression and persecution, stood on Granny hill in Lexington, on the nineteenth of April, 1775, and heard from the Common the sounds of resist- ance and conflict, he should have exclaimed thank- fully and with an enthusiasm not often displayed by one so sober and self-contained, " What a glorious morning is this for America " ? In that open act of popular resistance Samuel Adams, patriot and lover of liberty, recognized the dawning of a new clay for America the sunrise^ of independence. When the tidings of that bloody day at Lexington 66 HISTORIC AMERICANS. and Concord and the tidings of the twenty-mile harrying of the redcoats by the aroused farmers of Middlesex were speeding through the colonies, arousing them to action, Samuel Adams was posting south to Philadelphia to join his associates in the second Continental Congress. That Congress was still slow to act, and while they hesitated and tem- porized, considering new and useless appeals to king and Parliament, Samuel Adams stood almost alone as the champion of absolute independence. Gradu- ally, however, men came to his opinion ; one after another they joined him in his firm and uncom- promising stand, and at last on the fourth of July, 1776, Samuel Adams saw the fulfilment of his hopes and the fruitage of his high desires in the passage and signing of the Declaration of Inde- pendence. For Samuel Adams," so one writer declares, " that was the most triumphant moment of his life." Even his enemies admitted his great power in this leadership of the forces of revolt. One of them said of him at that time : " Samuel Adams is the Cromwell of New England ; to his intriguing arts the Declaration of Independence is in great measure to be attributed ; " and Governor Hutch- inson, then a fugitive in London, assured King George that Samuel Adams was the arch-rebel of the colonies, for the reason that " he was the first that publicly asserted the independency of the colonies upon the kingdom." SAMUEL ADAMS, 67 As for Samuel Adams's fellow-countrymen, we are told how they regarded him in those years of his crowning triumph. John Adams, of Massachu- setts, his kinsman and associate in Congress, de- clared that " Sam Adams was born and tempered a wedge of steel to split the knot of lignum vitce that tied America to England." Josiah Quincy, an ardent patriot, seeking health in England, wrote : 44 1 find many here who consider Samuel Adams the first politician in the world. I have found more reason every day to convince me that he has been right when others supposed him wrong ; " and Thomas Jefferson said, " If there was any Palinu- rus " that is, pilot " to the Revolution, Samuel Adams was the man. Indeed, in the Eastern States, for a year or two after it began, he was, truly, the ' Man of the Revolution ; ' and of his influence in the Continental Congress Jefferson said, " Samuel Adams was so rigorously logical, so clear in his views, abundant in good sense and master always of his subject, that he commanded the most profound attention whenever he rose in an assembly by which the froth of declamation was heard with the most sovereign contempt." How far he was the " Man of the Revolution " in New England, as Jefferson declared, you have seen in the brief summary of his fearless actions in behalf of independence, and his education of the people of the Massachusetts towns in lessons of liberty. But with the signing of the Declaration 68 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of Independence his great life-work practically came to an end. " Had he died then," one of his biographers admits, " his fame would have been as great as it is now. What further he accomplished, though often of value, an ordinary man might have performed." He seems to have been raised up to show the people the only clear path to inde- pendence ; after that the leadership was taken by others. Historians tell us that Samuel Adams was what they term " the architect of ruin " that is, he carefully and persistently planned the overthrow of kingly authority in America ; that was his mission ; he was fitted neither to plan nor organize the suc- cessful Republic. You can see from the glimpses I have given you of the man and his career that his work was destructive rather than preservative. He was, as you have seen, a rebel against the Brit- ish throne from boyhood, and this in spite of the fact that both he and his father were, at one time in their lives, tax-collectors for the crown. You have seen that almost his first notable oration at college was a plea for resistance to tyranny, and that his entrance into public life was as the declared oppo- nent of the kingly prerogative. He was the leader and chosen representative of the restless and aggres- sive people the "tribune of the yeomanry," as some one called him. He advocated and organized rebellion; he urged on the farmers of Middlesex to stand their ground at Lexington and Concord ; SAMUEL ADAMS. 69 and when they had " fired the shot heard round the world," as Emerson puts it, none was more jubi- lant, none more enthusiastic, than Samuel Adams. This was all destructive work, you see, the over- throw of constituted authority in America. When it cam6 to upbuilding, the new nation looked to other hands than those of Samuel Adams. Throughout the Revolution he served in the Congress, but his posi- tion was rather that of a critic than a leader. And when the government began to take definite shape, and the plan of departments that was finally adopted as most practical was proposed, Samuel Adams strongly opposed it. He objected to the establish- ment of a State Department, of a War Department, and of a Treasury Department the leading execu- tive branches of our government and the chief presidential helpers. Instead, he advocated the out- grown and cumbersome conduct of those important departments by committees of Congress, as had been the method during the Revolution. It would have been a great mistake had his plan been carried out ; but even in this opposition he was the same Samuel Adams fearful of the concentration of authority in the president, fearful lest that office become a " one man power " or tyranny, and desir- ous of having all government and all direction come from the people, through committees selected from them the people whose servant and leader, whose advocate and mouthpiece, he had been so long. He disliked to exchange the old Articles of Con- 70 HISTORIC AMERICANS. federation of 1781 which he had helped draw up for the Constitution of 1789, under which we live to-day. The Constitution would centralize things, he feared; the independence of the separate and sovereign States would be given up ; and so, not liking the new order of things, he went home to Massachusetts. There he worked in his beloved town-meetings the people's tribunals to help the Common- wealth of Massachusetts prepare and adopt a State Constitution ; there he served the Commonwealth as lieutenant-governor and governor; and- there he outlived the century which he had helped to make both notable and historic, dying at last on the second of October in the year 1803, in his house on Winter street in his beloved home-town of Boston, so beloved by him and so much a part of his very existence that one of his associates and fellow- workers declared, in just a bit of good-natured com- plaining, " Samuel Adams would have the State of Massachusetts govern the Union, the town of Bos- ton govern Massachusetts, and Samuel Adams 'gov- ern the town of Boston. Then, he believes, the whole would not be ill-governed." Samuel Adams, you see, was a patriot for his own times and genera- tion. The Samuel Adams of the America of 1775 would be out of place, lost, and confounded in the America of 1900. How much his State and town revered the stout old patriot let me show you. SAMUEL ADAMS. 71 There had been an election in Massachusetts the hotly contested State election of 1800. The political opponent of the old ex-governor had been elected, and he himself was rather despairing of the Republic. Inauguration day came, and, up Winter street in Boston to\Vn, marched the great procession escorting the governor to the State House on the hill. There were bands of music, flags and banners, parading troops and political clubs, all jubilant over their victory and filling the narrow Boston street with noise and show and color. As they passed the modest house on the corner of what is to-day Winter street and Winter place and where, in recent years, a tablet has been erected in honor of " the Father of the Revolution " who once lived on that corner, the old patriot, then nearly eighty years old, was observed by the new governor watching the parade from his window. " Halt ! " commanded the governor-elect, and pro- cession and music alike came to a stop. Then stepping from his carriage, while the troops pre- sented arms and the people waited uncovered, the new governor political rival and opponent though he was stood with bared head and extended hands before the door of Samuel Adams, and, in a few brief but tender words, did graceful honor to his political opponent the patriot and leader of the people, whose efforts had freed the colonies and given liberty and independence to the land. For the times comes the man. Revolution was 72 HISTORIC AMERICANS. inevitable, and God raised up Samuel Adams to be its organizer and earliest leader. Beneath the bronze statue of this historic American where it stands amid the rush and bustle of what is now called Adams square in the city of Boston you may read this estimate of the man : " A statesman incorruptible and fearless." And that is strictly true. As rugged and immovable as the great bowlder that, as the century closes, has been placed above his resting-place in the Old Granary bury- ing-ground, in Boston town, Samuel Adams was at once grand and noble, a fearless, sincere, unyield- ing, and incorruptible patriot, a true American. And free America owes much to Samuel Adams. He proposed the Revolution ; he advocated the Continental Congress ; he signed the Declaration of Independence ; and was so sharp a thorn in the side of the British Government and of the British generals that they tried first to bribe and then to kill him. But they could neither bribe nor kill him. He lived to see the redcoats of King George driven from Boston and, in time, from America ; he lived to hail the final triumph of the principles for which he labored and suffered, and to see the people whose welfare he held above all selfish con- siderations of gain or position free and indepen- dent Americans, beginners and designers of a nation whose greatness even he could not comprehend or prophesy. VI. THE STORY OF PATRICK HENRY, OF VIRGINIA. Born at Studley, Virginia, May 29, 1738. Died at Red Hill, Virginia, June 6, 1799. "Patrick Henry disdained submission; by him Virginia rang the alarm bell for the continent." George Bancroft. " A KING, by annulling or disallowing acts of so salutary a measure, from being the father of his people degenerates into a tyrant, and forfeits all right to his subjects' obedience." The young lawyer paused for an instant ; but in that instant men had sprung to their feet. " Trea- son ! Treason ! " came the cry from different parts of the crowded court-room, and Mr. Lyons, the oppos- ing counsel, appealed hotly to the bench where sat the young lawyer's own father as presiding justice. " Treason ; the gentleman has spoken treason," he cried. " Will your worships listen to that without showing your disapproval ? " Their worships said nothing. Instead, they sat mute and spellbound under the surprising flow of eloquence from the lips of one whom they had con- sidered neither orator, pleader, nor lawyer, but who 73 74 now, at one bound and by a sudden burst of eloquence, sprang into popularity, fame, and leader- ship. The place was the stuffy little court-house in the county-seat of Hanover, in the Colony of Virginia ; the time was the first day of December, 1763 ; the man was Patrick Henry. He was arguing on the wrong side of an impor- tant case, in which both law and precedent were absolutely against him. It was a case of taxes, in which the council of the king of England had deliberately and contemptuously set aside a law made by the colony. In this case the king's council was right as to judgment, but wrong as to action. The law it " disallowed " was an unjust one ; but the high-handed manner in which king and council overruled and annulled it was not to be borne by the liberty and justice loving colonists who had enacted it. That was the way in which the matter appeared to Patrick Henry, when, as a forlorn hope, he took up a case which other lawyers would not touch. " The king of England has no right to meddle in the law-making of this colony. Virginia can look out for herself," he said, and in this spirit he de- fended a losing case and by his eloquence, earnest- ness, and argument overruled the judgment of the court, turned a defeat into victory, and won the case he had championed for his clients the people. PATRICK HENRY. 75 This celebrated case known in American history as " the Parson's Cause " made the name and established the fame of Patrick Henry as a resistless pleader and an impassioned orator. Up to that date he had not been a success. The son of a Virginia gentleman of small means, young Patrick Henry was left to himself for amusement and education, obtaining a good deal more of the first than of the second. He was a careless, happy-go- lucky country boy of the pleasant region of middle Virginia, loving hunting and fishing more than study and loafing more than books, never suc- ceeding at anything, and sticking to nothing long. He failed as a farmer, failed in business, married a tavern-keeper's daughter when he had nothing on which to support her, and, failing at every- thing else, hastily concluded to try the law. He failed even in his examinations for that, and was only admitted to the bar through the good-nature of one of the examining lawyers and because of his own success at arguing the other out of a careless indifference. Such a man does not seem fitted to champion a great cause or teach new ideas to an energetic people. But something above the opportunity that lay beneath the Par- son's Cause inspired and held young Henry; it gave him an earnestness that surprised and an eloquence that electrified his hearers ; and those who hung their heads for shame when Patrick Henry began to speak, lifted him from the floor as 76 HISTORIC AMERICANS. he proceeded, and bore him out on their shoulders when he had concluded. From that day success and fame were his. He sprang into instant popularity as "the people's champion." Practice as a lawyer flowed in upon him ; he gained advancement in his own colony and power as a politician. He turned over a new leaf. He was no longer shiftless or unsteady. Popularity brought him business, and business brought him money ; as a result he became an influential coun- try gentleman with an estate of his own, with ad- mirers and supporters throughout Virginia, and with the ability to gratify his leanings towards political preferment that speedily gave him posi- tion and importance. He was elected a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses, or Legislature ; he became a political leader in Virginia, was sent as a delegate to the first and second Continental Congresses, was the first commander of Virginia's Revolutionary army, and was three times gov- ernor of Virginia. His fame spread throughout the land, and any office in the gift of the new na- tion might have been his had he cared to accept it. But he wished for no office. He declined to serve as member of the Constitutional Convention, as United States senator, as secretary of state, as governor of Virginia for the fourth time, as chief-justice of the United States, as ambassador to France, and as vice-president of the United States. He declined, you see, even more than he accepted office. PATRICK HENRY. 11 You know what gave him his greatest fame and led the people of the United States to know, to honor , and to respect him. It was his famous ora- tion in old St. John's Church in Richmond, an ora- tion that has not yet ceased ringing in the ears of Americans, and which, in certain of its impetuous utterances, has become a part of the proverbs and maxims of the Republic. Let me try to draw for you the picture of that remarkable speech in which he urged the arming of the Virginia militia in resistance to the British authorities ; for, as Profes- sor Tyler says, " it is chiefly the tradition of that one speech which to-day keeps alive, in millions of American homes, the name of Patrick Henry, and which lifts him, in the popular faith, almost to the rank of some mythical hero of romance." It is a plain and unpretending little church to- day as it stands almost on the summit of one of beautiful Richmond's sightly hills, Church hill, it is called, at the corner of Broadway and Twenty- fourth street. Small as it is, the church is to-day much larger than it was on that day in 1775 Thursday, the twenty-third of March when, ris- ing to his feet, in the pew still shown to visitors and marked by a memorial tablet, Patrick Henry- threw down the gauntlet to King George and declared war on the haughty prerogative of Great Britain. The second Revolutionary convention of Virginia was assembled in that old church on the hill in 78 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Richmond. The first convention had met at Williamsburg the year before and had sent to the Continental Congress such representative Vir- ginians as George Washington, Richard Henry Lee, Benjamin Harrison, and Patrick Henry, with others of equal ability, if of less prominence. There Patrick Henry, as pronounced an advocate of open resistance and organized protest as Samuel Adams, of Massachusetts, had advocated a union of all the colonies for mutual protection and defence against the aggressions of England, with equal representation and equal interests for all, saying grandly, as he pled for unity, " The distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American ! " And now the second -Revolutionary congress of Virginia had met to debate upon the question whether Virginia should declare for peace or war. Everywhere, throughout the colonies, the people were restless ; everywhere there was talk of resist- ance, and from Massachusetts bay to Charleston harbor the local military companies were being organized for possible emergencies, and drilled to the use of arms. But prudence was keeping men back from act or speech that might be deemed aggressive ; prudence was still holding men loyal to the king. So, when the question of arming the militia of Virginia came up in the colonial convention, and PATRICK HENRY. 79 Patrick Henry introduced a resolution " that this colony be immediately put into a posture of de- fence and a committee be appointed to prepare a plan for embodying, arming, and disciplining such a number of men as may be sufficient for that pur- pose," prudence interfered to prevent so menacing a move. " The resolution is premature," objected some of the more conservative members. " War with Great Britain may come," they said ; " but it may be pre- vented." " May come ? " exclaimed Patrick Henry ; " may come? It has come!" And then, rising in his place, in that narrow pew in old St. John's, he broke out into that famous speech which now, as Professor Tyler remarks, " fills so great a space in the traditions of Revolutionary eloquence." Tall and thin in figure, with stooping shoulders and sallow face, carelessly dressed in his suit of " parson's gray," Patrick Henry faced the president of the convention, who sat in the chancel of the church, and began calmly, courteously, and with dignity. " No man, Mr. President," he said, " thinks more highly than I do of the patriotism as well as the abilities of the very honorable gentlemen who have just addressed the house. But different men often see the same subject in different lights ; and, there- fore, I hope it will not be thought disrespectful to those gentlemen if, entertaining as I do opinions of 80 HISTORIC AMERICANS. a character very opposite to theirs, I should speak forth my sentiments freely and without reserve." Then he flung aside courtesy and calmness. " This is no time for ceremony," he told them hotly. " The question before the house is one of awful moment to the country. For my own part, I consider it as nothing less than a question of freedom or slavery. . . . " Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offence, I should consider myself," he declared impressively, " as guilty of treason toward my country, and of an act of disloy- alty to the majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings." Then he begun his argument with that sentence which is still as a household word in the mouths of men : " Mr. President, it is natural for man to in- dulge in the illusions of hope ; " and, showing how under existing circumstances hope was but a false beacon, and experience was the only safe guide, he called attention to the armament of England, and demanded : " I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission ? " Impressively he showed them that England's display of might was meant for America, " sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging." He demanded how his associates intended to oppose this British tyranny. Argument had failed, PATRICK HENRY. 81 entreaty and supplication were of no avail, com- promise was exhausted ; petitions and remon- strances, supplications and prostrations, were alike disregarded " we have been spurned with con- tempt from the foot of the throne," he said. " There is no longer," he declared, " any room for hope. If we wish to be free, ... if we wish not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged," he paused, and then, as one of his hearers said, " with all the calm dignity of Cato addressing the senate ; like a" voice from heaven uttering the doom of fate," he added solemnly but decisively, " we must fight ! I repeat it, sir, we must fight ! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left to us." Then, his calmness all gone, his voice deepening and his slender form swayed with the passion of his own determination, he flung himself into that fervent appeal for union in resistance that we all know so well : " Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone ; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. . . It is now too late to retire from the con- test. There is no retreat now but in submission and slavery. Our chains are forged. Their clank- ing may be heard on the plains of Boston. The 82 HISTORIC AMERICANS. war is inevitable ; and let it come. I repeat it, sir, let it come ! " Can you not almost hear that wonderful voice as it makes that terrible invitation with all the force of confident faith and repressed enthusiasm ? Can you not almost see that swaying form, those forci- ble gestures, that face stern with purpose? Old men there were, years after its utterance, who could not forget that tremendous speech nor how, with their eyes riveted on the speaker, they sat, as one of them expressed it, " sick with excitement." And then came that ending one of those im- mortal bursts of eloquence, a fitting climax to what had gone before : " It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gen- tlemen may cry, Peace, peace, but there is no peace ! The war is actually begun. The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms. Our brethren are already in the field. Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and sla- very? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me give me liberty or give me death ! " That wonderful speech has lived in men's mem- ories and hearts for far over a hundred years. For other hundreds it will live as one of the trumpet calls leading men to fight for freedom or to die free 'BUT AS FOR ME, GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH. PATRICK HENRY. 83 men. To stand in that very pew in old St. John's, as I have done, and to recall that notable speech, thrills and inspires any true American. That speech has made Patrick Henry live forever as America's impassioned orator ; but better still, it turned Virginia, as in a flash, for independence, and made her stand side by side with Massachusetts, leaders and coworkers in the fight for liberty. How ready Patrick Henry was to live up to his grand principles of liberty or death we may discover in his story. From the convention he went speedily to the field. He was made commander-in- chief of Virginia's Revolutionary army, as George Washington was of the Continental forces, and almost the first overt act of the war in Virginia, so Thomas Jefferson declared, was committed by Patrick Henry. With five thousand hurriedly gath- ered minute-men he marched upon the king's governor, Lord Dunmore, at Williamsburg and demanded the stolen powder of the province or re- paration for its loss ; and the king's governor wisely judged discretion to be the better part of valor and sent his receiver-general with three hundred and thirty pounds to pay for the stolen powder. Then he issued a proclamation declaring " a certain Patrick Henry " an outlaw and rebel ; but the people of Virginia hailed the " outlaw " as their leader, and" heaped him with honors, in the way of thanks and addresses. There are many points of resemblance in the 84 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ' careers of Samuel Adams and Patrick Henry. Both were "architects of ruin," opponents of pre- rogative, foes to kingly authority. Both led the attack of the people upon British tyranny and by their matchless labors, with voice or pen, organized revolt, set on foot revolution, and showed the way to liberty and independence. Then, their higher mission accomplished, their work fell into other hands, and they, who had been leaders, became on- lookers and critics. Each one was governor of his native State, and each felt alike the sun of popularity and the gloom of misrepresentation and defeat. Both enjoyed a well-merited old age, though Adams outlived his colleague alike in years and honors. I have told you that Patrick Henry declined more honors than he accepted. One reason was, not that he could not march with the Republic, but because of continued ill-health, which so often dulls the edge of energy, makes a man critical, and keeps him dissatisfied. Alike the friend and critic of Washington, Patrick Henry was also friend and critic of the Republic he had helped to found, lov- ing it for its liberty, but despairing, sometimes, of its future because things were not done as he would like to see them. He retired from public life largely because of criticism; for, you see, there was a great deal of criticism in the air in those early days of the Re- public, and criticism of his acts was one thing that PATRICK HENRY. 85 Patrick Henry could not stand. Impetuous as James Otis, determined as Samuel Adams, like both those fervent patriots Patrick Henry chafed under restraint and hated to have his motives called in question. There are, after all, very few such su- perbly patient, gloriously self-governed men as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln. But impetuosity is sometimes inspiration. This, at least, was one cause of Patrick Henry's elo- quence. As an orator he had remarkable powers ; but as a leader he was often uncertain and some- times headstrong, to his own detriment and his country's peril. But after all, it is as one who moves by the magic of his words that Patrick Henry's claims to re- membrance as an historic American chiefly rest. Above everything else he was an orator ; and it is as the orator of resistance, of liberty, and of patriot- ism that he has our loving and grateful reverence and will be remembered by America forever and ever. His later years were spent in peaceful pursuits upon his beautiful farm at Red hill near historic Appomattox ; and there he died on the sixth of June, 1799, surrounded by loving friends and mourned by America as its chief and most effective orator in the stormy days of protest and revolu- tion. VII. THE STORY OF JOHN ADAMS, OF BRAINTREE, CALLED "THE COLOSSUS OF INDEPENDENCE.' Born at Braintree, Massachusetts, October 30, 1735. Died at Quincy, Massachusetts, July 4, 1826. "There is not upon the earth a more perfectly honest man then John Adams. Concealment is no part of his character. . . . I know him well, and I repeat that a man more per- fectly honest never issued from the hands of his Creator. Thomas Jefferson. THERE was worry, uncertainty, and anxiety in the second Continental Congress. In the east room of the ever-famous and ever-precious Inde- pendence hall in Philadelphia the members sat or walked and talked, disconcerted and perplexed. They had organized revolution ; they had plunged into war; and now they needed a leader for the soldiers they had summoned to fight the battle against British oppression, invasion, and assault. Collisions were frequent; forces were divided; the army lacked unity and leadership, and where could be found the right man for the important post of commander-in-chief ? 86 JOHN ADAMS. 87 Boston was beseiged by a patriot army. In New York the Tories " durst not show their heads." In Philadelphia two thousand men were under arms. In Virginia the militia was ready and wait- ing. Something must be done speedily, but it must be done well, for success in the field and a system- atic conduct of the war depended upon the man to whom should be given the charge and oversight of this enthusiastic spirit of war. The Congress was divided. Leaders of ability there were, each with his following and supporters, but none had the unanimous approval-of the mem- bers, who must decide as to selection and authori- zation. Jealousies and divisions were already appar- ent and threatening, as each section advocated the claims of its favorite for the chosen head of thfc army ; something, it was seen, must be done speed- ily if the army of the Congress was to take the initiative and fight the power of Great Britain on the offensive rather than the defensive ground. Then it was that a Massachusetts man rose to the situation. He had his personal likes and dis- likes, for he was a man of strong feelings and pro- nounced ideas. But he sunk all these for what he esteemed the public good. If a New England army led by a New England general fought the fight it would be, he said, a New England rather than an American quarrel, and, above all things else, John Adams, of Massachusetts, wished to nationalize and not localize the American Revolution. 88 HISTORIC AMERICANS. He made up his mind speedily. On a certain June morning, in 1775, on his way to the session of the Congress in Independence hall, he caught his cousin and colleague, Samuel Adams, by the arm, and said emphatically : "We must act on this matter at once. We must make the Congress declare for or against something. I '11 tell you what I am going to do. I am deterr mined this very morning to make a direct motion that Congress shall adopt the army before Boston, and appoint the Virginian, Colonel Washington, commander of it. What do you say ? " But Samuel Adams would say nothing. He was not yet ready to give the prize to a Southern rather than a Northern soldier, and although he esteemed Colonel Washington he would not agree to waive his preferences for Heath or Ward or Hancock. So John Adams acted upon his own responsi- bility. As soon as that day's session of the Con- gress had opened he took the floor and intro- duced a motion of precisely the nature confided to his cousin, Samuel Adams. Of course, it would not be like John Adams not to explain his motives, so he made a little speech, in which he reminded Congress of the perilous situation of the colonies, their need of united and systematic military protec- tion, the uncaptained condition of the army at Cambridge, the perfection and discipline of the British soldiers whom the Americans must face in fight, and the absolute necessity, if victory were to JOHN ADAMS. 89 be achieved, of bringing this army under the authority of Congress, and the appointment of a commander subject to Congress and trained to ser- vice. " Such a gentleman I have in mind," said honest John Adams, drawing nearer to the plan he had at heart ; and, at- the words, those members of Congress who had favorite generals, or those who themselves desired the position of commander-in- chief, became deeply interested, or tried to look unconscious. Those members from New England who wished General Heath or General Ward se- lected, those others who had already decided that the Irish adventurer Lee was the only fit man for the post, prepared to advance the claims of their favorite, while ambitious and aristocratic John Hancock, the president of the Congress, was confi- dent that he was the man in Mr. Adams's mind, and looked correspondingly pleased and prepared. But the next words of John Adams dispelled all these dreams of leadership : " I mention no names, but every gentleman here knows him as at once a brave soldier and a man of affairs. He is a gentleman from Virginia, one of this body, and well known to all of us. He is a gentleman of skill and experience as an officer; his independent fortune, great talents, and excel- lent universal character would command the ap- probation of all the colonies better than any other person in the Union." 90 HISTORIC AMERICANS. At these significant words Mr. John Hancock's face dropped suddenly. He thought that, of course, his friend and colleague, Mr. Adams, had meant him. The other advocates of special fa- vorites were disgusted and disappointed ; for every member of the Congress knew who the gentleman from Virginia was ; but the majority welcomed the suggestion as settling a hard question, and they were quite ready to support Mr. Adams's motion. But as all eyes in the room turned in one direc- tion, as they recognized Mr. Adams's description, a modest, sturdy-looking gentleman, in a colonel's uniform of buff and blue, flushed uncomfortably with surprise, hurriedly rose from his seat among the delegates from Virginia, and slipped from the room, seeking refuge in the library. It was Colonel George Washington, of Virginia. But that motion of John Adams's saved the country ; for, two days after, on the fifteenth of June, 1775, after the question had been quietly discussed, the disappointed ones won over and the timid ones brought around, Mr. Johnson, the delegate from Maryland, made a formal motion, based on John Adams's suggestion, and George Washington was unanimously elected, by ballot, commander-in- chief of the Continental army, so called to dis- tinguish it from the British force then besieged in Boston, and usually styled the Ministerial army. John Adams lived long enough to see what a JOHN ADAMS. 91 wise and patriotic thing he had done when, setting aside all local prejudices and colonial selfishness, he had named the Virginian colonel for com- mander-in-chief. For that action brought into service and developed into greatness America's choicest, noblest, and most efficient man. He lived to see George Washington the saviour of his country, the victor over its foes, and its first pres- ident; while he, John Adams, of Massachusetts, was associated with him as the first vice-president of the Republic, and became his immediate succes- sor in office, as the second president of the United States. The story of this famous son of Massachusetts is one of constant action, progress, appreciation, and advancement. Born on the thirteenth of October, 1735, he was forty years old when the American Revolution broke out, and was recognized at that time as the clearest mind and wisest head in all the long list of New England patriots. The little old Braintree farmhouse in which the " Father of the Fourth of July " was born still stands, a treasured relic, in what is now known as the city of Quincy, a few miles to the south of Boston. His father was a thrifty farmer of the thrifty Bay Colony, worth perhaps seventy-five hundred dollars in lands and stock. But he put his son John through Harvard College, from which the boy graduated at twenty, and after that let him strike out for himself as a schoolmaster in Worcester. 92 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Then he became a lawyer in Boston and Braintree, heard that famous speech by James Otis in the Old Boston State House against the writs of assistance, and was so moved and stirred by it that he became at once an earnest and active advocate of protest, resistance, and finally of independence for America. His intelligence and ability were speedily recog- nized by his associates and the people. He was sent by them as a representative to the Legislature the Great and General Court it was called in those days ; and when Massachusetts decided upon union of action he was one of the five Massachu- setts delegates sent to the first Continental Con- gress in Philadelphia. From that day on, for fully fifty years, he was prominently before the country as one of its best and chosen men, a typical New Englander, a patriotic American. Bold, outspoken, upright, and true, he was some- times conceited, opinionated, long-winded, and brusque ; but his faults were far outweighed by his virtues ; for he always had what is called the cour- age of his convictions, and no man dared more or was ready to sacrifice more for the cause of inde- pendence and the Republic than John Adams, of Braintree. The acts and deeds for which America remembers him are many ; but the first was espe- cially significant. This was his manly defence of the British soldiers, unwisely tried for murder after the affray with the street mob known as the " Boston massacre "of 1770, all the more manly JOHN ADAMS. 93 because there was no bolder patriot than John Adams, but there was none more desirous of seeing fair play than he. This stands out as his earliest " act of fame." The others are his demand for a Continental army and his proposing of George Washington as its commander-in-chief, in 1775, of which I have just told you ; his speech on the first of July, 1776, which resulted in the adoption of the Declaration of Independence ; the recogni- tion, secured by him from Holland, of the United States of America as a nation and the timely loan of money which he obtained from the thrifty but friendly Dutch when the young American Republic was sorely in need of funds both accomplished by him in 1782 ; the great treaty of peace with England which he " put through " in 1783 ; his patriotic keeping the peace with France when he was President, in 1800, and when every one was shouting for war ; and last, but by no means the least, his brave, bold struggle for religious liberty in Massachusetts in 1820, when the rugged old patriot was old in years but young in energy. In wise and broad humanity, in bold and out- spoken loyalty, in practical and helpful patriotism, there is no American who can show a better record as there are few to be held in more lasting remem- brance than this same honest, stanch, stout, cour- ageous, fussy, hot-tempered, but always fine old patriot John Adams, of Quincy, second president of the United States. 94 HISTORIC AMERICANS People have called him the " Father of the Fourth of July," not only because he was instrumental in making that day famous as a proposer and signer of the immortal Declaration of Independence, but because it was John Adams, of Massachusetts, who saw at once the deep and lasting meaning of that great act, and prophesied its celebration by all Americans in later ages. We call it the fourth, but it was really the second of July, 1776, the day on which Congress passed the famous resolution intro- duced by Richard Henry Lee, of Virginia, declaring the United Colonies of America to be free and in- dependent States. It was on that day, writing home to his patriotic wife in Quincy, Abigail Adams, one of America's noblest and most remarkable women, that John Adams made his memorable prophecy. " The second of July, 1776," he wrote, " will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great Anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated by solemn acts of devotion to Almighty God. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of the continent to the other, from this time forward, forever more." The formal Act of Declaration was signed on the fourth day of July, but that was really only a ratification of the work of July second, so that we JOHN ADAMS. 95 can fairly allow to John Adams the claim of being the prophet and father of our glorious Fourth of July. This was by no means John Adams's first bit of prophecy. For when he was quite a young fellow, in 1755, the very year of Braddock's defeat, he de- clared that if the American and English soldiers succeeded in driving the French power from Canada the American colonists would increase and grow so strong that in another century they would exceed the British, and then, he added significantly, " All England will be unable to subdue us." That prophecy has indeed come true ; and to-day, as the twentieth century opens, the England that John Adams defied and the America he helped to build are drawing closer together as " brothers-in- blood," rivals and foemen no longer. It is well to recall the public services of John Adams, who, not liking public life, was yet con- tinually in it for over forty years, always doing his duty honestly and fearlessly, like the honest and fearless man he was. A member of the first and second Continental Congresses, he was also elected chief-justice of Massachusetts, first secretary of war to the Republic, or war minister, as he called it, envoy and minister to France, Holland, and Eng- land, vice-president of the United States, and then president ; he closed his career, as I have told you, as a member of the convention called to prepare a new Constitution for Massachusetts into which he 96 HISTORIC AMERICANS. labored hard to introduce a clause permitting abso- lute religious tolerance in the Bay State. But the home of the wise and bold, though harsh and often bigoted ministers of the Puritan days was not yet ready for this open welcome to all religions the efforts of the old man of eighty-five were not then successful ; but to-day the State he loved so dearly and worked for so unselfishly follows the aged patriot's wise counsel, and opens wide its doors to all who, in different ways, but in a common spirit of toleration, serve the Lord after their own fashion and desire. The life of John Adams was filled with great purposes and great endeavors; to it were linked many of the grand events that have long since become historic, and, as a fitting close to so notable a life, he died on the anniversary of the day he had helped to make famous, the Fourth of July, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the American Republic. Like Governor John Winthrop, of whom I have told you, John Adams kept a diary. Indeed, he kept one nearly all of his life, and this diary, with the letters to his gifted wife, have been a never- failing source from which to draw descriptions of events, now historic, of men and manners long since passed away, and of the early, formative, sprouting days of the Republic. Men often write too much and talk too much, so that personalities fre- quently get them into trouble. This was some- times the case with John Adams. He loved to JOHN ADAMS. 97 gossip ; he was careless as to what he said about people, and he frequently got into trouble and turned former friends into enemies, especially men of prominence and patriotism like Jefferson and Hamilton. But we can forgive his eccentricities and indiscretions when we remember how much of good he did in his day and generation ; especially may we be lenient when we discover that the cut- ting things John Adams said about people were very often true, and either led them to change their way or opened their eyes sufficiently to enable them to see the right way to do things. He had said a great many hard things about George, king of England, and King George had certainly said many hard things about John Adams, chief rebel. In fact, there were points about each of these men that were similar, though what in King George we are quick to call obstinacy in John Adams we recognize as firmness and loyalty to principle ! Both were strictly honest and very plain-spoken, so when they met, at the time John Adams was sent to England as the first minister of the United States to the Court of St. James, people wondered what they would say to one another and who first would lose his temper. But those who expected an explosion were dis- appointed. John Adams had gone to school to ex- perience and had learned to keep his temper and ho\v to drape the bare truth with the veil of diplomacy. We can imagine the meeting. The short and 98 HISTORIC AMERICANS. stout American of the Yankee type is presented to the short and stout Englishman of the German type ; each hating the other cordially, but both hav- ing the courtesy and dignity to treat each other like gentlemen. They met in the private apartments of the king at St. James palace, known then as the king's closet. " I think myself more fortunate than all my fel- low-citizens," said the first minister from the king's revolted colonies now acknowledged a nation, " in having the distinguished honor to be the first to stand in your majesty's presence in a diplomatic character ; and I shall esteem myself the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in recommending my country more and more to your majesty's royal benevolence and in restoring an entire esteem, con- fidence, and affection, or, in other words, the old good-nature and the old good-humor, between people who, though separated by an ocean and under different governments, have the same lan- guage, a similar religion, and kindred blood." And the king, evidently affected and with a tre- mor in his voice, replied as honestly as John Adams had spoken. " I will be very frank with you, sir," he said. " I was the last to consent to the separation ; but the separation having been made I will be the first to meet the United States as an independent power. The moment I see such sentiments as yours prevail and a disposition to give this country the preference, JOHN ADAMS. 99 that moment I shall say let the circumstances of language, religion, and blood have their natural and full effect." This being concluded, the king, who detested the French, intimated that he had understood that Mr. Adams did not like the French as much as some Americans did. Whereupon John Adams, " embarrassed," as he tells us in one of his delight- ful letters, " but determined not to deny the truth on one hand nor leave him to infer from it any attachment to England on the other," boldly but pleasantly replied : " That opinion, sir, is not mis- taken. I must avow to your majesty I have no attachment but to my own country." " An honest man will never have any other, sir," the king replied with a bow, and the two honest, if obstinate men separated, not loving each other any better, but with an increased respect for each other's sincerity, courage, and loyalty. Sincerity, courage, and loyalty were indeed the three things that marked John Adams's life and made him the safe and reliable guide for the Re- public in its days of struggle and beginning. It was these that led his fellow-countrymen to place so many responsibilities upon him, to trust in his wisdom and have faith in his ability, and, at last, to raise to the highest position in their gift the strong, truth-loving, devoted patriot, whom, in the days of '76, men had delighted to call " the Colos- sus of Independence." VIII. THE STORY OF THOMAS JEFFERSON, OF MONTICELLO, CALLED " THE FATHER OF THE DECLARATION." Born at Shadwell, Virginia, April 2, 1743. Died at Monticello, Virginia, July 4, 1826. " Neither national independence nor state sovereignty were the controlling aim and attempt of his life ; no party or tem- porary advantage was the object of his endeavors. He fought for the ever-enduring privilege of personal freedom." Paul Leicester Ford. IN an upper chamber in a plain, unpretentious brick house on the corner of Seventh and Market streets in the city of Philadelphia a man sat at a table writing. The paper rested before him on a little travelling writing-desk ; the completed sheets lay beside it, scattered about the table ; the quills, " mended " for immediate use, were in the opened drawer ; and every now and then the writer, paus- ing, would catch up a sheet and read, half-aloud, a completed paragraph. He was a tall, slim, somewhat sharp-f eatureciman of thirty-two, over six feet in height, and straight as an arrow, sandy-haired, red-faced, hazel-eyed, 100 THOMAS JEFFERSON. 101 frank and earnest of countenance, large and strong of limb. His name was Thomas Jefferson, and he was a delegate to the Continental Congress from the Colony of Virginia, the home of brave, deter- mined, and able men. There came a rap at the door, and laying aside his pen Jefferson rose, with a cheery " Come in ! " to welcome his visitor. The new-comer was a big, stout, impressive, and pleasant-faced old gentleman whose picture every boy and girl in America knows at sight to-day Benjamin Franklin, of Pennsyl- vania. " Well, Brother Jefferson, is the fair copy made?" he asked. " All ready, doctor," replied Jefferson. " Will you hear it through once more?" "As many times as you wish," responded the smiling " doctor," with a merry twinkle in his eye. " One can't get too much of a good thing, you know." And settling himself comfortably in a big high- backed easy-chair beside the open window for it was June in Philadelphia, the time for open win- dows Franklin prepared to listen, while in clear, even tones not the voice of an orator, but rather of one who listens more than he talks Jefferson read his " fair copy " of one of the world's greatest papers. You know what that paper was, for you know who wrote it the Declaration of Independence, written by Thomas Jefferson. 102 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Franklin's delight over the document was un- bounded. He had already heard it before, and had suggested, as had John Adams, to whom the first draft was also read, a few slight changes ; but the completed and amended paper interested him deeply. Its terse and direct statements, its brief but vigorous sentences, its culminating catalogue of grievances, its merciless censure, and its deter- mination beyond the power of compromise, gave that practical and sympathetic philosopher and patriot satisfaction and content. " That 's good, Thomas ; that 's right to the point ; that will make King George wince," were among his expressions of approval, as charge after charge, and assertion upon assertion, were read to him. " I wish I had done it myself." It is held by some to have been an excellent thing that jolly Benjamin Franklin did not write the Declaration, and that Thomas Jefferson did. For the cheerful old philosopher, it is claimed, who would have his fun no matter how serious the matter under discussion, would, as one biographer asserts, "have put a joke even into the Declara- tion of Independence, if it had fallen to his lot to write that immortal document." Read the story of how the great signers, as they put down their names, joked to hide their deep and earnest emo- tions, and you will see what was " Franklin's way." But Thomas Jefferson, burning with a bitter hatred of tyranny, impressed with the greatness of THAT PAPER WAS THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE, WRITTEN BY THOMAS JEFFERSON. THOMAS JEFFERSON. 103 the step taken, and so determined as to the justice of the course outlined by the Declaration that, as he said, " rather than submit to the right of legis- lating for us assumed by the British Parliament I would lend my hand to sink the whole island in the ocean," was peculiarly fitted to write such a paper as the Declaration of Independence, and could be counted upon to do it briefly, grandly, and to the point. His conversion to the cause of independence had been much like that of young John Adams as he listened to the fiery words of James Otis. For as young Thomas Jefferson, aged twenty-two, stood in the doorway of the House of Burgesses at Will- iamsburg and listened to Patrick Henry's ringing speech which ended, " Csesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and George the Third may profit by their example," he went over body and soul to the necessity of resistance to tyranny, and became as open a " rebel " as Henry or any patriot in the whole colony of Virginia. The son of a prosperous Virginia farmer, born in a farmhouse, as was George Washington, and like Washington left fatherless while yet a small boy, Thomas Jefferson was a spirited, wide-awake, earnest young fellow, a great lover of out-of-doors, and an advocate, through all his long life, of field and forest and a farmer's life. But he was soon drawn into public life by his success as a lawyer and his interest in the stirring 104 HISTORIC AMERICANS. affairs of the day. At twenty-six he became a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses and went deeply into politics, in which, however, he was at once prudent, honest, and clean, living up to a vow, made even as a young man, never to be drawn into speculations nor " jobs " nor any of the questionable " tricks " that too often soil the name of politics and make them distasteful to honest and patriotic men. When discussion led to protest and protest to threats of resistance Jefferson at once espoused the cause of the people, and in 1774 insisted that the lead in this cause should be taken by young men and not by " old fogies ; " while he openly declared in the House of Burgesses that Virginia " must boldly take an unequivocal stand in the line with Massachusetts." With the bolder spirits of Henry and Lee and Mason, as Jefferson recorded it in later years, " I went at all points ; " so it was not to be wondered at that when Washington was sent to Cambridge as commander-in-chief of the Continental army, Thomas Jefferson was sent to Congress in his place as delegate from Virginia. There he became so earnest an advocate of independence that, as one of his biographers declares, he would have lost his head " had it been less inconvenient " to get him across the sea to England. Though one of the youngest men in Congress, he was at once appointed on the committee to prepare a Declaration of In- THOMAS JEFFERSON. 