Transcriber's notes:

 Names have been corrected. "Indianians" changed to "Indianans". 

 LoC call number: E415. 7. J9 1969

POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS

1840 to 1872. 

BYGEORGE W. JULIAN. 

MNEMOSYNE PUBLISHING CO. , INC. MIAMI, FLORIDA1969

Originally Published in Chicago 1884

COPYRIGHTBy JANSEN, McCLURG & CO. , A. D. 1883. 

First Mnemosyne reprinting 1969Reprinted from a copy in theFisk University Library Negro CollectionCopyright ©1969 Mnemosyne Publishing Co. , Inc. Miami, FloridaLibrary of Congress Catalog Card Number:78-83885

PREFACE. 

The following chapters are devoted mainly to facts and incidentsconnected with the development of anti-slavery politics from theyear 1840 to the close of the work of Reconstruction which followedthe late civil war. Other topics, however, are occasionally noticed, while I have deemed it proper to state my own attitude and courseof action respecting various public questions, and to refer moreparticularly to the political strifes of my own State. In doingthis, I have spoken freely of conspicuous personalities in connectionwith their public action, or their peculiar relations to myself;but my aim has been to deal fairly and state only the truth, whilestriving to weave into my story some reminiscences of the men andevents of by-gone times, which may interest the reader. In theendeavor to elucidate the orderly progress of anti-slavery opinionsand their translation into organized action, I have summarized andre-stated many of the familiar facts of current American politicsduring the period embraced; but I hope I have also made a slightcontribution to the sources of history bearing upon a world-famousmovement, touching which we should "gather up the fragments thatnothing be lost. "

 G. W. J. 

CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER I. THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN--THE BEGINNING OF ANTI-SLAVERY POLITICS. The "Hard-cider" Frolic of 1840--The Issues--Swartwout and PoliticalCorruption--The Demand for a Change--Character of Gen. Harrison--Personal Defamation--Mass-meetings and Songs--Crushing Defeat ofthe Democrats--First Appearance of the Slavery Issue in Politics--Pro-slavery Attitude of Harrison and Van Buren--Events favoringthe Growth of Anti-slavery Opinion--Clay and Mendenhall--Texas'Annexation and John Tyler. 

CHAPTER II. CAMPAIGN OF 1844--ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. The Nomination of Clay--His Position on the Slavery Question andAnnexation--Van Buren's Letter to Hammett, and its Effect upon theSouth--His Repudiation, and the Nomination of Polk--The Surpriseof the Country--Unbounded Confidence of the Whigs--The Course ofthe New York Democrats--The "Kane Letter"--Trouble among the Whigson the Annexation Question--Fierceness of the Contest, and singularAbility of the Leaders--The Effect of Clay's Defeat upon the Whigs--Causes of the Defeat--The Abolitionists, and the Abuse heapedupon them--Cassius M. Clay--Mr. Hoar's Mission to South Carolina--Election of John P. Hale--Annexation, and War with Mexico--Polk'sMessage, and the Wilmot Proviso--The Oregon Question, and Alex. H. Stephens. 

CHAPTER III. CAMPAIGN OF 1848--ITS INCIDENTS AND RESULTS. Approach of another Presidential Campaign--Party Divisions threatenedby the Wilmot Proviso--Nomination of Gen. Cass--The "NicholsonLetter"--Democratic Division in New York--Nomination of Gen. Taylor--Whig Divisions--Birth of the Free Soil Party--Buffalo Convention--Nomination of Van Buren and Adams--Difficulty of uniting on VanBuren--Incidents--Rev. Joshua Leavitt--Work of the Campaign--Websterand Free Soil--Greeley and Seward--Abuse of Whig Bolters--RemarkableResults of the Canvass. 

CHAPTER IV. REMINISCENCES OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. Novel Political Complications--Compromise Measures--First Electionto Congress--Sketch of the "Immortal Nine"--The Speakership andWm. J. Brown--Gen. Taylor and the Wilmot Proviso--SlaveholdingBluster--Compromise Resolutions of Clay and Retreat of NorthernWhigs--Visit to Gen. Taylor--To Mr. Clay--His Speeches--Webster'sSeventh of March Speech--Calhoun--Speech on the Slavery Question. 