105 dependence and was by that committee selected to write that ever-famous document. With but very few changes that Declaration, on the second of July, 1776, went before Congress, just as Jefferson wrote it, and though, in the debate upon it, he sat silent, not joining in because, as he said, he deemed it his duty to hear and not to talk, history tells us that he was far from com- fortable during the discussion in which he would not join and sat "writhing" under the criticism that its bold utterance called out, until good Benjamin Franklin, to calm him down, had to tell him funny stories that fitted the case. But John Adams came to his side with so strong and splendid a defence of the whole Declaration as Jefferson had written it that even the critics were silenced and the doubters convinced ; and at last, on the fourth of July, 1776, Jefferson had the satisfaction of seeing his cherished paper accepted, adopted, and signed, and he himself, though he knew it not, made famous for all time as the author of the Declaration of Independence. The magnitude of that one act overshadowed all the others of his long, active, and useful life, and yet, so thoroughly was the Declaration a part of himself, so honestly did he live^up to his belief, expressed in the opening paragraph of his great Declaration, that " all men are created equal," that he has also been esteemed the Father of American Democracy. For generations his name has been 106 HISTORIC AMERICANS. used as a rallying cry by millions of men, while his spirit has been evoked as its patron saint by one of the great political parties of America whose mem- bers lovingly and loyally refer to their particular political faith as " the true Jeffersonian Democracy." Elected as governor of Virginia while yet the Revolutionary war was at its height, he worked unceasingly to bear up Virginia's part in the great struggle and meet the incessant demand that came to him for men and money, horses, arms, and food. But arms, money, wagons, and horses were at last exhausted, and he himself realized the harshness of unjust criticism when men took him to task for doing the very thing he was expected to do send- ing men out of Virginia to help fight the battles of the country when Virginia herself felt the hand and heel of the British invader. The lot of a war governor is by no means a pleasant one, as Jefferson learned to his sorrow, when, doing his duty, he found himself blamed for what was really a neces- sity and a right. Once again he was sent as a delegate to Con- gress, in 1783, and while there advocated the meas- ures which, in time, developed into the founding, settlement, and development of the great Western section of the United States, then known as the Northwest Territory. He reported, too, a plan of government for that mighty region which contained a grand provision and one which became the foun- dation-stone and glory of the great and prosperous THOMAS JEFFERSON. 107 West; this was that "after the year 1800 of the Christian era there shall be neither slavery nor involuntary servitude in any of the said States." For though a Southern man and a slaveholder Thomas Jefferson was a hater of slavery, and in this act of freedom was the forerunner, you see, of Abraham Lincoln, America's great emancipator. In 1784 Jefferson was named by Congress minis- ter to France in place of Benjamin Franklin, who, after long and remarkable service there, had begged leave to come home. Then it was that the Vir- ginian made his kind and courteous acknowledg- ment of the greatness of his famous colleague and associate of the " Declaration days." " You replace Dr. Franklin, I hear," said the prime minister of King Louis of France when Mr. Jefferson was introduced to him at the court. Jefferson bowed with his customary dignity and courtesy. " Sir," he said, " I succeed Dr. Frank- lin ; no one can replace him." And the fame of that appreciative, generous, and kindly recognition of greatness has outlived all the criticism and many of the important actions of Thomas Jefferson. For five years Jefferson remained abroad as the United States minister to France, and then came home, loving his native land better than ever. " Go to Europe," he advised his friend James Mon- roe ; " it will make you adore your own country, its soil, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people, and manners." 108 HISTORIC AMERICANS. When, in December, 1789, he returned to his much-loved farm at Monticello the " little moun- tain " just outside the town of Charlottesville in Virginia he received an invitation from George Washington, who had just been elected the first president of the United States, to enter his Cabinet as secretary of state an honor which, while pre- ferring private life, Jefferson still accepted, be- cause Washington desired it. His four years as secretary of state were a troubled and stormy time, occupied mostly with his quarrel with his chief rival and political opponent, Alexander Hamilton, the secretary of the treas- ury. The people of the country sided with one or the other of these great chiefs, and from these fac- tions came the two great political parties of America, which, since Jefferson's day, under differ- ent names but with practically unchanging foun- dation principles, have made the political history of the Republic, as Republicans and Democrats. In 1793 he retired from the Cabinet and went to his beloved farm to rest and watch. But in three years' time he was called into service again as vice- president of the United States, although he declared of himself, " I have no ambition to govern men ; no passion which would delight me to ride a storm. My attachment is to my home." All of these desires, however, he was called upon to forego ; by the votes of the Republic he was selected " to govern men," " to ride a storm," and THOMAS JEFFERSON. 109 to leave his delightful home on a mountain. For, after four years' service as vice-president, he was elected to the still higher office, and became, in 1800, the third president of the United States. Even upon his entrance to this high dignity he kept his simple ways, for he rode to his inauguration some say in a hired coach, because his own had not arrived from Monticello, others say on horseback, hitching his horse to the Capitol fence, and walking into the Senate chamber unannounced to take the oath of office as president. Whichever is true, the fact is that Jefferson liked to make a display of what he called " democratic simplicity," which is often more ostentatious by its emphasis of simplicity than the usual and customary ceremonies which add weight and dignity to a high office of trust or responsibility. But that was Jefferson's main desire - - to be simply one of the people, not one above the people. He hated anything like " fuss and feathers." Court etiquette, which had prevailed in the White House since the ceremonious manners of Washington's stately days, was entirely done away with, while titles like " Honorable " and " Your Excellency " were most objectionable to him, and even plain " Mr." he regarded as superfluous, aristocratic, and unnecessary. The president of the United States, he declared, was just a man no different from the humblest citizen ; and he said, " If it be possible to be certainly conscious of anything, I am conscious 110 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of feeling no difference between writing to the highest and lowest being on earth." This, you see, was but an instance of what Mr. Ford declares to have been Thomas Jefferson's con- trolling principle " the ever-enduring privilege of personal freedom ; " it is but a practical carrying out of the assertion with which he opened the Declara- tion of Independence, that " All men are created equal ; " and yet even great truths may be trifled with or strained into too liberal meaning. So we cannot wonder that during his presidency even Thomas Jefferson had occasion to depart from his theories as to the president's office ; for when, once, in a famous political trial, one side wished to subpoena the president that is, call him into court as a witness President Jefferson indignantly re- fused, and declared that a court of law could not and should not order the president of the United States to take the stand as a common witness. He was right ; but his decision hardly agreed with his broad democratic stand. As president of the United States Thomas Jef- ferson sent Commodore Decatur and his sailors across the water to bring the Dey of Algiers to terms and say to him, with voice and guns, " No tribute from America to you and your pirates." He was the earliest advocate of American expan- sion; for he arranged the purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon Bonaparte, the master of France, and thus added to the United States the whole THOMAS JEFFERSON. Ill western country beyond the Mississippi ; and he almost ruined the commerce of the country by the Embargo Act of 1807, by which he sought to bring France and England to terms, and which, he always held, if loyally supported and honestly kept would have prevented our second war with England, in 1812. Jefferson served two terms as president, retiring finally in 1808 and seeking the grateful seclusion of private life on his farm at Monticello, after forty years of service devoted to the good of his country. But he was too prominent a man to be allowed this " grateful seclusion." He could not be left alone, and he was kept so busy being hospitable at his great house on the hill that it very nearly ruined him. He got into money troubles, and when he was an old and tired man found himself in such desperate straits for money that he nearly lost Monticello and had to sell his fine library to meet his actual needs. But when the people of the Republic learned in what great trouble he was they would not let the author of the Declaration of Independence suffer from loss or necessity. Public subscriptions were started throughout the country, and money enough was raised to save his home and secure his com- fort. Jefferson, who would not listen to the idea of aid from the treasury of his State, was willing to accept help from the American people for whom he had lived and labored, " for," said he, " no cent 112 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of this is wrung from the tax-payers ; it is the pure and unsolicited offering of love." But in the midst of this popular effort for his relief the en'd came, and on the Fourth of July, 1826, on the fiftieth anniversary of the day made famous by his greatest work, the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson died in the great bedroom of Monticello, and on that same day, as I have told you, died his old-time friend and fellow- worker, his political opponent of later years, and his predecessor as president of the United States, John Adams, of Massachusetts. Midway down the forest-fringed mountain-road that leads from the sightly mansion of Monticello to the beautiful valley below, within an iron-fenced enclosure, the traveller may see to-day a plain, sim- ple ten-foot obelisk of brown stone, already marked by age and marred by relic-hunters. And on the pedestal he may read this inscription, prepared by Jefferson himself, " Here lies buried Thomas Jef- ferson : author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statutes of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia." Those were the acts of his life that Thomas Jefferson counted most notable. Three miles away in a straight line from the hill of Monticello, and quite on the other side of the picturesque old town of Charlottesville, rise the clustering buildings of the University of Virginia, the child of Jefferson's latest years, THOMAS JEFFERSON. 113 endowed by his exertions and ever faithful to his memory. In view of what has made history for the United States in the closing years of the nineteenth cen- tury, it is interesting to read what was Jefferson's dream of America's march of destiny in territorial expansion. It was at the time of Napoleon's greatness, and soon after the purchase of the vast western country that came to us with Louisiana. For the sake of crippling Spain, Napoleon, he said, could be induced to give Florida to the United States. " But that is no price," he continued, " because that is ours in the very first moment of war. . . . But, although with difficulty, he will consent to our receiving Cuba into our Union. . . . That would be a price, and I would immediately erect a column on the southernmost limit of Cuba, and inscribe on it " Ne plus ultra" as to all in that direction. Then we should only have to include the north (Canada) in our confederacy, and we should have such an empire for Liberty as she has never surveyed since the creation ; and I am persuaded that no Constitu- tion was ever before so well calculated as ours for extensive empire and self-government." So, you see, Cuba is not a new story with Ameri- cans, nor is the widening of our borders a recent aspiration ; while as for its being a departure from the Declaration and the Constitution well ! you see what the author of the Declaration himself asserted. 114 HISTORIC AMERICANS. A strong man every way, in mind as well as in body, Thomas Jefferson stands in the history of the Republic as a great leader, a great American, and a great man. With an undying love for the common people and an unwavering faith in them he held to their will as the sole law of the land, and became, for the American Republic, the typical democrat a believer in the theory of government by the people. Politically he was a mighty factor in American history ; he trained the two succeeding presidents for their high office, and to-day, seventy- five years after his death, he is still a power in the land, and his is a name to conjure by. Personally Jefferson was a charming character. He was lovable, benevolent, intelligent, cheery of manner, and pleasant in disposition. He was never angry, fretful, or discontented; he was happiest when helping others, and followed out, as one of his chief rules of conduct, his precept : " Never to trouble another for what he could do himself." The life of no man is perfect. Even the most exalted have their failings, the most brilliant their shortcomings. Thomas Jefferson was no exception to the general rule, but though many differed from him, living, and criticised him, dead, millions of Americans have followed his teachings implicitly through more than a hundred years of the Republic's progress, while every American, of whatever politi- cal faith, reverences and cherishes the memory of the author of the Declaration of Independence. IX. THE STORY OF ALEXANDER HAMILTON, OF NEW YORK, CALLED "THE FRAMEB OF THE CONSTITUTION." Born on the Island of Nevis, West Indies, January 11, 1757. Died at New York City, July 11, 1804. " So long as the people of the United States form one nation, the name of Alexander Hamilton will be held in high and lasting honor, and, even in the wreck of governments, that grand intellect would still command the homage of men." Henry Cabot Lodge. ONE after another the orators had spoken and the people had cheered. And yet none of the speakers had touched the root of the matter. The object of this out-door meeting had been to urge the province of New York to put itself in line with the other American colonies in advocating and demanding a Congress of the colonies for consul- tation and action. It was an important question, and such the New York patriots who had brought about this open-air meeting in the Fields felt it to be. But something was lacking in the arguments or earnestness of the speakers. They had talked and talked, but had said nothing and accomplished 115 116 HISTORIC AMERICANS. nothing. The hearts of the leaders who had arranged for this big public meeting in the Fields were heavy. " Have we no one who can stir the people to action ? " they queried. " Can no one here put the matter straight ? " Just then there was a stir in the crowd, and through the throng gathered about the speakers' platform a young man elbowed his way. He was a little fellow and almost boyish-look- ing, not more than fifteen or sixteen, you would say. But he managed to force his way through the press and the next moment had leaped to the platform. "May I speak a few words, sir?" he asked the chairman. The chairman and those with him looked on the boy in astonishment, while the crowd that thronged about the speaker's stand could only stare and wonder at this rather fresh-looking lad who wished to make a speech. " Hooray for the little West Injun ! " came a voice from the crowd ; and as anything was welcome that would create a diversion or arouse the common enthusiasm even this boy might be worth hearing. The chairman nodded. " What name ? " he inquired. " Hamilton, Alexander Hamilton, sir," the young orator replied. " I won't keep them long." Then, looking down into the eyes of the multi- tude about him, the lad for an instant hesitated as ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 117 if just a bit stage-struck. It was only for an instant, however. Then the words began to come, and at once this youthful orator had plunged into a flood of speech. A mere boy he seemed to his audience, small in stature and slight in figure, with brilliant eyes deep set in a swarthy face ; but as he talked men forgot his age, his appearance, his boyishness. They could only listen in wonder, query, and con- viction to the arguments, the declaration, and the appeals that came from this boy's lips. This first glimpse that we get of this remarkable man would suggest that he was also a remarkable boy. He was. An orator and patriot at seven- teen, a hero at twenty, a statesman at twenty-three, Alexander Hamilton, "the young West Indian," as people used to call him, was, indeed, one of the world's remarkable boys. Let me give you the record of what was done in the world by this boy and man who, dying at forty-seven, left his impress upon the world as one of the greatest of historic Americans. At ten years old he was forced to take care of himself; at twelve he was confiden- tial clerk for a merchant of Santa Cruz, near to the island of Nevis, where he was born ; at thirteen he was business manager of the establishment ; at fourteen he wrote a description of a storm in the West Indies that set people to talking ; at fifteen he went to New York to seek his fortune ; at six- teen he was an advanced student in Columbia 118 HISTORIC AMERICANS. College, taking at the same time a medical course in connection with his other studies ; at seventeen he was a leader in the debates of his college, and, as you have seen, a popular orator in the public meeting in the Fields ; at eighteen he was a political essayist ; at nineteen a captain of artillery in the Continental army ; at twenty a lieutenant-colonel and Washington's aide-de-camp ; and at twenty- three a battalion commander. At twenty-four he was a member of Congress ; at thirty, framer and signer of the Constitution of the United States ; at thirty-two the first secretary of the treasury ; and at thirty-five one of New York's foremost lawyers. At forty he was appointed major-general ; at forty- two he was commander-in-chief of the armies of the United States ; at forty-five America's leading living statesman of that day ; and at forty -seven dead, cut off in his prime by the murderous bullet of his relentless rival and political adversary, the victim of an unsparing hate and of his own over- strained sense of duty. Nevis is one of the Leeward islands in the West India group and is the property of England. It was so when, on the eleventh day of January, 1757, Alexander Hamilton was born ; and from that Eng- lish colony the boy Hamilton, when he was to strike out for himself in the world, came to another English colony New York. Friends and oppor- tunities secured for him education and advance- ment, but he became even early in life, as that ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 119 sudden speech in the Fields shows, a warm and enthusiastic friend of American independence. Indeed, while yet in college he was busy with pen and sword ; for with the first he wrote unan- swerable arguments for liberty, and with the other he drilled the artillery company of which he speedily became captain. When war actually broke out the little captain was in the thick of the fight. He led an artillery- company at the battle of Long Island. He fought at Harlem plains and Chatterton hill, at New Brunswick and Trenton and Princeton. His dash and gallantry and the effective manner in which he handled his men and guns early attracted the at- tention of Washington, who had a ready eye for warlike and promising young men ; and Hamilton, in 1777, became Washington's private secretary and aide-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant- colonel. He fought through the Revolution, led the last charge at Yorktown where Comwallis sur- rendered, and came out of it all, at twenty-five, Colonel Hamilton, one of the best and brightest young officers in the American army. Alexander Hamilton the soldier was just the sort of a character of whom boys and girls who love action and daring like to make a hero. With a superb dash and an unfaltering courage, and yet with a " rapid-firing " brain and a tender, sympathetic heart, he was the leader of his soldiers and their idol as well. To-day the beautiful battle monu- 120 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ment at Trenton stands on the precise spot upon which young Capt. Alexander Hamilton, of the New York artillery, unlimbered his battery that cold Christmas morning and raked the startled Hessians until they went scurrying away to defeat and surrender. On the green slopes of Yorktown you may see to-day the remains of the redoubt up which, in response to his earnest desire to lead the assault, charged Col. Alexander Hamilton, at the head of his battalion of light infantry, " with an intrepidity, a heroism, and a dash," so says Mr. Winthrop, "unsurpassed in the whole history of the war." Up the redoubt he rushed, filled with the joy of leadership and the fury of fight. Obstacles could not stop Hamilton and his men. They leaped over the palisades, they cleared the abatis, they scaled the parapets, capturing the redoubts and driving back Cornwallis's veterans into sudti dire defeat that, soon after, the white flag was flying from the British ramparts, the drummer-boy beat a parley, and, at last, with their bands playing " The World turned Upside Down, " Cornwallis and his men gave up the contest, laid down their arms in surrender, and the victory of Yorktown closed the Revolutionary war. ' As tactful as he was sympathetic was this same Colonel Hamilton for only he could secure from the pompous and puffed-up Gates, after Saratoga, the reinforcements that Washington demanded and Gates held back ; and only he could soothe Mrs. ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 121 Arnold, when the shock of her husband's treason and flight drove her into temporary insanity, or soften the rigors of a just but terrible fate for Andre*. Young Hamilton's impetuosity and offended dig- nity, however, sometimes led him into error and mistakes. But he who crossed swords with Wash- ington never came off victor. " Request Colonel Hamilton to come to me at once," Washington commanded his orderly one February day in 1781, as he paced his room at head- quarters in New Windsor, engrossed with duties that needed instant attention. The orderly hurried with the message, but Colonel Hamilton was himself busy and did not at once respond to the summons of his chief, who always demanded one requisite from all who served him the soldier's duty of instant obedience. The general was annoyed; the secretary de- layed ; the general grew indignant ; he opened the door of his room, seeking the tardy secretary, and at the head of the stairs they came face to face, the slight, boyish-looking lieutenant-colonel and the massive commanding-general, great men both, and, therefore, jealous of their own actions ; great men both, though one had made, the other had yet to make, his name. " Colonel Hamilton," said Washington, " this will not do, sir. I needed you and you de- layed. To keep one waiting, sir, is a mark of disrespect." 122 HISTORIC AMERICANS. The dark young face flushed a deeper brown. The hand came up in salute. " I am not conscious of it, sir," said the young officer ; " but since you have thought it we part ! " and thus they severed the close connections of years. Both were at fault, perhaps, but Hamilton knew, even though his offended dignity had spoken, that by military laws the general had been right, the secretary wrong. The general, however, regretted the young secre- tary's hasty action and did not lay it up against him. Instead, although Hamilton refused to accept his apology, and even, in a fit of boyish dignity, repelled his advances, Washington still interested himself in the young officer, and would not break friendship. For Washington, who was a matchless student of men, knew the abilities and worth of Alexander Hamilton, and would not be upset by a trifle. Be- sides, he was great enough to forgive ; great enough to be helpful even where help was not solicited. He saw that his ex-aide was given a colonelcy ; that he was accorded the post of honor at York- town ; and, years after, when the nation was in running order, with Washington at the helm, Ham- ilton was called by him to the important post of secretary of the treasury. How great a part Alexander Hamilton played in putting the new nation into running order the story of the making of the Constitution of the United States tells. Guizot, the French historian, ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 123 declares that "there is not in the Constitution of the United States an element of order, of force, of duration which Alexander Hamilton did not power- fully contribute to introduce into it and to cause to predominate." Gladstone, the great Englishman, also declared that the Constitution of the United States was "the most wonderful work ever struck off at a given time by the brain and purpose of man," and the idea and necessity for such a work was thought out and advocated by Alexander Hamilton. Even before the Revolution had closed in triumph at Yorktown this wise and level-headed young states- man recognized the need of something reliable and binding if the united colonies were really to become united States a real nation. When he was but twenty-four he wrote a remarkable letter to a friend in the Continental Congress, and in that letter he outlined many of the provisions that, later, found place in the Constitution. But it was as a financier that Hamilton made his greatest record. At thirty-two, Washington, who had studied his character and appreciated his abili- ties, called him into his Cabinet as secretary of the treasury, and in that position Hamilton not only built up and strengthened the national credit, he actually saved the Republic from bankruptcy and failure. He fairly created something out of nothing resources out of debts and deficit, credit out of no 124 HISTORIC AMERICANS. credit. As Senator Lodge says of him : " There was no public credit. Hamilton created it. There was no circulating medium, no financial machinery. He supplied them. There was no government, no system with a life in it, only a paper Constitution. Hamilton gave vitality to the lifeless instrument. He drew out the resources of the country, he exer- cised the powers of the Constitution, he gave courage to the people, he laid the foundation of national government, and this was the meaning and result of his financial policy." Daniel Webster, years after, in his eloquent way, put the same appreciation into one famous sentence in his eulogy on Hamilton, pronounced in 1831, twenty-seven years after the death of this first and greatest secretary of the treasury : " He smote the rock of the national resources and abundant streams of revenue gushed forth. He touched the dead corpse of public credit, and it sprang upon its feet." How highly Washington regarded the abilities and worth of his former aide-de-camp and some- what touchy military secretary may be seen from the fact that he retained him in office as his secretary of the treasury for six years, in spite of Hamilton's wish to retire, that he consulted Hamilton on every important question even after his retirement, and that he would only accept the position of com- mander-in-chief of the army in the expected war with France, in 1798, on condition that Hamilton ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 125 should be his first major-general and practical organizer and leader of the new army. Upon Washington's death Hamilton succeeded him as commander of the army ; but war with France was averted and no opportunity was afforded Hamilton to display, as actual leader of the American army, those matchless abilities which he had brought to its reorganization. So he went back to his pro- fession and his death. In his profession he was accounted to be, in 1800, the best lawyer in New York. He seldom if ever lost a case, and his success in winning cases was so great that it was the popular belief that neither judge nor juryman could stand out against his pleading. It was considered certain success for plaintiff or defendant to be able to retain Alexander Hamilton. This success followed him also into political life and led to his own undoing. For a great man makes strong enemies, just as he creates faithful followers, and Alexander Hamilton was the object alike of the deepest admiration and the most bitter hatred. The sea of New York politics has cast up many a questionable, selfish, and designing politician, but it never was dominated by a more unscrupulous, fascinating, utterly disreputable, or dangerous polit- ical worker than Aaron Burr Hamilton's relent- less rival. Aaron Burr was nearly as precocious in his boy- 126 HISTORIC AMERICANS. hood as Alexander Hamilton. A daring and dash- ing soldier, he too became also, for a time, aide-de- camp to Washington ; but the selfish soldier and the great general did not agree. Washington's searching eye saw through the veneer and glitter of the young aide-de-camp, and he had neither use nor desire for his services or companionship. But step by step Aaron Burr rose until he became vice- president of the United States and just missed the presidency itself. Both Burr and Hamilton mingled in the troubled waters of New York politics. Hamilton was a Federalist, a Nation-lover ; Burr was a Democrat a State-lover. Both were earnest fighters and ardent haters, and, when the nineteenth century came in, Federalist and Democrat were fiercer and more unsparing antagonists than Republican and Democrat to-day. Burr was what we call a ward politician up to any dodge or trick to gain his end; Hamilton could do nothing small, mean, or underhanded in politics ; so, in the contest for the possession of New York, Burr won. Thereupon the quarrel grew still more bitter ; but when, failing to capture the presidency, Burr sought to be governor of New York, Hamilton blocked his intrigue and wire-pulling, and the election went against Burr. Then the disappointed and defeated office-seeker determined to be revenged upon the " little lion," as Hamilton's friends called him, and to drive him out of his path or crush him in it. Bold, shrewd, ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 127 vindictive, and unscrupulous, Burr knew that Hamilton saw through his designs, fathomed his ambitions, upset his schemes, and thwarted his designs. He set to work deliberately to force a quarrel upon Hamilton, challenge him to a duel, and kill him. The excuse was soon forthcoming. Something that Hamilton had said, criticising one of Burr's actions, was at once distorted and taken as cause for a quarrel ; the challenge was sent and accepted. There is something very sad about this part of Hamilton's tragic story. Hamilton detested duel- ling and had openly denounced it as useless, unwise, unjust, and barbarous. To refuse to fight a duel could not have made him a coward ; for the soldier who fought at Trenton and scaled the ramparts at Yorktown did not need to prove his courage. But when Burr's challenge reached him Hamil- ton accepted it against his will, fearing lest people would misjudge his motives, and, perhaps, interfere with his plans for the good of the Republic, which were ever foremost in his mind. He wrote down a statement of the case before meeting Burr, in which, while advancing a strong dislike to the duel as a needless risk of life, and the welfare of his family, he said, " But the ability to be in future useful, whether in resisting mischief or effecting good, in those crises of our public affairs which seem likely to happen, would probably be inseparable from a conformity with public prejudice in this particular." 128 HISTORIC AMERICANS. And then he crossed the river, and on a beautiful spot in what was long known as the Elysian Fields in Weehawken, opposite New York, he met Aaron Burr on the morning of the eleventh of July, 1804, and there was murdered. For duelling is murder; and Burr was determined to kill his uncomfortable and objectionable rival, while Hamilton, simply going through the forms of duelling, fired his pistol in the air. But even great mistakes have their uses. The duel at Weehawken killed Hamilton physically, but it killed Burr morally and politically; for it proved the greatest error of his selfish, mistaken, and unbalanced life. It rounded out Hamilton's fame, and drove Burr into treason and ignominy. More than this, it was the death-blow to duelling. When Telemachus, the monk, protesting against gladitorial combats as unchristian, went down into the arena and fell a victim beneath the swords of the gladiators, he died a martyr but the last fight in the Coliseum had been fought. When Alex- ander Hamilton, protesting against duelling as un- necessary, barbarous, and unchristian, boldly faced the deadly pistol of Aaron Burr that the people might not misjudge one whose chief desire was the welfare of the Republic, he fell ; but with him fell the hated code of duelling, for the murder of Hamilton made a duel forever odious. A great man was Alexander Hamilton. To be loved and honored by Washington, to be hated ALEXANDER HAMILTON. 129 and assassinated by Aaron Burr, would be in them- selves proof of excellence. But Alexander Hamil- ton was born to be great. The ten-year old boy in the cramped little island of Nevis, who had already ambitions and aspirations, and told his playmates that, when he grew up, he meant to be somebody in the world, made himself really " somebody." John Marshall, greatest of our chief-justices, ranked Alexander Hamilton next to George Wash- ington. Certainly no man has made a deeper mark on American history or should stand higher in the esteem of the Republic. He was a great orator, a great lawyer, the ablest politician and statesman of his day, a daring soldier, a matchless organizer. He gave the Constitution life ; he made the national treasury a power, and laid the foundation of the nation's wealth ; he widened and dignified the foreign policy of the Republic ; he shaped the work and planned the methods of the new nation. He first preached the leadership of the United States on the American continent, and thought only of the glory, the grandeur, and the success of the Republic. Alexander Hamilton's name stands for success, and his remarkable story, short though it was and brought to so tragic a close, is still one that should inspire young Americans by its brilliant passages and show them that worthy ambition, rightly pur- sued, brings to men merited success and enduring fame. X. THE STORY OF ROBERT MORRIS, OF PHILADELPHIA, CALLED THE " FINANCIER OF THE REVOLUTION." Born at Liverpool, England, January 20, 1734. Died at Philadelphia, May 8, 1806. " When future ages celebrate the names of Washington and Franklin, they will add that of Morris." David Ramsay. THE general leaned back in his chair and looked at his visitors inquiringly. " It must be accomplished, gentlemen," he said. " What can you do for me ? " " "With money, everything ; without it, nothing," replied the head of the war committee of Con- gress ; and he turned an anxious look toward his associate, the Financier. " I understand you," the Financier replied, an- swering the looks of inquiry that came to him from both the general and the head of the war committee; "but the amount needed staggers me. I came here with a few guineas, thinking to lighten the immediate burden of the general, and now his Excellency confronts me with a 130 ROBERT MORRIS. 131 scheme demanding thousands. Where are they to come from ? " "You have never failed me yet, Morris," the general responded. Then he added, with a smile, " and now you are Financier of the United States. You know what that means." " I do, indeed, your Excellency," the Financier replied. " I wish it meant all I think it should. The Congress is unable to enforce taxation ; the people are unwilling to support the Congress. What we need is a strong government. We must be, really, the United States. I cannot think of ourselves simply as an alliance of States which con^ tribute only of their good-will to a common and temporary treasury. We must strengthen our confederation, provide for our debts, and form some kind of a Federal Constitution. What we must have is a reliable public credit, and this can only be secured by a strong national union." The general nodded in approval. The head of the war committee looked dubious. " Can we go as far as that ? " he queried. " Are the States prepared to sacrifice their sovereign- ties?" " They must merge them, sir," replied the gen- eral. " This contest demands sacrifices. What one man does, many can do. In accepting the office of Financier of the United States Mr. Mor- ris, I know, has given himself to the cause we all hold so dear. He has undertaken a task he can 132 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ill afford to assume, with all its perplexities and difficulties, but I know he does it willingly, even if it be a sacrifice." The Financier bowed his acknowledgments. "You are right, general," he responded. "In accepting the office I do sacrifice much of my inter- est, my ease, my domestic comfort, and my internal tranquillity. But have you not done the same, general? And if I know my own heart," he con- tinued feelingly, "I make these sacrifices with a disinterested view to the service of my country. I am ready to go farther, and the United States may command everything I have, except my integrity." " Spoken like a patriot, sir," replied the head of the war committee. "But what about this plan of the general's ? This Southern expedition in pur- suit of Cornwallis means money for supplies, sub- sistence, and transportation." " It does assuredly," the general said. " What do you say, Mr. Morris ? Will you see that these are made possible ? " " Is this measure inevitable, your Excellency ? " queried the Financier thoughtfully. "It is inevitable, sir," the general replied deci- sively. "On it depends the cooperation of our allies from France ; on it depends the success of our imperilled cause. Gentlemen," he continued emphatically, raising himself in his chair, " I am resolved upon it. I must pursue it at all hazards." ROBERT MORRIS. 133 " Then, sir," said the Financier, quite as emphat- ically, " you shall have the money. Though Con- gress has no credit, nor any possible means of furnishing the large amount you will need, I will see that you have it. You shall have it, sir, even though to raise it I am compelled to rely on credit my credit, solely, if need be. Thank God that is still secure ! Go forward with your arrange- ments, general. If you are prepared to risk repu- tation I am prepared to risk credit. It is the duty of every citizen to act his part in whatever station his country may call him to in hours of difficulty, danger, and distress. And such an hour we are facing now." "And we can face it bravely, with your help, Morris," replied the general solemnly, but with confidence. " You will introduce order into our finances. By restoring public credit, even more than by gaining battles, we shall finally reach the day of absolute triumph. I know this, and I felt a most sensible pleasure, my friend, when I heard of your acceptance of the appointment of Financier of the United States ; for I know you can regulate the finances of this country. Do you remember how you helped me after the affair at Trenton, and made my pursuit of Cornwallis at Princeton pos- sible? I shall never forget it." " It was a hard task, general, but somehow I did manage to get the money you needed," the Finan- cier replied with a smile, recollecting his labors in 134 HISTORIC AMERICANS. that time of stress. "Why, sir, on New Year's morning I actually went from house to house in Philadelphia, begging, borrowing, demanding money for the necessities of our victorious army ! And I raised what you demanded." " You did, indeed, Morris," said the appreciative general ; " without your help I could have done but little. I remember now with what joy I received, that very forenoon of New Year's day, the fifty thousand dollars you sent me. I knew that to get it you pledged your credit and your word of honor, and I recall now the gratification with which I read your message. 'Here is your money, general,' you wrote. ' Whatever I can do shall be done for the good of the service. If further occasional supplies of money are neces- sary you can depend upon my exertions, either in a public or private capacity.' I have depended upon them, Morris, and never in vain. I do depend upon them now. With your aid we will bring affairs to a triumphant termination. My course is resolved on." " And so is mine," said the Financier ; and, leav- ing the camp at Weathersfield that very day, Robert Morris returned to Philadelphia and upon his own individual responsibility, pledging his credit, which had never been questioned or impaired, he secured the funds with which to equip and move Washing- ton's veteran army for the hurried and masterly march from the Hudson to the York a triumph ROBERT MORRIS. 135 of strategy, by which, misleading and avoiding the British commander in New York, Washington joined forces with the French allies under Rochambeau and speedily cooped up and captured at Yorktown, in Virginia, the trained and veteran troops of Lord Cornwallis. But even this final victory was not won with- out another necessary piece of financiering and sacrifice on the part of Robert Morris, the Phila- delphia banker, the Financier of the American Revolution. It came about upon the thirtieth day of August, in the year 1781, when with much display of brill- iant uniforms and all the details of a military entrance into a friendly town there rode into Phil- adelphia the French and American commanders, Rochambeau and Washington, each with his suite and staff. All Philadelphia turned out to welcome the distinguished visitors who took the town on their way to Virginia. There were countless cour- tesies and eveiy sign of joy and welcome that a grateful city could give, and, among the welcoming citizens, rode the big, frank, dignified, and in every way charming gentleman who served his country as Financier of the new United States Robert Morris, of Philadelphia. At the City tavern Washington and Rocham- beau held an informal reception, and then the lead- ing officers of both staffs adjourned to Robert Mor- ris's great house to dinner. 136 HISTORIC AMERICANS. But after dinner, as Morris sat with his chief guests, Washington and Rochambeau, discussing the situation, Washington frankly confessed that the success of the expedition against Cornwallis wits again absolutely threatened with failure be- cause of the lack of funds. " Thanks to you, my friend," he said to Morris, " the money pledged for the expedition provides its supplies, but the soldiers are hard to handle. Their pay is far in arrears ; their discontent is fast increasing ; Congress can afford them no present relief ; the Northern regiments grumble at march- ing so far from their homes ; the temper of the men is tried to the uttermost ; and there are even threats of withdrawal and revolt. Of course, with them I am firm ; but I do not conceal from you that I am perplexed. To fail in my plans on the very- eve of success would be disastrous to our cause. We must not fail." The Financier stroked his ample chin for a while in thought. " The treasury ? That is you, my friend, is it not ? " queried the Frenchman. " It seems to be, count," replied Morris, with a rueful smile. " Even his Excellency would seem to believe it so. But see, gentlemen ; my public funds are exhausted ; the military chest is empty ; and I, to this date, have issued of my private notes, for the public use, nearly six hundred thousand dollars. Only by strenuous efforts have I been ROBERT MORRIS. 137 able to honor these notes ; but thus far, thank God, I have done it." " And you can do it again, Morris, for the cause," the general exclaimed. " But how, your Excellency, how ? " queried the puzzled Financier. " As for myself, I have no system of finance except that which results from the plain and self-evident dictates of moral honesty. I cannot see Ah, stay ! Your Excellency," he said, turning suddenly toward Rochambeau, " your military chest is generously supplied. Lend me twenty thousand dollars to help the general satisfy his clamorous troops ! " The Frenchman was startled at this sudden and unexpected request. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly. "My faith," he cried, "it is what you Ameri- cans call rushing this ! It is audacious, eh ? To ask our swords and after that our gold ! What now is that twenty thousand you ask for worth in your American paper money ? " " In that, oh a hundred dollars for one, at the least," replied Mr. Morris. " While Congress can- not back it up it is certainly vastly depreciated." " And you would ask us to take for our good gold from our military chest paper assignats what you call bills which your Congress cannot guar- antee?" Rochambeau demanded. "I fear it is, sir, as you Americans might say, too much for our good-nature, is it not ? " 138 HISTORIC AMERICANS. " But I do not ask Congress to guarantee them, count," declared Morris. "That security is as poor as oar paper currency to-day. But the com- mercial house of Willing & Morris have never failed to keep their promise. The name of Robert Morris has never been dishonored in the market. Lend me the money, your Excellency, and I will stake my private credit to make my promises good. I offer you my notes, not those of Congress." The Frenchman bowed in acceptance. " The security is beyond question, sir," he said. " On your word we can squeeze the money from our store, though it may cripple us. For even our military chest has what you call a bottom." "But it can speedily be filled, count," the Financier assured him. "See, here have come advices that the admiral of your fleet, the Count De Grasse, has arrived with his ships in the Ches- apeake. He has money on board, I know, and Dr. Franklin will speedily send us funds from France. He was to urge another loan there, I am informed. Let me have the money but for three months, and in three months it shall be repaid. I pledge you my word." " It is yours, my friend," Count Rochambeau replied, and at once the money was drawn out, and Washington, by a wise distribution of the loan among his needy soldiers, allayed their wrath, set- tled a portion of their claim for wages, and put them once more into a proper temper. ROBERT MORRIS. 139 Thus, once again, did Morris, by his personal promise, save the cause. For in three days' time, on the third of September, 1781, with martial music and with great display, with the fleur-de-lis and the stars and stripes fluttering side by side above the allied troops, the French in their brilliant uniforms, the Continentals in their well-worn buff and blue, marched together into the city of Philadelphia, while all the town echoed with shouts of welcome and, everywhere, the streets were thronged with eager, watching, and delighted people. Then the allied armies marched south to Virginia, and on the " heights above York " Cornwallis, entrapped and dispirited, yielded his sword in surrender. It is not too much to say that to the timely and generous aid of Robert Morris the victories of Princeton and Yorktown were due, and that to him also in large measure was due the success of Ameri- can independence. This remarkable man Robert Morris, of Phila- delphia was an Englishman by birth, having been born in Liverpool two years after Washington, in 1734. But, removing with his parents to America while yet a small boy, he was left an orphan when but fifteen, and at once started out in life " on his own hook." His father's business had been in Oxford, on the " eastern shore " of Maryland. But young Morris secured a position with a prominent Philadelphia merchant, and filled it so satisfactorily that when but twenty years old he was, upon the 140 HISTORIC AMERICANS. death of the senior partner, taken into the firm, which then became Willing & Morris. This concern, which grew to be one of the leading business houses in the United States, had large in- terests in trade with England, but Willing & Mor- ris, enterprising and energetic though they were in trade, counted patriotism as something higher, and cast in their lot with the colonies. They hoped, however, as did other patriots, to secure justice by peaceful measures, and when, in 1776, Robert Morris was sent as a delegate from Pennsylvania to the Continental Congress he openly opposed independence and the Declaration. When, however, he saw that open resistance and revolution were the will of the majority he put aside his personal opinions, and entered so heartily into the cause of the colonies that Congress placed him at the head of the committees on finance and commerce, intrusted to him all questions of ways and means, and found him to be at once so devoted, so able, and so patriotic that, as John Adams, the stoutest advocate of independence, declared, " He has a masterly understanding, an open temper, and an honest heart." As you have seen, Washington relied upon him when pressure was sharpest and "prospects were most dark. When all others failed him Robert Morris could be depended upon ; when the credit of the Congress ran out, and its promises to pay were scarcely worth the paper upon which they ROBERT MORRIS. 141 were printed, Robert Morris, first as commissioner and chairman, and later as Superintendent of Fi- nance, or " Financier, 1 ' as he was more frequently called, raised the needed funds upon his own responsibility, even upon his own private credit, and actually saved the cause of independence. The patriots breathed easier when they knew that the control of money matters was committed into his keeping as Financier of the United States. " You are the man best capable for this great work of introducing order into our finances," Hamilton wrote him ; from across the sea in Paris Benjamin Franklin sent his expressions of pleasure at the appointment, and added, " From your intelli- gence, integrity, and abilities there is reason to hope every advantage that the public can possibly receive from such an office ; " while Washington's satisfaction at the appointment we know was great. Robert Morris had made many sacrifices even before he was named as Financier of the United States. He was prepared to make yet more. " The contest we are engaged in," he declared as he un- dertook the duties of his new office, " appeared to me just and necessary ; therefore I took an active part in it. As it became dangerous I thought it the more glorious, and was stimulated to the great- est exertions in my power when the affairs of America were at their worst." A man may work, or fight, or even die for a cause he has at heart ; he may contribute from his 142 HISTORIC AMERICANS. wealth or his poverty to its support ; but for a business man, who holds his word sacred and to whom his credit is dearer even than life, to delib- erately give his notes or his personal pledge to raise the money needed, not knowing where the money to meet those pledges is to come from ex- cept from himself, is as patriotic an act as the elo- quence of Patrick Henry or the courage of Wayne or Sheridan or Wheeler. Robert Morris pledged his word in behalf of the cause of independence far beyond his own resources ; but that word was always kept, although at times the case seemed hopeless. At one stage of the Revolution his pri- vate notes, issued to meet the demands he had undertaken to fulfil, reached, as he told Rocham- beau, nearly six hundred thousand dollars, while one historian of the Revolution asserts that Robert Morris, by his fidelity, ability, and skilfulness dur- ing the Revolution, " saved the United States annually thirteen millions in hard money." He started the first bank ever incorporated in America for the purpose of serving the government through the deposits of Americans who had faith enough in him and his plan to become stockhold- ers and depositors ; and to-day, on stately Chest- nut street, in the city of Philadelphia, the splendid and imposing building of the Bank of North America stands upon the site of the original Bank of North America founded in 1781 by Robert Morris, financier and patriot. ROBERT MORRIS. 143 When the Revolution ended in triumph, and the new nation started off for itself, the Bank of North America was made the financial agent of the United States. Of this bank Robert Morris was never an officer, only a stockholder, and he never used it for his own benefit except as any other depositor or stockholder. But out of the founding of that in- stitution, fostered by Robert Morris, grew the mighty banking interests and facilities of the United States. Washington, when elected president of the new Republic, thought at first of making Morris the secretary of the treasury, but he waived the ap- pointment in favor of Alexander Hamilton, in whose ability he had equal faith. Indeed, it is claimed that it was Robert Morris who discovered and brought forward Alexander Hamilton, first as the head of the United States Treasury, and again as the maker of the American Union and the Amer- ican Constitution ; indeed, Bancroft, the historian, declared that it was Robert Morris " who gave the first vehement impulse towards the consolidation of the American Union." And yet this financier of the American Revolu- tion, this patriot, statesman, merchant, and man of personal and business integrity, passed the last years of his life in prison, a prisoner for debt, and was only saved from dying there by the kindly offices of a friend who unearthed an old claim in which Morris had an interest, and by making it 144 HISTORIC AMERICANS. yield a small income for the old patriot's wife, enabled him to die at home, free but poor, on the eighth of May, 1806. It must be confessed that the disasters of Robert Morris came because of his own actions. But even .of these we may say that he had so firm a belief in the future of the great Republic he had helped to found that he took " too much stock " in its im- mediate development. He went into speculations in land and building lots that proved too slow to meet his expectations, and saddled him so heavily with losses and obligations that all his property was swept away, and he failed for three millions of dollars an enormous sum in those days of small things. " You are over sixty, Morris," said Washington to him one day, in warning. " Don't go into these speculations, they will ruin you." " I cannot help it, general," replied the old Financier. " I must go deep or not at all. I must be either a man or a mouse." When the crash came he gave up everything to meet the demand upon him ; but it could not save him from a debtor's prison. So to prison he went, an old and broken man ; " but," as he wrote to his friend Hamilton, " I am sensible that I have lost the confidence of the world as to my pecuniary ability, but I believe not as to my honor or integrity." Washington's friendship remained steadfast. ROBERT MORRIS. 145 He visited his old friend in prison, looked after his wife, and assured her of " the affectionate regard of General and Mrs. Washington for Robert Morris." The best of men make mistakes, and it is not for us to attempt to excuse the extravagances and speculations of this old and tried business man. These now, however, should be forgotten and, rather than censure or criticism, the affectionate remembrance of this great and prosperous Republic should be for the man who made its greatness and prosperity possible, and in its days of storm and stress stood behind it with his credit and his name. For Robert Morris was one of the greatest finan- ciers, one of the greatest patriots America has ever produced, entitled by his virtues, his sacrifices, and his abilities to stand in the front rank of noble and historic Americans. XI. THE STORY OF JOHN * JAY, OF BEDFORD, FIKST CHIEF-JUSTICE OF THE UNITED STATES. Born in New York City, December 12, 1745. Died at Bedford, New York, May 17, 1829. "When the spotless ermine of the judicial robe fell on John Jay it touched nothing less spotless than itself." Daniel Webster. " THINGS will come right and these States will be great and flourishing," wrote the president of Congress in prophetic words to the general of the army. The date of the letter was the twenty-first of April, 1779, when the condition of affairs in the struggling States of an uncertain Union would scarcely seem to give much cause for so flattering a prophecy. New York and Philadelphia were both in possession of the British ; the Carolinas had been swept by the invaders ; and Congress was powerless to raise money or to maintain itself in a permanent capital. But there are men able to look beyond the dark- 146 JOHN JAY. 147 ness of the present and catch the first gleam of the coming light. Such a man was the president of the Continental Congress in 1779 John Jay, of New York. He had not wished to plunge headlong into the horrors of war or the uncertainties of indepen- dence. Up to the very last he had, like Robert Morris and other peace-loving and conservative patriots, sought to heal the breach rather than to widen it. John Jay was a lover of law and order, and he felt that the colonies should act accord- ing to constitutional rather than revolutionary methods. He was a firm believer in the right of the majority, and hated to see anything like un- reasonable haste in action. "There seems no reason," he said, "that our colony should be too precipitate in changing the present mode of government. I would first be well assured of the opinion of the inhabitants at large. Let them be rather followed than driven on an occasion of such moment." His course proved wise. For while impulsive patriots like Samuel Adams and James Otis were for instant action and revolution, other and calmer minds, like Jay and Morris, were for thinking before leaping. The English colonies he knew had always been possessed of a certain liberty of speech and action, and the struggle was to pre- serve this liberty and not to permit it to be taken from them by British aggression or tyranny. So 148 HISTORIC AMERICANS. in delaying immediate action he and those who thought like him strengthened the spirit of liberty and a desire for union, and thus helped rather than hindered the cause of independence. When, however, that independence was decided upon as the only way to liberty John Jay became as strong and ardent a patriot and revolutionist as any. It was he who drafted the resolution adopted by the " Provincial Congress " of New York which declared " that the reasons assigned by the Conti- nental Congress for declaring the United Colonies free and independent States are cogent and con- clusive ; and that while we lament the cruel neces- sity which has rendered that measure unavoidable, we approve the same, and will, at the risk of our lives and fortunes, join with the other colonies in supporting it." John Jay had considerable in the way of life an/l fortune to risk. The son of a wealthy and retired New York merchant, he had graduated from Columbia College in 1764, at the age of twenty-one ; he had then studied law and been ad- mitted to the New York bar ; he had married one of the charming daughters of the wealthy William Livingston, the patriot of "Liberty Hall," and was, in fact, one of the " four hundred " of colonial New York. But, once committed to the cause of the colonies, he became an important man in its councils though less than thirty years old. He was a JOHN JAY. 149 member of the Committee on the Rights of the Colonies ; he was one of the committee to draft a memorial to the people of Great Britain. In this communication he declared : " We consider our- selves and do insist that we are and ought to be as free as our fellow-subjects in Britain, and that HO power on earth has a right to take our property from us without our consent." Elected to the second Continental Congress, he felt that his duty lay rather in the " Provincial Con- gress " of New York, to which he had also been elected, and he remained a member of both ; but he was not present on the eventful Fourth of July, and his name is not found among the signers of the great Declaration. He strongly approved of that immortal paper, however, and expressed his opinion that " our declaring independence in the face of so powerful a fleet and army will impress foreign nations with an opinion of our strength and spirit ; and when they are informed how little our country is in the enemy's possession they will unite in declaring us invincible by the arms of Britain." In those days of Tories and treason the patriots of America who were seeking independence had reason to look well after their neighbors and former associates ; for even a friend and neighbor might be a spy, a Tory, a British sympathizer. Jay was at the head of the Secret Committee for the purpose of discovering and banishing such enemies 150 HISTORIC AMERICANS. within ; and, though always just, he had need to be at times stern and unyielding, even though his best friends were among the suspected ones. In this secret service he had occasion to make use of a man who was cool, shrewd, and fearless and who, for the sake of patriotism, acted the hero by playing the spy. This patriot would appear to be an ardent " king's man " : he would enlist, serve, and march, apparently as a good redcoat, but really for the sake of getting hold of important secrets which he would report to Jay. The British trusted him ; the Americans hated him ; often he was arrested by the Americans ; once he was very nearly hanged as a British spy. Jay, who alone knew his secret, remained his friend and finally gained from Congress money for the spy's services. Then he sought him out and offered him a cash recompense for his sacrifices. " Sir, I cannot take it," said the spy. " The country has need of every dollar to prosecute the war. I can work; I can get my living. Never mind any money for me. What I do, I do freely for liberty." And when, years after, John Jay told that story to a great writer the incident deeply impressed the listener, and, as a result, Fenimore Cooper gave to the world his greatest story, " The Spy." John Jay could not remain long in the service of his native State. His country needed him. He was to have his share in the work of impres- JOHN JAY. 151 sing foreign nations with the importance of the United States ; for after he had displayed his wis- dom, firmness, and ability as a bold and energetic Revolutionary leader, a State-builder in his prepara- tion of the Constitution for the State of New York, and an able and efficient president of the Continental Congress, he was, in the fall of 1779, sent abroad as minister to Spain. He was given, as one of his biographers says, a most unattractive position " that of the unrec- ognized envoy of a country little known and less liked, begging money at a haughty and penurious court ; " for the Spain of 1779 was not a whit different from the Spain of 1898. He was sent to Spain to make a commercial treaty, borrow five millions of dollars, and fight for the control or at least the navigation of the Missis- sippi. Not one of these was Spain willing to give. In fact, neither France nor Spain really wished to help the revolted American colonies. Their wish was to play with them, to help them just enough to keep the war going, and thus, by crippling and weakening England, to wring from it Canada or at least Nova Scotia for France and Gibraltar for Spain. So John Jay and John Adams and Ben- jamin Franklin, though sent abroad for the good and strengthening of the Republic, were to be used by France and Spain even as the cat in the fable was used by the monkey to pull the chestnuts from the fire. 152 HISTORIC AMERICANS. But the trained and insincere diplomats of France and Spain were, after all, outwitted by the honest, open patriots of America. Both Adams in France and Jay in Spain, to say the least, were, as they expressed it, " very disagreeably circumstanced." Jay, indeed, was in Spain what Woodford was at a later date, persona non grata, as it is called, in other words, not wanted ; he had, however, the satis- faction, in the end, of ignoring and humbling the haughty Dons who had both slighted and insulted him ; for when, in 1782, he was summoned to Paris to join Benjamin Franklin in negotiations for peace with England he was able to conclude the matter without reference to the ungenerous and selfish demands of Spain. He lived to see not only the navigation but the ownership of the Mississippi vested in America, together with all the former possessions of Spain, even to the Pacific. He saw the very footing of Spain in America wrested from her by her own ill-treated and rebellious colonists, until, before he died, only the islands of the West Indies remained to her, themselves to be, after his day, torn from her by the uprising of her subjects and the indignant protests of the liberty-loving people of America. Truly, time works its own revenges. His services in France and England as peace- negotiator and treaty-maker were invaluable. Twice as much territory was secured from England as was proposed in the first overtures ; the fishing rights in JOHN JAY. 153 the Atlantic and the navigation of the Mississippi were both acquired, and for this victory of diplo- macy John Jay was entitled to the chief credit. Even John Adams, one of the chief commissioners, frankly and cordially acknowledged this. "The principal merit of the negotiation was Mr. Jay's," he declared ; " a man and his office were never better united than Mr. Jay and the commissioner for peace," and when, in 1784, the successful com- missioner started for home John Adams wrote to a mutual acquaintance : " Our worthy friend, Mr. Jay, returns to his country like a bee to his hive, with both legs loaded with merit and honor." Merit and honor, indeed, were his on his home- coming. His native New York gave him " the freedom of the city " in a gold box, " as a pledge of affection," and his desire to retire to private life was not granted by the Republic ; for he found on his arrival that he had been appointed by Congress secretary of foreign affairs. This was before the days of presidents and Cabi- nets, when the affairs of the States were still con- ducted under the articles of confederation and by committees of Congress. They were, as we know, very unsatisfactorily conducted, and were altogether unfitted to meet the demands of a growing nation. So the secretary for foreign affairs much like what we call the Secretary of State to-day had his hands full. Jay had to settle the treaty troubles and commercial questions that arose between the 154 HISTORIC AMERICANS. United States and other nations, and he had some- times to take a firm stand and sometimes to be yielding. He knew that one of the best means for keeping peace with foreign nations was a sufficient navy, and he urged on Congress, again and again, the necessity of building ships of war. Had his advice been followed the cowardly tribute-paying to the pirates of Algiers would have been stopped by war long before Decatur put an end to it with shot and shell. " As between war or tribute," he said, " I, for my part, prefer war ; " and the naval preparations he wished to put on foot would have made the American flag respected and feared in the Mediterranean, and maintained it as the banner of a formidable power far into the nineteenth cen- tury. He soon saw, as did other clear-headed states- men, that the Articles of Confederation could not long hold the States together. He was, therefore, a strong advocate of the Constitution, and declared by word and pen that " a national government was essential to avert dangers from foreign force and influence," of which, in his diplomatic relations with Spain and France and England, he had suffi- cient and depressing experience. When finally, in 1789, the Constitution was agreed upon and adopted, and the new nation was fairly set on its upward way, President Washington showed at once his appreciation of the ability and strength of John Jay, for he offered him the choice JOHN JAY. 155 of any office in his gift, and Jay chose the dignified and exalted office of chief-justice of the United States. He was the first one to sit as the presiding officer of the Supreme Court, and Washington felt the choice to be so good that he wrote to Jay, " In nominating you for the important station which you now fill I not only acted in conformity with my best judgment, but I trust I did a grateful thing to the good citizens of these United States." Jay's attitude as chief-justice during a troubled and often stormy time was dignified, judicial, calm, and determined. Nothing but justice swayed his decisions ; his integrity was unimpeachable ; his reputation was spotless ; and when, as the increasing troubles with England which might have been avoided had John Jay's wise advice been followed grew more threatening, because of England's re- fusal to keep the treaty obligations of 1784, Jay was selected by President Washington as the one man eminently fitted to smooth away difficulties and arrange a neutrality. It was neither a pleasant nor an easy task that was thus laid upon him. The country was in a war fever. England was acting like a bully, America like a fire-eater. The demand for war with Eng- land swept away all caution. " You cannot imagine," John Adams said to his wife, writing from Philadelphia, " what horror some people are in lest peace should continue. The prospect of peace throws them into distress." 156 HISTORIC AMERICANS. It sounds quite like the Spanish war fever of 1898, does it not ? People, you see, are just as ex- citable, just as unreasonable, and just as heedless of consequences in one century as another. But there are always some calm, cautious, patient men to act as balance wheels. "Peace," said Washington, and he was black- guarded for saying this, " ought to be pursued with unremitted zeal before contemplating that last resource, which has so often been the scourge of nations, and which cannot fail to check the advanc- ing prosperity of the United States." So, when Washington wished Jay to go as a special envoy to Great Britain to settle the dis- pute, if possible, the chief-justice knew that he was accepting an unpopular, even a detested duty. " So strong are the prejudices of the American people," said he, " that no man could form a treaty with Great Britain, however advantageous it might be to the country, who would not by his agency render himself so unpopular and odious as to blast all hope of political preferment." But he accepted it, because, as he declared, " the good of my country demands the sacrifice, and I am ready to make it." In that spirit of self-sacrifice John Jay showed his real patriotism; for to do a disagreeable duty willingly and cheerfully is real courage, and to do it for the public good is patriotism. A treaty was arranged between Great Britain JOHN JAY. 157 and America by which some things were conceded by both sides, while other things were only parti- ally settled. "I will endeavor to accommodate rather than dispute," Jay had said, like the statesman he was ; but because he did not dispute, because he gave up certain things and did not insist on others, the critics in America were furious. They could not, they would not admit the truth of Jay's noble words : " This was not a trial of diplomatic fenc- ing," he said, " but a solemn question of peace or war between two peoples in whose veins flowed the blood of a common ancestry, and on whose continued good understanding might perhaps depend the future freedom and happiness of the human race." In the light of events at the close of the nine- teenth century these words of John Jay at the close of the eighteenth century seem almost prophetic, for it took, indeed, a hundred years and three more to bring about, between England and America, that strain of good feeling which is at once wise, helpful, and practical. But any treaty that conceded anything to Eng- land was certain to be met with censure in the heated condition of public feeling in America in 1794, and although recent historians, after a hun- dred years have passed, admit that " Jay's treaty was a masterpiece of diplomacy, considering the time and the circumstances of the country," the country or at least the aggressive, talkative side 158 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of it violently attacked the treaty, and assailed the maker of it with the most fiery indignation and insults. He was written against, spoken against, almost fought against. He was burned in effigy at Philadelphia and New York. He was charged with cowardice, bribery, and treason. His friends and apologists were howled down ; Hamilton was stoned in the street for attempting to defend Jay's treaty, while even Washington himself did not escape, but, because he upheld Jay's action, he was abused, he said, " like a Nero, a defaulter, and a pickpocket," until at last, in one of his infrequent passions, he declared he would rather be in his grave than be president. But even as Washington could not be moved when he felt that his judgment was right, so could neither censure nor insult move the calm dignity of John Jay. President Washington approved and signed the treaty, and Congress, in spite of public clamor, passed and proclaimed it, and " Jay's Treaty," as it is still called, is now conceded to have been, under the circumstances, the best that could have been made. It certainly postponed for years a second war with England. " Calumny," said John Jay, " is seldom deniable ; it will yield to truth." In his case it did yield to truth, and, before long, America was ashamed of the injustice and short-sightedness of some of her sons. Jay returned from Europe to find that he had been elected governor of New York, and, in spite JOHN JAY. 159 of the public rage against him, he was reflected, and even declined a third nomination. As gov- ernor he was as loyal to duty and as faithful to his trust as he had proved himself in every task imposed upon him. Influence could not move him nor patronage affect him. His one test of fitness was ability, and when one day an associate, making a plea for an office-seeker, assured the gov- ernor that the applicant belonged to his party Jay exclaimed emphatically, " That, sir, is not the question ; is he fit for the office ? " That should be the spirit of appointments to-day. When he was solicited to place in one man's position another who, though of the opposite party, could be made useful to him Jay replied indignantly, "What, sir ! Do you advise me to sell a friend that I may buy an enemy ? " When John Adams was elected president he worked hard to induce Jay to again accept the post of chief-justice; but he would not. For nearly thirty years he had held office in the State or nation, and he was weary and needed rest. So he retired to his farm at Bedford, in West- chester county, in 1801, and there he lived for twenty-eight years, meeting old age pleasantly, as a farmer and country gentleman, and there, on the fourteenth of May, 1829, he died, aged eighty-four years. Up to the time of his retirement from office at the age of fifty-six his life had been spent almost 160 HISTORIC AMERICANS. entirely in the public service. Independent, honest, unprejudiced, discreet, truthful, upright, and just, he had done well for the Republic and, as one of his associates in the law declared, " Few men in any country, perhaps scarce one in this, have filled a larger space, and few have ever passed through life with such perfect purity, integrity, and honor." That is a grand thing for one man to say of another. But in the case of John Jay it seems to have been well deserved. In critical times men relied upon his wisdom, his caution, his ability, and integrity. Washington honored him as an associate and loved him as a friend ; and his pure and spotless life, in which there was so little of selfishness, jealousy, or injustice, has endeared him to Americans as one of the best and brightest, most wise, and far-seeing of all our American patriots. XII. THE STORY OF JOHN MARSHALL, OF RICHMOND, CALLED "THE GREAT CHIEF-JUSTICE." Born at Germantown, Virginia, September 24, 1755. Died at Philadelphia, July 6, 1835. "The Constitution, since its adoption, owes more to John Marshall than to-any other single mind for its true interpretation and vindication." Joseph Story. THE young man in the blanket, standing with his back to the blazing logs, said cheerily as a knock resounded on the outer door of the hut, " Open up, Porterfield. You 're butler to-day, and footman too. You 've got the clothes of the whole mess." The officer thus accpsted flung open the door and a soldier entered, saluting. " What is it, orderly ? " inquired Porterfield. " A note from the commander-in-chief, sir," replied the messenger, " for Lieutenant Marshall." ' The figure wrapped in the blanket slipped from before the open fire and took the proffered note. Opening it, he read it, reread it, rubbed his chin 161 162 HISTORIC AMERICANS. thoughtfully while a quizzical sort of smile played about his fine mouth, and then said to the messen- ger, " My compliments to the general, orderly. Pray say to him that I accept with pleasure." The orderly saluted and withdrew. Again the lieutenant ran over the note and looked up with a smile of mingled pleasure and perplexity. " It 's my turn to-day, boys," he said. " Hear this : ' General Washington presents his compli- ments to Lieutenant Marshall and will be glad to have his company to-day at dinner, at headquarters, at the usual hour.' " "And you're going?" asked Porterfield. Marshall nodded. "In that rig?" queried Lieutenant Slaughter, from his home-made bench, where he was carefully tightening a cloth about a very ragged shoe. " Well, hardly," Marshall replied. " The general likes full dress at dinner, you know, and this is "- " Undress," suggested Porterfield. " Precisely. Now, I 'm not going to decline, as you fellows do when his Excellency honors you with an invite," Marshall, went on. "Some day you '11 be proud to say that you dined with Wash- ington, especially when one has such an appetite as I have, and the Goodevrow Onderdonk's last apple- pies were so hard that we played football with 'em. See here, boys, I 'm going to levy on each one of you for contributions. You '11 have to lend me a shirt, Slaughter." X j#& A NOTE FROM THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF, SIR," REPLIED THE MESSENGER. JOHN MARSHALL. 163 " Can't do it, Jack," the lieutenant on the bench replied. " This one is n't fresh enough, and I gave my only other one this very morning to one of the Rhode Island boys who was mighty nigh frozen." " Same here with stockings," Porterfield chimed in. " I 'd let you have these, Marshall, but I can't go bare-legged in this weather." "Johnson has a pair of stockings, I know," said Marshall. " I saw them in his kit yesterday. No shirt, eh? I reckon mine will be back from the wash in time. Nice state of affairs for the lieu- tenant of Taliafero's (he called it Tolliver's) shirt men to be in, isn't it? That's what Dunmore's Tories used to call us, you remember, Porterfield, when we chased 'em out of Suffolk in our green hunting-shirts, home spun, home woven, and home made." " Oh ! you were one of John Randolph's Virginia minute-men, eh ? " queried Porterfield. " Raised in a minute, armed in a minute, marched in a minute, fought in a minute, and vanquished in a minute that 's why they called you minute-men, he said." " Well, I 've got to be armed in a minute now, if I 'm going to dine at headquarters," said Marshall. " Come, boys, you 've just got to fix me up. John Marshall never breaks his word, you know." So in that snow-covered hut of logs, scantily warmed by the log fire, and less scantily furnished with home-made necessities, the jolly mess of five 164 HISTORIC AMERICANS. shivering and scantily clothed but healthy and even-tempered young officers of the Continental army went to work to make Lieutenant Marshall presentable for the dinner-table of the commander- in-chief at headquarters in Valley Forge. They had scarcely a complete suit among them ; for what was not worn out they had given away to the freezing privates, like the generous-hearted boys they were. But, by careful selection, they man- aged at last to fit out for the " banquet " their com- rade, John Marshall, of Fauquier county, "the best-tempered fellow I ever knew," so one of them declared. Captain Johnson's stockings, Captain Porter- field's breeches, Lieutenant Porterfield's waistcoat, with John Marshall's own coat, his own shirt hurried back from the wash, and adorned with the wristbands and collar which Lieutenant Slaughter had made for dress occasions from the bosom of his own well-worn shirt, these made the young sol- dier fairly presentable ; and thus equipped in bor- rowed plumage, Lieut. John Marshall ploughed through the snow to headquarters, the old Potts house at Valley Forge, to dine with the com- mander-in-chief , and to receive his promotion as captain for gallant services at Germantown and Brandywine. As John Marshall was at Valley Forge in that dark and distressing winter so he ever was as a young man. "Nothing discouraged him, nothing JOHN MARSHALL. 165 disturbed him," said his friend Slaughter, who lent him the collar and cuffs. " If he had only bread to eat, it was just as well ; if only meal, it made no dif- ference. If any of the officers murmured at their deprivations he would shame them by good-natured raillery or encourage them by his own exuberance of spirits." It is no wonder that the young soldier he was only twenty-two was liked by the officers, from Washington down, and by the soldiers in the camp. He was such a pleasant comrade that he made even that dreary camp lively with his fun, his stories, and his continual good-nature, and he was chosen, again and again, to arbitrate the disputes that, in a cramped and snow-bound winter camp, were often breaking out between less adaptable offi- cers. His decisions were always abided by, and so wise and just were his counsels in these camp quar- rels that he was, in time, appointed deputy judge- advocate of the army at Valley Forge. This judicial fairness and ability to counsel and advise had characterized John Marshall from boy- hood. His father was a veteran of the French war and a colonel in the Continental army, who, during that terrible winter at Valley Forge, shared all its hardships with three of his seven sons. Of these seven sons John Marshall was the eldest, born at the village of Germantown, in Virginia, on the twenty-fourth of September, 1755. He was an active and energetic, if sometimes a 166 HISTORIC AMERICANS. careless and fun-loving boy, as ready for a game of quoits, a foot race, or a wrestling match as for a drill on the muster field or a tug at his Latin. Spite of his willingness to play he was a ready student, for at twelve years old he knew Pope by heart and could quote by the hour from Shake- speare, Dryden, or Milton, while at eighteen he was making ready for his own bread-winning by study- ing to become a lawyer. But the American Revolution called him from his studies and sent him into the army, first as one of the blue-shirted Virginia minute-men and then as a lieutenant in the Virginia line. He fought under Washington at Germantown and Monmouth ; he was in the daring dash of Wayne at Stony Point; he helped drive the traitor Arnold from Virginia and then, the Revolution over, he went quietly back to his law studies to become in time a successful Rich- mond lawyer, a member of the Virginia Legislature, a member of the governor's council, a general in the State militia, a member of the Virginia Consti- tutional Convention, the best-liked Virginian of his day, a defender of the new Constitution of the United States, and an envoy to France, when France seemed bent on blackmailing the United States, but could only force from our envoys, Pinckney and Marshall, the famous declaration that America remembers with pride to this day : " Millions for defence, but not one cent for tribute." JOHN MARSHALL. 167 For the bold stand he then took against the artful Talleyrand the American people gave him great praise. "Of the three envoys to France," said President John Adams, "the conduct of Marshall alone has been entirely satisfactory and ought to be marked by the most decided approba- tion of the public. He has raised the American people in their own esteem; and if the influence of truth and justice, reason and argument, is not lost in Europe, he has raised the consideration of the United States in that quarter." The president would at once have appointed him one of the judges of the Supreme Court, but Marshall declined ; the people of Virginia desired to send him to Congress, and although he pre- ferred to devote himself to his large practice as a lawyer he finally accepted the nomination and, in 1799, he was elected and took his seat as a repre- sentative from Virginia, in December of that year. Almost the first duty that devolved upon the new congressman was to notify the House that his friend, and America's deliverer, George Washington, was dead. It was on the nineteenth of December that Mar- shall conveyed to his colleagues this melancholy in- telligence. Rising in his seat with a voice low and solemn, while his words almost trembled into tears, he said : " The melancholy event, which was yes- terday announced with doubt, has been rendered but 168 HISTORIC AMERICANS. too certain. Our Washington is no more ! The hero, the patriot, the sage of America, the man on whom in times of danger every eye was turned and all hopes were placed, lives now only in his own great actions, and in the hearts of an affectionate and afflicted people." Then, in a few brief, eloquent words, heavy with sorrow and filled with reverent appreciation, Marshall pronounced his short eulogy on his old commander, leader, and friend, closing with the resolutions, prepared by " Light-horse Harry " Lee, but effectively read by John Marshall, and now known to all the world. " Resolved" the resolution concluded, " That a committee, in conjunction with one from the Senate, be appointed to consider the most suitable manner of paying honors to the memory of the man first in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his fel- low-citizens." President Adams, who held the abilities and ser- vices of Marshall in such high regard, again begged to be allowed to make use of him in the conduct of his own administration, and having secured, at last, a reluctant consent, he appointed John Marshall, upon the adjournment of Congress, in May, 1800, secretary of state. But even this high honor did not fully satisfy the desires of the Massachusetts statesman, who held the Virginia statesman in such esteem ; for, in less than a year after the appointment, President Adams, JOHN MARSHALL. 169 on the thirty-first of January, 1801, named John Marshall as chief-justice of the United States. It was one of the last official acts of John Adams, and as has well been said of it, " never was a more correct appreciation of fitness shown." "If President Adams," says Mr. Magruder, " had left no other claims on the grateful remem- brance of his countrymen than in giving to the public service this great magistrate, so pure and so wise, he would always have lived in that act as a great benefactor of his country. The aged patriot survived long enough to see abundant proof of the soundness of his choice, and to rejoice in it." That this opinion is borne out by the facts every student of American history and American law must agree. " He was born to be chief-justice of any country in which he lived," one lawyer who heard Marshall's masterly decisions enthusiasti- cally exclaimed, and Professor Channing declares that Marshall " proved to be the ablest legal lumi- nary that America has yet produced." For thirty-five years John Marshall remained at the head of the Supreme Court as chief-justice of the United States. Impartial, judicial, courageous, clear, discriminating, just, and wise, possessing alike what are called the judicial instinct and the constructive faculty, he taught, by his opinions and his decisions, the supreme power of the nation and the supreme position of the Constitution of the United States as the written law of the land. 170 HISTORIC AMERICANS. He did this so well, so forcibly, and so decisively that he established, as much as any other American statesman, the value of the Constitution as a perma- nent authority, and the position of the nation as the head and controller of the affairs of the Republic. Through all the changes of parties and presi- dents he remained the head of the greatest legal body on earth, in a position which he appreciated so highly that he declared he preferred to be chief- justice to being president. And yet, notwithstanding the dignity of his position and the greatness of the responsibilities it entailed, he remained throughout his long and priceless service the same simple, sweet-tempered, helpful, earnest character that he was when, amid the snow-covered huts of Vallej 7 Forge, he kept up the spirits and lightened the depression of his comrades. For more than forty years he was^a member of the Richmond Quoit Club, and he was as keen and deft a hand at that athletic sport as when, years and years before, he had challenged his companions to a game on the parade ground where Taliafero's " shirt men " gathered for their muster. In all things which he believed, his convic- tions were deep and his loyalty to them lasting. One evening, in a tavern in the town of Winchester, in Northern Virginia, a group of three or four young lawyers were discussing, first, eloquence, and then religion. As they talked, a gig drove up to the tavern and a tall, bright-eyed, venerable man JOHN MARSHALL. 171 of nearly eighty descended from the gig and came into the room. He wore his hair in a queue, and was plainly dressed, so plainly, in fact, that the young debaters took him for some travelling farmer, and simply nodding their " How d'ye do ? " went on with their discussion. All the evening the talk continued, each one air- ing his opinions and advancing his arguments until it seemed as if the advocates of Christianity were getting the worst of the discussion, while near at hand, a silent, modest-appearing listener, the old man still sat, as if deriving alike benefit and infor- mation from the words of the heated young dispu- tants. Suddenly one of the young fellows who had taken the stand against Christianity, as if to see how convincing his arguments had been to an out- sider, turned to the old man and asked brusquely and just a bit patronizingly, " Well, old gentleman, what do you think about these things ? " A more surprised group of over-confident young men would have been hard to find when the " old granger," as the boys of to-day might have called the unassuming traveller of the rickety gig, replied directly to the carelessly put question of the young debater; for he entered at once upon a defence of Christianity so clear, so forcible, so simple and energetic, and yet, withal, so direct and convincing, that doubt was conquered and even unbelief was checked. 172 HISTORIC AMERICANS. The young men sat intent and silent, with no arguments to advance in rebuttal and with only delight and admiration for the speaker's words. Still they sat silent as the stranger rose and bade them a cheery good-night. Then curiosity got the better of appreciation, and they fell to wondering who the " old gentleman " was. " Must be a parson," one of them remarked. " Sure," assented another. " He talked just like a preacher. I wonder where he 's from ? " Just then the landlord came back from lighting his guest to bed. " Who was the old party ? Where does he come from ? Where does he preach ? " were the ques- tions that greeted him from all parts of the room. "Preach? What are you talking about, boys? He's no preacher," said the landlord, with the superiority of knowledge. " Did n't you know who it was? That was Judge Marshall, from down in Fauquier county." The young fellows looked at each other in dismay. " Judge Marshall ? " they said. " Not " - " Yes, but it was, though," replied the land- lord, answering their unspoken and hesitating in- quiry. " That's Judge John Marshall, chief-justice of the United States. Reckon the old gentleman knows more than you thought he did, eh? Oh, yes, I knew him all the time." But while the landlord laughed aloud at their discomfort more than one of these young men JOHN MARSHALL. 173 recalled the earnest, convincing, and inspiring words of the speaker, and never forgot the faith or the fervor of Chief-Justice Marshall. So with blended humor, pathos, and dignity, with love of sport and strength of belief, with simple tastes and homely manners, but with the courage of his convictions, a strong mind, a mas- terly grasp, and an intelligence and breadth that lifted him above his fellow-workers, the life of John Mai-shall, the great chief-justice, kept the tenor of its way unto the end. No man in all America did so much to teach his countrymen the meaning of the Constitution of the United States or the real scope and limit of the powers granted by the people through the Con- stitution to their general government. His deci- sions have been the basis of opinions and arguments for a hundred years, his constructions of intentions and meanings have been adopted without criticism, his exposition of the law as laid down in the Con- stitution has been accepted without dissent. Unbiased, logical, fair, and good-tempered, patient through all the intricacies of the law and calm under all its disappointments and delays, loving toward his friends, conciliatory toward his opponents, few American lawyers have been more popular when living or more revered when dead. To-day his residence in Richmond is still an ob- ject of curiosity and regard for the visitor %) that beautiful Virginian capital, while the splendid 174 HISTORIC AMERICANS. equestrian statue of Washington that adorns its tree-embowered square bears upon its pedestal the bronze statue of John Marshall as the representa- tive of Justice and as one of the supporters of the great president. And this is right. For of all the men of his day there was no one who earlier saw and appreciated the justice of the cause for which Washington labored ; there was none who in later life led his countrymen more truly along the path of national honor and national strength by his wise' and unquestioned counsels than did the great chief- justice of the United States, John Marshall, the Virginian and American. XIII. THE STORY OF JAMES MADISON, OF MONTPELLIER, CALLED "THE FATHER OF THE CONSTITUTION." Born at Port Con way, Virginia, March 16, 1751. Died at Montpellier, Virginia, June 28, 1836. " He was not the sort of hero for whom people throw up their caps and shout themselves hoarse ; but his work was of a kind that will long be powerful for good in the world." John Fiske. THERE was excitement on the college campus and within the college walls. From out the plain building that was at once dormitory, chapel, and school-room, where the great portrait of King George the Second frowned down upon the pro- testing students, black-robed figures streamed out upon the college green, where already a fire was crackling and climbing as if anxious for some accepted sacrifice. The sacrifice was evidently ready. For as the young collegians in their black robes formed, two and two, and winding out from Nassau hall serpen- tined over the college green to the tolling of the bell and gathered about the fire, out from the ranks 175 176 HISTORIC AMERICANS. stepped two young fellows, one of whom held in his hand a copy of one of the abbreviated and un- attractive looking newspapers of that day. It was a July night in the year 1770. The col- lege windows were open, the college bell was toll- ing, the college spirit was aroused, and while from the doorway the well-recognized form of the college president, good Doctor Witherspoon, the patriot of Princeton, looked down in unacknowledged but very evident sympathy upon the scene, the black- gowned student with the paper shook it aloft and with the sentiment, " So perish all foes to liberty ! " thrust the newspaper into the fire. It was a suttee of a copy of "Rivington's Ga- zette," in which had been published a letter from cer- tain weak-kneed and unpatriotic merchants of New York who had proved false to their pledge under the non-importation agreement and had written to the merchants of Philadelphia requesting them to act with them against the Non-Importation Act, which, so these thrifty merchants thought, would be a boon to trade, to profit, and to security. But the students of Princeton College were " true blue" patriots. Some of them already belonged to the aggressive " Sons of Liberty," and all of them were ready to stand forth as friend and follower of independence, the cause to which their preceptor, good Doctor Witherspoon, was already committed, and for which he taught his students to love and to labor even to die. JAMES MADISON. 177 Earnest and enthusiastic in this boyish revenge upon a time-serving and unpatriotic act one young Princetonian was foremost in his groans for the merchants and his cheers for the Sons of Liberty, President Witherspoon, and non-importation. He was a slight-built, not over strong, keen-eyed young fellow of nineteen, unused to demonstra- tions and unskilled in hurrahs. But oii this night his enthusiasm mastered him, and quiet, unobtru- sive, serious and often solemn James Madison, the Virginia boy, was as vociferous as the rest. He never was much of a real boy the restless, impulsive, active, careless college boy most familiar to us. Indeed, one of his biographers declares that he seems never to have been a young man. But such an occasion as this stirred him to enthusiasm as few occurrences did, so that one can scarcely tell, as he reads his letter home, giving an account of the student's bonfire, which stirred and inspired James Madison most the tolling bell, the solemn march and the parading black robes in the college yard, or the practical and exuberant patriotism of the college boys of that year of 1770, when they were, " all of them, dressed in American cloth." Indeed, the studious, serious-minded, and sober- faced young Virginian, who seems to have in- dulged in few laughs and less jokes in all his busy life, interested himself, while little more than a boy, in the great questions that were disturbing Amer- ica and upsetting the world in the last quarter of 178 HISTORIC AMERICANS. the eighteenth century. For we come upon such a letter as this, written from his quiet country home to a boy friend, left behind at Princeton, when the writer was but a very young man : " We are very busy at present in raising men and procuring the necessaries for defending our- selves and our friends, in case of a sudden inva- sion. The extensiveness of the demands of the Congress, and the pride of the British nation, to- gether with the wickedness of the present minis- try, seem, in the judgment of all politicians, to require a preparation for extreme events." When these " extreme events " came at last, young James Madison was not only prepared for them, he bore a part in them. It was not the part of a soldier, for he was weak in body and poor in health ; indeed, we find him in a letter to a young friend lamenting that while that friend had " health, youth, fire, and genius to bear you along the high track of public life," he, James JVf adison, was " too dull and infirm to look for any extraordinary things in this world," and could not " expect a long or healthy life." And yet that " dull and infirm " young invalid lived for more than sixty years after that letter was written, and became one of ttie most active and foremost men of his day and generation. But if he could not bear the part of a soldier at the front he did, early in his career, assume the work of the statesman. When but twenty-three years old he was appointed a member of the Virginia JAMES MADISON. 179 Committee of Safety of 1774 the youngest mem- ber of that important body, and in 1776 he was elected a delegate to the Virginia Convention, where he helped prepare the famous "Bill of Rights," which placed Virginia beside Massachusetts in the opening struggle with England, and, what is al- most as important in Madison's story, where he first met the man who through very nearly all the years of Madison's life was to him as " guide, philosopher, and friend " Thomas Jefferson, of Monticello. The Bill of Rights was, in effect, a declaration of what the proposed State of Virginia meant to do for the comfort and freedom of its people, and in it James Madison proposed and prepared the clause providing for toleration in the free exercise of religion to which all men are equally entitled ac- cording to the dictates of conscience not a bad way for a young statesman to begin his public work. Before he was thirty years old, in December, 1779, James Madison was elected by the Legislature of Virginia as one of its delegates to the Continental Congress, and thus began his long career of public service of over forty years, a service that closed only with his retirement from the highest office in the gift of the United States. His congressional life filled many busy years, and his services were of lasting value to the Re- public. It was he who stood out longest and strongest against the encroachments of Spain, and demanded from that procrastinating nation the 180 HISTORIC AMERICANS. rights to navigate the Mississippi ; it was he who declared in Congress that the demands and desires of constituents should not be binding upon their representatives in Congress ; it was he who declared that " the existing Confederacy is tottering to its foundation," and urged a speedy binding of all the States together in a firm national government " the Union before the States and for the sake of the States ; " it was he who proposed a certain plan of union out of which the Constitution of the United States was finally evolved, and this proposition, linked to his careful report of the proceedings of the convention which made the Constitution, has caused him to divide with Alexander Hamilton the title of " Father of the Constitution." It was James Madi- son who, joined with Hamilton and Jay, wrote a number of carefully prepared, thoughtful, and ex- haustive papers on the nature and meaning of the Federal Constitution, as the great document was often called ; these papers were collected in a volume called " The Federalist " a treatise which is, to- day, according to Professor Channing, " the best commentary on the Constitution and one which should be studied by all who desire to have a through comprehension of its provisions." It was James Madison who, when elected a mem- ber of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, fought through to adoption the question of accept- ing and abiding by the Union and the Constitu- tion in the face of the opposition of Patrick Henry JAMES MADISON. 181 and other leading Virginians who did not believe in the Union and would not agree to the Constitu- tion. He won his victory, and Virginia, by a majority of ten, adopted the Constitution that Constitution of the United States under which we live to-day, and of which James Madison said : " Every man who loves peace, every man who loves his country, every man Who loves liberty, ought to have this Constitution ever before his eyes, that he may cherish in his heart a due attachment to the Union of America and be able to set a due value on the means of preserving it." In this work of suggesting, framing, defending, and establishing the immortal Constitution of the United States James Madison did the best and greatest service of his life. He shaped and set in action the party which advocated, championed, and established the Constitution, the party of Wash- ington and Hamilton, the party to which he gave the name of " Federalist," and of which he was es- teemed the father. Indeed, if he is not to be reck- oned the " Father of the Constitution " itself, he is at least the creator of the Federalist party. In this Madison made his place in the history of the Republic. But after the adoption of the Consti- tution Madison became more and more influenced by Thomas Jefferson, and gradually went over to his side as one who was the leader in his State, and therefore the one to whom he should be loyal as a Virginian rather than an American. This mis- 182 HISTORIC AMERICANS. taken loyalty went so far that, at last, James Mad- ison left the party of Washington and Hamilton, became an anti-Federalist, or rather a Jeffersoiiian, a follower and ally of the great democrat. He served in Jefferson's administration as secretary of state, and succeeded him as president of the United States, to which high office he was twice elected. It was during his service as president, from March 4, 1809, to March 4, 1817, that the Republic went through the strain and stress of the second war with England, called the war of 1812, as unnec- essary and as avoidable as the war with Spain in 1898 ; like that war, too, it scored its greatest glories on the sea. It was a leaderless war both as regards the president who should have controlled and the generals who should have conducted it; for only the brilliant but needless victory of Jack- son at New Orleans remains with us as the one military glory of that three-years' war of 1812. But on the sea it was memorable in the naval annals of America. The names of Hull and Perry and Lawrence shed lustre on an otherwise unsatis- factory war, in which those famous sea-fighters were the forerunners in bravery, brilliancy, and success of Farragut and Dewey and Sampson and Schley. Like President McKinley in 1898, President Madison in 1812 neither desired nor advocated war, but, instead, worked for peace, only to be forced into war by an unfortunate naval disaster, the clam- ors of the war-shouters, and the action of a belliger- JAMES MADISON. 183 ent Congress. So far, the story of the two wars runs parallel; but, unlike President McKinley, President Madison was not equal to the situation, nor was he designed by nature or disposition, by training or temperament, to be the conductor of a war or the commander-in-cliief of armies and navies. Able and amiable, designed to make laws rather than to execute them, he found himself plunged into a war which he neither desired nor approved, and was forced, contrary to his own wishes, to conduct it either to failure or success. Badly advised and poorly served ; invading Can- ada when he should have strengthened his own defences ; careless of naval operations and unable to understand those on land, Madison scarcely made a success as a war president. In 1898, too, the whole country was united in action when the necessity for action came ; but in 1812, besides an invading enemy, Madison had to face and strive against, within the borders of the Republic, a large, persistent, and influential opposition to what was called " Mr. Madison's War." The New England States, while bearing their share, as required by law, in the conflict with England, regarded the war with absolute disfavor and open discontent. Their har- bors were unprotected, their trade was ruined by harsh methods, their men of affairs had no confi- dence in those in charge of the war, and, finally, the representatives of New England assembled in con- vention at Hartford, in Connecticut, threatened to 184 HISTORIC AMERICANS. take matters into their own hands, and even to set up the authority of the States against that of the government. But before anything could be decided upon the war came to a sudden end, Jackson's vic- tory at New Orleans gave a tinge of success and glory to the close of the strife, and the New England " objectors " found themselves suddenly in a ridic- ulous minority. Then James Madison, president, completed the Treaty of Ghent, which brought peace to his country, and, " of all men, had," as Mr. Gay says, " the most reason to be glad for a safe de- liverance from the consequences of his own want of foresight and want of firmness." During the war the British had made a descent upon Washington, burned the public buildings, and sent president, Cabinet, and military " defenders " fleeing for their lives, when proper precautions, taken in time, might have prevented alike the in- vasion and destruction. But such disasters are the fortunes of war, and Madison should not be made the scapegoat, as he too often has been, for this dis- graceful and unnecessary catastrophe. It wiis a temporary disgrace, however. Presi- dent and people soon recovered from its effects, and were made more united, less provincial; more a nation, and less a simple confederation. Indeed, as one historian asserts, "the War of 1812 has been often and truly called the Second War of Inde- pendence," an independence not merely of other nations, but of the hampering, old-time condition JAMES MADISON. 