CHAPTER V. THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS (CONTINUED). Fracas between Col. Benton and Senator Foster--Character of Benton--Death of Gen. Taylor--The Funeral--Defeat of the "Omnibus Bill"--Its Triumph in Detail--Celebration of the Victory--"Lower Law"Sermons and "Union-Saving" Meetings--Slaveholding Literature--Mischievous Legislation--Visit to Philadelphia and Boston--FutileEfforts to suppress Agitation--Andrew Johnson and the HomesteadLaw--Effort to censure Mr. Webster--Political Morality in thisCongress--Temperance--Jefferson Davis--John P. Hale--ThaddeusStevens--Extracts from Speeches--Famous Men in both Houses--FreeSoilers and their Vindication. 

CHAPTER VI. THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Pro-slavery Reaction--Indiana and Ohio--Race for Congress--FreeSoil Gains in other States--National Convention at Cleveland--National Canvass of 1852--Nomination of Pierce and Scott, and the"finality" Platforms--Free Soil National Convention--Nomination ofHale--Samuel Lewis--The Whig Canvass--Webster--Canvass of theDemocrats--Return of New York "Barnburners" to the Party--The FreeSoil Campaign--Stumping Kentucky with Clay--Rev. John G. Fee--Incidents--Mob Law in Indiana--Result of the Canvass--Ruin of theWhigs--Disheartening Facts--The other Side of the Picture. 

CHAPTER VII. THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (CONTINUED). A Notable Fugitive Slave Case--Inauguration of Pierce--Repeal ofthe Missouri Compromise--Its Effects upon the Parties--The FreeSoil Position--Know-Nothingism--The Situation--First Steps in theFormation of the Republican Party--Movements of the Know-Nothings--Mistake of the Free Soilers--Anti-slavery Progress--Election ofBanks as Speaker--Call for a Republican National Convention atPittsburg--Organization of the Party--The Philadelphia Conventionand its Platform--Nomination of Fremont--Know-Nothing and WhigNominations--Democratic Nomination and Platform--The Grand Issueof the Campaign--The Democratic Canvass--The splendid Fight forFremont--Triumph of Buchanan--Its Causes and Results--The Teachingof Events. 

CHAPTER VIII. PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. The Dred Scott Decision--Struggle for Freedom in Kansas--InstructiveDebates in Congress--Republican Gains in the Thirty-fifth Congress--The English Bill--Its Defeat and the Effect--Defection of Douglas--Its Advantages and its Perils--Strange Course of the New YorkTribune and other Papers--Republican Retreat in Indiana--IllinoisRepublicans stand firm, and hold the Party to its Position--Gainsin the Thirty-sixth Congress--Southern Barbarism and Extravagance--John Brown's Raid--Cuba and the Slave-trade--Oregon and Kansas--Aids to Anti-slavery Progress--The Speakership and Helper's Book--Southern Insolence and Extravagance--Degradation of Douglas--Slave-code for the Territories--Outrages in the South--Campaign of 1860--Charleston Convention and Division of the Democrats--Madness ofthe Factions--Bell and Everett--Republican Convention and itsPlatform--Lincoln and Seward--Canvass of Douglas--Campaign forLincoln--Conduct of Seward--Republican Concessions and slave-holdingMadness. 

CHAPTER IX. THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. Visit to Mr. Lincoln--Closing Months of Mr. Buchanan's Administration--Efforts to avoid War--Character of Buchanan--Lincoln's Inauguration--His War Policy--The Grand Army of Office-seekers--The July Sessionof Congress--The Atmosphere of Washington--Battle of Bull Run--Apologetic Resolve of Congress--First Confiscation Act--Gen. Fremont's Proclamation and its Effect--Its Revocation--RegularSession of Congress--Secretary Cameron--Committee on the Conductof the War--Its Conference with the President and his Cabinet--Secretary Stanton and General McClellan--Order to march uponManassas. 

CHAPTER X. THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR (CONTINUED). The Wooden Guns--Conference with Secretary Stanton--His Relationsto Lincoln--Strife between Radicalism and Conservatism--Passage ofthe Homestead Law--Visit to the President--The Confiscation Actand Rebel Land owners--Greeley's "Prayer of Twenty Millions, " andLincoln's Reply--Effort to disband the Republican Party--The Battleof Fredericksburg and General Burnside--The Proclamation ofEmancipation--Visit to Mr. Lincoln--General Fremont--Report of theWar Committee--Visit to Philadelphia and New York--Gerrit Smith--The Morgan Raid. 