185 and traditions of the narrow colonial days. So, after all, like the Spanish war of 1898, it was, if unnecessary, not unproductive of good as part of" that Divine plan which permits wars for the sake of national development, progress, humanity, and manliness. In all of this progress James Madison had a share, and no one welcomed peace with more delight or more strenuously endeavored to heal the cruel wounds of war. His efforts, which were strong, practical, sincere, statesmanlike, and patriotic, were attended with success, and the prestige lost by him through lack of warlike ability was restored to him by his efforts towards the public good; for, as the evils and ill-feeling of the war melted away, the people received with appreciative satisfaction the eighth and last annual message of the president of the United States. " I can indulge the proud reflection," he said, " that the American people have reached in safety and success their fortieth year as an independent nation ; that for nearly an entire generation they have had experience of their present Constitution, the offspring of their undisturbed deliberation and of their free choice ; that they have found it to bear the trials of adverse as well as of prosperous circumstances ; to contain in its combination of the federate and elective principles a reconcile- ment of public strength with individual liberty, of national power for the defence of national rights, 186 HISTORIC AMERICANS. with a security against wars of injustice, of ambi- tion, and of vainglory, and in the fundamental pro- vision which subjects all questions of war to the will of the nation itself, which is to pay its costs and feel its calamities. Nor is it less a peculiar felicity of this Constitution, so dear to us all, that it is found to be capable, without losing the vital energies, of expanding itself over a spacious terri- tory with the increase and expansion of the com- munity for whose benefit it was established." It is natural for a man who has done a fine piece of work to regard it with affection and speak of it with pride. So, on the occasion of his retirement from public life, which came in 1817 at the con- clusion of his second term as president, Mr. Madi- son, in his last annual message, fell back, as you have seen, to the piece of his own handiwork he admired most, the Constitution, and begged his fellow-countrymen to look upon it with equal pride and veneration. May not this remark from "the Father of the Constitution" also be seriously considered by those who to-day affirm that " the Fathers " and the " Con- stitution " were opposed to American expansion and progress ? And as the old veteran worn and weakened by his long service and the trials he had undergone drops out of public life into the happy retirement of his Virginia farm at Montpellier, where he died in 1836, at the age of eighty-five, we can readily give JAMES MADISON. 187 him place as one of those historic Americans who builded even better than he knew when he did so large and so grand a share towards the production of the immortal Constitution of the United States a paper which Professor Channing calls " the most marvellous political instrument that has ever been formulated. It was designed," he says, "by men familiar with the mode of life of the eighteenth century, to provide an escape from the intolerable conditions of that time, and to furnish a practicable form of government for four millions of human beings inhabiting the fringe of a continent. It has proved, with exceptions, sufficient for the govern- ment of seventy millions, living in forty-five States, covering an area imperial in extent and under circumstances unthought of in 1787." Should Americans question the ability of that immortal document to prove equal to the necessities and emergencies of even wider growth and vaster development ? And for this beneficent, enduring, and world- famous national covenant the Republic has largely to thank its illustrious son and patriotic defender, James Madison, of Montpellier, fourth president of the United States. XIV. THE STORY OF JAMES MONROE, OF WESTMORELAND, CALLED THE "AUTHOR OF THE MONROE DOCTRINE." Born at Monroe's Creek, Virginia, April 28, 1758. Died in New York City, July 4, 1831. "A career like his will never be forgotten. Its story will reveal the mind and heart of a patriot, in new and trying situa- tions, true to the idea of American independence from European interference." Daniel Coit Oilman. " Now, boys ! Down with the bloody Hessians ! We '11 show 'em what they get for pestering Americans. Follow me. For the guns ! Charge ! " Stirling's brigade was on the double-quick down King street ; the third shot from Hamilton's bat- tery, where the Trenton Battle monument now stands, had tumbled over the Hessian pieces which had been rushed up the street to check the Ameri- can assault ; Rahl's grenadiers came hurrying out of Queen street ; the fusiliers of the Lossberg regi- ment swung around from Church alley ; a dash was made to right the disabled guns, and stop the on-rush of Stirling's men. 188 JAMES MONROE. 189 Then it was that one of the boys of Weedon's regiment, a lieutenant of the Third Virginia line, headed a file of his own company and, rattling off the challenge and the order I have quoted, flashed his sword in command and dashed straight against the reenforced Hessian battery on the stone bridge across Petty's Run. The Hessians broke before the fierce charge of Stirling's men; but, even as they turned, they sent a volley whistling across the debated battery ; the lieutenant's dash was stopped for a moment as he spun around like a top, with a bullet in his shoulder ; but at once he recovered himself, and with deter- mination intensified by the wound he now had to reckon for, he flung himself on the battery, his men at his heels. The two Hessian field-pieces that were still unharmed were seized upon by the lieutenant, wheeled about, and trained upon the wavering, panic-stricken grenadiers of Rahl; .full into their ranks plunged their own confiscated shot, and then, still led by the boy lieutenant, the captors of the guns, joined by the whole force of Stirling's brigade, charged with the cold bayonet upon the now con- fused and huddling mass of grenadiers and fusiliers and pushed them down King street and out of the town. Brave Colonel Rahl, the Hessian leader, dashed after his retreating troops. " Right about ! " he thundered. " Don't run 190 HISTORIC AMERICANS. from these rebel dogs ! Back into the village with you ! Kill them ; drive them back ! " Accustomed to obey, the Hessians rallied and turned back. But to no effect. Stirling's men were about them and upon them in an instant. From houses and fences on King street came the musket-crack of the Virginian sharpshooters, while the boy lieutenant and his captured battery of two guns held the Hessian return at bay. The bridge across the Assunpink was in the hands of the Ameri- cans ; every avenue of escape was closed ; but Rahl, determined upon one last dash, shouted, "All who are my grenadiers, forward ! " Crack ! went one of the muskets of the young lieutenant's company ; ping ! sang the bullet through the air, and Colonel Rahl fell from his horse, wounded to the death. The trundling field-pieces blazed away once more into the leaderless Hessian ranks ; the regiments " Rahl " and " Lossberg," broke in demoralization ; and crowding pell-mell into the apple-orchard, near where now stands the post-office building on State street, they lowered their standards, grounded arms, and with the officers' hats swinging on the points of their swords in token of defeat the Hessians sur- rendered, the battle of Trenton had been won, and right in the heart of what is now the capital city of New Jersey Washington had struck Britain a blow from which it never recovered : for he had turned the tide ; he had won a victory that aston- ished the world; he had proved to the American JAMES MONROE. 191 people that British troops were not invincible ; and he forced the ministers of King George to declare in after years that " all our hopes were blasted by that unhappy affair at Trenton." In that " unhappy affair," which proved so glo- rious an affair for America, the boy lieutenant of eighteen, who with a broken shoulder still led his men to the capture of the Hessian battery and the surrender in the apple-orchard, was James Monroe, of Westmoreland county, Virginia. That wounded shoulder stayed by him all through life ; the bullet he kept as a souvenir of Trenton but always in his shoulder ; for it was never ex- tracted. But it made him a captain, major, lieuten- ant-colonel, and colonel ; it helped him fight all the harder (because he remembered who put it there) at Brandywine and Germantown and Monmouth ; and was to him a badge of honorable service as, step by step, he rose from soldier to statesman, from statesman to governor, from governor to senator, from senator to minister, from minister to secre- tary, from secretary to president. For that young lieutenant in the Trenton fight became President James Monroe, twice raised to the highest seat in the gift of the American people, in whose defence he fought, and for whose welfare he labored through a long and busy life. As to the measures and actions of that long and busy life opinions may differ, for politicians are biased and historians are not always impartial ; but 192 HISTORIC AMERICANS. neither politician nor historian, if he be just and true, can deny to James Monroe soundness of judgment, wisdom, prudence and forethought, strength of character, and purity of life. Thomas Jefferson said of him : " He is a man whose soul might be turned wrong-side outwards without dis- covering a blemish to the world ; " and even though that high opinion of his worth came from the man who was at once tutor and leader to James Monroe, neither friend nor foe ever questioned its truth or criticised its sincerity. The one act of his life that gives him chief prominence as an historic American is his bold enunciation of what has been ever known as the " Monroe doctrine " the claim that America is for Americans, and that no encroachment of foreign powers on American soil will be contenanced or permitted. The same splendid burst of courage that sent young Lieut. James Monroe into the mouth of the Hessian cannon at Trenton, and, even though his arm hung shattered by a Hessian bullet, held him pluckily to his work until that storied sur- render in the apple-orchard, drew from President James Monroe, when Europe threatened to force back into vassalage the revolted American colonies of Spain, the courageous order, " Hands off ! or we '11 make you," even though the combined forces of the so-called Holy Alliance threatened, blust- ered, and sneered. JAMES MONROE. 193 Courage is courage, whether in soldier or states- man. But James Monroe came of a warlike race. The Monroes of Scotland figured on every battle- field of Europe from the time of William the Con- queror to Waterloo ; and the Monroes or Munroes of America came from that same clan of fighting men who, daring to resist Cromwell, were shipped off to America there to fight or fall on every battle- field of freedom from Lexington to Yorktown, from Lundy's Lane to Santiago. Born near to the birthplace of Washington in the beautiful Potomac region of Northern Virginia, James Monroe's father was one of those Virginia farmers who, in 1776, protested against the Stamp Act and counselled resistance to British aggression. Young James Monroe was at his studies in the old college of William and Mary when the American Revolution broke out, and was one among the college volunteers composed of three professors and thirty students who sprang to arms and joined the Continental army. You have seen how he fought at Trenton. That same courage was displayed on other famous fields ; and when in 1782 he entered at twenty-four, by his election to the Virginia Legislature, upon his long career of public service he brought to his political duties the same interest, energy, and earnestness that had made him a courageous and successful soldier. Those political duties were varied and continuous. Beginning in 1782, he was delegate 194 HISTORIC AMERICANS. to the Legislature, member of the governor's coun- cil, delegate to three successive Congresses ; again member of the Virginia Legislature, member of the Virginia Constitutional Convention, United States senator, governor of Virginia, envoy to France, again governor, and again envoy of the United States to France, Spain, and England ; returning home, he became secretary of state and of war under President Madison, and succeeding his fel- low-Virginian in that high office, served two terms as president of the United States, from 1817 to 1825 ; and then, after six years of honorable retire- ment, died, a poor man, at his daughter's home in New York City, having for forty-three years served the Republic faithfully and well. His duty as envoy to France was to arrange with Napoleon Bonaparte, then, in 1803, first consul and real dictator of France, the purchase and cession of Louisiana, the whole vast stretch of western country between the Mississippi and the Pacific, "the largest transaction in real estate which the world has ever known," Mr. Oilman calls it; as minister to England he fought the battle for the rights of American sailors that was only settled by the results of a second war with England the needless and scarcely brilliant conflict known as the war of 1812. In that leaderless war Monroe, then secretary of state, was forced, by the sudden resignation of General Armstrong, the secretary of war, to JAMES MONROE. 195 whose faults the capture and destruction of Wash- ington have been charged, to act himself in the emergency as secretary of war; and in that time of desperate strait he threw into his new duty the same courage and vigor that he had displayed nearly forty years before on the field of Trenton, and with .much the same result, for he wrested victory from apparent defeat and disaster. Money was needed, but none could be obtained, for confidence arid credit were alike gone. At once Monroe went to the Bank of Columbia to appeal for funds. None could be loaned, though government securities were offered, at a great sacrifice, as collateral. Then said Secretary Monroe to the cashier of the bank : " If you have no confidence in the securities of the government, sir, have you confidence in my honor?" " In your word of honor as a man, Mr. Secretary, most certainly I have," the cashier replied. " Then, sir," said Monroe, " I ask you to accept my word of honor as a pledge. Give me the money that the government must have to meet its needs and I will pledge you my honor, backed by my private fortune, that the money shall be repaid." It was almost the story of Robert Morris over again, was it not? The example of that Revolu- tionary patriot had not been lost on this soldier of the Revolution. And it had a like result. His 1Q6 HISTORIC AMERICANS. pledge was accepted, the money was forthcoming, and with that in hand he acted at once. Arms were sent to Jackson in New Orleans ; Washing- ton was put into a state of defence ; Baltimore was saved by the strengthening of Fort Me Henry ; and Francis Scott Key was inspired by what he saw to write " The Star Spangled Banner." Is not that glory enough and repayment enough for sacrifice and exertion? But more than this. With the arms forwarded to New Orleans he sent also daring, determined, and decisive orders to Jackson ; while to the Southern governors he wrote, rousing them to action. " Hasten your militia to New Orleans," he said. " Do not wait for this government to arm them; put all the arms you can find into their hands ; let every man bring his rifle with him. We will see you paid." So Jackson was strengthened ; New Orleans was reenforced ; Pakenham and his red-coated veterans of Wellington's wars were hurled back in defeat and rout; and, thanks to the generalship of Jack- son and the energy of Monroe, what had been a dispirited, leaderless, ineffective war ended in the mighty triumph and the blaze of glory that have given to the war of 1812 all its prestige and all its traditions ; and for this America may thank James Monroe, secretary of state and war. As president of the United States through eight years Monroe won both respect and renown. Re- JAMES MONROE. 197 spect because there was in his administration so little of party strife and feud, so little of animosity and opposition, that it has always been called " the era of good feeling ; " " an age," says one of the historians of the time, " worthy to be cherished in our history." It won renown because, against the pressure and threats of a union of certain European governments in behalf of Spain whose treatment of Cuba was even then an eyesore to Americans President James Monroe issued that startling, pa- triotic, determined, and American edict that men have ever called "the Monroe doctrine." We can see him on a November day in 1823, seated at his desk in the little room in the second story of the big barn-like White House at Wash- ington, writing his annual message. A man of medium height was President James Monroe, com- pact and firm of figure, as one who had been well trained to endure labor and fatigue, somewhat grave, even stern of face, yet with a pleasant smile to lighten his set features, plainly dressed, and sim- ple in his ways and manner. But on that November day there was nothing soft or weak in the expression of his face or the grasp and poise of his pen. for President James Monroe had been roused to indignation and protest by certain acts of the nations across the sea especially Spain, whose American colonies had one by one revolted against her cruel sway and set up for themselves, only to be threatened with being forced again under Spain's 198 HISTORIC AMERICANS. hated control by the tyrannical union of European absolutism known as the Holy Alliance holy only in name, for it was a most unholy one. And as he thought over the menacing news that had come to him, and consulted the reports and despatches that his secretaries had laid before him, the old spirit of resistance to aggression that had made him a soldier of the Revolution, joined to the courage that had brought him strength at Trenton fight, blazed up again into action. His pen rushed like a new charge upon the batteries of the foemen of the Union, and left upon the paper these strong and now historic sentences : " The citizens of the United States cherish senti- ments the most friendly in favor of the liberty and happiness of their fellow-men on the other side of the Atlantic. In the wars of the European powers, in matters relating to themselves, we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defence. With the move- ments in this hemisphere we are, of necessity, more intimately connected ; . . . and to the defence of our government, which has been achieved by the loss of so much blood and treasure, and matured by the wisdom of our most enlightened citizens, and under which we have enjoyed unexampled felicity, this whole nation is devoted. " We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the ami- JAMES MONROE. 199 cable relations existing between the United States and the allied powers to declare that we should con- sider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as danger- ous to our peace and safety. " With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the governments who have declared their independence, and whose inde- pendence we have, in great consideration and in just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power, in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States." That is the "Monroe doctrine." "Keep your hands off, it said, in courteous but decided language, to European kings and princes; "America is for Americans." Some historical writers have sought to take the credit of this noble utterance from him who wrote and published it, finding traces of it in Washing- ton's farewell address and in the words of Jefferson. But whatever those great Americans may have said or however they may have felt it still remains that the enunciation and proclamation of non-interfer- ence came, at the right time, from President James Monroe, and that the declaration of independence from foreign powers or princes, springing from the 200 HISTORIC AMERICANS. great Declaration for which he had fought, found broader expression in his courteous but determined words, and has kept Europe from meddling in the affairs of America from his day to this. England has long been esteemed by prejudiced Americans and by the writers of history for Amer- ican boys and girls as simply the hereditary rival and foeman of the United States. It is well, therefore, for all Americans to recall the fact, as a better in- ternational spirit seems dawning with a new century, that it was the declaration of the Monroe doctrine in 1823, plus the open objection of England, that defeated the plans of the so-called Holy Alliance ; it is well to note, also, that it was the Monroe doc- trine, plus tl^e open objection of England, that in 1898, withheld the powers of Europe from inter- fering in the Spanish-American war. Blood, indeed, is thicker than water, and the Anglo-Saxon is the Anglo-Saxon's kinsman in time of need. James Monroe died, in 1831, at the residence of his daughter in the city of New York ; but his grave is in the beautiful Hollywood cemetery in Richmond, surmounted by an ugly iron cage, as inappropriate as it is inartistic ; for James Mon- roe was neither pompous, showy, nor vain, and a simple slab or a plain obelisk would have better suited the commemoration of this simple-minded, unobtrusive American, whose advance and success were due to his abilities, not to his ambition. The last of the Revolutionary presidents, he died, JAMES MONROE. 201 like Jefferson and John Adams, on the Fourth of July the day which he had helped to make, with sword and with pen, the chief red-letter day of the Republic. Those who find it agreeable and deem it wise to pick flaws in the greatest and hunt out the foibles and frailties of those whom the world honors and re- veres have seeking what they blindly call the truth of history criticised and belittled James Monroe. He is set down as " a second-rate man," treacherous to his friends, uncertain, jealous, and small-minded. But these seem the overstatement of investigators who seize upon the weaknesses rather than the virtues of the great, and accept the gossip of contemporary critics rather than the esti- mates of fellow-workers and friends. To have been the associate and friend of Wash- ington and Adams, Madison and Marshall, Jeffer- son and Patrick Henry, should count for more in a man than the biased claims of critics ; while the boy who fought so bravely under Washington's eye at Trenton, the man who saved the war of 1812 from utter disgrace, who secured an empire for the Republic, and sounded a challenge and defiance to the tyrants and meddlers of Europe, deserved better of the Republic than to die in poverty and be underrated by posterity. Instead, the United States of America should hold his memory precious and do him homage as one of the heroes of the Revolution, a patriotic, unselfish, pureminded, brave-hearted, and high-spirited American. XV. THE STORY OF JOHN QUINCY ADAMS, OF QUINCY, CALLED "THE OLD MAN ELOQUENT." Born at Braintree, Massachusetts, July 11, 1767. Died at Washington, February 23, 1848. " He was always a man of high temper and eminently a citi- zen of the United States. . . . He was wholly, exclusively, and warmly American. He had no second love; the United States filled his public heart and monopolized his political affec- tions." John Torrey Morse. IN that part of the old town of Braintree in Mas- sachusetts now known as Quincy there rises tow- ards the Bay a green ridge known as Penn's hill. It has a fair outlook across the water, Boston-way, and on the crest of that hill on the seventeenth of June in the year 1775 a very remarkable small boy of seven, and a very remarkable woman, his mother, stood hand in hand looking off towards town. They were not up there for the view, or to watch the deep colorings of a rare June day ; other thoughts than the beauty of the season or the fair- ness of the outlook filled their troubled souls, for, over the water, came the distant boom of guns ; 202 JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 203 across the harbor they could see the rising clouds of smoke and catch the gleam of flames, seven miles away. Charlestown was burning ; Bunker hill was being fought ; *nd Abigail Adams and her little son, John Quincy Adams, from their outlook on the crest of Penn's hill, where to-day a cairn and tablet com- memorate the event, were looking off towards the scene which was to play so large a part in the his- tory of America, and to have so direct an influence upon the future of that small boy of seven. That small boy was already an earnest young patriot. When Lexington roused the minute-men and set the men and boys to drilling on the village green, little John Quincy Adams shouldered a musket with the rest and went through the crude manual of arms like the "true" soldier; and, after Bunker hill, when this small boy's father, the famous John Adams, hurried away to Philadelphia as a delegate to the Continental Congress, John Quincy Adams and his mother stayed in the little house at Braintree (still standing, a carefully pre- served relic). Boston was held by British troops, between whom and their suburban besiegers a furi- ous battle might any day occur, and John and his mother were, as John Adams feared and fretted, " liable every hour of the day and of the night to be butchered in cold blood or taken and carried into Boston as hostages by any foraging or maraud- ing detachment." 204 HISTORIC AMERICANS. But nothing of the sort happened. The British were too busy looking after their own safety and supplies in beleaguered Boston to annoy the wife and child even of that stout and most audacious malcontent, John Adams, whom King George, as you know, regarded as the chief of his American rebels. And when " beleaguered Boston " became Yankee Boston once more, and redcoat and Tory had sailed away for Halifax, then this small Braintree boy acted as messenger, post-rider, or mail-carrier be- tween the farm and the town, in order that Mis- tress Abigail Adams, his mother, might have Bos- ton's very latest news from camp and Congress. I have said he was a remarkable boy, and so he surely was. I know of none among historic Amer- icans whose boyhood was more remarkable. For at seven he drilled 'with the Continental troops ; at nine he was post-rider to Boston, and his mother's main reliance ; at ten he sailed to Europe with his famous father, John Adams, commissioner to France; at eleven he began a wonderful journal that continued for seventy years ; at twelve he went to school in Holland ; at thirteen he went to Russia as private secretary to Mr. Dana, the American envoy ; at fifteen he was assistant secretary to those three famous Americans in France Franklin, Jefferson, and Adams who were negotiating the treaty of alliance ; and at eighteen he might have accompanied his distinguished father across the JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 205 Channel as secretary to the minister to England. But this wise and brave young man was so wise and brave that he turned his back on what seemed to him a most tempting opportunity, and decided to go back to New England rather than cross over to Old England, because, he said, he did not intend to loiter away his precious time in Europe, and shun going home until he was forced to it. " With an ordinary share of common sense which I hope I enjoy," this remarkable boy declared, " at least in America I can live independent and free ! And rather than live otherwise I would wish to die before the time when I shall be left at my own dis- cretion." Spoken like a true and sensible young Ameri- can, was it not ? And so back he went, " to become a boy again," and, by studying hard, he was able to enter the junior class at Harvard College, and to graduate at twenty, high up in his class. That I call being a remarkable boy. Of course, young John Quincy Adams did not have what most boys regard as much " fun," but then, John Quincy Adams was not that kind of a boy. He was sober and sensible ; not a prig, but precocious ; " morally never either a child or a lad," one of his biographers declares, " and at an age when most young people simply win love or cause annoyance, he was prefer- ring wisdom to mischief, and actually in his earliest years was attracting a certain respect." I must confess that, for myself, I prefer a real, 206 HISTORIC AMERICANS. eveiy-day boy to a marvel. But then, exceptions, like young John Quincy Adams, make the rule all the stronger and incite, by their example, the real, every-day boys to do the very best they can. Sometimes boys who are marvels, or what we call precocious, do not bear out their record for ability when they become men. But John Quincy Adams was remarkable as boy and man even until he died in harness at eighty-one. Let me give you the list of his achievements as an historic American. At twenty-three he was admitted to the bar and became a successful lawyer ; at twenty-five he was writing anonymous public papers in reply to the able but erratic Tom Paine, so strong and effective that they were credited to his father, John Adams ; at twenty-seven he was sent as United States minister to Holland ; at thirty he was minister to Prussia ; at thirty-five he was a State senator in the Massachusetts Legislature ; at thirty-six United States senator from Massachusetts ; at thirty-nine he was a professor in Harvard College; at forty- two he was United States minister to Russia ; and at forty-eight he was made American minister to England. He was secretary of state at fifty, and again at fifty-four ; at fifty-seven he was elected president of the United States. And then, most remarkable of all in this remarkable record, after filling so many high offices he went back to Con- gress, as representative from Massachusetts, at the age of sixty-four, and continued there until his JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 207 death at eighty-one, serving so faithfully, valiantly, and nobly that, as Mr. Morse says, he earned " in his old age a noble fame and distinction far tran- scending any achievement of his youth and middle age, and attained the highest pinnacle of his fame after he had left the greatest office of the govern- ment ; " for, as I have told you, he died in harness at eighty-one the champion of liberty and the right of free speech. That is a great record, is it not? And yet, what do you suppose this worthy old American said of himself at eighty years ? " My whole life has been a succession of disappointments. I can scarcely recollect a single instance of success in anything that I ever undertook." Whether this was the bitterness of temporary defeat or the restlessness of an ever-present ambi- tion I am unable to decide. The last, certainly, had always been a part of his character; for, at twenty-five, that tell-tale diary of his records his impatience at the " state of useless and disgraceful insignificancy " in which he felt himself to be living while building up a practice as a successful young Boston lawyer, and of which he declares, " I still find myself as obscure, as unknown to the world, as the most indolent or the most stupid of human beings." I suspect that John Quincy Adams, equally in youth and old age, was just a bit morbid, decidedly sensitive, and greatly averse to taking a back seat, as the saying is. 208 HISTORIC AMERICANS. But you have seen, from what Mr. Morse says, that even when John Quincy Adams took what seemed to be a back seat, and from being president of the United States dropped back into the " com- paratively humble position " of congressman, he found a duty to do and did it in such a way as to add lustre and glory to his whole career. That closing chapter in this old man's life seems to me the most remarkable in the whole remarkable story of John Quincy Adams, sixth president of the United States, representative in Congress from the State of Massachusetts. It is well to know at the outset that John Quincy Adams did not consider that in becoming a congressman he had taken a step downward or backward. "No one," he replied to a friend who suggested such a thing, " could be degraded by serving the people as a representative in Con- gress. Nor in my opinion would an ex-President of the United States be degraded by serving as a selectman of his town, if elected thereto by the people." That sounds, does it not, as if it might have come from the lips of that patriotic old kins- man of his, Samuel Adams, of Boston, " the trib- une of the people," whose story I have told you ? It would be well for America to-day if our best men would regard their duty as Americans in this exalted fashion. Upon the floor of the old House of Representa- tives what is now Statuary hall in the com- JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 209 pleted Capitol at Washington John Quincy Adams fought for sixteen years what seemed a losing but was really a winning fight, as the earliest and stoutest champion of anti-slavery in the Amer- ican Congress. It was, indeed, his burning words in behalf of freedom, and what was known as " the right of petition," that gave him his popular title, " the Old Man Eloquent." This " right of petition " was the right of any American who felt that he had a grievance to present a petition to Congress asking for attention, investigation, or redress. Now, in John Quincy Adams's day the subject of slavery was becoming troublesome in free America. The South felt that slavery was a commercial necessity; thoughtful people in the North were awaking to the fact that slavery in a free Republic was wrong. Public sentiment grew slowly; but there were certain earnest champions of " free soil, free speech, free labor, and free men," and John Quincy Adams was the spokesman in Congress for these Ameri- cans. " Duty is ours ; results are God's," he said, and therefore labored for anti-slavery ; and one way in which he worked was to present to Congress the petitions from those Americans black as well as white who desired the abolition of slavery. Such action, of course, angered the Southern members and they sought to stop this old slavery hater from working his will. So they endeavored 210 HISTORIC AMERICANS. to create what was called a "gag law," which, prac- tically, denied the right of petition when such peti- tion had any reference to slavery. It was manifestly an unjust law, and you may be sure that John Quincy Adams fought it " tooth and nail." He fought it alone and single-handed. To carry out his principles he made it a point to present to Congress every petition that was handed him even one praying for his own expulsion from Con- gress as a nuisance ! That was loyalty to a prin- ciple, was it not? When the majority in Congress forced their " gag law" through, Adams protested. " I hold it," he said, " to be a direct violation of the Constitution of the United States, the rules of the House, and my constituents." They tried to shout him down, to silence him, to expel him, but the old fighter held his ground. " Sir," he said to the Speaker of the House, one day, after years of this struggle for principle, " it is well known that from the time I entered this House, down to the present day, I have felt it a sacred duty to present any petition couched in respectful language, from any citizen of the United States, be its object what it may. ... I adhere to the right of petition. It belongs to all ; and so far from refusing to present a petition because it might come from those low in the estimation of the JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 211 world, it would be an additional incentive, if such an incentive were wanting." For eight years, from 1836 to 1844, John Quincy Adams, who believed in fair play, fought the " gag law," which was clearly not fair play. At last, on the third of December, 1844, the majorities against him, which, thanks to his bold and unchanging stand, had been growing smaller and smaller, changed to a majority of twenty-eight in his favor, and the " Old Man Eloquent " had won. The "gag law" was rescinded. " Blessed, forever blessed be the name of God ! " wrote the old conqueror who had fought for justice and had won. Never, since that day, has the right of petition been questioned in the Congress of the United States. It was while engaged in this bitter fight that John Quincy Adams made a statement that years after gave to Abraham Lincoln the ground where- on to base his greatest document, the Emancipation Proclamation. It was in the year 1842 that in the course of a speech regarding a war with Mexico he pronounced this opinion : " From the instant that your slave- holding States become the theatre of war civil, servile, or foreign from that instant the war powers of the Constitution extend to interference with the institution of slavery in every way in which it can be interfered with." . . . 212 HISTORIC AMERICANS. And, later, he repeated this decision and said emphatically : " Whether the war be servile, civil, or foreign, I lay this down as the law of nations : When a country is invaded and two hostile armies are set in martial array, so far from its being true that the States where slavery exists have the ex- clusive management of the subject, not only the president of the United States, but the commander of the army, has the power to order the universal "emancipation of the slaves." Abraham Lincoln was a member of Congress when the term of John Quincy Adams was draw- ing to a close. This opinion of the old slavery fighter must have been known to the young man who was to slay the dragon against which John Quincy Adams waged such relentless war; and that opinion, treasured in a mind that never forgot anything, must have been in his thoughts when, at a critical moment, he cut the Gordian knot and solved the problem of rebellion by emancipating, as president and commander-in-chief, the slaves throughout the United States. The term of John Quincy Adams did indeed draw to a close in a dramatic manner. It was the twenty-first of February, 1848. The old man, who, two years before, had been stricken by paralysis, still stuck to his post, and was punctu- ally at his seat in the Ifouse of Representatives. It was half-past one in the afternoon. Some one had made a motion ; the Speaker was about to put the JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 213 question, when there was a sudden stir upon the floor. Mr. Adams rose as if to " catch the Speaker's eye " for the purpose of speaking on the question. But he did not speak. Instead, he swayed and fell, while those about him cried out to the Speaker, " Stop ! Stop ! Mr. Adams ! Something is the matter with Mr. Adams ! " There was indeed. Death had stricken the old warrior for right on the very spot where so many of his battles had been fought. He was taken to the Speaker's room, but nothing could be done for him. " This is the last of earth ! " he said. " I am content ! " and two days afterwards, still resting in the Speaker's room, he died, " in the very tracks in which he had so often stood erect and unconquer- able, taking and dealing so many mighty blows." In the floor of Statuary hall in 1848 the chamber of the House of Representatives visitors to-day are shown a ntetal circle set in the stones. " John Quincy Adams. Here," it says. It marks the spot where stood the desk at which the old hero sat when thus stricken with death. He had answered " Here " from that desk for many years, and it was eminently fitting that, on the field of his battles, in the midst of his labors, actually " in harness," the patriot should have fallen on his shield. His life had been a long and stormy one. He was the first of what we may call " the great inde- pendents," and, like all men who seek to act inde- 214 HISTORIC AMERICANS. pendently, he made enemies, pleasing neither friend nor foe. With high ideals himself he tried the world by those ideals, and finding most men lack- ing criticised all men accordingly. Neither his associates nor his rivals could appreciate his worth because of his rigid judgment, nor could they acknowledge his uprightness because of his bitter tongue. To be thus constituted was, of course, to be him- self lacking in some things courtesy, charity, tact, and friendliness. Yet, in his family he was dearly loved, and by those who knew him best he was most highly regarded. Above all, he was honest, courageous, conscientious, cool-headed, per- sistent, of remarkable intelligence and remarkable ability. In his lifetime he was the leader of two great political parties, honored by each and hated by each in turn, as he first led and then deserted them. But his desertion was not that of the renegade ; it was that of the reformer who sees with clearer vision^ than his fellows the value of a principle rather than the demands of a party. Misunderstood while he lived, insulted, mis- judged, and persecuted, he was a valiant fighter and gave up only with death ; but he had but few friends, and indeed was, as one of his biographers declares, " one of the most lonely and desolate of the great men of history." He was the son of a great father and a remark- JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 215 able mother, the member of a family which in three generations father, son, and grandson gave to the Republic two presidents, a vice-president, a secretary of state, a senator, three members of Congress, three ministers to England, and envoys to France, Spain, Holland, and Russia. To-day, in the stone temple of Quincy, may be seen the tombs of two presidents, father and son, John Adams and John Quincy Adams, of Quincy; in the same town stand the birthplaces and the homes of each. But, more lasting still, the memories of these men endure as valiant, un- wavering, devoted, and consecrated patriots in the early days of the great Republic. As we close this brief story of a long life the life of one who heard the guns of Bunker hill and spoke the word that led on to the furled flags of Appomattox it may be well, as a new phase of progress beckons the Republic on, to read the words of John Quincy Adams, uttered nearly eighty years ago, words of wisdom, of warning .and of weight: "America, in the assembly of nations, since her admission among them has invariably, though often fruitlessly, held forth to them the hand of honest friendship, of equal freedom, of generous reciprocity. . . . She has abstained from interference in the concerns of others, even when the conflict has been for prin- ciples to which she clings, as to the last vital drop that visits the heart. . . Wherever the standard 216 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the counte- nance of her voice and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once en- listing under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself, beyond the power of extri- cation, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of in- dividual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would in- sensibly change from liberty to force. The front- let upon her brows would no longer beam with the ineffable splendor of freedom and independence ; but in its stead would soon be substituted an im- perial diadem, flashing in false and tarnished lustre the murky radiance of dominion and power. She might become the dictatress of the world ; she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit." " New occasions teach new duties ; Time makes ancient good uncouth ; They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth ; Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires ! we ourselves must Pil- grims be, JOHN QUINCY ADAMS. 217 Launch our Mayflower and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea, Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key." So wrote Lowell, America's strongest poet. How, in the light of the new duties and new destinies that seem forming for America shall the boys and girls of to-day, as the time comes for them to take up the affairs of the Republic, read the warning and wisdom of that great independent John Quincy Adams, American? XVI. THE STORY OF ELI WHITNEY, OF NEW HAVEN, KNOWN AS "THE INVENTOR OF THE COTTON GIN." Born at Westborough, Massachusetts, December 8, 1765. Died at New Haven, Connecticut, January 8, 1825. " What Peter the Great did to make Russia dominant, Eli Whitney, inventor of the cotton gin, has more than equalled in its relation to the power and progress of the United States." Thomas Balington Macaulay. THIS is the story, of ingenuity repaid by ingrati- tude. It is not a pleasing story, from such a stand- point, for it is never agreeable to chronicle the injustice or shortcomings of men. And yet, as every story of failure or discouragement may be made the forerunner of progress or success it is well to read again the story of Eli Whitney, the New England boy who more than all other Americans may be charged with an unconscious responsibility for the Civil war and therefore for the " New South." There gathered one day, years ago, a party of dis- tinguished guests at the beautiful plantation of General Greene at Mulberry Grove on the broad 218 ELI WHITNEY. 219 Savannah river. Savannah itself, Georgia's chief city, was but a few miles away, and these visitors planters and military men had come to Mulberry Grove to pay their respects to Madam Greene, the widow of Georgia's beloved defender, General Nathaniel Greene, formerly of Rhode Island. In that year of 1793 Nathaniel Greene was no longer alive. Removing in 1785 to the fine estate of Mulberry Grove, presented to him by the State of Georgia in grateful recognition of his gallant de- fence of her soil in the war of the Revolution, General Greene had, in 1786, died suddenly of sunstroke, and his body lay hi an unmarked vault in quaint old Broad-street cemetery. But his widow still kept open house with gracious hospitality in the big mansion amid the live oaks and magnolias of Mul- berry Grove. Conversation among the visitors turned naturally on the crops, and as in that year of grace 1793 the agricultural conditions of Georgia were far from flourishing the talk was not particularly cheering. All agreed, however, that the cotton crop might be made remunerative and satisfactory if it did not cost so much in labor and time to prepare it for the market. The rice lands along the coast, they ad- mitted, were excellent and promising, but no real prosperity could be hoped for Georgia unless there were some paying crops that could be harvested from the far-stretching uplands and dry soil back of the rice swamps. 220 HISTORIC AMERICANS. " They grow good cotton, excellent cotton," one planter declared, " but where is the use in grow- ing cotton crops for sale, when only a pound of green seed-cotton can be made marketable by one man's work in a day. It don't pay for his keep. I 'm almost inclined to join the abolition movement that seems to be growing in the South and give up keeping negroes. Every slave I own is money out of my pocket, especially if I go on raising seed- cotton." The others agreed with him, though they could not well see how they could throw off the respon- sibility of the negro by simply making him free. "We should have to support him even if we did free him," another planter declared. " For he has nothing to live on, and unless we keep him on our hands he will die or become a menace. Better keep him at cleaning seed-cotton even if the few cents we get for the pound a day he cleans is a dead loss. But how it would change things here in Georgia and the whole South if we had some- thing decent to separate the cotton and the seed ! " " Well, then, why don't you go to work and get up something that will do it, gentlemen?" ex- claimed Madam Greene, with true Rhode Island thrift. " Your shiftless negro folks throw away or spoil enough to keep them in luxury. Put on your thinking-caps and get up something that will do the work." " Ah, madam, that 's easier said than done ! " ELI WHITNEY. 221 one of her guests replied. " Even your good hus- band, the general, though he cleaned the redcoats out of Georgia, couldn't clean the seeds from the cotton. I remember that was one of the chief drawbacks he found in farming here. You are ready and quick, madam, and generous too ; can't you give us some idea ? " " No, I guess I can't," replied the Yankee woman promptly. " But here, I '11 tell you what just you apply to my young friend yonder, Mr. Whitney, from the North. He can make any- thing. Why, see here " and she rose impul- sively and beckoned her guests to her sewing- room " see what he fixed up for me the other day. My tambour frame was all out of kilter ; I could n't embroider at all with it, because it pulled and tore the threads so badly. Mr. Whitney noticed this, borrowed the frame, took it out on the porch, tink- ered with it a little, and there! see what he has done : just made the frame as good as new, so that now it works beautifully. We think here it 's a wonderful piece of ingenuity. So I 'm certain sure Mr. Whitney could put on his thinking-cap over this cotton-cleaning business to some good advan- tage." "How is it, Mr. Whitney?" cried one of the vis- iting planters, seizing the young Northerner by the arm. " Can you bear out Madam Greene's recom- mendation ? Can't you think up something to help us?" 222 HISTORIC AMERICANS. " Madam Greene has too exalted an opinion of my knowledge of mechanics," the young school- master replied. " If you '11 wait long enough until I get out my law shingle here I may quote opinions or win law cases for you ; but I 'm not really much on mechanism ; and as for cleaning cotton-seed, why, gentlemen, I should n't know it if I saw it ! I don't think I ever saw cotton or cotton-seed in my life." " We '11 remedy that, Whitney," cried his new acquaintance. " Here, Miller, can't you show Mr. Whitney some cotton-seed ? " " Altogether too much of it for my patience," laughed Mr. Phineas Miller, a neighbor of Madam Greene's. " Come over to my place to-morrow, Mr. Whitney, and I '11 put you knee-deep into the tan- talizing stuff." So, next day, young Whitney went to Mr. Mil- ler's place. He studied the cotton-seed and down ; he saw the slow, crude way of separating the seed from the wool; then he put on his thinking-cap and, with the inspiration of an idea, accepted the room in Mr. Miller's house, offered him as a work- shop, and began to solve the problem. How well and how speedily he solved it the world knows to-day, for it is reaping the benefit of his inventive faculty. He was compelled to make his own tools and draw his own wire, for he could not find what he desired even in Savannah ; but he worked steadily on, admitting no one to the privacy ELI WHITNEY. 223 of his work-room excepting Mr. Miller and Madam Greene, and at last, in the winter of 1793, he was able to cry, " Eureka ! " and to know that he had thought out and worked out that surprising but simple invention known as the " cotton gin." " Gin " is but a contraction of the word " engine." The cotton gin means simply an engine, machine, or device for separating the seeds from the cotton. It is a combination of cylinders, teeth, and brushes that tear the cotton from the seeds as the wool is put into the hopper, sweep it off with brushes, and hold the seeds by themselves where they can- not follow the light wool through the separating bars. The gin as invented by Whitney was after- wards improved and developed, but the underlying principle is still the same. Even in its original form it completely revolutionized the cotton indus- try ; for, with Whitney's cotton gin, one man could clean in a single day five thousand pounds of cotton where before he could clean but one. You may be sure young Whitney was very proud of his success when he exhibited to a select number of Madam Greene's planter friends the result of his experiments. The general's widow was quite as de- lighted herself. And when they saw how the young inventor had crowded into a single day's output what had formerly been the labor of months the astonishment of those Georgia planters was as great as their enthusiasm ; for they realized that here was a machine that might turn their cotton 224 HISTORIC AMERICANS. into a staple, and make it the wealth and power of the South. Other people understood this, too ; and when, for fear of infringements, Whitney refused to exhibit the gin or to make his invention public, certain law- less and unprincipled men broke into the building in which Whitney was experimenting with his in- vention, and carrying off the machine, studied and copied it, and put together similar gins on the same pattern, before Whitney had been able to fully pro- tect himself by patenting his invention. Then began a long and bitter fight for the right of invention and possession which well-nigh ruined the inventor and his friend and partner, Phineas Miller. Eli Whitney went North and started a shop in New Haven for the manufacture of his cotton gin; but so many rival machines sprang up, so many lawsuits and fights against infringement fol- lowed, and so many discouragements and disasters were encountered, that business failure faced the partners continually. At last the young manufact- urer's were well-nigh disheartened, and Whitney declared that, unless some relief were obtained, it would be impossible for him to struggle against his embarrassments much longer. The merchants and respectable manufacturers and dealers preferred Whitney's gin to those of his unscrupulous imitators, and his invention might have brought him success and wealth had not the in- fringements and stealings been so numerous as to ELI WHITNEY. 225 almost force his gin from the market. Suits were de- cided against him by juries in league with rival in- ventors, he could not sell the right to use the machine when others could be obtained without the extra cost of these royalties, and those who had agreed to pay for such rights refused to do so when collection day came round. \ Application for relief was made to the Legisla- tures of the States which profited by the invention, and Whitney arranged to sell the State rights to South Carolina. But, within a year after, the Legislature of that State annulled the contract and sued for the money already paid, while the other cotton States with which he had made contracts did the same, and Whitney and Miller were very nearly ruined. Miller, in 1803, broke down under his disap- pointments and died, leaving Whitney to fight alone the battle against ingratitude and injustice. What money the worried inventor could make he was forced to spend in lawsuits for trespass, and when in 1812 he applied for a renewal of his patent the Southern influence was found to be so great as to break down his case, and his application was rejected. Years of labor, sacrifice, struggle, and loss were thrown away and the benefits he should have derived from his labor were absorbed or seized by others. It was as sad a tale of injus- tice, ingratitude, and greed as can be found in the long and tragic story of invention. Every one ac- 226 HISTORIC AMERICANS. knowledged the debt that the cotton States owed to Eli Whitney, but no one was ready to assume or repay it, and his whole life was a struggle against poverty and dishonesty in the hope of securing a part of what was clearly his right. Only the for- tunate obtaining of a contract to manufacture fire- arms for the government in the year 1798 saved him from absolute failure and want, and made the last years of his life successful and comfortable. He died in New Haven on the eighth of January, 1825, and there his monument may be seen to-day, bearing this inscription: "ELI WHITNEY, the inventor of the cotton gin. Of useful science and arts the efficient patron and improver. In the social relations of life a model of excellence. While private affection weeps at his tomb, his country honors his memory." Born in Massachusetts and educated at Yale College, he had always what is called "an inven- tive turn of mind ; " the making of fiddles, watches, knives, and nails, canes, pins, and repair-work were equally attractive to his tastes as inventor and manufacturer from his boyhood on his father's farm to his life at college. He drifted South, after his graduation, with the design of teaching, tutor- ing, or practising law, and it was while he was yet unsettled in his choice that the opportunity came to him, at Madam Greene's, to think out the cotton gin. Whether that was a " happy thought " or not is ELI WHITNEY. 227 an open question. To him, at least, it brought little else than vexation, privation, and loss. But it brought him fame, it brought him experience, it brought him the appropriate occupation for a wonderfully inventive mind, and as he had the good sense and wise judgment to drop his burden when at last it became more than he could bear, and to take up a line of work in which his enter- prise and mechanical ability alike found success- ful return, it may be that his harsh experience strengthened and elevated his character, as it cer- tainly did make his patience and persistence an eloquent example. But apart from the personal phase of the matter it is beyond question that the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney completely changed the conditions of life in the South and influenced the whole future of the United States. Robert Fulton declared that Arkwright and Watt, the Englishmen, and Eli Whitney, the American, were the three men who did the most for mankind of any of their contemporaries. And it is certain that Eli Whitney's cotton gin had an incalculable influence upon the growth and progress of the United States, adding hundreds of millions of dollars to its wealth, while, alas ! it complicated the slavery problem beyond the hope of peaceable solution. As to the effect of Whitney's invention upon the Southern cotton-growhig States Judge Johnson, a 228 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Southern judge and planter, declared that "the whole interior of the Southern States was languish- ing, and its inhabitants emigrating for want of some object to engage their attention and employ their industry, when the invention of the cotton gin at once opened views to them which set the whole country in active motion. From childhood to age," he declared, " it has presented to us a lucrative employment. Our debts have been paid off, our capital has increased, and our lands trebled them- selves in value. We cannot express the weight of the obligation which the country owes to this inven- tion. The extent of it cannot now be seen. . . . Our sister States also participate in its benefits, for, besides affording the raw material for their manu- factures, the bulkiness and quantity of the article afford a valuable employment for their shipping." It would seem that the man who brought such prosperity and wealth to the nation should have been recognized and rewarded by it. Instead, his only winnings were ingratitude and injustice, his only harvest was lawsuit and infringement. The exports of cotton from the United States rose because of Whitney's cotton gin from 189,000 pounds in 1791 to 21,000,000 pounds in 1801, and in 1804 were double even this. In the first sixty years of the cotton gin this export increased from 10,000 bales to over 4,000,000, while the actual annual harvest of the cotton yield amounted to millions of bales more. * ELI WHITNEY. 229 But time works its own revenges. Because of this tremendous increase in the cotton industry slave labor became a commercial demand in the South, where, before the cotton gin, it had been simply a sentimental and tolerated inconvenience. The unpaid labor of slaves increased the profits from the cotton harvested and ginned, and those in the South who, following the opinions of Jefferson and Washington, had deemed slavery an evil in a free Republic and one that was doomed to speedy abatement, now saw in it a positive good to the land, upon the perpetua- tion of which depended the growth, the pros- perity, and even the very existence of the cotton States. So through the years the peculiar " system " fastened itself firmer and more insistently upon the South. For it Calhoun fought, for it Clay com- promised and Webster temporized, while against it strove John Quincy Adams and all the brave foemen of the cankerous evil, from his day to that of Lincoln the emancipator. That idolatrous devotion to a crime for com- mercial ends finally plunged the South into war, defeat, and distress, and Eli Whitney was avenged. Ingratitude had worked its own overthrow. To-day the cotton industry of America is greater than ever before. Better still, the introduction of free labor into its methods is leading the South steadily forward to a prosperity and independence 230 HISTORIC AMERICANS. greater than it ever enjoyed or ever could have enjoyed under the old system. For all these changes Eli Whitney and his wonderful cotton gin are largely responsible, and the story which began in creative ingenuity, ran its evil course through injustice, and drenched its pages in the blood of civil war, ends in regenera- tion, progress, and prosperity. So Eli Whitney, the victim of his own inventive ability, really builded better than he knew ; for he was a factor in the remaking of the Republic. XVII. THE STORY OF ANDREW JACKSON, OF THE HERMITAGE, CALLED "OLD HICKOKY.' Born at the Waxhaw Settlement, North Carolina, March 15, 1767. Died at the Hermitage, Tennessee, June 8, 1845. "One of the most remarkable men America has produced, and one admirably fitted to ride the storm and direct the forces of the new democracy. ... A typical man of the people, Andrew Jackson proved himself to be a born leader of men in time of stress." Edward Charming. THIS is a story of photographs. If only it could have a phonographic attachment, so that you could both see and hear the man whom I wish to show you, " the most wilful, the most despotic, the most interesting of all our presidents," as one of the latest of American historians denominates Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, the vividness, as well as the interest, would be increased. For the Jackson voice was a part of the Jackson character. But if we can reproduce his manner, we may imagine the voice. The first picture is that of a boy of the hills. In a low, rough house of logs, among the Caro- 231 232 HISTORIC AMERICANS. lina hills, where the red soil of the Waxhaw Settle- ment seemed almost typical of the blood and ruin that had fallen upon all that region in the merciless work of " Tarleton's quarter," a boy, hot with anger, stands openly defying his captor. He is a tall, raw- boned, red-haired, freckled-faced lad of fourteen, big for his years ; perhaps, with the prophecy in his lean but sinewy form of the future hardy and athletic frontiersman of that rough and rolling hill- country of the Carolinas. The man is a British officer, haughty, arrogant, overbearing, a type of that conquering race in whom contact with the conquered always bred contempt, while superiority of intelligence and refinement expressed itself in cruelty rather than in courtesy. In this case the brutalizing spirit of conquest was very evident. As one who had part in the massacre at the Waxhaw Settlements, and the slaughter at Hanging Rock, this English gentleman had been hardened into the pitiless soldier and the contemptuous master. " These peasants," he declared, referring to the conquered colonists of the Carolina highlands, " have no rights. They must be taught their place as low-bred scum and dirty traitors. Here, boy ! clean this beastly red mud of yours from my boots. And hark ye, do it quick! I 'm in haste." And he flung the long military boots, well be- smeared with the red Waxhaw clay, at the boy whom the fortunes of war, or, rather, the tyranny of ANDREW JACKSON. 233 treachery, had made a captive to the hated troopers of Tarleton. But though captive this boy of fourteen was by no means cowed. " Clean your own boots ! I 'm no nigger slave," he cried passionately. "I am a prisoner of war. Because you 've got us down, you need n't think you can jump on us ; " and, stung to anger by the British officer's demand, he kicked the boots back so vindictively that they caromed on the English- man's pet corns and literally made him "hopping mad." He whipped out his sword and springing upon his plucky and defiant captive struck viciously at the boy, unmindful of consequences or of that " fair play " which is so thoroughly an English trait. But surprise and anger had killed all courtesy in the big dragoon officer. " You miserable little rebel ! You cur ! You blackguard ! " he shouted. " How dare you ? Take that for your impudence and that and that ! " Thwack ! thwack ! the British sword came down upon the Carolina boy with lunge and cut. It laid the supple wrist open to the bone ; under the shock of thick red hair it left a cut from which streamed the still redder blood. Then the sense of unfairness which had led him to strike down an unarmed boy roused the English- man's drowsy conscience, and he regretted what he had done. 234 HISTORIC AMERICANS. " It was your own fault," was all he said, how- ever, as he kicked the muddy boots from his path, and left their cleaning to his servant. So, after all, the big dragoon did not have his way. The boy from the Waxhaws did not clean those boots. But the scars made by the sword of the brutal British officer remained with the boy through all his long and active life, and as he never forgot so he never forgave that contemptuous and cruel attack, and he took good payment for it from England's arrogant power, all in good time, and with interest. For that fourteen-year-old Carolina boy was Andrew Jackson. Born in poverty, cradled in adversity, reared in ignorance, but with that strong and sturdy Scotch- Irish blood running in his veins, that blood that has given so much in brain and sinew to America, Andrew Jackson never knew a father, and saw a mother and brothers die as the victims of British cruelty and neglect. Left thus, without home or family at fifteen, an orphan of the Revolution, it is not to be wondered at that a hatred of all things British became almost a part of the reckless, mis- chievous, resolute, sturdy, and vindictive boy who, somehow, raised himself from ignorance to intelli- gence, migrated into the new lands beyond the mountains, and "grew up with the country" in Tennessee. Lawyer, farmer, and merchant, public prosecutor, district attorney, member of Congress, senator, judge, thus he rose to eminence in the ANDREW JACKSON. 235 new State of Tennessee, where he was respected as able, fearless, honest, and, above all, ready to give and take the blow which in all new sections has ever been the claim to popularity and standing. . Such a man soon became an acknowledged leader, not only in his own State and neighborhood, but in the whole section ; so, when war with Great Britain broke out in 1812, Andrew Jackson, major-general of Tennessee's volunteer militia, became major-gen- eral and commander of the forces of the United States in the Southwest. These forces were not very great, but Andrew Jackson advanced to the command by vigorous measures and signal victories which overthrew and completely shattered the Indian rising of 1814, known as the Creek war, and broke the combined Spanish and British power in Florida. He never neglected an opportunity to " chastise " the British power by which his boyhood had been made miser- able, and when, at last, he found himself face to face, in January, 1815, with the British army before New Orleans he felt that his day of reckoning was at hand, and determined to win or die. When that time came, when the British army invaded the South, the hour brought the man. " Andrew Jackson," says Maurice Thompson, " was a fighter who fought to kill and who would brook no interference with his methods, no inquiries into his plans, no suggestions as to the extent of his authority. Tt chanced that he was the right man 236 HISTORIC AMERICANS. for the emergency; no other man could have saved New Orleans." And he did save it. In the beautiful January weather, when that fair sub-tropical land of Southern Louisiana lies bright and glorious in the rioting sunshine, there was gathered behind a shaky and uncertain breast- work of mud and dirt and useless cotton bales a motley army of barely six thousand men regu- lars, volunteer militia, new levies,' Creoles, Yankee sailors, Baratarian pirates, hunters, sharpshooters, frontiersmen, as curious a mixture of old men, young men, veterans, and recruits as one could well imagine, armed with a laughable assort- ment of weapons from blunderbusses to backwoods rifles, and marshalled under an indomitable, deter- mined, redcoat-hating general. Facing them, behind and about a flimsy fortification of mud ramparts and sugar-hogsheads, was marshalled a strong and splendidly disciplined British army of fifteen thousand veterans of the Napoleonic wars. So they stood awhile the invaders and the de- fenders. Then out from behind their defences, straight on through the open, over the oozy swamp- land and across the half-filled ditches, came march- ing a solid red-coated column of British soldiers, perfectly drilled and valiantly led. The Americans are silent, but ready. Four deep, the lines of picked riflemen and musketeers, with weapons ready, wait to get the range. It ANDREW JACKSON. 237 comes speedily; as nearer and nearer moves that gleaming unbroken column of red, its commander, General Pakenham himself, leading it on. Suddenly from the breastwork of mud and cot- ton-bales the rifles crack, the muskets bang, the supporting batteries boom and crash. The rifle- men have the range. Staggered by the withering fire, the British column shivers and sways, almost broken by its deadly reception ; it wavers, then re- forms, sweeps forward with a sudden rush, recoils and breaks, as a second volley flashes from the American line and mows its way through those veteran ranks. It is Bunker hill tactics over again. "What, veterans of the Peninsula, conquerors of Napoleon ! will you break before raw militia led by a blustering bush-fighter? Form again ! Form again ! One rush all together and you '11 tumble their crazy mud walls about their ears. Turn again, men ; turn and at 'em ! " With commands and entreaties the desperate British leader reforms his panic-stricken column and once more leads it against the American earth- works. Again the deadly rifles speak ; again the with- ering fire rakes the English line. But it stands firm. Then Pakenham, hat waving above his head, urges his men to one supreme charge. "Over the works or die!" he cried; and then, struck in arm and thigh and breast by those merci- less bullets of the border men, the brave British 238 HISTORIC AMERICANS. leader sways in his saddle and dies before the works are reached. Still the advance continues. But now all the American guns are in action, from the overcharged thirty-two pounders in the battery to the old horse- pistol in the hand of some green recruit. In one terrible, fearful fire, as fearful as ever burst from a repelling line, the guns of border State men, Creoles, and pirates pour their hail of death into the British columns, while up and down the American line marches the grim, relentless, cool, and commanding leader, avenging the death of his mother and his brother, wiping out in blood the disgrace that had fallen upon his boyhood in that Carolina hill hut thirty years before. " Give it to 'em, boys ! Blow 'em up, boys ! Show the redcoats how an American fights," he shouts. And the redcoats learned. Their mar- shalled columns break, shattered under that ter- rible fire, and, at last, with fully two thousand dead and wounded strewing the ground, with their leaders killed, their officers picked off by rifleman and sharpshooter, the British turn in flight, the South is saved, and Andrew Jackson has made his name forever famous as the victor of New Orleans victor, with but eight men killed and thirteen wounded. The Creek war and the battle of New Orleans made Andrew Jackson president of the United States. For they did make him president. Although a ANDREW JACKSON. 239 dozen years passed between the victory at New Orleans and the presidential election of 1828 the fame of Andrew Jackson grew stronger through the years. He was very nearly elected in 1824, and when, four years later, a presidential campaign was again 'fought Jackson was elected president over John Quincy Adams by an electoral vote of 178 to 83 more than two to one. He was a popular hero. One or two other pictures of the man between those years of indignity and revenge I should like to show you. One is on the battlefield of Talluschatchee, where Jackson broke the power of the Creeks. Disaster and death had overtaken the hostile Indians. Hun- dreds of dead and dying lay upon the field ; throngs of disconsolate prisoners were forced into the white man's camp. From the arms of a dead Indian mother a little child was taken, and as he inspected the prisoners Jackson saw the Indian baby, and, humane in victory, tried to save it. But no Creek mother would take the baby. " Why save him ? " they replied to the general's command. " His people are dead ; his wigwam is empty ; his father was a brave and died with his face to the foe. Let him die too. Kill the warrior's son now ; it is best." Then the general swore a mighty oath. " That boy shall live," he said, " even if I have to 'tend him myself. Take him to my tent." 240 HISTORIC AMERICANS. The camp was bare of supplies. Lack of rations, that bugbear of every war and the foemen's greatest ally, had bred almost a famine, and the general's larder was as lean as the rest. But a little brown sugar was discovered, and with this, mixed with water, the general kept the Indian baby alive until he could send it to the settlements. There it was cared for at his expense until his return to his home, the Hermitage, where Mrs. Jackson, good motherly soul, took it in at once, and she and the general " raised " Linconyer, as they called their Indian " son," educating him, loving him, and caring for him until his death from consumption when he had grown to be seventeen years old, and very dear to the general and " Aunt Rachel." Another photograph is of the harsh but loving soldier, as he leaves the Hermitage the home he had built for his dearly loved " Rachel " - to enter the White House as president of the United States. Alas ! he is to go alone. For kindly " Aunt Rachel " is dead. She whom the general had defended from slander, rescued from ill-treatment, loved, married, and fought for had died just as the husband of whom she was so proud had reached the pinnacle of ambition and of fame. She died on the very day set by the people of Nash- ville for a jubilee over the general's election. The jubilee was changed to mourning, and Andrew Jackson never recovered from the loss of his dearly loved wife. It saddened all the rest of his life. ANDREW JACKSON. 241 Knowing this, does it not give a peculiar interest to the picture I wish to present you here in the words of old Alfred, Jackson's last surviving slave, as standing beside the temple-like mauso- leum in the garden of the Hermitage within which lies the dust of Andrew Jackson and his faithful wife he showed to some Northern visitors a few years ago the willows that shade the Jackson tomb. " Dese yer willows wuz planted by Gin'ral Jack- son," said Alfred. " Ole Mis' she jis' done buried and de trunks wuz all packed fer to go to Washing- ton, and Gin'ral Jackson he went right off yander beyond the quarters and cut four willow switches. Den he come down yar, an' he tuk his knife and made a hole and stuck one on 'em at each corner, jes' as you see 'em, and dey growed every one on 'em 'cept dat ar' one yander what was struck by lightnin' ; and dere dey is now. Den when he done planted dem willow switches de ole gin'ral went back to de house to get in his carriage, fer to go to Washington. An' he look down yer to old Mis' grabe and he look at de house jes' like good-by, and he done tuk off his hat to de house, jes' like it was a lady ; and den he dribe away." You all know what a dramatic, stormy adminis- tration those eight years of President Andrew Jack- son made. No man was more devotedly followed ; none was ever more cordially hated. Absolutely fearless, vigorous in methods, quick in action, em- phatic in speech, if Andrew Jackson thought a 242 HISTORIC AMERICANS. thing should be done he did it, careless of conse- quences. Let me show you one other picture this is of President Andrew Jackson. In a little room on the second floor of the White House, at Washington, the tall, gaunt, grizzled, lonely old man of sixty-six sat smoking his corn- -cob pipe, something that even the dignity of the presidency could not induce him to give up. The old soldier's face was troubled, for disturbing news had come to him from that most disturbing section - South Carolina. The hot little State, inflamed over certain obnoxious tariff laws, had declared that the acts of Congress imposing them were null and void and expressed its determination to resist their enforcement. As he sat in his little room, smoking and thinking, a messenger entered with the latest tidings. They were certainly disturbing. The Leg- islature of South Carolina had met ; it had passed laws contrary to and subversive of those of Con- gress. The governor was authorized to call out the militia, equip and arm them, strengthen the defences of the State, and prepare to resist the authority of the Federal government and the president of the United States. When Andrew Jackson read this defiance of South Carolina all the patriotism and all the pas- sion in his nature burst into action. He sprang to his feet; he dashed his corn-cob pipe to the floor. ANDREW JACKSON. 243 " By the Eternal, " he said, " the Union must and shall be preserved ! Send for General Scott." Swiftly the preparations were made. General Scott was at once despatched to Charleston ; sol- diers and sailors were disposed so as to be ready for instant action. Then he went again to his little room, seized the big steel pen which was his favorite aid in writ- ing, and, drawing the sheets before him, dashed off page after page of a proclamation to South Caro- lina, the words of which are ringing yet as a chal- lenge to treason and a plea for peace. So rapidly did he write that a new page would be completed before the ink was dry on the page that preceded it ; he threw into it the glow of his patriotism, the intensity of his passion, the fervor of his determination to keep the Union intact, and when one of his advisers suggested a change or toning down of one passage the general refused. " No, sir ! " he said decidedly. " Those are my views and I will not change them nor strike them out." That proclamation and the president's prompt action crushed the rebellious attempts of the " Nul- lifiers," as the South Carolina hot-heads were called. The country approved ; South Carolina receded ; and the Union was preserved by " Old Hickory," as the general was called, from the tough and un- bending nature of his imperious will. " I have had a laborious task," said the wearied 244 HISTORIC AMERICANS. but determined old man, after that historic episode was over, " but nullification is dead, and its actors and courtiers will only be remembered by the peo- ple to be execrated for their wicked designs to sever and destroy the only good government on the globe. . . . The free people of the United States have spoken and consigned these demagogues to their proper doom. Take care of the Nullifiers you have among you. Let them meet the indignant frowns of every man who loves his country. . . . The tariff was only a pretext ; disunion and the Southern con- federacy were the real object." From this you can see that the old general was a good deal of a prophet as well as patriot. Just such prompt and vigorous measures, too, did he bring to whatever needed instant attention. With the same sternness with which he crushed nullifi- cation he demolished the institution called the United States Bank, in which he did not believe, and which he considered a menace to the Republic ; he brought England to terms ; he made France pay a just but delayed indebtedness ; he settled disputes of long standing with Spain and Denmark ; he forced Europe to recognize and admit the strength and importance of the United States as a nation. He was impulsive ; he was hot-headed ; he was obstinate. He was the soldier in office, knowing no master save his own will, which, however, he declared, was the will of the people. It did ap- pear to be so ; for the majority of the people believed ANDREW JACKSON. 245 so thoroughly in Andrew Jackson that his two terms as president were the most effective and the most popular of all the administrations up to this day, and in all the history of the Republic Jackson was the only president who retired from office more popular than when he went in. Despotic, unyielding, masterful, but honest, lov- ing, and sincere, he was as loyal to his friends as he was vindictive to his foes, and yet, on his death- bed, he freely forgave all his enemies " excepting those," he specified, " who slandered my ' Rachel ' ; " and " Rachel " had been dead for fully twenty years. A boy of the " piney woods " region of the South, bluff and boisterous but never a coward, the life of Andrew Jackson was a continuous progress from small beginnings to a great future. Farmer boy, soldier boy, saddler's apprentice, law-student, horse-trainer, lawyer, frontiersman, prosecuting attorney, land-speculator, State constitution-maker, congressman, senator, judge, storekeeper, farmer, boatbuilder, wholesale merchant, cotton planter, stock-raiser, militia officer, general, conqueror of Indians, Spaniards, and British, governor of Florida, United States senator, presidential candidate, and twice president of the United States, this was the life record of Andrew Jackson, of Tennessee, hero by popular acclaim. It was a record of steady progress through seventy-eight years of busy life, marked, again and again, by all those dramatic 246 HISTORIC AMERICANS. incidents and fiery outbursts that made him at once a terror and a triumph. Says one energetic soldier and worker of to-day, Colonel and Governor Theodore Roosevelt, of New York and Santiago fame : " To a restless and un- tiring energy Jackson united sleepless vigilance and genuine military genius. ... In after years he did to his country some good and more evil ; but no true American can think of his deed at New Orleans without profound and unmixed thankfulness." " It was," says Professor Channing, " a most important day for the Unjted States and the Ameri- can people when, under Andrew Jackson's lead, the forces of Democracy adopted the idea of the sov- ereignty of the people of the United States." It helped then, as it helped in an even more trying time, to save the Union that Andrew Jackson so passionately loved, and it is well for young Americans to remember that it was because Andrew Jackson was so brave, outspoken, deter- mined, and resolute that he silenced all opposition and triumphed over all enemies ; and that, with it all, beneath a tender heart he possessed a stern and inflexible honesty that rose almost to greatness and made him for all time a typical and historic American. XVIII. THE STORY OF DANIEL WEBSTER, OF MARSHFIELD, CALLED THE "EXPOUNDER OF THE CONSTITUTION." Born at Salisbury, New Hampshire, January 18, 1782. Died at Marshfleld, Massachusetts, October 24, 1852. " So long as the Union of these States endures or holds a place in history the name of Daniel Webster will be honored and remembered, and his stately eloquence find an echo in the hearts of his countrymen." Henry Cabot Lodge. IT was the opening year of the new century and the citizens of Hanover determined to celebrate the Fourth of July, 1800, in fitting and appropriate style. There was a muster, a procession, and a banquet ; there were salutes and noise and fire- works. The Declaration of Independence was to be read, and of course there was to be a Fourth of July oration. Now, the town of Hanover in New Hampshire was, and is still, a college town. Dartmouth Col- lege has trained and sent forth many solid, able, and brilliant Americans, whose names adorn the walks of all occupations, professions, and successes. 247 248 HISTORIC AMERICANS. The town of Hanover is proud of Dartmouth Col- lege and of the men whom she has educated. So when, in 1800, an orator was to be selected for the Fourth of July oration the citizen turned at once to the college for the orator. " They say there 's a youngster up at the college that 's a master-hand at speaking," one of the select- men said, as they talked it over with the minister and the schoolmaster ; " he 's Cap'n Webster's son, Judge Webster, I mean, from up Salisbury way." " Comes of good stock," another of the select- men remarked. " Cap'n Webster was the only man Washington said he could trust when Arnold cut up his didoes, and I have heard that the cap'n he 's judge now, as you say just skimped him- self and all his family to give this boy an educa- tion. Doing well, is he ? " " So I hear," his associate replied. " They do say that this youngster Dan'l, I think his name is Dan'l Webster, that 's it knows more 'n some of his teachers up to the college, and when it comes to speaking pieces well ! there 's just nobody that can beat him." " Well, if that 's so, I say we ask him," said the other selectman. " He can't any more 'n fail. How old is he ? " he inquired. " He is pretty young, and that 's a fact ; he 's only about eighteen," the advocate of the boy orator admitted. " But, there now ! What 's that amount to ? Somebody 's got to hear the beginnings, and DANIEL WEBSTER. 249 what's the difference how old a preacher or a speaker is, if he 's got the gift ? " The young Dartmouth student who was the sub- ject of this discussion did surely have the gift. This, committee and audience speedily discovered when on that Fourth of July, in the year 1800, Daniel Webster, of Salisbury, stood before them to deliver his oration. Tall and thin, dark-hued and raven-haired, with the high cheek-bones of an Indian, and eyes so black, deep-set, and searching that the boys nick- named him " All eyes," this boy of eighteen was neither strong looking nor "pretty appearing," as the old ladies declared ; but there was in his look, his attitude, and his bearing something that at- tracted all his hearers as he rose to speak, while his voice, wonderfully deep-toned, melodious, and strong, captivated and held them ere he had com- pleted his first paragraph. The committee looked at each other approvingly, and the advocate of "young Dan'l" nudged his associate and whispered, " What did I tell you ? " " Why, the youngster 's a born orator ! " replied the now convinced selectman, nodding his head in approval. The selectman was right. Daniel Webster, col- legian, lawyer, senator, statesman, was a born orator. And even in that boyish Fourth of July oration at Hanover, crude, high-flown, florid, and 'sophomoric effort though it was, he displayed at once his latent 250 HISTORIC AMERICANS. power, his commanding eloquence, his marvellous diction, and yet more marvellous voice above all, his intense patriotism and belief in America ; qual- ities which were to make him, in later years, the greatest of American orators, the man who was to leave to his countrymen and the world, as Mr. Schurz asserts, "invaluable lessons of statesman- ship, right, and patriotism." The recollection of that Fourth of July oration lived long with those who heard it. The spell of voice and manner, even more than of the word and matter, fell upon the listening throng, and even in their old age men would refer to it as one of the memories of their youth. " I heard Dan'l Webster's first speech, in Han- over, away back in 1800," they would boast, "and I declare, he never did anything finer or was more patriotic than he was in that speech, and he was n't more than eighteen. It was wonderful, I tell you." It was not really so wonderful, of course, and Webster, certainly, did do many things finer. The recollections of youth receive in age a tinge and glory that later experience lack ; but it may never- theless be said, as Mr. Lodge claims, that in that youthful oration of Daniel Webster there was " the same message of love of country, national greatness, fidelity to the Constitution, and the necessity and nobility of the union of the States, which the man Webster delivered to his fellow-men." In Daniel Webster, the boy, lived the prophecy of a new era DANIEL WEBSTER. 251 and a new generation in the men and measures of the Republic. Daniel Webster was born in Salisbury, or what is now Franklin, in New Hampshire, on the eigh- teenth of January, 1782. His father was a veteran of the Revolution, a hard-working farmer who, because of his integrity, influence, and force, was made by his neighbors judge of the County Court. His mother was a noble New Hampshire woman, the equal of her husband in pluck, determination, and willing self-sacrifice. From these qualities in the parents came the boy's deliberate growth in great- ness ; for they sacrificed everything to give him an education ; and the puny, sickly boy baby whom no one in the neighborhood believed his parents could " raise," who learned his Constitution by heart from the cheap little handkerchief on which it was printed, and who when he went to school at Exeter could not speak " pieces," because he was so shy, became, at last, head of his class at Exeter, " prize student " at Dartmouth, the foremost man in the college, Fourth of July orator, in demand as a pub- lic speaker even before he was twenty, and a lawyer in New Hampshire, practising in his proud father's court, and winning reputation and income before he was twenty-three. When, in 1806, his overworked, self-sacrificing father died it was with the knowl- edge that his efforts had not been in vain, and that his son Daniel would not be a failure, but a success. A success he certainly was. He established him- 252 HISTORIC AMERICANS. self in Portsmouth, winning rapidly both reputa- tion and fame. He became a politician of clear perception, broad views, and intense patriotism, and was sent to Congress from New Hampshire in 1813, where he was at once placed on its most important committee, that of Foreign Relations. There his wonderful gift of oratory and his remarkable power of getting at the heart of things at once won rec- ognition; there, in his first session, he foresaw and advocated the real power that won the battles of the war of 1812 and grew into the force that has made history for the Republic from the days of Hull to those of Farragut and Dewey and Samp- son the navy of the United States. " If the war must continue," he said, " go to the ocean. If you are seriously contending for mari- time rights go to the theatre where alone those rights can be defended. Thither every indication of your fortune points you. There the united wishes and exertions of the nation will go with you. Even our party divisions, acrimonious as they are, cease at the water's edge." Was not that a prophetic utterance ? It was true in 1813 ; it was true in 1898. To better himself in his practice, Webster re- moved to Boston in 1817, and from that time, for nearly forty years, he became a " favorite son " of Massachusetts. The old Bay State sent him to Congress in 1823 ; in 1827 she sent him to the Senate. For twenty-eight years he was Massachu- DANIEL WEBSTER. 253 setts' foremost representative in the councils of the nation, broken only by two seasons of service as secretary of state under Presidents Harrison and Fillmore. It was in the Senate of the United States that his greatest victories were won. It was before that body that, on the twenty-sixth of January, 1830, he made what has been styled "the greatest speech since Demosthenes," his famous reply to Hayne, his " Liberty and Union " speech, which, so says Mr. Schurz, " remained the watchword of American patriotism, and still reverberated thirty years later in the thunders of the Civil war. That glorious speech," declares Mr. Schurz, "continues to hold the first place among the monuments of American oratory." " It sank," so says Mr. Lodge, " into the hearts of the people and became unconsciously 'a part of their life and daily thoughts." Let us read once more the story of that famous speech. It is not necessary, here, to detail the causes of that great oration. Out of an insignificant question concerning the sale of public lands had grown a discussion as to the powers of the State and national governments. It was the time when the struggle between State sovereignty and national supremacy was fierce, both in and out of Congress, and the senator from South Carolina, Mr. Hayne, availed himself of the opportunity afforded by the discus- sion to arraign the State of Massachusetts, crush its chief representative, Mr. Webster, and establish 254 HISTORIC AMERICANS. the right of the States to interfere with and over- ride, for their own benefit,. the national government, even the Constitution itself. Mr. Hayne's invective was a strong, forcible, intense, and personal speech, which for two days occupied the attention of the Senate and awakened all the fears and forebodings of the supporters of the Constitution ; for it seemed to them unanswerable. But it aroused one who would admit that no attack upon the Constitution and the Union should be allowed to go unanswered. " It is a critical moment, Mr. Webster," said Mr. Bell, of New Hampshire, as on the morning of the twenty-sixth of January, 1830, he met the sen- ator from Massachusetts on his way to the Capitol. " It is time, it is high time that the people of this country should know what this Constitution is." " Then, sir," replied Mr. Webster, " by the bless- ing of Heaven they shall learn, this day, before the sun goes down, what I understand it to be." Then he passed into the Senate chamber, packed to the doors by an expectant and eager throng who knew that, on that day, Daniel Webster was to take up the gage that the champion of disunion had thrown down and was to fight for the supremacy of the Union under the Constitution. Slowly he rose, quietly he began. The latent fires of patriotism and national love which were burning so fiercely in his heart did not at first burst into flame. DANIEL WEBSTER. 255 " Mr. President," he said, " when the mariner has been tossed for many days in thick weather and on an unknown sea he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence ; and before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may, at least, be able to conjecture where we are. I ask for the reading of the resolution before the Senate." The tense excitement of both supporters and opponents, strained in expectancy as the orator arose to speak, was calmed and restrained by this simple and quiet opening. Then by the time the clerk had read the original resolution from which all this discussion and excitement had sprung this consummate orator had alike himself, his auditors, and his subject well in hand and could control each as it suited him. Gradually he gave his thought words; and these, growing in intensity and eloquence as he proceeded, soon captured friend and foe alike ; till, holding that great audience enthralled by his match- less voice and spellbound by his magnificent peri- ods, he struck at the doctrines advanced by Hayne with so sure a blow and carried forward the banner of union so triumphantly that, as Mr. Lodge says, " as the last words died away into silence those who 256 HISTORIC AMERICANS. had listened looked wonderingly at each other, dimly conscious that they had heard one of the grand speeches which are landmarks in the history of eloquence." Not alone in the crowded Capitol was the effect of that great speech almost beyond expression. "As his words went over the land," says Mr. Schurz, " the national heart bounded with joy and broke out in enthusiastic acclamations. At that moment Webster stood before the world as the first of living Americans." What school boy does not know, what American heart does not thrill, over that matchless defence of his beloved Bay State ? "Mr. President, I shall enter on no encomium upon Massachusetts ; she needs none. There she is ! Behold her and judge for yourselves. There is her history ; the world knows it by heart. The past at least is secure. There is Boston and Con- cord and Lexington and Bunker hill; and there they will remain forever. The bones of her sons, falling in the great struggle for independence, now lie mingled with the soil of every State from New England to Georgia; and there they will lie for- ever. And, sir, where American liberty raised its first voice, and where its youth was nurtured and sustained, there it still lives, in the strength of its manhood and full of its original spirit. If discord and disunion shall wound it, if party strife and blind ambition shall hawk at and tear it, if folly DANIEL WEBSTER. 257 and madness, if uneasiness under salutary, and nec- essary restraint, shall succeed in separating it from that Union by which alone its existence is made sure, it will stand in the end by the side of that cradle in which its infancy was rocked ; it will stretch forth its arm with whatever of vigor it may still retain over the friends who gather round it ; and it will fall at last, if fall it must, amidst the proudest monuments of its own glory and on the very spot of its origin." And what American, whatever his State, what- ever his party, wherever his home, and however great his burden or unpleasant his lines, has not been lifted to the highest plane of enthusiasm and fired with the noblest love of country by that match- less peroration which so sunk into the hearts of men that it did more to save the Union than any Amer- ican has yet fully admitted ? " Mr. President, I have thus stated the reasons of my dissent to the doctrines which have been ad- vanced and maintained. I am conscious of having detained you and the Senate much too long. I was drawn into the debate with no previous delibera- tion, such as is suited to the discussion of so grave and important a subject. But it is a subject of which my heart is full, and I have not been willing to suppress the utterance of its spontaneous senti- ments. I cannot, even now, persuade myself to re- linquish it, without expressing once more my deep conviction, that since it respects nothing less than 258 HISTORIC AMERICANS. the union of the States it is of most vital and essen- tial importance to the public happiness. I profess, sir, in my career hitherto, to have kept steadily in view the prosperity and honor of the whole country, and the preservation of our federal Union. It is to that Union we owe our safety at home, and our consideration and dignity abroad. It is to that Union that we are chiefly indebted for whatever makes us most proud of our country. That Union we reached only by the discipline of our virtues in the severe school of adversity. It had its origin in the necessities of disordered finance, prostrate commerce, and ruine dcredit. Under its benign influences, these great interests immediately awoke as from the dead and sprang forth with new- ness of life. Every year of its duration has teemed with fresh proofs of its utility and its blessings ; and although our territory has stretched out wider and wider, and our population spread farther and farther, they have not outrun its protection or its benefits. It has been to us all a copious fountain of national, social, and personal happiness. " I have not allowed myself, sir, to look beyond the Union, to see what might lie hidden in the dark recess behind. I have not coolly weighed the chances of preserving liberty when the bonds that unite us together shall be broken asunder. I have not accustomed myself to hang over the precipice of disunion, to see whether, with my short sight, I can fathom the depth of the abyss below ; nor DANIEL WEBSTER. 259 could I regard him as a safe counsellor in the affairs of this government whose thoughts should be mainly bent on considering, not how the Union should be best preserved, but how tolerable might be the condition of the people when it shall be broken up and destroyed. While the Union lasts we have high, exciting, gratifying prospects spread out before us for us and our children. Beyond that I seek not to penetrate the veil. God grant that in my day, at least, that curtain may not rise ! God grant that on my vision never may be opened what lies behind ! When my eyes shall be turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, may I not see him shining on the broken and dishonored fragments of a once glorious Union ; on States dis- severed, discordant, belligerent ; on a land rent with civil feuds, or drenched, it may be, in fraternal blood ! Let their last feeble and lingering glance rather behold the gorgeous ensign of the Republic, now known and honored throughout the earth, still full high advanced, its arms and trophies streaming in their original lustre, not a stripe erased or pol- luted nor a single star obscured, bearing for its motto no such miserable interrogatory as ' What is all this worth ? ' nor those other words of delusion and folly, ' Liberty first and Union afterwards ; ' but everywhere, spread over all in characters of living light, blazing on all its ample folds, as they float over the sea and over the land, and in every wind under the whole heavens, that other sentiment, dear to 260 HISTORIC AMERICANS. every true American heart, Liberty and Union, now and forever, one and inseparable." I have often wondered how Mr. Webster felt when he sat down after that marvellous speech was concluded. Think what it must be to a man to have that power of swaying a multitude by his words and regenerating a people by his power ! That Daniel Webster had that power the history of that great speech proves. It is a fact that Web- ster's " Liberty and Union " oration was the favor- ite declamation of American school boys for five and twenty years ; that its words and precepts went deeper into their hearts than they themselves imagined ; that it inspired a passionate and devoted love for the Union throughout the North which, when the hour of danger came to the Republic, em- phasized the sentiment of nationality, and nerved the arm as it sustained the courage of the united North. Therein, as Mr. Lodge says, " lies the debt which the American people owe to Webster, and in that is his meaning and importance in his own time and to us. to-day." Daniel Webster was not alone an orator. He was a great lawyer and a great statesman. But to us, to-day, his* name suggests always "liberty and union." It is on that speech that his fame was built, and for that speech that he will be forever remembered. No statesman in all America had a more unfal- tering love of country, none had a more absorbing DANIEL WEBSTER. 261 belief in the greatness of the Republic and its mag- nificent possibilities. In speech as senator, in State papers as secretary, he fought ever for one thing the integrity of the Republic and the permanence of American nationality. Even his fatal " seventh of March " speech, as it is always called, that speech in 1850 in which he supported the odious Fugitive Slave Law, and disappointed his steadfast support- ers, even that was because of his love for the Union, and his desire to preserve it unbroken, though, to do so, he must sacrifice his inherited be- liefs and principles. Daniel Webster was a big man and loved big things big farms and trees and cattle and moun- tains, Niagara, the ocean bigness in everything, and for that reason he could stand nothing small or sectional in American life. He loved the Union as a great and undivided whole, and in the very speech that worked his ruin he made the patriotic and national declaration that should have gone far to excuse his action : " I was born an American ; I live an American ; I shall die an American." He did so die. True to the expressed hope in his ever-famous speech, his eyes, when turned to behold for the last time the sun in heaven, did in- deed see " the gorgeous ensign of the Republic," still full high advanced, not a star obscured, not a stripe erased, floating in the wind of heaven, with liberty and union still the sentiment dear to the American heart. For, when the great orator lay 262 HISTORIC AMERICANS. dying in his beloved Marshlield home, he could see from his window, as he looked each morning to be sure that the flag was still there, the flutter of the stars and stripes which he so dearly loved, and which, according to his orders, were kept floating from the flagstaff until his last breath had passed. A great man was Daniel Webster, of Massachu- setts ; a man of faults as great and glaring as his own vast ideas and talents, but a man of wonderful powers and mighty mind, a real son of the Republic, an American citizen in the best sense of that noble, and impressive word. He was, in truth, the " Ex- pounder of the Constitution," as none had before expounded it ; he was the defender and upholder of the Union ; and to his labors and his magnetic eloquence the boys and girls of America, to-day, owe, in very large degree, their peace, their security, their very existence. XIX. THE STORY OF WASHINGTON IRVING, OF NEW YORK, CALLED THE "FOUNDER OF AMERICAN LITERATURE." Born in New York City, April 3, 1783. Died at Tarrytown, New York, November 28, 1859. " Born while the British troops were still in possession of his native city, and overtaken by death a year before Abraham Lincoln was elected president, he represents a span of life from Revolutionary days to a period well remembered by men now of middle age. . . . He was the first American man of letters whose writings contained the vital spark. . . . His position in American literature is unique and will always remain so." Edwin W. Morse. THE street echoed with the sound of martial music the rattle of the drum, and the shrill quaver of the fife ; a flash of color and a flutter of flags filled the nearest street ; and the small boy on the doorstep could not resist the temptation. Darting from his perch on the "stoop" of his father's house, he whisked about the corner and was soon forcing his way into the crowd. It was a joyous and jubilant crowd into which 263 264 HISTORIC AMERICANS. this runaway six-year old had thrown himself. It was evidently out for a holiday, and yet it seemed to be a holiday of exceptional significance. The flags and the music, the soldiers and the crowd, were but a part of the accessories of the pageant, while the pageant itself finally became, for this small spectator, simply a large, impressive-looking man standing on a balcony, plainly dressed in brown short-clothes, to whom another man in black robes handed an open book which the big man in brown fervently kissed. Then the small boy in the crowd heard the man in black robes call out in loud, triumphant tones, " Long live George Washington, president of the United States ! " Whereupon the people, packed in the street below, cheered themselves hoarse, the drums and fifes played up their loudest, all the bells in all the steeples rang a merry peal, the guns boomed out a salute, and young Washington Irving, aged six, had witnessed the inauguration of George Washington as the first president of the United States of America. Seventy years after, in a beautiful vine-embow- ered home on the banks of the noble Hudson, an old man wrote " The End " to a long and exhaustive work upon which he had expended a vast amount of research, time, and labor. Sick almost unto death, he still gave to the work a devoted and un- remitting attention, and when at last it was finished, the last " copy " turned in to the printer, the pen WASHINGTON IRVING. 