CHAPTER XI. INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. Campaigning in Ohio--Attempted Repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law--Organized Movement in Favor of Chase for the Presidency--Confiscationof Rebel Lands--Fort Pillow, and the Treatment of Union Soldiersat Richmond--Mr. Lincoln's Letter to Hodges--Southern HomesteadBill, and Controversy with Mr. Mallory--Nomination of Andrew Johnson--Enforcement of Party Discipline--Mr. Lincoln's Change of Opinionas to Confiscation of Rebel Lands--Opposition to him in Congress--General Fremont and Montgomery Blair--Visit to City Point--Adoptionof the XIII Constitutional Amendment--Trip to Richmond, and Incidents--Assassination of the President--Inauguration of Johnson andAnnouncement of his Policy--Feeling toward Mr. Lincoln--Capitulationof Gen. Johnston. 

CHAPTER XII. RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE--THE LAND QUESTION. Visit of Indianans to the President--Gov. Morton and Reconstruction--Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War--Discussion ofNegro Suffrage and Incidents--Personal Matters--Suffrage in theDistrict of Columbia--The Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment--Breach between the President and Congress--Blaine and Conkling--Land Bounties and the Homestead Law. 

CHAPTER XIII. MINERAL LANDS AND THE RIGHT OF PRE-EMPTION. The Lead and Copper Lands of the Northwest--The gold-bearing Regionsof the Pacific, and their Disposition--A legislative Reminiscence--Mining Act of 1866, and how it was passed--Its deplorable Failure, and its Lesson--Report of the Land Commission--The Right of Pre-emption, and the "Dred Scott Decision" of the Settlers. 

CHAPTER XIV. RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. Gov. Morton and his Scheme of Gerrymandering--The XIV Amendment--Hasty Reconstruction and the Territorial Plan--The Military Bill--Impeachment--An amusing Incident--Vote against Impeachment--TheVote reversed--The popular Feeling against the President--The Trial--Republican Intolerance--Injustice to Senators and to Chief JusticeChase--Nomination of Gen. Grant--Re-nomination for Congress--Personal--Squabble of Place-hunters--XVI Amendment. 

CHAPTER XV. GRANT AND GREELEY. The new Cabinet--Seeds of Party Disaffection--Trip to California--Party Degeneracy--The liberal Republican Movement--Re-nominationof Grant--The Cincinnati Convention--Perplexities of the Situation--The Canvass for Greeley--Its Bitterness--Its peculiar Features--The Defeat--The Vindication of Liberals--Visit to Chase and Sumner--Death of Greeley. 

CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUDING NOTES. Party Changes caused by the Slavery Issue--Notable Men in Congressduring the War--Sketches of prominent Men in the Senate and House--Scenes and Incidents--Butler and Bingham--Cox and Butler--JudgeKelley and Van Wyck--Lovejoy and Wickliffe--Washburn and Donnelly--Oakes Ames--Abolitionism in Washington early in the War--Life atthe Capital--The new Dispensation and its Problems. 

INDEX

POLITICAL RECOLLECTIONS. 

CHAPTER I. THE HARRISON CAMPAIGN--THE BEGINNING OF ANTI-SLAVERY POLITICS. The "hard-cider" frolic of 1840--The issues--Swartwout and politicalcorruption--The demand for a change--Character of Gen. Harrison--Personal defamation--Mass-meetings and songs--Crushing defeat ofthe Democrats--First appearance of the slavery issue in politics--Pro-slavery attitude of Harrison and Van Buren--Events favoringthe growth of anti-slavery opinion--Clay and Mendenhall--Texasannexation and John Tyler. 

Through the influence of early associations, I began my politicallife as a Whig, casting my first presidential ballot for GeneralHarrison, in 1840. I knew next to nothing of our party politics;but in the matter of attending mass-meetings, singing Whig songsand drinking hard cider, I played a considerable part in thememorable campaign of that year. So far as ideas entered into mysupport of the Whig candidate, I simply regarded him as a poor man, whose home was a log cabin, and who would in some way help thepeople through their scuffle with poverty and the "hard times";while I was fully persuaded that Van Buren was not only a gracelessaristocrat and a dandy, but a cunning conspirator, seeking theoverthrow of his country's liberties by uniting the sword and thepurse in his own clutches, as he was often painted on the partybanners. In these impressions I was by no means singular. Theyfilled the air, and seemed to be wafted on every breeze. HoraceGreeley's famous campaign organ, "The Log Cabin, " only gave themvoice and fitting pictorial effect, and he frankly admitted inlater years that his Whig appeals, with his music and wood engravingsof General Harrison's battle scenes, were more "vivid" than "sedatelyargumentative. " No one will now seriously pretend that this wasa campaign of ideas, or a struggle for political reform in anysense. It was a grand national frolic, in which the imprisonedmirth and fun of the people found such jubilant and uproariousexpression that anything like calmness of judgment or real seriousnessof purpose was out of the question in the Whig camp. 