265 with which it was written given to an admiring friend, the last task of a long and busy life was concluded, and the famous author gave to the world the life-story of the man for whom he was named, the patriot for whom he had an enthusiastic rever- ence, the big man in brown whom, as a small boy, he had seen made president of the United States, and whose story as told by him has become world- renowned as Irving's " Life of Washington." There is a story told to the effect that, when this small boy was first "put into trousers " the Irving maid-servant who was charged with his care fol- lowed the dignified and awe-inspiring first president of the United States into a shop, dragging the boy with her. " Please, your Honor," said this Scotch Lizzie, with the inevitable courtesy of those days as her " manners," but with an evidently exalted opinion of the Irving family as well, " please, your Honor, here 's a bairn as was named after you." And the great Washington, punctilious in small matters as he was in great affairs, stooped down and laid his hand upon the head of the small Washington. " I am glad to know you, my little man," he said; " grow up to be a good one." He grew to be both good and great good in his character, great in the service he did to Amer- ican letters. For as surely as George Washington was the Father of his Country so surely was 266 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Washington Irving the Father of his Country's Literature. He was a boy of old New York that quaint, picturesque, yet cosmopolitan, city of the close of the eighteenth century, when Fulton street was up- town, Canal street far in the country, and Central park an unclaimed wilderness ; when Dutch ways and Dutch manners still controlled the city's domestic life, and the growth and bustle of the mighty nineteenth century had not commenced - even in prophecy. Washington Irving's father was a prosperous merchant of the town, and the boy, being of a delicate constitution, was not held to strict accountability either in school, pursuits, or recreations though he has put on record a glimpse of the over-strict discipline of those days, when he remarked, " When I was young I was led to think that, somehow or other, everything that was pleas- ant was wicked." One thing, certainly, he did not find to be pleasant books and study. Learning came hard to him ; he had not sufficient application to do well with the dull routine studies of those days of stupid text- books and stupider methods of teaching, and so, gradually, he became, as he confesses, a " saunterer and a dreamer," with just two fixed desires, to keep out of college and to go to sea. It is well, however, to add here that he awoke later to see and acknowledge his error ; for he always regretted that he had not " gone through " college. WASHINGTON IRVING. 267 So, at sixteen his father decided, much against his own will, to make a lawyer of young Washing- ton ; for he had wished the boy to be almost any- thing else. But law-books were, if anything, dryer than school-books, and young Irving lost no oppor- tunity to turn from reading law to essays, novels, and poems. He loved, too, the life in the open air, and he tramped and hunted all the section along the Hudson above New York, until the region be- came dear to him with a charm that never forsook him. He loved to hear the stories that haunted that romantic country that had been the bloody borderland of the Revolution and which teemed with the legends and traditions that this careless, dreamy boy was later to give to literature and fame. Opportunity, at last, came to him to go abroad. This was due to the affection and forethought of his eldest brother, " the man I loved most on earth," Washington Irving said of him, who feared for his brother's delicate health and appreciated the benefit that would come to one of his disposition if he were able to see the great world beyond the sea. The voyage and the travel had precisely the effect this wise elder brother desired : they braced the young fellow up mentally and physically, and after two years abroad he returned filled with the new thoughts and new desires that opportunity and a broader culture created in him, laying thus the foundations from which sprang his literary career. 268 HISTORIC AMERICANS. This career commenced soon after his return to New York. He began with sketches arid personal- ities, a sort of magazine- work, and then, sud- denly, blossomed into real achievement with his familiar and ever famous anonymous travesty, " Knickerbocker's History of New York." It was the forerunner of the American humor which in the next century was to become so original and marked a feature of American literature, and although it has been so mistakenly accepted as fact as to work a serious and harmful influence on the real and valu- able story of the beginnings of New York history, it still has become an American classic a humor- ous masterpiece, with no appreciable rival until the appearance, almost sixty years after, of Mark Twain's " Innocents Abroad." The leaderless war of 1812 found Washington Irving (even as the war of 1898 found so many good Americans) regretting its necessity, but an ardent patriot. One night as the regular steamboat was puffing down the river, and the cabin was filled with sleepy, reclining passengers, a man came on board at Poughkeepsie and electrified the company with the dreadful news of the British capture of Washing- ton and the destruction of the public buildings. " Well," said a voice in sneering comment from one of the dimly seen benches, "what else could you expect ? I wonder what Jimmy Madison will say now ? " WASHINGTON IRVING. 269 The patriotic but not over-strong Irving fairly sprang at the partisan and critic. " Sir ! " he cried indignantly, " do you seize on such a disaster only for a sneer ? Let me tell you, sir, it is not a question now about ' Jimmy ' Madi- son or ' Jimmy ' Armstrong or any other ' Jimmy.' The pride and honor of the nation are wounded, the country is insulted and disgraced by this bar- barous success, and every loyal citizen should feel the ignominy and be earnest to avenge it." The whole cabin broke into applause at this patriotic outburst, and the selfish partisan had not a word to say. " I could not see the fellow," Irving explained, " but I would n't stand what he said, and I just let fly at him in the dark." Then he went at once to the governor and offered his services. They were readily accepted, and Irving, being made the governor's aide and military secretary, became at once Colonel Washington Irving. He served as aide and secretary until the close of the war, and his duties were neither as light nor as decorative as one is apt to regard those of these staff warriors. He really was a worker and a vig- orous one, but he hailed with joy the completion of the war, and also the opportunity for another trip abroad. This second visit to Europe gave him fresh stores of experience and material, but he was scarcely yet 270 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ready to take up literature as a profession. Life was too easy and too enjoyable. Suddenly, however, he was brought face to face with duty. Misfortune fell upon the Irving family : his brothers failed in business and he was compelled to look out for himself. But what then appeared a great disaster actually proved, as have so many other disasters to men, a real incentive, " a for- tunate failure ; " for it made Washington Irving a purpose-filled worker, and gave him to American literature. His " History of New York," and his scattered sketches, had made him known in England as one of those apparent impossibilities an American author. So, when he was forced to take up his pen as a bread-winner he determined to carry on his work in London and at once began writing those delight- ful papers which make up the " Sketch Book " and which were published serially both in England and America. Success did not come without a few first " hitches," but, once started, it came uninterruptedly, and Irving found a market for all that he could write. In 1820 appeared the " Sketch Book," in 1822, " Brace- bridge Hall," in 1824, " Tales of a Traveller," and then Irving was able to change his atmosphere and go to Spain, where he wrote the " Life of Columbus," published in 1828 ; the " Conquest of Granada," in 1829 ; and the sketches known as " Tales of the Alhambra." WASHINGTON IRVING. 271 Then, having gained both fame and fortune by his pen, he determined to return, and in 1832 he arrived in New York, after an absence of seven- teen years. He was famous, popular, and honored. America hailed him as her first man of letters the American who had fairly won English recognition and respect. Indeed, the rush of hospitalities upon him was so great that, finally, he was obliged to turn his back upon his social successes and " take to the woods." He did this literally ; for in the fall of 1832 he made a journey into the prairie land of the West and Southwest, gaining material and " local color " for his books of American travel and adventure which appeared soon after, "A Tour on the Prairies," in 1835; "Astoria," in 1836; and the " Adventures of Captain Bonneville," in 1837. While at work on these books he had been able to purchase a " little Dutch cottage " and ten acres of land on the river-bank just below Tarrytown on the Hudson. That little stone Dutch cottage, in which once had lived the Van Tassells, of Sleepy Hollow fame, grew, with some modest additions, into Sunnyside, the best-known literary residence in America next to Longfellow's house at Cambridge. In 1842 Washington Irving was made United States minister to Spain. The appointment re- flected great credit upon President Tyler, but still more upon Daniel Webster, who advocated and se- cured the appointment, and who looked upon it as 272 HISTORIC AMERICANS. a distinct and merited recognition of the work of Irving in the cause of American literature. The appointment was most unexpected to Irving. He scarcely knew what to say or do. " Washington Irving," said Daniel Webster, " is now the most astonished man in the city of New York." " What shall I do ? " he said to his nephew and later biographer. " I don't want to go and yet I do. I don't want to leave Sunnyside, and yet a resi- dence at Madrid would let me do some work I must undertake. I appreciate the honor and dis- tinction, but good heavens ! it 's exile it 's exile ! It is hard, very hard," he added, smiling upon his nephew, " and yet I suppose I must try to bear it. ' God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb,' you know," and'thus, making merry even in his struggle over a divided duty, he accepted the unsolicited appointment and made ready to go to Spain. He remained in Madrid as minister to Spain four years, from 1842 to 1846, but he did not do the literary labor he expected to perform there. He had it on his mind, however, and the " work " he referred to, while considering his appointment, he really planned and arranged there. This was to be his greatest work the " Life of Washington." His attention to the affairs of his post, however, occupied much of his time, and Daniel Webster, who was then secretary of state, used to say that WASHINGTON IRVING. 273 he always laid aside every other correspondence to read a diplomatic despatch from the United States minister to Spain. It was the nineteenth of September, 1846, when Irving found himself " home again " at Sunnyside. He was overjoyed to be once more in what he called his " darling little Sunnyside," and he intended to get to work on his proposed books at once. But he did not. Leisure was too pleasant, and was one of the things he could now afford; but he wrote at last to his nephew, begging him to come and spur him on, for, said he, " I am growing a sad laggard in literature, and need some one to bolster me up occasionally. I am ready to do anything else rather than write." But after a while he got to work again, and published in 1849 his " Life of Gold- smith " his favorite author; in 1850 he issued " Mahomet and his Successors," and in 1854 " Wol- fert's Roost." He had also through these years been at work oh his " Life of Washington," the first volume of which appeared in 1855, and the fifth and concluding volume in 1859. So, for just fifty years, from 1809 to 1859, had Washington Irving been making a name for him- self, and a place for American literature. Before his day little that could be called literature had ap- peared from American writers. Theology or pol- itics were the only themes that could inspire the American pen, and, at the best, the result of this inspiration was dry and dull enough. Washington 274 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Irving put life and strength, sentiment and sinew into the dry bones of American letters, and created a school of writing in which, however, few scholars could equal the master, whose work stands at this day strong in its influence, captivating in its style, enchanting in its humor, and simple in its pathos. Irving was a most companionable man, fond of society and of his friends, enjoying a good time, but always curious to hear and see what was going on in the world. " I never could keep at home," he declared, " when Madrid was in a state of siege and under arms, and the troops bivouacking in every street and square ; and I always had a strong hankering to get near the gates when the fighting was going on." This quality was almost that of the newspaper man and special correspondent ; it was this that made him see things wherever he was in mid- ocean, in European capitals, in the heart of the Catskills, amid the silent ruins of the Alhambra, or in the mighty lonesomeness of the Western plains. But, with all his love of society, his friendly ways, and his personal popularity, Irving was one of the most modest and retiring of men fearing nothing so much as an after-dinner speech, as witness his comical experience when called upon to speak at the famous Dickens dinner in 1842. " I shall certainly break down I shall certainly break down," he kept saying before he was called WASHINGTON IRVING. 275 upon to speak, even though his speech was all writ- ten out and lay beside his plate. " There ! I told you I should break down, and I 've done it ! " he exclaimed, as he resumed his seat with his speech only half delivered, but with all the table loud in its applause of the neat way in which he got out of the scrape. Dickens loved him, Scott loved him, Moore loved him, Motley and Bancroft loved him. In fact, every one who knew intimately this gracious, kindly, lovable, and friendly man loved him, from kings to children, and from great men to gardeners. He never married. The woman whom he hoped to make his wife died early in his life and he re- mained a bachelor until his death. But his home was the Mecca of all the children of his kindred families, and he had always a kindly greeting and a cheery word for every niece and nephew who came to see him ; a letter written to his nephew, Irving Grinnell, is one of the things that every boy especially every young American should read. It is claimed by some critics that though Wash- ington Irving was one of the chief ornaments of American literature he was not really an American author ; that he conformed too closely to English standards and was an English rather than an Ameri- can writer. And yet nothing was more distinc- tively American, in humor and conception, than his " Knickerbocker's New York ; " while such stories of his as " Rip Van Winkle " and the " Legend of 276 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Sleepy Hollow " American both, in subject and manner as well hold their place among the famous specimens of American literature. Whatever he may have been in style and method he certainly showed his countrymen what Amer- ican writers could do. He lifted American litera- ture out of the deadly ruts into which what there was of it persistently stuck, and he inspired younger men to follow his example and be natural, creative, and original. Unaffected, loyal, courteous, kind-hearted, refined, and unconscious, he put the stamp of sincerity, artistic finish, clear and easy narrative upon what- ever he wrote. His history, instead of being dry and stilted, is picturesque and attractive ; his biog- raphy is at once direct, poetical, and intellectual; while the pathos, the humor, the vividness, and the beauty of his shorter sketches have made them out- live a host of pretentious and overstrained attempts at story-telling ; so that Washington Irving, to-day, is read by thousands with the same delight, though with a clearer sense of his excellences as well as his imperfections, as when, years ago, he came, a new star in the intellectual firmament, leading and lighting the way to endeavor, success, progress, and development in the field which he had discovered as the founder and father of a real American litera- ture. XX. THE STORY OF HENRY CLAY, OF ASHLAND, CALLED "THE GREAT PACIFICATOR." Born near Richmond, Virginia, April 12, 1777. Died at Washington, July 29, 1852. u I have admired and trusted many statesmen. I profoundly loved Henry Clay. ... I loved him for his generous nature, his gallant bearing, his thrilling eloquence, and his life- long devotion to what I deemed our country's unity, prosperity j and just renown. . . . The careless reader of our history in future centuries will scarcely realize the force of his personal magnetism, nor conceive how millions of hearts glowed with sanguine hopes of his election to the presidency, and lamented his and their discomfiture." Horace Greeley. IT was a day of jubilee in Washington. From end to end that straggling little city of great possi- bilities and unfulfilled intentions, of public edifices still unfinished and broad avenues little better than muddy or dusty highways, was in a state of excite- ment ; flags fluttered everywhere, peopled thronged the approaches to the Capitol, and amid shouts and cheers a little old Frenchman rode up to the big, uncompleted white palace on the hill as the guest of the Republic an honored and beloved guest, 277 278 HISTORIC AMERICANS. whose name has ever been held in grateful re- membrance Lafayette. The year was 1824. The month was September. He had been greeted by the president ; he was pre- sented to the Senate ; and now he entered the cir- cular chamber of the old House of Representatives - the room which, to-day, is devoted to the per- petuation of historic Americans under the name of Statuary hall ; there he was welcomed by the assembled congressmen, who sprang to their feet to greet the nation's guest and cheered the old hero to the echo as he proceeded to the place of honor be- side the Speaker of the House. Then uprose the tall Speaker of the House, tow- ering above the small, slight French nobleman. Spare in person and plain of face, yet with a man- ner that was the height of courtesy and a personal- ity that was fascinating beyond expression, Henry Clay, Speaker of the House of Representatives, in the name of the Congress of the United States wel- comed the nation's guest to the legislative hall of the people's representatives. Not one, supporter or opponent, but was proud of his Speaker as the words of welcome came from those eloquent lips ; not one but joined, for once, at least, in the sentiments of love and friendship that he uttered, expressing the warm heart of the nation which went out in friendship and honor to this famous old man of sixty-seven, the friend and companion of Washington, the generous and valiant HENRY CLAY. 279 upholder and hero of the Revolution alike through its days of stress and in its hour of triumph. Dignified, appropriate, and eloquent, with no show of oratory or any striving for effect, were the words of the Speaker ; and thus he concluded : " The vain wish has been sometimes indulged, that Providence would allow the patriot, after death, to return to his country and to contemplate the immediate changes which had taken place : to view the forests felled, the cities built, the moun- tains levelled, the canals cut, the highways con- structed, the progress of the arts, the advancement of learning, and the increase of population. Gen- eral, your present visit to the United States is a realization of the consoling object of that wish. You are in the midst of posterity. Everywhere you must have been struck with the great changes, physical and moral, which have occurred since you left us. Even this very city, bearing a venerated name, alike endeared to you and to us, has since emerged from the forest which then covered its site. In one respect you behold us unaltered, and this is in the sentiment of continued devotion to liberty, and of ardent affection and profound grati- tude to your departed friend, the Father of his Country, and to you, and to your illustrious asso- ciates in the field and in the Cabinet, for the multi- plied blessings which surround us, and for the very privilege of addressing you which I now exercise. This sentiment, now fondly cherished by more than 280 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ten millions of people, will be transmitted with un- abated vigor down the tide of time, through the countless millions who are destined to inhabit this continent to the latest posterity." We are told that the sensitive and gallant French- man, whose whole life had been a story of romance, adventure, eminence, privation, and success, was moved to tears by Claj'-'s appreciative and sympa- thetic speech of welcome, while even the most un- compromising opponent of the Speaker in that crowded hall yielded to the influence of his greeting and responded with appreciation and applause to the words of Henry Clay " genial, cordial, cour- teous, gracious, magnetic, winning Harry Clay." That was what one admirer called him, exhaust- ing all available adjectives of manly affection ; and a recent historian, carefully surveying the field of America's mid-century politics, records as his ver- dict that " no man has been loved as the people of the United States loved Henry Clay." His story is but that of another great man sprung from small beginnings. He was the son of a strug- gling Baptist minister, settled over a little parish near Richmond in Virginia. The little settlement was known as the Slashes of Hanover, and as the minister's son was fifth in a family of seven he had many " chores " to do. One of these was to ride the old horse to and from the mill, and from this duty came the nickname by which Henry Clay won popularity, " The mill boy of the Slashes." HENRY CLAY. 281 He was a bright, wide-awake, active little fellow, but the opportunities for education were very slight in his country home, and when, after his father died, his mother married again, young Harry, just in his 'teens, was sent to Richmond to strike out for him- self. He began as a copying clerk in a Richmond court; he made friends, as he always did, and, helped by them, was able to set up as a lawyer, so that when, in 1797, he removed to Lexington, Ky., he could " hang out his shingle " in that pleasant town in the beautiful " blue-grass country," which remained his dearly loved home all through his life. He soon became popular in Kentucky; for his frank and cordial manners quickly won him friends, and, before long, he had gone into politics. He was sent to the Kentucky Legislature in 1804 ; and in 1806, when barely thirty years old, he was made United States senator. From that time until his death he held, by the force of his wonderful personality, as well as of his character and ability, the leadership of his State, and by his magnetic power and wise methods he held Kentucky from joining the disaffected States of the South and kept her firm for the Union. For more than forty years Henry Clay was a public man. He was in the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Cabinet. He was six times Speaker of the House, and one who served with him there for many years declared that "no abler or more commanding presiding officer ever sat in the 282 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Speaker's chair on either side of the Atlantic." He was secretary of state under President John Quincy Adams, and that broad-minded chief magistrate declared that " for preeminent talents, splendid ser- vices, ardent patriotism, all-embracing public spirit, fervid eloquence in behalf of the rights and liber- ties of mankind, and long experience in affairs of the Union, no man in the United States was to be preferred to Henry Clay." It was his eloquence and personality that brought about the war of 1812; it was his diplomacy and wisdom that closed the war in the celebrated Treaty of Ghent, in 1814. In that treaty-making Clay showed himself a match for the shrewdest European diplomats, while his absence from Congress was so significant a loss that Professor Channing declares that " to the absence of Clay from Congress has been attributed much of the extraordinary imbecil- ity of that body during this period." His leadership in Congress was indeed beyond dispute. His political opponents feared alike his power and his personality. " General," said one member of Congress to a new - arrival, " may I introduce you to Henry Clay?" " No, sir ; no, sir ! " the general answered decid- edly. " I am Henry Clay's adversary, and I do not choose to submit myself to his fascination." One student of the proceedings of Congress de- clares that Clay, as a parliamentary leader, was the HENRY CLAY. 283 greatest in the history of America, while Mr. Schurz says of his ability that his was " the leadership of a statesman zealously striving to promote great pub- lic interests." His public spirit was notable. His first speech in Congress was in favor of encouraging domestic manufactures ; he advocated most extensive plans of internal improvements canals, water-routes, highways whatever would connect the East with the West, the North with the South. " We are not legislating for this moment only," he said, " or for the present generation, or for the present populated limits of the United States. Our acts must embrace a wider scope reaching north- ward to the Pacific and southward to the River Del Norte. Imagine this extent of territory with sixty or seventy or a hundred millions of people. The powers which exist now will exist then; those which will exist then exist now." As the twentieth century opens, the Republic has passed beyond the seventy millions' limit, and Clay's labors for internal improvement have borne a last- ing fruit. He was the ardent supporter of the South Ameri- can colonies in their revolt from Spain. " All Amer- ica," said Bolivar, the Spanish-American patriot? " owes your Excellency our purest gratitude for the incomparable services which you have rendered to us, by sustaining our cause with sublime enthu- siasm." The speeches of Clay in behalf of South 284 HISTORIC AMERICANS. American independence were read by Bolivar ,t the head of his troops, and Clay was an earnest ad- vocate, in 1825, for helping Cuba throw off " the hated incubus of Spanish rule." He was the first suggester of a " Pan-American Congress," and it was a favorite dream of his, says Mr. Parton, " to see the western continent occupied by flourishing re- publics, independent but closely allied." The chief effort, however, of Henry Clay's pub- lic life was to prevent a disruption of the Union he so passionately loved, and to avoid a quarrel between the North and the South. To do this he was con- tinually endeavoring to effect what was called a " compromise " that is, a little giving in by both sides to the controversy in the interest of unity and peace. Henry Clay brought about by his efforts three such concessions in three historic compromises in 1821, in 1833, and in 1850. The first of these was the famous Missouri compromise. The North endeavored to prevent the admission of Missouri into the Union as a slave State ; the South insisted upon it. By the leadership and through the influence of Clay slaves were permitted in Missouri, but ex- cluded from all other territory north of the Arkansas line. The quarrel was temporarily healed, and Clay was accorded the title of the " Great Pacificator." The second arose from the conflict over the tariff of 1833, when President Jackson throttled the rebel- lion of South Carolina. Clay labored to patch up HENRY CLAY. 285 the dispute by a gradual reduction of the objection- able tariff during ten years, and again the breach was healed by the masterly work of Henry Clay. The third was known as the compromise of 1850. This was to settle the disputes that had grown up between the States over the subject of slavery. They were many and bitter, but by concessions alike by the North and South, arranged, pleaded for, and pushed to acceptance by Clay, the " inevitable con- flict " was again averted, and the " compromise of 1850 " was regarded as the crowning triumph of Henry Clay's brilliant achievements. It only post- poned things for a short time ; but the Great Paci- ficator, like Daniel Webster, his associate, rival, and ally, died before the actual disturbance came, and he, at least, was spared the sight of the conflict he had labored to avert. " Let us discard all resentments," he said, as he urged this final compromise, " all passions, all petty jealousies, all personal desires, all love of peace, all hungering after gilded crumbs which fall from the table of power. Let us forget popular fears, from whatever quarter they may spring. Let us go to the fountain of unadulterated patriotism, and per- forming a solemn lustration, return divested of all selfish, sinister, and sordid impurities, and think alone of our God, our country, our conscience, and our glorious Union." It was an appeal that went to the hearts of his listeners and helped largely to still the passions that 286 HISTORIC AMERICANS. were flaming into open danger. When next they flared up unrestrainedly there was no Henry Clay alive to stifle or restrain them. It is a question whether even his matchless methods could have effected a compromise in 1860. New men and new measures had come to the surface ; the day was for a Lincoln, and not for a Clay, and the conflict that was inevitable could be no longer postponed. But even in that time of trial and of breaking bonds Kentucky stood true to the Union, resisting all the frantic endeavors made to draw her into the Confederacy, a tribute alike to the marvellous patience and tact of Abraham Lincoln and to the love for the Union instilled into the people of his own State by Henry Clay. He was a true American. His policy was Ameri- can, hence it was popular ; and out of this popu- larity grew the ambition that was never gratified, the feeling that in time the people of the United States desired and would make Henry Clay their president. From 1822 to 1848 a quarter of a century Henry Clay was the perpetual presiden- tial choice of a vociferous portion of the American people. Five times presented as a candidate, he was always -beaten, twice in convention and three times at the polls. " It was enough to ruin any man, body and soul," says Mr. Parton ; " but the most wonderful thing we have to say of Henry Clay is that, such were his native sincerity and healthfulness of mind, HENRY CLAY. 287 he came out of this fiery trial still a patriot and a man of honor." So ardent and splendid a party chief always makes enemies. The crowds cheered for "The mill boy of the Slashes " and " Harry of the West," as they loved to call their magnetic leader; but he always failed either of nomination or election. For twenty-six years the prize of the presidency dangled before the eyes of Henry Clay, only to be snatched away by less able men, and always to accomplish the desire he had more at heart har- mony and union. " I had rather be right than president," he said, and there is no shadow of doubt that he meant this honestly, and displayed in his life those qualities of loyalty to the will of the majority which stamp as the real lover of his country the man who can accept disappointments without a murmur, and take defeat gracefully. He served his country faithfully and well, and if he held the laudable desire to serve the Republic as its chief magistrate no one should belittle or criticise that ambition. " Mr. Clay might have been elected," Horace Greeley avers, " if his prominent, earnest supporters had made the requisite exertions and sacrifices ; and I cannot but bitterly feel that great and last- ing public calamities would thereby have been averted." " If to have served my country during a long 288 HISTORIC AMERICANS. series of years," said Henry Clay, as he reviewed his honorable career, " with fervent zeal and unshaken fidelity, in seasons of peace and war, at home and abroad, in the legislative halls and in an executive department; if to have labored most sedulously to avert the embarrassment and distress which now overspread this Union, and when they came, to have exerted myself anxiously to devise healing remedies ; if to have desired to introduce economy and reform in the general administration, curtail enormous executive power, and amply pro- vide at the same time for the wants of the govern- ment and the wants of the people, by a tariff which would give it revenue and then protection ; if to have earnestly sought to establish the bright but too rare example of a party in power faithful to its promises and pledges made when out of power ; if these services, exertions, and endeavors justify the accusation of ambition I must plead guilty to the charge." It was an honorable and fearless challenge to the world, and no man could disprove it ; it was a long record of service to the Republic faithfully performed, and the old "hero of the forum" could retire to his beautiful Ashland, his big Kentucky farm near Lexington, satisfied at least that, as he himself declared, he had never attempted to gain the good opinion of the world " by any low or grovelling arts, by any mean or unworthy sacrifices, by the violation of any of the obligations of honor, HENRY CLAY. 289 or by a breach of any of the duties which I owed to my country." But even this retirement was not permitted to continue. At the age of seventy-two he was again sent to the Senate (in the year 1849), there to labor for and effect the last and famous compromise of 1850. Then he died, his duty done, his life-work accomplished, his record complete. He lies, to-day, beneath the towering marble shaft that springs from the green turf of the Lexington cemetery, in the beautiful blue-grass region that he loved so well, and on the base of the monument, which is topped by the ever-familiar figure of the great peacemaker, are carved these words, prepared by him as a mes- sage to his countrymen : " I can with unshaken confidence appeal to the divine Arbiter for the truth of the declaration that I have been influenced by no impure purpose, no personal motive, have sought no personal aggran- dizement, but that in all my public acts I have had a sole and single eye, and a warm, devoted heart, directed and dedicated to what, in my best judg- ment, I believe to be the true interests of my coun- try." That inscription no man to-day will question. The feuds and animosities of the years in which he lived have long since died away and only the memory of the gracious presence, the fascinating manners, the musical voice, the kindly courtesy, and the devoted patriotism of Henry Clay remain. 290 HISTORIC AMERICANS. He was a notable figure in the history of the Repub- lic. Imperious, headstrong, brilliant, imaginative, restless under advice, impatient under criticism, he lacked caution as a leader and accuracy as a guide. Though fearless as a party chieftain he fought mostly for peace and compromise, and though ambi- tious for the presidency he desired it for national rather than personal ends. A statesman and not a politician, he hated selfishness in office and greed in public trust, so that his integrity as a man and a citizen is free from spot or stain. Beloved by hosts of followers, his record is that of a great historic American, and his life and labors will ever live, an honored chapter in the story of the Republic he loved so devotedly and served so faithfully. XXI. THE STORY OF JOHN CALDWELL CAL- HOUN, OF SOUTH CAROLINA, CALLED "THE GREAT NULLIFIEB." Born near Abbeville, South Carolina, March-18, 1782. Died at Washington, March 31, 1850. " It was his solemn conviction that throughout his life he had faithfully done his duty, both to the Union and to his sec- tion. . . . But, in perfect good faith, he had undertaken what no man could accomplish, because it was a physical and moral impossibility." Hermann Edward von Hoist. THIS is the story of a failure. But as nothing that God created or allowed is ever really a failure it is also the story of success. Let me try to tell you how the life of John Caldwell Calhoun was both a failure and a success. On the fourth of November, 1811, there came to the House of Representatives in Washington as one of the congressmen from South Carolina a tall, thin, large-headed, and heavy-haired young Southern gentleman of twenty-nine of whom little was known except that he was a lawyer of Abbeville, in the upper counties of South Carolina, a graduate of Yale College, a bright and able young fellow of 291 292 HISTORIC AMERICANS. whom his classmates had declared that some day he was likely to become president of the United States, so logical was his mind, so strong his con- viction, so marked his character as a born leader of men. He had not, as yet, had much experience in leadership. The son of an Irish-American farmer of the Abbeville district, his home life had been quiet and simple, and his schooling but imperfect until he had reached his eighteenth year. His character .was rather that of the lonely, thoughtful, medita- tive boy than the careless, happy, healthy com- rade of other boys as mischievous and natural as he. He loved the solitary ramble in the woods more than the stirring life of town or village, and being but little with those of his own age he grew to be quiet and self-contained, but also to have so firm a faith in the exactness of his own decisions and conclusions that he could not admit the truth of any opposition. To Yale went this positive young South Carolina boy at eighteen, so well prepared by two years of preparatory study that he entered the junior class, graduating with honor and with the reputation of being a temperate, honest, orderly, and good young man in every way, but without an atom of fun in his constitution. Indeed, it is said of him that he never made a joke in his life and had no more idea of humor than he had of football of which he knew nothing. JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 293 After a course in the Law School he went back to his Southern home to set up for himself in the practice of the law, but just at that time came the outrageous attack by the British frigate " Leopard " upon the United States man-of-war " Chesapeake." This affair stirred the Americans of 1806 quite as deeply as did the affair of the " Maine " in 1898, and set the newspapers to threatening and the orators to speaking, then as now. It drew a speech from young John Caldwell Calhoun before his incensed neighbors of Abbeville, and they liked his speech so well that they elected him to the State Legislature, and a few years later by a very large majority he was sent to Congress. Six weeks after he took his seat in Congress Mr. Calhoun made a speech in favor of the war with England, towards which the country was speedily drifting. The speech was deemed so strong and convincing that this young member from South Carolina was considered a "find" and was speedily pushed forward until he became one of the leaders of the war party in Congress, and, as such, prepared and reported a set of resolutions pledging the Re- public to war, because, as his resolutions expressed it, "-We must now tamely and quietly submit or we must resist by those means which God has placed within our reach. . . . The period has arrived when it is the sacred duty of Congress to call forth the patriotism and resources of the country." So, President Madison was forced into the war 294 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of 1812, and young Mr. Calhoun continued through- out its most earnest advocate, demanding vigorous action. " We have had a peace like a war," he declared. " In the name of Heaven let us not have the only thing that is worse a war like a peace ! " He was one of the most practical if one of the most energetic of the war-shouters ; for he learned a lesson from the disasters of 1812, and he advocated preparation for war, while others delayed or post- poned action, or wished to let well enough alone. Calhoun pleaded for an increased navy, as " the most safe, most effectual, and cheapest mode of defence ; " he advocated internal improvements as the best way of bringing the people of all sections of the country closer together ; and railroads not being then known or thought of, he said : " Let us make great perma- nent roads ; not like the Romans with the view of subjecting and ruling provinces, but for the more honorable purposes of defence, and of connecting more closely the interests of different sections of the country." In all this, you see, Calhoun was at that time as ardent a nationalist as Clay or Webster. How sad that selfishness and sectionalism should have led him from the paths of patriotism to those of disunion ! For they did. Gradually, under various influ- ences, the nature of Calhoun grew straitened and limited, and the man who said at one time in the JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 295 halls of Congress that " the liberty and union of this country are inseparable," and that "the single word ' disunion ' comprehends almost the sum of our polit- ical dangers against which we should be perpetu- ally guarded," changed into the man who could say later in life : " It is a great and dangerous error to suppose that all people are equally entitled to liberty," and, also, " The conditions impelling the government towards disunion are very powerful." He came into this change through a selfish regard for the interests of his own section rather than of the whole Union, but chiefly because he saw what, years after, Abraham Lincoln saw and put into his terse and vigorous speech : " This nation cannot endure half slave and half free," and " ' a house divided against itself cannot stand.' " Calhoun saw this as early as 1830; he knew that already the question of slavery had split the Union into two sections ; and as an advocate of slavery and a firm defender of what he thought to be the needs and the rights of his section he openly declared that " The great dissimilarity and, as I must add, as truth compels me to do, contrariety of interests in our country, are so great that they cannot be subjected to the unchecked will of a majority of the whole without defeating the great end of government, without which it is a curse, justice." So, you see, Calhoun came to believe, at last, so thoroughly in State sovereignty and State rights 296 HISTORIC AMERICANS. . that lie came very near to breaking up the Union which had elevated and honored him. He occupied high positions in the councils of the Republic. He was a congressman from 1811 to 1817; he was secretary of war, in President Mon- roe's Cabinet, from 1817 to 1825; he was twice vice-president of the United States, from 1825 to 1833; he was United States senator from 1833 to his death in 1850, broken only by his brief term as secretary of state under President Tyler in 1845. And he earnestly desired to be president. Like those other " giants of the forties," Daniel Webster and Henry Clay, he yearned for the presidency, but never reached it. There are indeed numerous sim- ilarities, we might almost say coincidences, in the careers of those three great senators. Each was a leader, each aspired to the highest place in the Republic, and each failed of success. They we're all born in the same period, about 1780; they all died in the same period, about 1850. But in personal characteristics they were as dissimilar as they were in appearance and methods of statesman- ship. A comparative study of their lives will, how- ever, be found of great interest, for their positions were equally prominent and their influence equally great. It was while he was vice-president that he for- sook the national faith that had marked his entrance into public life for that sectional faith to which the last twenty years of his life were devoted. JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 297 Even in this change he was honest and consists ent. He had seen for years that the question of slavery was to be the thing upon which union or disunion was to turn, and as he believed that the Southern States could have no successful future without slavery he devoted all his great powers to maintaining that institution and to forcing the Northern States either to yield or to agree to a separation. " His veering round was gradual," says Mr. von Hoist, " because it was not done to serve some impure personal end, but was the result of an honest change in his opinions. After it had once begun it went steadily on without pausing for a single moment, because he had taken his stand on a principle, and followed up the conse- quences of it with masterly logic and fatalistic sternness of purpose." We honor the man who has what we call the courage of his convictions. John Caldwell Cal- houn certainly had this courage. So, while we deplore and abhor his belief and his methods, we can still admit that he acted from what seemed to him right motives. Even though he was the chief and most eloquent advocate of slavery, he was so, as has been said, from principle, and even if we hate his conclusions we must honor his integrity. No man ever questioned his sincerity, even those who battled the hardest against his views and methods. His first, in fact his main, battle was upon the question of State rights. Calhoun held that each 298 HISTORIC AMERICANS. State was an independent power and that it had the right, under the Constitution, to act for itself on supreme questions, even to act contrary to a law of the nation, in other words, to regard such a law as null and void. From that comes the word " nul- lification," that, from 1830 to 1840, played so great a part in American history, and which, because in him it had its stanchest advocate and supporter, gained for John C. Calhoun the name of " the Great Nullifier." I have told you that he had the courage of his convictions. He certainly had. He boldly claimed that if the slave-holding States continued in the Union slavery would have to be given up by them, and for this honest declaration he was as vehe- mently accused of trying to stir up trouble as were even Charles Sumner and his fellow-workers for anti-slavery. So, while other law-makers tried to compromise and fix up things between the States, while Webster made his grand plea for liberty and union, while Clay sought to unite by yielding, John C. Calhoun spoke " right out in meeting," as the old saying runs, and boldly and bravely stated his belief. We can almost see him now as he rises in his place in the Senate, that tall, straight, unbending South Carolinian, a "cast-iron man," Miss Marti- neau called him, " who looks as if he had never been born and could never be extinguished." Above a straight, clear forehead rises the stiff shock of up- JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 299 right, dark hair ; the eyes are intense, the brow stern, the mouth marked with will and determina- tion. He speaks with the sincerity of truth and the pathos of regret ; but his voice, harsh and unmusical, is yet tremulous with earnestness and conviction. " We love and cherish the Union," he says ; " we remember with the kindest feelings our common origin, with pride our common achievements, and fondly anticipate the common greatness and glory that seem to await us. But origin, achievements, and anticipation of common greatness are to us as nothing compared with this question. It is to us a vital question. It involves not only our liberty, but what is greater (if to freemen anything can be) existence itself. The relation which now exists between the two races in the slave-holding States has existed for two centuries. It has grown with our growth and strengthened with our strength. It has entered into and modified all our institutions, civil and political. None other can be substituted. We will not, cannot, permit it to be destroyed. Come what will, should it cost every drop of blood and every cent of property, we must defend our- selves ; and if compelled, we would- stand justified by all laws, human and divine ; we would act under an imperious necessity. There would be to us but one alternative to triumph or perish as a people. I ask neither sympathy nor compassion for the slave-holding States. We can take care of our- selves. It is not we but the Union which is in 300 HISTORIC AMERICANS. danger. We cannot remain here in an endless struggle in defence of our character, our property and institutions." That does not sound much like Webster's grand plea for liberty and union, does it? It rang with the notes of warning and of defiance. But it was a threat, and not an appeal. It was a prophecy, too, that found its climax and counterpart in the grand words of Lincoln's second inaugural words as deep, as forceful, as instinct with courage, determi- nation, and assurance as had been these defiant and prophetic words of the " Great Nullifier," thirty years before. " Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray," said Abraham Lincoln, " that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away ; yet if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bond- man's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and every drop of blood drawn by the lash shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so it must still be said, ' the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether.' ' Calhoun was a far-seeing man. He was un- doubtedly the deepest thinker and the mightiest intellect of his day in the Southern States, and he alone, of all his associates, could look ahead and see the very thing that came to pass an attempt to sever the Union of the States because of differences in regard to slavery. JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 301 He did not desire disunion ; he was not an advo- cate of secession. But he did desire a union of the slave-holding States so strong and so determined as to overawe the North ; he did advocate such meas- ures as should force the quarrel upon the Northern States so that they and not the Southern States should seem to the world to be in the wrong ; and he placed slavery as the need and very life of the South above all other considerations, because he honestly believed that only with slavery could pros- perity and success be secured to his section of the Union. So he bent all his energies to that one end the strengthening and extension of slavery. For that purpose he worked for the annexation of Texas ; he labored to force slavery into the Terri- tories and prevent the passage of any laws that should keep it out. For that reason, too, he opposed war with Mexico and labored against a third war with England over the Oregon boundaries in 1848, because he feared that these would divert the atten- tion of the South from its own personal concerns and unite the North in a way that would defeat his sec- tional desires. Selfish or not, it was largely to John C. Calhoun's influence and action that this unnec- essary war with England was averted, and for this the Republic owes him recognition, thanks, and honor. More clearly than any other of the leaders in the South Calhoun saw that the steady tendency of the North was towards the abolition of slavery - even though the North itself did not recognize the 302 HISTORIC AMERICANS. gradual growth of that current of opinion ; and all his last years were shadowed by the knowledge that his efforts had been in vain, and his bold and out- spoken stand had brought him only failure. Broken in health and weak in body, he fought for his pet theory until the last. Sectional instead of national in his love, narrow and limited in his views, holding what he called allegiance to his State as above loyalty to the Union, and counting the establishment of slavery as the highest good, as well as the supreme duty of the South, he stood to the last, honest in his convictions, firm in his pur- poses, bold in his utterances. It is well for all Americans, old and young, to remember this, and to know that, though mistaken in his opinions, and absolutely wrong in his exertions, he did his duty as he saw it, and lived up to his convictions like an upright, sincere, and thoroughly honest man. "If I know myself, even if my head were at stake, I would do my duty," he declared in the Senate of the United States. " I would do my duty, be the consequences what they might." The very last words of the very last speech which he, weak and almost dying, made in the Senate on the fourth of March, 1850, were in the same vein : " Having faithfully done my duty to the best of my ability, both to the Union and to my section, throughout this agitation, I shall have the consolation, let what will come, that I am free from all responsibility." JOHN CALDWELL CALHOUN. 303 It was this speech, this last firm utterance of a great man, wrong headed but thoroughly convinced that he and he alone was right, that led Daniel Webster to say of this determined man : " There was not one of us who did not feel that we might imagine that we saw before us a Senator of Rome when Rome survived." But Rome fell, and with its fall came, in time, the enlightenment, the progress, and the upward trend of man. And even in his failure John C. Calhoun helped on the growth and bettering of the world. He left the Senate to die. On the thirty-first of March, 1850, he died in the city of Washington, where so much of his life had been passed, and where he had waged so valiantly a losing fight for a doomed and fading evil. " The South ! The poor South ! " were almost his last words, " God knows what will become of her." And so he died. God in his infinite mercy did know what would become of the "poor South" for which Calhoun battled so gallantly. Through blood and tears the God to whom this great champion made his last despairing cry brought the South through night to light ; and in the freedom of man, which, as the twentieth century dawns, is the boon and blessing of the great Republic, the South already sees the best and surest foundation for the Union's grand and successful future. And as the years go by, the 304 HISTORIC AMERICANS. South herself will be the first to see and appre- ciate that what John C. Calhoun deemed failure and disaster has proved instead a glorious and last- ing success. " I hold it truth with him who sings That men may rise on stepping-stones Of their dead selves to higher things." Upon the lives and labor of such stepping-stones as Calhoun and his honest supporters in a mistaken theory the new South has climbed upward to free- dom, security, and loyalty. The life story of John Caldwell Calhoun is that of an apparent failure worked out in ways he could not see to beneficial ends and final success. It is that of an earnest and honest endeavor to- wards what he deemed just, wise, and patriotic ends. Success depends largely upon the point of view, and though to his standpoint the world has applied the verdict, " A mistake," yet we must not forget that Calhoun was a famous and historic American, South Carolina's most eminent son, a man who has built himself into the life and traditions of the Republic. " He had the basis, the indispensable basis," said Daniel Webster, "of all high character, and that was unspotted integrity, unimpeached honor, and character. There was nothing grovelling or low or meanly selfish that came near the head or the heart of John C. Calhoun." XXII. THE STORY OF SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE, OF NEW YORK, CALLED " THE FATHER OF AMERICAN TELEGRAPHY." Born at Charlestown, Massachusetts, April 27, 1791. Died in New York City, April 2, 1872. ' ' We raise this statue, not to buried but to living merit to a great discoverer who yet sits among us, a witness of honors which are but the first fruits of that ample harvest which his memory will gather in the long season yet to come." William Cullen Bryant (at dedication of Morse Statue in New York). THE good ship " Sully," ocean packet between Havre and New York, was cleaving its way through mid-ocean one autumn morning in the year 1832. One by one the passengers appeared at the break- fast-table in the long saloon, exchanging greetings, as those whom the daily associations of those long ocean voyages in the days of packets and clippers made into acquaintances and friends. One whom all seemed to know well was missing from the table. " Where 's Morse ? " one passenger inquired, voicing the query of all. 305 306 HISTORIC AMERICANS. "Late again this morning," replied another. " I don't believe the man has slept a wink for nights." " How 's that ? Thinking out another picture ? " "No, he 's puttering away at that new scheme of his to make a machine that will talk." " Oh, growing out of that magnetism nonsense, eh ? Well, my advice to him is to let it alone. He 'd better stick to pictures, I say. He 's good for some- thing as an historical painter ; but that magnetism business is just a loss of time. Singular, is n't it, how men will be led away into such vagaries? Magnetism is nothing more than witchcraft. I '11 wager that if Morse had lived a couple of hundred years ago they would have pressed or burned him for witchcraft, in Salem. He lives in Salem, doesn't he?" "No, no, in Charlestown, next place to Boston, you know." " Well, that was near enough to Salem to count in witchcraft days. I don't believe in this magnetic business. It 's sheer folly, if it is n't wickedness." " That 's narrow talk for an American in these enlightened days. I 've talked with Morse consider- ably, and I believe he 's got a practical idea. We were discussing the matter the other day and he explained how if you break a current of electricity you make a spark; break it again and you make more sparks. ' Now,' says he, ' if the presence of electricity can be made visible in any part of the SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 307 circuit I can see no reason why intelligence may not be transmitted by electricity.' " " Transmitting intelligence ! Now, is n't that absurd ? As if any mere machine, or any making of sparks, could carry thoughts ! I call it nonsense. It 's more than that, it 's sacrilegious ! The man who tries such a thing is tampering with Divine attri- butes, and that is sacrilege." " Well, sacrilege or not, Morse has got hold of an idea and is working it to some end. His note-books are filled with marks which he tells me is what he calls a code, representations of letters and figures, which he claims can be made by electricity and communicated from one point to another by his magnetic current. Is n't that so, senator ? " " It certainly is," the man addressed as senator replied, " and I agree with you that Morse is work- ing towards some practical end. It is practical, I am certain. I saw some applications of these electro- magnetic sparks in France that were most remark- able. Morse showed me some drafts in this cabin the other night which certainly indicated that he had a definite plan in his head, though I don't precisely see how he can adapt it. But he says, for instance, a spark represents one sign ; the absence of a spark may represent another ; the time of its absence still another. Combine these. signs and you can make an alphabet. ' This instrument I have in mind,' he said, ' will record this alphabet at a distance, and spell it into words. If I can do it across one mile 308 HISTORIC AMERICANS. of space,' he went on, ' I can do it over ten. Why, the sea, the ocean itself, need be no barrier. If I can make it go ten miles without stopping I can make it go around the globe.' It's a great idea, gentlemen," the senator concluded, " but whether it can be made feasible or practical I am not able to say." The passenger who had no faith in such tamper- ings with Providence was on the point of emphasiz- ing objections when a new-comer took his seat at the table. He was a singularly attractive man : tall, erect, and firm of bearing, slender in person, and graceful in figure, his face expressed refinement, dignity, intellectuality, and delicate sensibility. This especial morning his face showed unmistak- able signs of pleasurable triumph. " Good morning, gentlemen ; good morning, sena- tor," he said. " I have something to show you, sir, after breakfast. I believe I have got it at last." " Got what, Mr. Morse, that idea of yours in a definite shape?" queried the senator. " Yes, sir, I believe I have equalled the miracle of Puck, and shall be able to put a girdle round the earth in forty minutes," Morse replied. " At last I have drawn out a plan of an electric telegraph." At once his friends clamored for an exhibition of his results, and nothing loth, never attempting secrecy, the courteous inventor spread out his papers upon the swaying table of the " Sully's " saloon and showed to those that crowded about him a draw- SPREAD OUT HIS PAPERS UPON THE SWAYING TABLE. SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. -309 ing of the instrument which, so he declared, would compel a current of electricity to pass instan- taneously along a far-reaching wire, stretched to any distance, and to record the signs which the despatcher desired to convey. Few of his fellow-voyagers could grasp his whole idea, nor did they believe in his scheme ; but years after, when Samuel Finley Breese Morse con- structed a machine which embodied the mechani- cal principles now in use all over the world, under the name of the electric or magnetic telegraph, they recognized that it was a practical adaptation of those very drawings which, after sleepless nights of thinking and planning, Professor Morse had spread out for their inspection upon the table in the cabin of the packet ship " Sully," in the month of October, 1832. It was a long and hard road to success that Samuel Finley Breese Morse was called upon to travel, and he met with many adventures by the way. Indeed, few lives of those not really adven- turers are more checkered with" romance and ac- tion, failure and success. His father was a well-known clergyman, educa- tor, and geography-maker of Charlestown, Mass.; and in that old and historic town, at the very foot of Breed's hill, whereon was fought the battle called Bunker hill, in a house still standing and suitably marked with a memorial tablet, Samuel F. B. Morse was born on the twenty-seventh of April, 310 HISTORIC AMERICANS. 1791. It was the first dwelling-house built in Charlestown after the British burned the town as a "side light" to their disastrous victory at Bunker hill ; and in the right front chamber on the sec- ond floor the " Father of American Telegraphy " was born as the eldest son of " the Father of Amer- ican Geography." At fourteen years of age he was sent to Yale College, and there, under the instruction of such makers of American science as Professors Day and Silliman, he developed a taste for electrical studies then attracting attention and investigation on both sides of the Atlantic. But his tastes at that time showed a still stronger bent toward art, and after his graduation from col- lege he deliberately chose the profession of artist, and spent several years in Europe, under the in- struction and direction of those famous Americans, Allston and Copley and West. He attained ex- traordinary success, for so young a man, as an his- torical painter, winning medals and prizes for his work, and having before him the promise of great success as a painter of historical subjects. With this prestige, and with a reputation already secured, Morse sailed for America in 1815, and set up a studio as a Boston artist. But although every one admired his paintings neither orders rtor customers came to him, and when, at last, pa- tience and money were exhausted, Morse actually " took to the road " and started through New Eng- land as a travelling portrait painter. SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 311 This gave him a career, for if the American peo- ple did not care, as yet, for the " Judgment of Ju- piter," and such allegorical or historical paintings, they were vain enough to desire portraits, if they were only "life-like." Morse's work evidently reached this standard of excellence, for his por- traits sold and his prices gradually rose from ten and fifteen dollars to sixty dollars each, while a tour through the South resulted in so much cus- tom that in 1818 he was earning three thousand dollars a year, and could afford to marry. He lived in Charleston, S.C., and in Washing- ton, where he almost wrecked himself financially on a grand exhibition painting of the yet unfinished Capitol and the still unappreciated historical sub- jects. Then, at last, he drifted to New York, where he engaged again in portrait painting, which seemed to be his especial forte, and again winning success and fame, became a resident of New York City for the rest of his life. It was there, in 1826, that he founded the National Academy of Design, to-day one of the art centres of the world. Morse was its first presi- dent, and continued in that office for sixteen years, acknowledged as the leading American artist of his day. It was during that time also that he made the visit to Europe from which he was returning when we were first introduced to him as a would-be inventor in the dining-saloon of the packet ship " Sully ; " and 312 HISTORIC AMERICANS. when he reached New York he found that, during his absence, he had been elected professor of the literature of the arts of design in the University of New York. But he had returned also to a divided duty. For there was developing in his soul a yearning towards success in the line which, from his college days, had occupied a large share of his thought and study communication by electricity; that won- derful discovery from which sprang at last the marvellous electric telegraph. This investigation had received a fresh impetus through some of his associations with scientific people in New York, and his acceptance of the professorship in the New York University was identical with his determination to work to com- pletion the plans he had sketched out on ship- board. But when, in July, 1837, he had reached a certain amount of success in his experiments, and had set up in one of the rooms of the university two tele- graphic instruments by which he was able to com- municate through seventeen hundred feet of copper wire the signs of his self-made code, even then people were not ready to accept the demonstration as a great, practical, or really useful invention. They looked upon the telegraph as an entertaining toy, but they did not believe it could ever be made to amount to anything, either as a means of real communication or as a profitable investment. SAMUEL FIN LEY BREESE MORSE. 313 The Congress of the United States took the same view of the invention ; for when, in Sep- tember, 1837, Professor Morse asked Congress to appropriate a sum of money sufficient for him to build a line of telegraph long enough for him to experiment on a real telegraph line and establish its value and worth, Congress would take no notice of the request, even -though the committee to whom it was referred favored the experiment. Disheartened at his failure to be appreciated in his own land, Morse raised enough money to take him to Europe for the purpose of endeavoring to interest some foreign government in his enterprise. He nearly ruined himself in this attempt, for it also proved fruitless. The governments of Europe would have nothing to do with his invention, al- though France did grant him a patent on his instru- ment and then deliberately stole the patent. He returned to America disappointed and almost penniless, but still full of determination and cer- tain of ultimate success. Again he besieged Con- gress for recognition and aid, and again Congress ignored and ridiculed him. He asked for an appropriation of thirty thousand dollars for the purpose of experimenting over a long-distance wire, and the House, from the Speaker to the clerk, simply made fun of the suggestion, although there were many members sufficiently impressed by the earnestness and ability of this painter turned peti- tioner to feel willing to try the experiment. But 314 HISTORIC AMERICANS. the cheap wit and open sarcasm of the congress- men seemed destined to defeat the bill, and the dis- pirited inventor prepared to leave Washington and his hopes of success. There came, however, a sufficient reaction in his favor to enable the House to pass the bill by a majority of six. But it must go to the Senate for approval, and when the last hours of the last day of the session arrived there were one hundred and nineteen bills ahead of Morse's petition, and no chance for recognition. To fail of action meant the death of the bill, the defeat of all his hopes, and Morse sorrowfully con- cluded that all his labors and efforts had been in vain. He had watched all day from the visitors' gallery in the Senate for some sign that his matter might be reached before adjournment, but none appeared, and as the night wore on Morse gave up in despair and went to his lodging, prepared to leave for New York, in defeat, the next morning. The morning came, but Morse did not go to New York, for as he entered the breakfast-room a young girl greeted him. " Good morning, Professor Morse," she exclaimed. "Allow me to congratulate you." " Congratulate me ? " replied the disconsolate inventor. " Why should you congratulate me, my dear?" " Why, don't you know ? " said the surprised SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 315 girl Miss Lizzie Ellsworth, whose father was the commissioner of patents. "Don't you know your bill had passed?" " Impossible, Lizzie ! " cried the professor. " I was in the Senate until late last night and there was no chance for it." "But there was, professor," persisted the girl, delighted to be the bearer of good tidings. " Father stayed until the session closed and he has sent me to tell you that your bill was the very last one to be acted on, and was passed just five minutes before Congress adjourned. I 'm so glad to be the first one to tell you ! And oh, yes ! mother says you must come home with me to breakfast." "My dear child," said the delighted inventor, clasping both her hands, "you have brought me good news indeed. I '11 tell you what, Lizzie ! If it 's so, when that line of telegraph is opened you shall send the first despatch." And so she did. For when, with thirty thousand dollars at his disposal, Professor Morse set about building his experimental line of telegraph between Baltimore and Washington, he remembered his promise to Lizzie Ellsworth. On the twenty-fourth of May, 1844, the line was declared completed and Morse prepared for his final and public test. Strung from pole to pole, the electric wire stretched from Washington to Baltimore, and in the chamber of the Supreme Court in the Capitol the instrument was set up from which the line ran out. 316 HISTORIC AMERICANS. The Ellsworth girl was all excitement. " Do tell me what to say, mother, if Professor Morse really lets me send the message," she said. And her mother, who knew her Bible well, sug- gested, " Try the twenty-third chapter of Numbers, child, the twenty-third verse." The girl looked up the passage, and standing beside Professor Morse at his instrument in the Supreme Court chamber Lizzie Ellsworth ticked out on the key-board the solemn but jubilant text, " What hath God wrought! " God had wrought much very much, for science, for civilization, and mankind through the patience and persistence of this determined and undaunted inventor, through twelve long years of experiment- ing, disappointment, and discouragement. But he had also wrought much for Samuel Finley Breese Morse. For that final triumph brought to him fame and fortune. It did not come all at once, however. Even though he had proved the value of his invention, that value was neither appreciated nor acknowl- edged. A further appropriation was asked to extend the line to Philadelphia and New York, but it was refused as impracticable. It was even claimed that the trial test was valueless. Morse offered to sell the line and the rights to the Govern- ment for one hundred thousand dollars, claiming that the Government should own and control the telegraph just as it did the post-office. This, too, SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 817 was refused, the postmaster-general declaring that the revenues of the telegraph could never be made to equal its expenditures ! Think of that decision, to-day, when the telegraph lines in the United States have made great fortunes for their owners and are worth vast sums of money! Like all inventors, Morse, too, was forced to fight for his rights in the patents and to establish his claim as the real inventor of the electric telegraph ; and it is a part of this story to record that the cap- tain and passengers of the packet ship " Sully," to whom Professor Morse had exhibited and explained his drawings, were able by their testimony to prove his rights to the invention which they had first seen in his sketch-book in the cabin of the " Sully." Once firmly established in his rights, and having proved alike the worth and value of his invention, recognition and honors came tq the successful in- ventor. The telegraph was adopted and used all over the world, and so great a factor in the world's work and in the world's progress was it seen to be that kings and countries united to do honor to the man who had made it possible. The Sultan of Turkey, the Kings of Prussia and Wurtemberg, the Emperor of Austria, and the Emperor of the French honored and decorated this simple, modest American. Denmark and Spain, Italy and Por- tugal followed suit, and in 1858 the representa- tives of ten European sovereigns, assembled in special convention at Paris, voted a gift of eighty 318 HISTORIC AMERICANS. thousand dollars to Samuel Finley Breese Morse, the inventor of the electric telegraph. He was the first to suggest a marine cable, and, to prove its feasibility, experimented in laying one between the Battery and Governor's island in New York harbor ; he was interested in the laying of the first Atlantic cable in 1857 as a practical proof of the claim advanced by him in 1843 that "a tel- egraphic communication on the electro-magnetic plan may with certainty be established across the Atlantic ocean." " I am confident," he declared, " that the time will come when this project will be realized." To-day two oceans are crossed and seamed with cables, and the news of the world is read every morning in every civilized home : Hong Kong and Calcutta, London, Paris, and New York exchange the latest intelligence of their doings and happen- ings as calmly and easily as if they were neighbors exchanging gossip across a dividing fence. Upon one of the green lawns of beautiful Cen- tral park in New York City there stands a bronze statue of Morse, the inventor. On a bright spring day in 1871 that statue, reared by the contri- butions of the army of busy telegraph operators throughout the United States, was unveiled to the public, and Professor Morse, venerable and vener- ated, with his eighty years of useful life, was present, an honored guest. Again a young girl stood at the operating instru- SAMUEL FINLEY BREESE MORSE. 319 ment, and, with her fingers on the key, sent a mes- sage to the ten thousand telegraphic instruments of America, all of which had been connected with that one in Central park. And thus the message ran : " Greeting and thanks to the telegraph fraternity throughout the world. Glory to God in the high- est, on earth peace, good-will to men ! " Here the girl paused, and a tall, erect, venerable man, with flowing white beard, and kindly, earnest face, stood by her side, and, touching the key, com- pleted the message with his signature : " S. F. B. MORSE." It was the great inventor's greeting and message to the world the message of love and peace which, all through his life, had been alike his nature and his desire. And as he stood there, dignified, but gratified by this world. Appreciation of his life- work, what wonder if, through his mind, there may not have passed the memory of that letter sent from his birthplace in Charles to wn to the home of his grandfather in New Jersey, on that far-off April day of 1791 ! "As to the child, ... he may have the sagacity of a Jewish rabbi, or the profund- ity of a Calvin, or the sublimity of a Homer, for aught I know ; but time will bring forth all things." Time, indeed, has spoken ; for that child has been of more value to the world than Gamaliel or Calvin or Homer. He brought the world in touch. He invented the telegraph ! XXIII. HORACE MANN, OF BOSTON,, CALLED "THE FATHER OP THE COMMON SCHOOLS." Born at Franklin, Massachusetts, May 4, 1796. Died at Yellow Springe, Ohio, August 2, 1859. u I wish that the biography of Horace Mann might be known not only to the teachers of Normal schools, but to the pupils and to our innumerable staff of primary teachers. I wish that it might be circulated among the professors of universities and colleges. ... I should like to see it in the hands of every public man." Felix Pecaut, the French educator. ONE day, away back in the year 1785, Dr. Ben- jamin Franklin, philosopher, statesman, and philan- thropist, at his home in Philadelphia, was advised that certain compatriots of his in his native State of Massachusetts had incorporated a town, not far from Boston, and had given to it, in his honor, the name of Franklin. As if this were not memorial enough, they de- cided to raise, as a sort of monument to the distin- guished doctor, a steeple on their meeting-house, and they forthwith wrote to the good old patriot that they would build such a steeple if he for whom 320 HORACE MANN. 321 their town was named would hang in that steeple a bell. Now, the good and great Doctor Franklin was, above all things, eminently practical. A church steeple, he said, was an excellent thing, but it was not really a necessity to a meeting-house. Neither was a bell. The money that the bell and the steeple would cost might be used to better purpose, and " since sense is preferable to sound," he said, " I '11 make your town a gift of books instead of a bell, and you can save the expense of a steeple." The doctor's " amendment " was accepted, and instead of a bell the town of Franklin received from the godfather of their town a little library to the value of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, selected in London by Franklin's friend, Doctor Price, and including such books as were "most proper to inculcate the principles of sound religion and good government." To this little village library of stilted old his- tories and musty theologies there came, in 1806, to browse and feed, a poor farmer's boy. His name was Horace Mann. His father was a sickly, con- sumptive man, with a small farm and intellectual tastes, neither of which he was able to satisfactorily cultivate. But he instilled into his boy a hatred of evil, of ignorance, and intemperance, and though he died early, taught his son by example rather than by words the excellence of intelligence and the value of moral worth. 322 HISTORIC AMERICANS. But in that straitened home in Franklin, where on the fourth of May, 1796, Horace Mann was born, there was but scant opportunity for acquiring knowledge, and even less means to gratify an in- quiring mind. So, to this quiet, thoughtful, some- what morbid boy of ten the discovery of the meagre Franklin library was as a good mine to a " pros- pector." He worked it until the vein was exhausted; but, with it, he built into his very nature at once a love for books and reading, a desire for wider knowl- edge, an ardor for war and a worship of heroes which, though he afterwards criticised the enthu- siasm, yet made of him a hero and a fighter in the cause of justice and enlightenment. " Though this library consisted of old histories and theologies," he says, "suited perhaps to the taste of the ' conscript fathers ' of the town, but miserably adapted to the ' prescript ' children, yet I wasted my youthful ardor upon its martial pages, and learned to glory in war, which both reason and conscience have since taught me to consider almost universally a crime." But the spirit and intelligence which he drew even from the dry husks of this village library put into the lad an ambition and energy greater even than his rather frail system could bear ; for a boy who never had the time to play, who even earned his school books by braiding straw, and who was taught that fun was a foolish waste of time, and that ima- gination was " a snare to virtue," could hardly ex- HORACE MANN. 323 pect to be the hearty, healthy, mischief-making, wide-awake, irrepressible boy which, after all, is most to be desired for man-building. Yet, in spite of these restrictions upon youth and health, Horace Mann became a great and historic American whose influence upon his century was almost incalculable. For out of his " hard lines " in boyhood, his lack of opportunities, his miserable means of instruction, his teachers (" very good peo- ple, but very poor teachers," he tells us), his limita- tions, and his struggles, came the substantial realiza- tion of what he called his " boyish air castles " to do something for the benefit of mankind. For, to-day, Horace Mann is acknowledged as the " Father of the American Common Schools," and millions of Ameri- can boys and girls have reason to cherish his memory and bless his name for making learning easier to them and education practical. And yet this man's life-story is one long battle with ill-health, weakness, discouragement, and dis- tress. Think how much he might have accom- plished had his boyhood been happy and healthy, or his manhood hearty and vigorous. For so strong was his desire to do good, and to put into execution his plans for the improvement of American children, that he repeatedly overtaxed his strength, struggled with exhaustion, grew really ashamed of ill-health, and absolutely flung away his own life for the sake of others, declaring that his life was not of so much consequence as the work in hand which he must 324 HISTORIC AMERICANS. and would accomplish. Was not that heroism ? and, in that spirit, was not Horace Mann as great a hero as Alexander Hamilton when he flung himself over the British abatis at Yorktown, as Lieutenant Gush- ing when he blew up the " Albemarle," or as the most daring of the gallant " Rough Riders " who charged up the hill of San Juan ? As such a hero, all America should honor him. The simple story of his life does not read like a romance nor appear to contain even the germs of heroism. Born in Franklin, in 1796, reared in pov- erty, weakened by overwork, he yet fitted himself for college ; with but scanty time for schooling, and compelled to help support the family after his' father's death, he was yet enabled to work his way through college, and to graduate from Brown University in 1819, the honor man of his class and his college. Leaving college, he studied law, became tutor and librarian at Brown, and finally, in 1823, was admitted to the bar, and became a lawyer, first in Dedham and later, in 1833, in Boston. He proved so able and careful a lawyer that he was rapidly winning success and fame when, in 1827, and again in 1833, he was elected to the Mass- achusetts Legislature, where he took no interest in partisan politics, but evinced a deep interest in all public questions, especially in those touching civil, political, and religious liberty, charitable, benevolent, and temperance reforms, and particu- larly in educational matters ; which, as he felt HORACE MANN. 325 even then, were in dire need of strengthening and reform. His efforts in behalf of education were untiring, and when, as president of the Senate of Massachu- setts, on the twentieth of April, 1837, he signed the bill authorizing the governor to appoint "eight persons who, -together with the governor and lieu- tenant-governor, ex officiis, shall constitute and be denominated the Board of Education," he did an act upon which, as one of his biographers declares, " his whole after-life turned." For this Board of Education was in time duly appointed and organized to enter upon its hercu- lean task of revising and reorganizing the common- school system of Massachusetts, and Horace Mann, greatly to his surprise, was appointed secretary of the Board. " It is a most responsible and important office," he said ; " but for myself I never had a sleeping nor a waking dream that I should ever think of myself or be thought of by any other in relation to that station." It did, indeed, prove a most responsible and im- portant office. The secretary really was the Board its director, its moving spirit, its servant, and its master as well, giving to it, for twelve years, so much of himself, his energy, his vitality, and his force that not only were the ends he aimed at finally accomplished, but his plans were so far-reaching, his methods so admirable, and his influence so 326 HISTORIC AMERICANS. great that, as Doctor Hinsdale has summed it up, " his influence extended to every State that shared in the early educational movement, and has since reached every State in the Union, while, even in foreign countries, his personality has been distinctly recognized by European educators." No one but himself appreciated the task he had undertaken or the labor it entailed. Most people looked upon it as a political appointment and asked why he gave up his law practice, and whether it was a question of salary. That was the one thing that angered him ; for money was the last thing that Horace Mann took into con- sideration. " Salary ! " he cried. " What do I care about the salary or the mere honor of the position? My possible usefulness is the thing that I consider. Do not such questions prove that the community need to be educated until they shall cease to look upon that as the greatest good which is really the smallest, and to find the greatest good in what they now overlook ? " And as he gave up the practice of the law, in which already he was winning name and success, he was again as great a hero as he who sacrifices his personal interests to command or follow on the field of war. " The interests of a client are small compared with the interests of the next generation,'' lui bravely declared as he turned from the lawyer's HORACE MANN. 327 desk to the secretary's table. " Let the next gen- eration, then, be my client." He entered upon his work boldly and bravely with everything against him. Indifference, apa- thy, public sentiment, class distinctions, ignorance of needs and methods, political influence, favorit- ism, unskilled instructors, old-fogy ways these and all the kindred obstacles to advancement and reform he must meet and conquer, and this he must do with the poor health and enfeebled body that weighed down his energy, his enthusiasm, and his pluck. But he rose superior to all obstacles. " Oh, that I could live a hundred years ! " he often exclaimed, as from all parts of the country came letters asking for his suggestion, assistance, or ad- vice ; and to his sister he wrote as he prepared to enter upon his new duties : " If I can discover by what appliance of means a non-thinking, non- reflecting, non-speaking child can most surely be trained into a noble citizen ready to contend for the right and to die for the right if I can only ob- tain and diffuse throughout this State a few good ideas on these and similar objects, may I not flatter myself that my ministry has not been wholly in vain?" Those " few good ideas " were in time diffused not only throughout the State of Massachusetts, but throughout the world ; for the twelve annual reports made by Horace Mann, as secretary of the HISTORIC AMERICANS. Massachusetts State Board of Education, awakened the thinking world to the necessity of better meth- ods in education, to the needs of the children, and the demands of the State ; they have been termed by critics "a classic on the subject of education," and as Mr. Hinsdale declares, "They presented Horace Mann to the world not simply as an educa- tor or a pedagogist, but as ' an educational states- man.' " "The twelve reports," says Mr. Hinsdale, "are among the best existing expositions, if, indeed, they are not the very best, of the practical benefits of a common-school education both to the in- dividual and the State. The student or educa- tor, the journalist or politician, who is seeking the best arguments in favor of popular education will find them here." Through those twelve years of his secretaryship Horace Mann worked untiringly and accomplished wonders ; but he prepared the way for even greater wonders ; for he laid the firm foundations of the pres- ent beneficent common-school system of America. He taught the American people to think and act on the subject of the better education of the young from primary to Normal schools ; indeed, he advo- cated, introduced, and instituted the professional preparatory institutions for teachers which we call " Normal " schools. He undertook to do a work that should be educational not only to the children and youth of the State, but also to the people of HORACE MANN, 329 the State ; he did this by speaking, by writing, by laboring, counting no sacrifice too great, no work too menial, no strain too sharp, if but his purpose were attained. For fifteen hours and more a day he worked uncomplainingly, travelling and talking, holding teachers' conventions, giving lectures on methods and plans of instruction, and doing an enormous amount of letter-writing. He started an educational magazine, awakened the indiffer- ent, aroused the public spirited, prepared pam- phlets, and wrote his famous reports, and literally " spent himself " in the service of education. Indifference and lack of interest were his main obstacles, but nothing daunted him. In one town, where a convention was to be held, no preparations had been made, and when he and his stanch sup- porter the governor arrived at the untidy school- house and found it locked and unready he hunted up the key, and made the disorderly building pre- sentable ; so that one early arrival, coming in, was astonished to find the governor of Massachusetts and the secretary of the State Board of Education with brooms and dust cloths in their hands, actu- ally cleaning out and "redding up" the school- room for the session of the convention. Enthusiasm always inspires, and, little by little, his untiring work bore fruit. For when, after twelve years of ceaseless labor, through disap- pointments, discouragements, privations, and actual poverty, he was at last forced to retire from the 330 HISTORIC AMERICANS. field, broken in health and strength, but undis- mayed and undaunted in spirit, he knew that he had succeeded, and that the public-school system of Massachusetts had by his efforts been put upon the high road to practical and positive success. When that old patriot John Quincy Adams fell in death upon the floor of Congress, where he had labored so long and valiantly for freedom of speech and for justice to all, Horace Mann was elected his successor, and for seven years he served Massachusetts as her representative in Con- gress, waging there just such an untiring fight against slavery as he had, in his own State, waged against ignorance and indifference. Even in Con- gress he did not relax his efforts in behalf of education, and though the great struggle for man- hood freedom, fast developing into the inevitable conflict that came at last with the election of Abraham Lincoln, absorbed his full attention, he was yet able to set on foot a national movement which, in time, resulted in the establishment of that Bureau of Education which is to-day so prom- inent a department of the National Government. In 1852 Horace Mann was nominated for gov- ernor of Massachusetts. But the forces of igno- rance and conservatism, even in the old Bay State which he had done so much to redeem and uplift, were yet too strong to be overcome in one political struggle, and he was not elected, defeated, so he declared, " by rum and pro-slavery." HORACE MANN. 331 But the influence of his life-work had gone abroad into other parts of the Republic, and when, in 1853, certain educational forces in the State of Ohio combined to found and build up a non-secta- rian, co-educative university, to be known as Antioch College, and desired a head for their insti- tution, they invited Horace Mann to the presi- dency. The heroic leader felt that a new duty was laid upon him, and, in the same spirit of self- devotion, accepting it, bade farewell to Massa- chusetts and went to his new labors and his death. Mann, who had resigned his seat in Congress for this purpose, removed at once to Ohio, and in Sep- tember, 1853, assumed his chair as president of Antioch College, pledged, as he declared, to " two great objects which can never be rightly separated from each other, the honor of God and the ser- vice of man." It was laborious and uphill work, as all new en- terprises that claim to be pioneers in fresh fields are apt to be. The college was unendowed, and was not self-supporting. It was, indeed, heavily in debt from the start, and possessed few of the at- tractions necessary to induce young people to ac- cept its instruction. The public mind was not yet ready, either for co-education or unsectari- anism; misrepresentation, interference, misunder- standing, and lack of support combined to weaken and retard it, and Mann found himself obliged to 332 HISTORIC AMERICANS. be president, instructor, preacher, and financial agent all in one. Bnt against all these obstacles Horace Mann could have battled manfully, and, in time, success- fully, had his health been good. Instead, it was very bad. The strain of overwork through long years of endeavor had undermined a weakened and failing constitution, and, unable to keep up the losing battle between desire and disease, he finally succumbed to the destroyer, and on the second of August, 1859, died at the college for which he had literally sacrificed health and life. It reads almost like defeat. It seems a sad and tragic ending to a life of such unselfish and cease- less endeavor. But even defeat is sometimes vic- tory. The last words of Horace Mann to his de- voted and beloved students at Antioch were : " Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity." That was the text of his life, and, to-day, students and teachers, educators and spe- cialists, philanthropists and statesmen, reformers, leaders, patriots, and people, recognize that to Horace* Mann was due that uplift towards a nobler and higher education, and therefore towards a broader and more practical Americanism, that has placed the Republic in the forefront of human in- telligence and the leadership of mind and heart and brain. " We shall mourn Horace Mann," said Charles Sumner. " He has done much ; but I wish he HORACE MANN. 333 had lived to enjoy the fruit of his noble toils. He never should have left Massachusetts. His last years would have been happier and more influen- tial had he stayed at home. His portrait ought to be in every public school in the State, and his statue in the State House." From a personal standpoint the regret of Sum- ner may have been true ; for Horace Mann died homesick. But the influence even of his short stay in the West was great. During those six years he became a powerful factor in the educa- tional movement of that growing section, and, alike on the lecture platform and in educational meet- ings, he worked, outside his own college field, to push forward the intellectual developments of the States that are to-day centres of educational strength and intellectual progress. He, too, recognized the great possibilities of the West the valleys of the Ohio and the Mississippi. " Wherever the capital of the United States may be," he said prophetically, in 1853, "this valley will be its seat of empire. No other valley the Danube, the Ganges, the Nile, or the Amazon is ever to exert so formative an influence as this upon the destinies of men ; and therefore in civil polity, in ethics, in studying and obeying the laws of God, it must ascend to the contemplation of a future and enduring reign of beneficence and peace. . . . But if a poor country needs edu- cation a rich country needs it none the less, be- 334 HISTORIC AMERICANS. cause it is the only thing which can chasten the proud passions of man into humility, or make any other gift of God a blessing." On the fourth of July, 1865, there was unveiled in the grounds in front of the famous State House on Beacon hill, in Boston, a bronze statue of the great educator, erected by his friends and admirers and the school children of Massachusetts " My eighty thousand children," he loved to call them ; to-day millions of American school children all over the land he loved so well enjoy the fruit of his labors, his sacrifices, and his successes, and the civilized world has profited by the unselfish efforts of Horace Mann, teacher, educator, statesman, and' patriot, " the Father of the Common Schools of America." XXIV. THE STORY OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, OF SPRINGFIELD, CALLED " THE EMANCIPATOR " AND " THE GREAT PRESIDENT." Born on Nolin's Creek, Kentucky, February 12, 1809. Died at Washington, April 15, 1865. " Standing like a tower, Our children shall behold his fame, The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame, New breath of our new soil, the first American." James Russell Lowell. IT had been an inglorious and spiritless cam- paign. The boys who, under the spur of excite- ment and for the novelty of hunting Indians, had enlisted for a " thirty days' picnic " had found no Indians to fight ; while forced marches, unexplained delays, and the privations of camp had made the short campaign against Black Hawk and his war- riors scarcely the picnic they had anticipated. The Sangamon company in Colonel Thompson's regiment of Illinois volunteers was no exception to the rule ; they had proved themselves unruly, 335 336 HISTORIC AMERICANS. fault-finding, and careless of camp duties, and as soon as their short term of enlistment was over they became almost mutinous in their demands to be mustered out and be sent home again. Suddenly to these imperfect patriots, at their camp in northern Illinois, came the news of Still- man's massacre, and the sudden foray of Black Hawk and his hostile Sacs. The brave volunteers shivered in their shoes, for they had not reckoned on the Indians taking the initiative. Their dream of glory had been to chase the fleeing Indian across the prairie, picking off squaw and warrior as they ran, and bringing home trophies instead of wounds, with which to delight the " folks at the store " and the cross- roads. There was, however, small fear that the " two thousand bloodthirsty redskins " of Black Hawk's " army " for that was the strength reported by rumor and fright would strike the camp of the Sangamon company, and their distance from the real scene of war gradually increased their valor gained by distance, as it emphasized their threats of what they would do to " them pesky red varmints " if once they had them in their power. Into the camp of the Sangamon company, thus exercised over their spasmodic valor, there wan- dered one day a poor, forlorn, solitary, hungry, and helpless 'old Indian seeking chanty. " Injun white man's friend," he exclaimed, as he ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 337 extended his hand in supplication. " See paper that talks ; from big white war-chief," and he drew from his belt a letter, which he offered as evidence of friendship. But the soldiers into whose presence he had thrust himself had no faith in such assurances; they had been looking for Indians ; here was one at last no doubt a spy perhaps Black Hawk himself. They swooped down upon the suspected and defenceless redskin. " String him up ! Scalp him ! Kill him ! " they cried. He 's a sure enough Injun. He 's what we 're after. Rush him along, we '11 settle him ! " In vain the poor old red man fluttered the letter in the faces of his inhospitable captors. " Me good Injun," he reiterated ; " white chief say so. See 'um talking paper." " Get out ; can't play that forgery on us. Shoot him ! Shoot him ! " the soldiers shouted, and, with that, they hustled the old Indian about so roughly and made so much noise over their prize that they aroused their captain, who came springing from his tent. " What 's all this row about ? " he demanded. He was a tall, raw-boned specimen of the young Western borderer, long-armed, long-legged, awk- ward, and most unsoldierly looking. But there was determination in his eyes. He had gained many lessons in discipline from his 338 HISTORIC AMERICANS. hard experiences trying to discipline this unruly Sangaraon company. At once his glance fell upon the badgered In- dian, and, dashing in among his men, he scattered them to right and left and placed a protecting hand upon the red fugitive's shoulder. " Stand back, all of you ! " he shouted. " Are n't you ashamed of yourselves all of you piling on one poor old redskin? What are you thinking of? Would you kill an unprotected man?" " A spy ! He 's a spy ! " cried the discomfited soldiers, gathering again about their prey. The poor old Indian read his fate in their eyes. He crouched low at the captain's feet, recognizing in him his only protector. " Fall back, men ; fall back ! " the captain com- manded. " Let the Injun go. He has n't done anything to you. He can't hurt you." " What are you afraid of ? " demanded one of the ringleaders, brandishing his rifle. " Let us have him. We 're not afraid, even if you are a coward." The tall young captain faced his accuser and proceeded to roll up his sleeves deliberately and with unmistakable meaning. " Who says I 'm a coward ? " he demanded. The implied challenge received no response. The Sangamon boys knew the length and strength of those brawny arms. " Get out, cap'n ; that 's not fair," they said. 'TAKE IT OUT OF ME, IF YOU CAN, BUT YOU SHAN'T TOUCH THIS INJUN." ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 339 " You 're bigger 'n we are, and heavier. You don't give us a show." " I '11 give you all the show you want, boys," said the captain. " More 'n you '11 give this Injun. I '11 tell you what : I '11 fight you all, one after the other, just as you come. Take it out of me, if you can, but you shan't touch this Injun. When a man comes to me for help he 's going to get it, if I have to lick all Sangamon county." There was no acceptance of that challenge, either. The Indian, who proved to be one of the friendly Indians from General Cass's Division, was given over to the captain ; the men dispersed ; the trouble was over ; no man in that camp, or all the camps together, had any desire to try a wrestle with Capt. Abraham Lincoln. For the captain who protected a fugitive Indian from the ferocity of that unruly set of raw recruits was Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois. Thus the first introduction to Abraham Lincoln which I shall give you is as the protector of the persecuted and unfortunate, even at the risk of his life ; the last view we have of Abraham Lincoln is as he sacrifices his life in behalf of those whom he protected, defended, and enfranchised. Indeed, sympathy and regard for all in trouble were among the chief characteristics of Abraham Lincoln. He would go out of his way to relieve the distress of bird or beast, while many an erring man and many a careless soldier have had cause to bless forever the kind heart of Abraham Lincoln, 340 HISTORIC AMERICANS. which went out to them in tenderness, protection, and help in time of stress. Helpfulness was the mainspring and stay of that remarkable life. And a remarkable life it was. Few have been more remarkable in events and none more glorious in results than was that of Abraham Lincoln. Born in the direst poverty, in a mean little log cabin on the banks of Nolin's creek, near to the present town of Hodgensville, about fifty miles south of Louis- ville, in Kentucky, Abraham Lincoln's childhood was as devoid of all the things that make a boy's life attractive as it is possible to imagine. His father was shiftless and poor; his mother was a drudge who died from overwork, old before her time ; his home was a log hut on a scrubby hillside farm, or the yet worse half-faced camp on an Indi- ana prairie. He learned his letters any way he could ; he never went to school more than a year in all the days of his life ; he was a ragged, forlorn, neglected little son of the soil ; but he had in him the instincts of a scholar, the habits of a gentle- man, and the yearnings of honorable ambition. He made himself actually out of nothing, and the boy who would do a day's work to borrow a book, who did his studying and his reading by the flick- ering firelight of the earthen hearth ; who faced and conquered all the obstacles of birth, upbring- ing, surroundings, personal appearance, ignorance, and lack of opportunity, actually made himself the master of his circumstances, and rose to an emi- ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 341 nence greater than that attained by any other man of the century. His story is a remarkable one, and yet it is neither startling in the amount of its successes nor varied in its dramatic details. Beginning life away down in the . world, he ended it away up. Other men have done this, but not as he did it. He served a hard apprenticeship to experience, and came out at the head of his craft as nearly perfect a man as it is given to man to be perfect. Chore-boy, farm- hand, flatboat-man, rail-splitter, clerk, storekeeper, soldier, inventor, surveyor, postmaster, Congress- man, country lawyer, politician, statesman, presi- dent, hero, martyr, saint, these are the steps in the slow but steady progress made by Abraham Lincoln. He was born in 1809 ; but it was 1859 before he became famous, and all the wonderful happenings of his wonderful record were crowded into six years of heart-breaking endeavor that were suddenly closed by a violent death. The most con- servative of men, he became the greatest of reform- ers; the most unassuming of workers, he became the noblest of patriots ; awkward in figure and unat- tractive in face and appearance, his face has become the most familiar and most glorified in the whole gallery of great Americans, while the fame of the humble rail-splitter has overshadowed that of all the kings and princes that ever ruled or made brilliant the world in which they lived. His words have become a part of the proverbs and literature of the 342 HISTORIC AMERICANS. nation ; his deeds are among the noblest heritage of the ages. His story is a twice-told tale. But who is there that tires of its retelling? Of few other Ameri- cans are so many stories told, and not one but dis- plays some trait or characteristic that stamps him as exceptional and may be taken as a guide or inspiration for those who study his completed story. Think of what this completed story is ! A poor boy born amid mean and disheartening surroundings; brought up on a rough frontier among rough people ; uncouth and awkward in appearance ; fail- ing many times in his attempt to gain a footing in the world, but never giving in ; educating himself in spite of difficulties and discouragements ; making himself respected and popular among the people, he became in time the chosen representative of those people in their home government, developed himself into their champion and the champion of a great reform, and, at last, in the hour of uncer- tainty and danger, was selected by the people of the whole country to become the head of the nation and the leader of that nation in its hour of stress and peril. And in that awful hour he was never found wanting. Upon his life through four terri- ble years of war hung the destinies of a nation and the redemption of a race. Through them all he displayed an ability for leadership that was only excelled by his marvellous patience, and a masterly grasp of public affairs that was only equalled by ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 343 his knowledge of men and his wisdom in hand- ling them. He became known to the American people through a failure. In the year 1858 he was "stumping" the State of Illinois with his chief rival, Stephen A. Douglas, for the nomination as senator of the United States from Illinois., The issue was the extension of slavery to the Territories the thing for which Calhoun labored so hero- ically as the eloquent champion of a wrong cause. On the seventeenth of June in that year of 1858 he made a remarkable speech in which he boldly de- clared that if America were to be really the land of the free it must cast off the stain of human slavery. " A house divided against itself cannot stand," he declared. " I believe that this Government can- not endure half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved. I do not expect the house to fall ; but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the farther spread of it and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction, or the advocates of it will push it forward till it shall become alike law- ful in all the States old as well as new, North as well as South." It was a great speech. It put the plain truth before the people. But the men who wished Lin- coln to be elected senator were greatly disturbed. 