As regards party issues, General Harrison, singularly enough, wasnot a Whig, but an old fashioned States-Rights Democrat of theJeffersonian school. His letters to Harmar Denny and SherrodWilliams committed him to none of the dogmas which defined a Whig. No authentic utterance of his could be produced in which he hadever expressed his agreement with the Whig party on the questionsof a protective tariff, internal improvements, or a national bank. There was very high Whig authority for saying that the bank questionwas not an issue of the canvass, while Van Buren's great measurefor separating the currency from the banks became a law pendingthe Presidential struggle. In fact, it was because no proof ofGeneral Harrison's party orthodoxy could be found, that he wasnominated; and the Whig managers of the Harrisburg Convention feltobliged to sacrifice Henry Clay, which they did through the basestdouble-dealing and treachery, for the reason that his right angledcharacter as a party leader would make him unavailable as a candidate. As to John Tyler, he was not a Whig in any sense. It is true thathe had opposed the removal of the deposits, and voted againstBenton's expunging resolutions, but on all the regular and recognizedparty issues he was fully committed as a Democrat, and was, moreover, a nullifier. The sole proof of his Whiggery was the apocryphalstatement that he wept when Clay failed to receive the nomination, while his political position was perfectly understood by the menwho nominated him. There was one policy only on which they wereperfectly agreed, and that was the policy of avowing no principleswhatever; and they tendered but one issue, and that was a changeof the national administration. On this issue they were perfectlyunited and thoroughly in earnest, and it was idle to deny that ontheir own showing the spoils alone divided them from the Democratsand inspired their zeal. 

The demand of the Whigs for a change was well-founded. SamuelSwartwout, the New York Collector of Customs, had disgraced theGovernment by his defalcations; and, although he was a legacy ofMr. Van Buren's "illustrious predecessor, " and had been "vindicated"by a Senate committee composed chiefly of his political opponents, he was unquestionably a public swindler, and had found shelterunder Mr. Van Buren's administration. He was the most conspicuouspublic rascal of his time, but was far from being alone in hisodious notoriety. The system of public plunder inaugurated byJackson was in full blast, and an organized effort to reform itwas the real need of the hour; but here was the weak point of theWhigs. They proceeded upon the perfectly gratuitous assumptionthat the shameless abuses against which they clamored would bethoroughly reformed should they come into power. They took it forgranted that a change would be equivalent to a cure, and that thepeople would follow them in thus begging the very question on whichsome satisfactory assurance was reasonably required. They seemedtotally unconscious of the fact that human nature is essentiallythe same in all parties, and that a mere change of men without anychange of system would be fruitless. They laid down no programmelooking to the reform of the civil service. They did not condemnit, and their sole panacea for the startling frauds and defalcationsof Van Buren's administration was the imagined superior virtue andpatriotism of the Whigs. In the light of this fact alone, it isimpossible to account for the perfectly unbounded and irrepressibleenthusiasm which swept over the land during the campaign, and sosignally routed the forces of Democracy. Something more than emptypromises and windy declamation was necessary, and that something, in an evil hour, was supplied by the Democrats themselves. 