344 HISTORIC AMERICANS. " You have made a mistake," they told him. " You should not put things that way ; you have ruined all your chances ; you have killed yourself politically." One of his friends came to him in much distress, as Lincoln sat at his desk after the day was over. " I am so sorry you made that speech," he said. " I wish it were wiped out of existence. How do you feel now ? Don't you wish you had not said so much ? " Lincoln laid down his pen, lifted his spectacles, and looked at his friend, with a smile on his homely face ; but it was a sober smile the smile of con- fidence and assurance. "If I had to draw my pen across my whole life," he said, "and erase it from existence, and I had one poor little gift or choice left as to what I should save from the wreck, I would choose that one speech and leave it to the world unerased." There was a man who had the courage of his convictions and who, when duty demanded, could speak the truth bravely, whatever the conse- quence ! He lost the election. Judge Douglas went to Washington as senator, and Abraham Lincoln re- turned to his work as a country lawyer. But that speech roused the land; it went out to all the world ; it set men to thinking as they had never thought before, even when Calhoun had spoken his solemn warning ; it sent a death-shot ABRAHAM LINCOLN., 345 straight to the heart of slavery ; it made Abraham Lincoln president of the United States. That is to say, it was the first step towards that result ; for it was the first in a series of famous speeches in a great debate which drew the atten- tion of the North to Abraham Lincoln, and made them say that the man who could thus put things in the proper light and could see the right so clearly must be a man of ability and power. So the man who led the strength of the people, and their consciences, too, into such practical and progressive paths was made the standard-bearer of the party of freedom, and on the sixteenth of May, 1860, in the city of Chicago, Abraham Lincoln was nominated for president. In that same city of Chicago, to-day, in a great and beautiful park along the shores of a mighty fresh-water sea, there rises a splendid bronze statue of the man who was there nominated for the presi- dency. It is the most impressive statue in all America St. Gaudens' statue of Abraham Lin- coln. And at the feet of the splendid statue I saw playing, one day, two negro children, contented, happy, and free because of the great act that man did in their behalf when he was president of the United States of America. It was in the November election of 1860 that the rail-splitter won the presidency. On the fourth of March, 1861, he was inaugurated in Washington, and, standing before the splendid east front of the 346 HISTORIC AMERICANS. Capitol, then incomplete, he made that honest, earnest plea for peace which so thrilled and inspired the loyal North. " I am loth to close," he said. " We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must riot break our bond of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over the broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature." But his appeal was to deaf ears and hardened hearts. The day that Calhoun prophesied had ar- rived. The South and North were at odds and" civil war was in the land. But the North had a great man at the helm. Courageous, patient, determined, tactful, sympa- thetic, watchful, and wise Abraham Lincoln stood through those four years of civil war, erect and vigilant, until men grew to know and to trust him, recognizing that the great President knew more than his ministers, more than his generals, more than friend or foe of the Union ; he alone laid the course to victory, and to him alone the Republic came at last to look for safety, security, guidance, and ultimate triumph. Gradually Congress gave him unlimited powers ; the people learned to de- pend upon him for help in dark days and wisdom in bright ones ; and whenever they grew impatient, or ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 347 fearful, or despondent, they looked at that tall, sad- faced, quiet, patient, determined, noble figure of their president, and felt their faith grow strong and their fears subside. At last, when the war had been raging for two years, he saw that the time had come for the action he had kept in mind so long, but which, in spite of pressure on one side and of criticism on the other, he would not do until he felt the time was ripe. Emancipation had been urged by impatient statesmen and restless generals. But Lincoln was moved neither by one nor the other. " My paramount duty," he said, " is to save the Union, and not either to destroy or save slavery. . . . What I do about slavery and the colored race I do because I believe it helps to save the Union ; and what I forbear, I forbear because I do not believe it would help to save the Union. . . . I have stated my purpose according to my views of official duty, and I intend no modifica- tion of my oft-expressed wish that all men every- where should be free." Patiently, watchfully, prayerfully he waited for the hour which he knew must come when he saw that the emancipation of the slaves was necessary to the success of the Union arms. Step by step he had worked up to this idea. Gradually he paved the way for the final decree. First he pre- vailed upon Congress to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia ; then he offered freedom to 348 HISTORIC AMERICANS. all negroes who would serve as Union soldiers ; soon after he approved an act of Congress prohibit- ing slavery in all the Territories of the United States. Then came the final act. Lincoln was now sure that the people of the North would agree with him that something vital must be done to convince the rebellious South, the wavering border States, and the people of the world that the Government of the United States pledged itself to freedom. On the twenty-second of September, 1862, Abra- ham Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation by virtue of which, on and after Jan. 1, 1863, " All persons held as slaves within any State or part of a State in rebellion against, the United States shall be thenceforward and forever free ; " and when on the first day of January, 1863, the proclamation was made fact by an official announce- ment Lincoln closed the announcement with these solemn words : " Upon this act, sincerely believed to be an act of justice, warranted by the Constitu- tion upon military necessity, I invoke the consider- ate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor of Almighty God." The judgment of mankind to-day is that the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln was the bravest, noblest, and most helpful deed of the century. North 1 and South alike so regard it, while the marvellous progress of the Republic since Lincoln's day a progress made because the nation ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 349 indeed is free, is the best evidence that the brave act of the great president obtained " the gracious favor of Almighty God." And by that one act Abraham Lincoln made his name immortal. Even as I write these lines there comes the word that disproves the fears of Calhoun and justi- fies the wisdom of Abraham Lincoln. The successful and efficient secretary of the navy, during the short but vigorous war with Spain, a war for humanity's sake, the outgrowth of Lincoln's policy of sympathy and protection, made this comparative picture in a speech of jubilee : " As I stood, a few days ago, on the portico of the Executive Mansion, I recalled that in my youth I there met President Lincoln as he came out of the White House door. We were alone. Had I then lost, as I have since lost, the awe which a young man feels on meeting a great one, I should have presumed to speak to him ; and, per- haps, one of the saddest faces on which I ever looked might have been touched, in the passing greeting, with that kindly smile and lighting of the eyes which sometimes transformed it into almost transcendent beauty. The burden of the great war was then upon his gaunt frame. He had emancipated the slave, but the war was not over. The freedom of a race, the issue of equal rights for all men, high or low, black or white, was still trembling in the balance. 350 HISTORIC AMERICANS. " A few days ago I stood with President McKin- ley on the same portico. We were not alone. Every foot of space, the railings, the grounds, were filled with a crowd of eager, interested people, men and women and children, waiting the inarch of the Tenth Regular Cavalry, colored troops, who soon came passing in review. They were dis- mounted and marching in column. They were the heroes of the recent war. They had saved the brave Roosevelt and his Rough Riders. They had stormed and swept the hill of San Juan. They had linked their names with the bravest of the brave. Their uniforms showed service, but it was the uniform of the American soldier. They passed in review, and the president of the United States bared his head in token of respect. " There and then I saw the consummation of Lincoln's work. Mayhap that great soul looked down on the scene from the portico of a mansion eternal in the heavens. The issue which trembled in his strong hand is settled ; the slave is free ; there are equal rights for all ; the servile badge of color is forever obliterated ; and the black man is the American soldier, and more than that, the American citizen. There is no avenue of business life in which he does not walk; no profession of which he is not a member ; no school of learning or of athletics in which he does not rank ; and, on the platform, one of his race is to-day the best orator in America." ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 351 But before the war was over the day came for a new election of president of the United States. The people of the Republic, however, were in no mood for a change. In the terse and characteristic language of this American president who used the homely phrases of the people to emphasize his faith " it is not safe to swap horses when you are crossing a stream." The stream was not yet quite crossed and there was no swapping of horses. In November, 1864, Abraham Lincoln was reflected president of the United States by two hundred and twelve out of the two hundred and thirty-three electoral votes cast. And on March fourth, 1865, he made that noble speech his second inaugural, from which I made an extract in the Calhoun chapter. You know its close. Its closing words have been emblazoned on decorations, carved on monuments, engraved on the hearts of the people. But you cannot read them too often : " With malice towards none ; with charity for all ; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in ; to bind up the Nation's wounds ; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and all nations." Sympathy, defence, protection the same attri- butes of character that led him to shield the defence- 352 HISTORIC AMERICANS. less and unprotected Indian in his boyish days of soldiering appear in this noble speech delivered almost in the shadow of death, while around him was being secretly woven the dastardly and bloody coil of assassination. One month later the blow fell. The great pres- ident's 'work was done. The war was over ; the greatest general of the century had, in magnani- mous terms, accepted the surrender of the Southern armies ; the long struggle that had been waged from the very foundation of the Republic was triumphantly closed for freedom ; the nation was redeemed. And even as the good president, with a heart full of love for the vanquished, was planning measures for their good and was striving to make all Americans brothers once more, an ambitious, vin- dictive, and hare-brained adventurer, the arm and centre of a cowardly plot, shot the great president as he sat unconscious of danger, and at half-past seven o'clock on the morning of Saturday, the fif- teenth of April, 1865, Abraham Lincoln had ceased to live. But only in the flesh had he ceased to live. In the hearts of the American people he will live on forever. When he died the whole world mourned, and each year only increases his greatness and the world's recognition of his nobility, his grandeur, and his statesmanship. More power was given into his hand than king or emperor holds ; yet he was never for one instant ABRAHAM LINCOLN. 353 moved by ambition or the desire for personal power. Abraham Lincoln lived and died a poor man, with no desire to make money out of his nation's distress, and with no time to devote to anything but his country's need and service. He saved a nation and emancipated a race. Absolutely without vices, he had strongly marked characteristics. He was tender-hearted, but when occasion required, sternly inflexible; he was sunny-tempered, yet his face, as Secretary Long says, was one of the saddest ever seen ; simple in speech and life, he was capable of eloquence and of stirring words that will live forever. Brave, broad- minded, just, and true, his humanity embraced all men, his faith in the people never faltered ; none knew them better than he ; none loved them more truly. There never was, in any age of the world, a leader more directly selected by Providence to guide the destinies of his people and be the saviour of the Republic, and as time goes on the fame of Abraham Lincoln will rise above that of his fellows as the greatest, noblest, best, and wisest man of the whole wonderful nineteenth century. XXV. THE STORY OF HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW, CALLED "AMERICA'S FOREMOST POET." Born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807. Died at Cambridge, Massachusetts, March 24, 1882. " The man who could write ' Sandalphon,' ' The Ladder of St. Augustine,' ' Snow-Flakes,' ' Daybreak,' ' The Children's Hour,' ' Suspira,' ' Seaweed,' ' The Day is Done,' ' The Wreck of the Hesperus,' ' The Skeleton in Armor,' ' Excelsior,' 'A Psalm of Life,' ' The Old Clock on the Stairs," Paul Ilevere's Ride,' ' Noel ' and ' Morituri, Salutamus,' the man who could write such poems as these is immortal." William Sloane Kennedy. ON a certain broad street in a certain fair city in the famous section known as " Down East " there stands to-day, as it has stood for more than a hundred and twenty years, a wide brick house of ample proportions and hospitable aspect a show house now, prized as a relic by the pushing, prosperous Maine city which has surrounded and outgrown it. In the right-hand corner room on the third floor of this historic house, on a certain November day in the year 1820, a boy sat at a table, writing. The 354 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 355 table was of mahogany, slender and round-topped, with one central leg and three sprawling, claw- shaped feet; the boy was in his early 'teens, a handsome fellow, bright-faced, blue-eyed, and wavy- haired, just shooting up into a thoughtful but manly youth. He came of good stock and brave ancestry, and in all Portland, in all Maine, in all America indeed, there was no more attractive-look- ing or gentle-mannered boy of thirteen than the one who sat busy over his writing at that round- topped mahogany table in the third-story room of the brick house on Main street Henry Wads- worth Longfellow, the son of " Lawyer " Stephen Longfellow, of Portland, Maine. He had something on his mind and in his head as he sat down at that round-topped table in his own bed-room. He had been spending a good part of his summer at his Grandfather Wads worth's, up in Hiram township, forty or fifty miles northwest from Portland. Now, Grandfather Peleg Wads- worth was an old Continental soldier, a general of the Revolution, and the traditions of conflict hung about the Wads worth name an honorable one in the annals of Maine's prowess on land and sea. The country about Hiram was full of the legends of frontier struggles and Indian fights in the days when this region of lake and pine was the debata- ble borderland between white man and red man, between the colonist of New England and the irrepressible Frenchman of Canada. 356 HISTORIC AMERICANS. One such fight as this had been waged up on the shores of a pretty lake known thereabouts as Love- well's or Lovell's pond, only a few miles from Grandfather Wadsworth's farm in Hiram, and the boy Henry became so deeply interested in the story of that fierce and fatal fight of the stern old colony days that he could not drop the tradition from his robust fancies. It rang in his head as he tramped the woods and fields about Hiram ; it shaped itself into rhythm as he thought of it in his Portland home ; and as he sat at the round-topped table in his dearly-loved " own room " he found himself impelled to turn his study of the " battle " into these crude and boyish lines built plainly on the model of Scott and Moore and Byron, heroes of literature in those days : " THE BATTLE OF LOVELI/S POND. " Cold, cold is the north-wind and rude is the blast That sweeps like a hurricane loudly and fast, As it moans through the tall waving pines lone and drear, Sighs a requiem sad o'er the warrior's bier. u The war-whoop is still, and the savage's yell Has sunk into silence along the wild dell ; The din of the battle, the tumult is o'er, And the war clarion's voice is now heard no more. " The warriors that fought for their country, and bled, Have sunk to their rest ; the damp earth is their bed ; No stone tells the place where their ashes repose, Nor points out the spot from the graves of their foes. HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 357 " They died in their glory, surrounded by fame, And victory's loud trump their death did proclaim ; They are dead ; but they live in each patriot's breast And their names are engraved on Honor's bright crest." Crude and halting indeed they may seem to us, in construction as in rhythm, but that boy poet of thirteen was stirred by his sentiment and enthused by his verses so that, reading them again and again with the pride and thrill that all young poets know, he decided that they were good enough to publish. So he signed his verses "Henry," and folding them up and sealing them in the careful style of those non-envelope days he addressed the folded paper " To the Editor of the ' Gazette,' " and, slip- ping from the house,. ran down the street to the printing-office of the Portland "Gazette." Like Franklin and Dickens and countless other young aspirants for literary recognition, Henry pushed his precious manuscript into the letter-box and then ran home to wonder "if they really would print it." On the evening before the semi-weekly " Gazette " appeared the palpitating poet again stole down to the printing-office where printers and presses could be seen at work, and, wondering if they were print- ing his " poem," was half inclined to go in and ask, yet did not dare to brave the possibility of a " No." How that fair, boyish face flushed with pleasure when, next morning, after " Lawyer " Longfellow 358 HISTORIC AMERICANS. had laid aside his "Gazette," Henry and his sister, who alone was in the secret, darted upon the news- paper and there discovered the poem " in all the glory of print " ! And how proud was the sister of her brother, the poet ! But pride goes before a fall. That very evening Henry went with his father to call on a friend, Judge Mellen, of Portland. Henry and the judge's son were talking before the fire when suddenly the young poet's heart beat fast. " Have you read that poem on Lovell's fight in this morning's ' Gazette ' ? " he heard the judge in- quire. "No," replied "Lawyer" Longfellow carelessly; " I did n't notice it. Good for anything ? " "No, sir," was the judge's verdict; "it's stiff, stiff; remarkably stiff. And not original, either. It's all borrowed, every line of it. Why, my boy there could write a much better one on the same subject; much better, sir." The friendly firelight did not betray the mortifi- cation and anguish of the boy, whose face was shadowed alike by its flicker and his own disap- pointment. But when, soon after, he found him- self in his own room in the big brick house on Main street he flung himself on the bed in shame and rebellion, and fairly cried himself to sleep over the poet's first criticism. But a boy's will is strong, even if this selfsame poet himself declared it to be " the wind's will," HENRY WADS WORTH LONGFELLOW. 359 and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow simply declared that he would write verse and become known as a poet as he did. Sixty-four years after that boyish effusion was slipped, " with fear and trembling," into the letter- box of the Portland "Gazette " there gathered on a March day in 1884, in the stateliest and most notable of all the great churches of England, the famous Westminster Abbey, a group of men and women assembled to do honor to one who had added grace, beauty, strength, and glory to the English tongue. Kinsfolk on both sides the sea, in whose veins ran the same strain of Anglo-Saxon blood, men high in State affairs and famous in the world of letters, listened in the noble Jerusalem chamber as now the premier of England and now the Amer- ican minister exchanged words of appreciation and acknowledgment concerning the man they had there gathered to honor. Then in procession the group of notables, English and American, arm-in- arm, proceeded to the splendid South Transept of the great Abbey, where, in the section famous through- out the world as the Poets' Corner, one of the high officials of the Abbey unveiled a noble marble bust, proclaimed by many critics to be the finest memorial of its kind in the whole grand Abbey. Upon the pedestal of this marble bust was cut the simple name LONGFELLOW, and beneath, upon its supporting bracket, were these words : " This bust was placed among the memorials of the poets of 360 HISTORIC AMERICANS. England by the English admirers of an American poet, 1883." Who this American poet is the name carven on the pedestal, the ealm, serene, noble, Homer-like head, alike declare. But to these are added on the memorial these brief biographical details : Born at Portland, U.S.A., Feb. 27, 1807. Died at Cambridge, U.S.A., March 24, 1882. To this proud height of fame has risen the boy poet of 1820. Enshrined by the hereditary foemen of his native land, within the choicest sanctuary of their own glorious worthies, the presence of this bust of Longfellow, almost shoulder to shoulder with the memorials to Dryden and Chaucer and Cowley, and surrounded by those of the men who made England's noblest literature, was an epoch- making event. For that honoring of an American poet, dear to all who speak the English tongue, dear also to those of other lands into whose speech his verses have been rendered, marked the first welding of the bond, now growing stronger every day, that shall join at last in moral as well as in material interests the two great nations of the English-speaking race. " Lie calm, white and laureate head! Lie calm, Dead, that art not dead ; Since, from thy voiceless grave, Thy voice shall speak to old and young While song yet speaks an English tongue, By Charles' or Thamis' wave." HENRY WADSWQRTH LONGFELLOW. 361 So wrote an English poet in reverence of the great American; and that American minister whose presence added impressiveness and affection to that historic scene in the Poets' Corner, the life- long friend and lover of Longfellow, James Rus- sell Lowell, wrote : " Surely if skill in song the shears may stay And of its purpose cheat the charmed abyss, If our poor life be lengthened by a lay, He shall not go, although his presence may, And the next age in praise shall double this." Already it has doubled it, though the country which gave birth to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is but just merging into the dawn of a new age. For no one yet has displaced from the proud posi- tion of America's foremost and favorite poet the man who through sixty years of song led his na- tive land to nobler thinking and to higher life. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was born in Port- land in the year 1807, not in the ample brick house in which we saw him at the round-topped table writing his first poem, but in a big frame house down by the waterside, now so transformed from its original " fashionable " beginnings to a decid- edly " unfashionable " atmosphere that one small Portland boy, on being asked, some years ago, if he knew where the poet Longfellow was born, an- swered promptly, "Yes, 'm; in Patsy Conner's bedroom." 362 HISTORIC AMERICANS. But Longfellow's boyhood and youth were passed in the quaint and now famous house on Main street, or Congress street as it is called to-day, built by his grandfather, the stout Continental vet- eran, Gen. Peleg Wadsworth, and it is with this house in Main street, as with the delightful old city of Portland, that the story of his youth is associated, and of which he wrote : " Often I think of the beautiful town That is seated by the sea ; Often, in thought, go up and down The pleasant streets of that dear old town And my youth comes back to me." Here, under the guidance of a gifted father and a refined and cultivated mother, the gentle nature of the boy was shaped and directed. Here he felt his first literary aspirations, established his first literary friendship, wrote his first " epigrams and tragedies," and at length went from thence, before he was fifteen, to Bowdoin College, Maine's most celebrated institution for higher education. In 1825, being then eighteen, he graduated with honor from Bowdoin. But his literary ability and cultivated mind had already made their impression upon the authorities and faculty of the college, and when, in the very year of his graduation, it was de- termined to establish at Bowdoin a professorship of modern languages, Longfellow was at once sug- gested and advocated for the new chair. The re- HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 363 suit was that he was sent abroad to fit himself for the duties of his new position, and after three years' travel in Europe he returned to enter upon his professorship, in September, 1829, a young man of but two and twenty. So excellent a record did he make in this post that in 1835 he was offered and accepted the pro- fessorship of modern languages and belles lettres at Harvard College, and in December, 1836, after anotheryear in Europe, he removed to Cambridge, where he resided in the famous mansion known as Craigie house, on Brattle street, dear to Americans for its double significance as the headquarters of Washington and the home of Longfellow. He remained in his professorship at Harvard for eight years from 1836 to 1844 and then resigned it into the hands of his friend, neighbor, and successor, James Russell Lowell, in order that he might be free for his much-loved literary work. The record of this literary work stretches over half a century from " Coplas de Manrique," in 1833, to the " Bells of San Bias," his last poem, in 1882. The simple recital of his publications is to chronicle the highest achievement of poetical pro- duction by the man, who, in his life-time, was easily .the foremost literary figure in America. It is well that we should read this record. In 1833, the year in which appeared his first book, a thin volume of translations from the Span- 364 HISTORIC AMERICANS. ish, under the title " Coplas cle Manrique," - he issued also the first part of his prose work, " Outre Mer," which he completed in 1835. In 1839 came a second prose story, " Hyperion," and " Voices of the Night," the latter collection containing two of his now most famous poems, " The Psalm of Life " and " Footsteps of Angels." In 1841 he issued a small volume called simply " Ballads, and Other Poems," but they comprised, among others, " Ex- celsior," " The Skeleton in Armor," " The Village Blacksmith " and " The Wreck of the Hesperus." In 1842 appeared his " Poem on Slavery ; " in 1843 " The Spanish Student; " in 1845 "The Belfry of Bruges ; " in 1847 " Evangeline " esteemed by many critics the greatest of all his poems. In 1849 came his only prose novel, " Kavanagh," and a collection of poems, " Seaside and Fireside," in which were included those beautiful verses which have comforted all the world " Resigna- tion." In 1851 appeared "The Golden Legend;" in 1855 " The Song of Hiawatha," the only great poem with the American Indian as a theme ; in 1858 "The Courtship of Miles Standish " and " Birds of Passage ; " in 1863 the " Tales of a Wayside Inn" and the "Second Flight" of his " Birds of Passsage ; " in 1866 came a small volume entitled " Flower de Luce ; " in 1867 he, published his great labor of love (" a masterpiece of literal translation," it has been called), his translation of Dante's " Divine Comedy." In 1868 HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 365 was issued " The New England Tragedies ; " in 1871 " The Divine Tragedy," forming, with " The Golden Legend" and "The New England Trag- edies," a threefold presentation of the develop- ment of Christianity. In 1872 he published " Three Books of Song ; " in 1873 Aftermath ; " in 1874 " The Hanging of the Crane ; " and in 1875 " The Masque of Pandora," and other poems, one of the latter being his inspiring poem on old age, "Morituri Salutamus." In 1878 appeared " Kera- mos," and other poems, and in the same year he completed his series of selections from all the poets, entitled "Poems of Places." In 1880 he issued "Ultima Thule," and in March, 1882, he wrote his last poem, " The Bells of San Bias," almost a prophecy of the death that soon afterward came to him on the twenty-fourth of March, 1883. A full half-century his pen was busy. His was a life of helpful, hopeful, uplifting, and inspiring work. For Henry Wadsworth Longfellow had few dark days ; he was the poet of optimism genial, sunny, kindly, earnest ; he was the prophet of beauty, order, and righteousness, loving and beloved by the whole English-speaking world. Charles Kingsley declared that the face of Long- fellow was the most beautiful face he had ever .seen. That face was but the index of the mind and the soul of the best-loved of our American poets. His very presence was a benediction ; his simplest word was an encouragement. The desire 366 HISTORIC AMERICANS. that guided his pen was to make " a purer faith and manhood shine in the untutored heart ; " and his whole life was a personification of all the qual- ities that make for righteousness. Children loved and honored him. One of his most delightful experiences was the unique way in which the children of the schools of Cambridge seven hundred in all celebrated his seventy- seventh birthday. From the wood of the tree be- neath which had stood on Brattle street that very village smithy which the poet had made so famous, there was constructed a great chair. This was placed in his study on the morning of the twenty- seventh of February, 1879, as a birthday surprise. And it was, indeed, a surprise. On a brass plate in the seat of the chair was this inscription : " To the Author of ' The Village Blacksmith ' this chair, made from the wood of the spreading chest- nut tree, is presented as an expression of grateful regard and veneration by the children of Cam- bridge, who, with their friends, join in the best wishes and congratulations on this anniversary - February 27, 1879." Longfellow appreciated, en- joyed, and acknowledged the gift, and his verses of acknowledgment, beginning, " Am I a king that I should call my own This splendid ebon throne ? " gladdened the hearts not only of the children of Cambridge, who were responsible for it, but of all HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW. 367 the children the wide world over, who knew that good gray poet by the songs which had become a part of their life and literary development. Critics may undervalue his genius, discount his aspirations, and belittle his gift of song ; but the fact remains that he was and ever will be the most popular of American poets. Such verses as " Ex- celsior," " The Skeleton in Armor," " Resigna- tion," "The Old Clock on the Stair," "The Psalm of Life," "Paul Revere's Ride," "The Wreck of the Hesperus," and others, are wider known than any corresponding number of lyrics by any other writer of English song; while of " The Building of the Ship " it is asserted that "it had as much effect in developing a sense of nationality as anything ever written not ex- cepting the Declaration of Independence, or Webster's reply to Hayne." LONGFELLOW : that is all that the army of pil- grims read on the simple, almost uncarven stone that marks his grave on Indian Ridge path in beautiful Mount Auburn. It is but a type of the simplicity of his life and the natural beauty of his mind. The bust in Westminster and the green, park-like memorial at Cambridge speak alike of the range of his genius and the loving respect of the world. Old and young, rich and poor, found in him in- spiration, counsel, sympathy, and help, and his words touched more closely the great throbbing 368 HISTORIC AMERICANS. heart of humanity than did those of even greater poets. It has been said of him that his was " a thoroughly healthy, well-balanced, harmonious nature, accepting life as it came, with all its joys and sorrows, and living it beautifully and hopefully, without canker and without uncharity." It is such a life that, communicating itself to the world through the medium of verse whose inspiration is sympathy and whose root is love, uplifts, refines, and brightens the world. And this was the mission, this the achievement, of Henry Wadsworth Long- fellow. XXVI. THE STORY OF ULYSSES S. GRANT, OF GALENA, CALLED "THE HERO OF APPOMATTOX." ' Born at Point Pleasant, Ohio, April 27, 1822. Died at Mount McGregor, New York, July 23, 1885. u The world knew his faults, his mistakes, and his weaknesses ; but they were all forgotten in the memory of his great deeds as a warrior, and of his gentleness, modesty, candor, and purity as a man. Since then it becomes increasingly more evident that he is to take his place as one of the three or four figures of the first class in our national history. He was a man of action, and his deeds were of the kind which made epochs in history." Hamlin Garland. IN the battle month of August, 1847, the Amer- ican invaders were storming at the gates of Mexico. The embattled walls of Cherubusco and the forti- fied camp of Contreras had yielded to the resistless onrush of the northern host; over the stone citadel of Molino del Rey and upon the castle- crowded hill of Chapultepec floated the triumphant Stars and Stripes, until, at last, only the stout walls of the capital city, pierced with its defended gates, held back the conquering soldiers of Scott from the storied " halls of the Montezumas." 369 370 HISTORIC AMERICANS. But those defended gates were stubbornly held by the valorous but poorly-led and outgeneralled Mexicans, and while it was evident that the Amer- ican cannon would in time blow out a path for entrance, it was desirable to clear this path at once, alike to inspire the besiegers and dishearten the besieged. It was at this stage of the assault, while the brigades of Worth and Quitman were held back by the aqueduct embankment and the city gates, that a young lieutenant of the Fourth United States Infantry, scouting a bit on his own hook, saw off in the fields a little stone church which he begun to study critically. It was not so much the church as the belfry on the church that attracted him. " That 's the key to the situation," he said to himself. " That church is just in line with the gate. Back of that gate are the fellows we 've got to drive off. If I could only get a gun into that belfry I believe I could drop some shot into the Mexicans at the gate and scatter them double quick." The plan seemed so promising that the lieuten- ant resolved to try it at once. He hurried back to the lines ; called for a few volunteers ; borrowed one of those light cannon called a mountain how- itzer, and, dodging the Mexicans, cut across the fields to the church. The fields were seamed with numerous irrigating ULYSSES S. GRANT. 371 ditches filled with water. But these did not dis- turb the plucky lieutenant. He and his men took the howitzer and its mount apart and, each one carrying a piece, they waded the ditches and at last reached the church. The gate into the city was less than a thousand feet away. At the church door a priest confronted them. " This is a church. You must not enter here," he said in warning. " I fear we must, sir," said the young lieutenant courteously. " You shall not ! I will not let you," the brave priest declared sternly. But the lieutenant was equally firm. " Oh, I reckon you will," he said. " You see, we're coming in." And brushing the protesting priest aside, he and his men forced their way into the church. Piece by piece the howitzer was carried up into the belfry, put together, speedily loaded, and trained directly upon the Mexican defenders of the San Cosme gate, as it was called. Those defenders, intent on keeping back the besieging Americans, did not notice the little group in the church belfry, until, suddenly, with a spite- ful bang ! bang ! the howitzer in the air sent down its unwelcome shot into the very ranks of the defenders of the gate. They could not dislodge this new and surprising battery in a steeple, and when, finally, its well- 372 HISTORIC AMERICANS. directed shot got the range and became unbearable they retreated from behind the gate. General Worth heard the shots ; he saw the puffs of smoke ; he appreciated the strategy of the "embattled belfry." " That 's a bright idea," he said. " Ride over there, Lieutenant Pemberton, and see who 's responsible for that. Tell him to report to me at once." So Lieutenant Pemberton jumped the ditches and summoned the fighting lieutenant from his church steeple. "Ah, Lieutenant Grant, it's you, is it?" said General Worth, as the young officer saluted. " Good idea of yours, that. Keep it up. I '11 order another gun for you, and you can run that up there and blaze away with both of 'em. It 's the best move I 've seen. If you can keep the gate clear we can knock it down. I '11 have that other gun for you directly." Lieutenant Grant saluted and went back to his battery in the belfry. He did not tell the general that there was only room for one gun in the steeple, because, as he explained years after, it was not proper for a young lieutenant to tell his command- ing officer that he could n't do it, even when or- dered to crowd two guns into a belfry that was only big enough for one. But his one gun did the business. It scattered the enemy, cleared the path for a final assault, and ULYSSES S. GRANT. 373 induced the Mexicans to beg off from such an as- sault by running up the white flag of surrender, and opening the gates of Mexico to General Scott and his conquering northern army. And it brought a promotion to the grade of cap- tain for this young lieutenant, Ulysses Simpson Grant, Fourth United States Infantry. For he was mentioned for bravery, in special despatches, and though he was as modest as Hobson the people who admire pluck picked him out as a hero. Pluck was a distinguishing feature of U. S. Grant. As boy and man he displayed this quality again and again, from his wrestle with the balky colt as an Ohio farm-boy to his struggle with pain as the world's foremost soldier. His story is a simple one, as are the stories of most great men. He was born in a country village of Ohio, known as Point Pleasant, on the banks of the Ohio river, on the twenty-seventh of April, 1822. His father was a successful tanner of that region, who when Ulysses was about a year old moved to the village of Georgetown, about twenty miles away, for the purpose of increasing his tannery plant. Ulysses Grant Hiram Ulysses was his real name was a strong, healthy, go-ahead little fellow who did not greatly enjoy going to school, and did not at all like the tannery business. But if he had anything to do, either in work or play and whether he liked it or not, he went ahead and did it, because it was the thing to do. 374 HISTORIC AMERICANS. One day a great opportunity came to this Ohio boy, although he really did not desire it ; he ob- tained an appointment to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point and study to be a soldier. He went even against his will, because he saw it was best for him to do so, and- after four years of thorough training he graduated, not very high up in his class, but still with the record of having been a fair scholar and a splendid horseman, and, on the thirteenth of June, 1843, he was commis- sioned a brevet second lieutenant in the United States army. It was when he entered West Point that, by a mistake in entry and by his own silence, as well as the complicated system that makes it hard to rec- tify a mistake, he was entered on the books of the military academy as Ulysses Simpson Grant and that is the name by which he went into history. He fought through the Mexican war with con- spicuous bravery, even though he was not obliged to fight, because he was quartermaster of his regi- ment. But Lieutenant Grant was not the man to shirk responsibility or to dodge duty. After the war he went with his regiment to Ore- gon, by way of the Isthmus of Panama. On the isthmus the regiment was starved by inefficiency and stricken with the cholera ; but Grant, as quarter- master of his regiment, fought the plague, inspired with confidence the panic-stricken men and women ULYSSES S. GRANT. 375 under his charge, forced the inefficient contractors to furnish food and transportation, and, at last, got his command across the deadly isthmus and aboard the transports, and not only learned by his expe- rience, but taught by his example those lessons of foresight, determination, and watchfulness that strengthened a character that was to mean great things for his native land. A doleful experience in barracks on the Ore- gon coast led finally to his resignation from the army. For eleven years he had been a soldier of the Republic, which, for a man who detested Avar and abhorred fighting, was a good record of devotion to duty. But he had married a wife ; he felt that he owed a duty to himself, as well as the Republic, and so, with his brevet of captain made a full commission, he retired from the army in March, 1834, and became a farmer near St. Louis. He was not a success as a farmer ; his health was poor, and it takes some time for a soldier of eleven years' experience to settle down to other work. Somehow things did not go his way, and he tried first one thing and then another. He tried lumbering, real estate, and bill collecting with no better success than farming, and, finally, removed to Galena, in Illinois, where he " clerked " for his father and brother in their tannery and leather store. There he lived unnoticed and unknown, until in 1861 the Civil war broke out. Then, as he had been edu- cated by the Government, he felt that he owed a 376 HISTORIC AMERICANS. duty to the Government, but, because he was a West Point graduate, he felt also that it was due alike to the Trovernment and to himself that he be placed in a position where his knowledge could be put to the best service. He tried to get an army appointment, but could not ; then he accepted the captaincy of a volunteer company, simply to drill them into shape ; and, at last, just as he began to despair of serving his State in the field, he was appointed colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois. Then he began to show what he could do. His training and ability were soon recognized : he was made brigadier-general, and soon after commander of the military district of Cairo, in Southern Il- linois. In that position the test of ability speedily came, and U. S. Grant stood it as few others had done. While they argued he acted. He surprised and captured the Confederate camp at Belmont ; he captured Fort Henry and immediately afterwards For Donelson, deemed impregnable fortifications ; he turned the battle of Shiloh from a defeat to a victory ; and, at last, after cooping up the Southern army in their fortified city of Vicksburg, he be- sieged it so cleverly and determinedly that, at last, on the Fourth of July, 1863, Vicksburg surrendered to Grant, and the Mississippi river was free from the lakes of Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. The tanner's son had become a great and success- ful general. ULYSSES S. GRANT. 377 This important victory made Grant a major- general in the United States Army. He was given command of a great section called the Military Division of the Mississippi, and at once began an active campaign against the Confederates of South- ern Tennessee. He won the battle of Chattanooga, said by military critics to have been " one of the most remarkable battles in history ; " he relieved the great mountain plateau between the Alleghan- ies and the Mississippi of hostile troops, and rose to the command of all the armies of the United States, as Lieutenant-General Grant. Thereupon he took charge of the war in the east, and, as leader of the Army of the Potomac, he fought the brave Confederates and their able leader, General Lee, for a whole year, in a series of some of the bloodiest battles of history. General Grant, as I have told you, deplored and detested war. But once engaged in it, he fought to win. " Give the enemy no rest ; strike him, and keep striking him. The war must be ended, and we must end it now." That was his theory of war, and he fought straight on, never halting in his opinion, never wavering in his actions, saying to those who ques- tioned him : " I shall fight it out on this line if it takes all summer." Thereupon the people and the president .knew that they had a soldier to rely on, a man with a 378 HISTORIC AMERICANS. genius for successful war, a general who never took one backward step. In just thirteen months after Grant assumed his command as head of the Amer- ican army the end came, and, in the apple-orchard at Appomattox, the last stand was made, the last gun was fired, the white flarg fluttered for a truce, and in the little McLean farmhouse the two great opposing generals met in conference, and the Southern army laid down its arms in surrender. Then General Grant won a greater victory through kindness. For where he might have been harsh he was magnanimous. He was not one to exult over a valiant but fallen foeman. " They are Americans, and our brothers," he said. He, gave them back their horses, so that they could plough their farms for planting ; he gave them food and clothes, and sent them all home to their families. " The war is over," he said to North and South alike. "Let us have peace." Of course, his great success made him a hero. He was one. But he bore his honors modestly. He hated to be made a show of, he declared ; for he was a quiet, unpretentious, and silent man. This, of course, made him all the more popular, for the world ranks that man highly who shows himself modest in success and magnanimous in vic- tory. His own land, indeed, thought so much of him that the Republic called him to its highest place, and Ulysses S. Grant was twice elected pres- ident of the United States. ULYSSES S. GRANT. 379 He served as chief magistrate of the Republic in a hard and stormy time the period of recon- struction. Aiming to deal justly with all men, he made many enemies ; he may have made mistakes, but he kept to his course as steadily and per- sistently as when he was a leader in the field. To-day people begin to realize how wise and able a president he was, and as that time of dispute drops farther into the past, the new America, the real union of States, will be found to have come to grandeur and glory largely because of the deter- mined, unyielding, and noble stand of Ulysses S. Grant, who taught the people at once the value of obedience to law, and the greatness of a patriotism that knew only the Republic. His two terms as president came to an end, and then Grant determined to see the world. He saw it under great advantages, for whether he liked it or not he was a great man, and the whole world was glad to do him honor. Kings and princes, queens and rulers, invited him to their palaces ; the great ones of the earth vied in atten- tions and respect. He visited the Queen of Eng- land at Windsor and the Emperor of Germany at. Berlin ; he met the President of France at Paris ; and was the guest alike of the boy King of Spain and the King of Portugal. The Pope at Rome and the King of Italy saw and talked with him. The King of Denmark and the King of Sweden, the Emperor of Austria and the Czar of all the Rus- 380 HISTORIC AMERICANS. sias, the Viceroy of China and the Mikado of Japan, all met and honored the tanner's son who had been conqueror and president, while everywhere the people thronged the ways to see him and shouted their welcomes to one who, from the people, had sprung into greatness and renown. Then he came home again, the same simple, modest, clear-headed, practical American citizen and gentleman, the hero of a nation, who had shown all the world how a man can be a great soldier and a great American and yet be a true- hearted, unpretending, quiet, and high-minded man. But they were to see him fight one other battle. It was the hardest that any man can fight the battle against wrong, dishonor, and death. When General Grant came home again after his journey around the world he did not like to be idle, so he put what money he had into business and began, so he thought, to grow rich. He made his home in New York City, in a fine house presented to him by the people who so honored and admired him, and filled with the mementoes and trophies that told of his success and renown. He had reached the pinnacle of fame. Hon- ored by his countrymen, respected by the world, there was but one thing he desired to leave his children a heritage equal to his fame. For their sake he went into business, hoping much ; but he failed. An unprincipled investor caught the old ULYSSES S. GRANT. 381 soldier in his toils, traded upon the name, the reputation, and the honor of the man who trusted him, and, when the crash came, as come it did, the name, the reputation, and the honor of the great general were dragged in the dust. He was stripped of everything ; he was almost penniless ; all his money was gone and, worse still, others who had trusted in him had lost their money too. This thought quite broke the hero down. The general who had never known defeat was well-nigh defeated at last. It made him sick. It weakened a constitution already undermined by the shock of a fall on the ice, and developed a trouble in his throat that brought him months of suffering, of torture, and of agony. But just as he had marched to battle courage- ously, so, now, he faced disaster as bravely. He set to work to make his losses good, and because all the world wished to hear about his great deeds of war he set himself to the task of writing the story of his life and his campaigns. He kept himself alive to do this. For over a year he fought ruin and a terrible pain as stoutly as he had ever battled with the enemies of the Republic, while the pity of the world went out to him, and kings and beggars sent him words of sympathy. Day after day he labored, while disease battled for the mastery. In June, 1885, he was removed to 382 HISTORIC AMERICANS. a mountain-top near Saratoga, but still he labored on, now brought very near to death, now snatching from pain and weakness another day of respite. So he held death at bay until July. At last his book was completed. He had won his last fight. Then, his work finished, his desire for life was gone. Pain and weakness held him a little longer a sufferer, and then, on the twenty-third of July, 1885, in the cottage on Mount McGregor, the end came quietly; the news spread over the land and to the uttermost ends of the earth. General Grant was dead. The world mourned. Men and women every- where had learned to honor the great general, as much for his victories over disaster, disgrace, and pain as for his conquests in war and his leadership in peace. Amid the tolling of bells and the boom- ing of cannon the Republic laid her greatest soldier to rest, and as she had honored him in life honored him also in death. On the heights of Riverside, overlooking the lordly Hudson and the great and prosperous city of New York, there rises above the ashes of this simple but grand American a splendid monument, which is a landmark for miles around. It seems almost too great a display for one who was himself the most unassuming of men. But it testifies the nation's regard for him who was twice its chief magistrate the Republic's pride in the great soldier whose deeds meant the Republic's salvation. ULYSSES S. GRANT. 383 And, as time goes on, longer than that great gray mausoleum shall stand above his silent dust, while the words honor, duty, courage, simplicity, will, and loyalty mean anything to the world, so long will the nation remember and the Republic revere the name and fame of Ulysses S. Grant. No man is perfect ; all of us make mistakes ; all of us have our shortcomings and imperfections. But, much as his time criticised him, posterity will see that he was both misjudged and misunderstood. Grant was a great man doing great things. But he was also a simple, silent, honest, straightforward soldier, trying to do his duty as he saw it, in his own simple and manly fashion. Sagacious, resolute, energetic, aggressive, auda- cious, courageous, indomitable, indifferent to danger or fatigue, relentless in battle, magnanimous in victory, loyal to principle, faithful to friends, honest, upright, patriotic, national, and American, such was Ulysses S. Grant; and these were the attributes that brought him to success and have made his name forever famous and forever his- toric. From Winthrop to Grant, from the genius of colonization to the genius of victory, these sketches of Historic Americans have carried us steadily for- ward. They have shown us how, by persistence of will, loyalty to conviction, love for the people, for progress, for honor, valor, justice, intelligence, 384 HISTORIC AMERICANS. truth, and right, great minds have builded, gov- erned, guarded, served, and saved the Republic, and handed it down, for the Future to emulate and to improve upon the Past. This the Future will do; for great examples never are in vain. True Americanism lives in these stirring lines of Wood- berry, mindful of the Past, hopeful of the Future : " It cannot be that men who are the seed Of Washington should miss fame's true applause ; Franklin did plan us ; Marshall gave us laws ; And slow the broad scroll grew a people's creed One land and free ! Then, at our dangerous need, Time's challenge coming, Lincoln gave it pause, Upheld the double pillars of the cause, And, dying, left them whole our crowning deed. u Such was the fathering race that made all fast, Who founded us, and spread from sea to sea, A thousand leagues, the zone of liberty, And built for man this refuge from his past Unkinged, unchurched, unsoldiered ; shamed were we, Failing the stature that such sires forecast." A 000049215 7