General Harrison was a man of Revolutionary blood. He commandedthe confidence of the chief Fathers of the Republic. He was a manof undoubted bravery, and had made a most honorable record, bothas a soldier and a civilian, upon ample trial in both capacities. He was unquestionably honest and patriotic, and the fact that hewas a poor man, and a plain farmer of the West, could properly formno objection to his character or his fitness for the Presidency. But the Democratic orators and newspapers assailed him as an"imbecile. " They called him a "dotard" and a "granny. " They saidhe had distinguished himself in war by running away from the enemy. One Democratic journalist spoke of him, contemptuously, as a manwho should be content with a log cabin and a barrel of hard cider, without aspiring to the Presidency. The efforts to belittle hismerits and defile his good name became systematic, and degeneratedinto the most unpardonable personal abuse and political defamation. This was exactly what the Whigs needed to supplement their lack ofprinciples. It worked like a charm. It rallied the Whig masseslike a grand battle-cry. Mass-meetings of the people, such as hadnever been dreamed of before, became the order of the day. Thepeople took the work of politics into their own keeping, and theleaders became followers. The first monster meeting I attendedwas held on the Tippecanoe battle-ground, on the 29th and 30th ofMay. In order to attend it I rode on horseback through the mudand swamps one hundred and fifty miles; but I considered myselfamply compensated for the journey in what I saw and enjoyed. Thegathering was simply immense; and I remember that James Brooks, since conspicuous in our national politics, tried to address themultitude from the top of a huge log cabin. Large shipments ofhard cider had been sent up the Wabash by steamer, and it wasliberally dealt out to the people in gourds, as more appropriateand old-fashioned than glasses. The people seemed to be supremelyhappy, and their faces were so uniformly radiant with smiles thata man who was detected with a serious countenance was at oncesuspected as an unrepentant "Loco-foco. " But by far the largestmeeting of the campaign was that held at Dayton, on the 12th dayof September, where General Harrison spoke at length. He was thefirst "great man" I had seen; and, while gazing into his face withan awe which I have never since felt for any mortal, I was suddenlyrecalled from my rapt condition by the exit of my pocket-book. The number in attendance at this meeting was estimated at twohundred thousand, and I think it could not have been far out ofthe way. I am sure I have never seen it equaled, although I havewitnessed many great meetings within the past forty years. Themarked peculiarity of all the gatherings of this campaign was acertain grotesque pomp and extravagance of representation suggestiveof a grand carnival. The banners, devices and pictures wereinnumerable, while huge wagons were mounted with log cabins, ciderbarrels, canoes, miniature ships, and raccoons. 

But the most distinguishing feature of the campaign was its music. The spirit of song was everywhere, and made the whole land vocal. The campaign was set to music, and the song seriously threatenedto drown the stump speech. Whiggery was translated into a tune, and poured itself forth in doggerel rhymes which seemed to be bornof the hour, and exactly suited to the crisis. I give a fewspecimens, partly from memory, and partly from "The Harrison andLog Cabin Song Book" of 1840, a copy of which is before me:

 What has caused the great commotion, motion, motion, Our country through? It is the ball a-rolling on, on, For Tippecanoe and Tyler too--Tippecanoe and Tyler too; And with them we'll beat little Van, Van, Van; Van is a used up man; And with them we'll beat little Van. 

 Like the rushing of mighty waters, waters, waters, On it will go, And in its course will clear the way For Tippecanoe and Tyler too--Tippecanoe and Tyler too; And with them we'll beat little Van, Van, Van; Van is a used up man; And with them we'll beat little Van. 

The famous "ball" alluded to in this song originated with the Whigsof Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, and was sent by them to a MassConvention held at Baltimore. It was ten or twelve feet in diameter, and upon the ends of it, on blue ground, were stars correspondingin number with the States of the Union. On its wide spaces of redand white stripes various inscriptions were made, including thefollowing, which belongs to the poetry and music of the campaign:

 With heart and soul This ball we roll; May times improve As on we move. 

 This Democratic ball Set rolling first by Benton, Is on another track From that it first was sent on. 

 Farewell, dear Van, You're not our man; To guide the ship, We'll try old Tip. 

The following, sung to the tune of "Old Rosin the Bow, " was quiteas popular:

 Come ye who, whatever betide her, To Freedom have sworn to be true, Prime up with a cup of hard cider, And drink to old Tippecanoe. 

 On top I've a cask of as good, sir, As man from the tap ever drew; No poison to cut up your blood, sir, But liquor as pure as the dew. 

 Parched corn men can't stand it much longer, Enough is as much as we'll bear; With Tip at our head, in October, We'll tumble Van out of the chair. 

 Then ho! for March fourth, forty-one, boys, We'll shout till the heavens' arched blue Shall echo hard cider and fun, boys, Drink, drink, to old Tippecanoe. 

The following kindred verses will be familiar to everybody whoremembers the year 1840:

 Ye jolly young lads of Ohio, And all ye sick Vanocrats, too, Come out from among the foul party, And vote for old Tippecanoe. 

 Good men from the Van jacks are flying, Which makes them look kinder askew, For they see they are joining the standard With the hero of Tippecanoe. 

 They say that he lived in a cabin, And lived on old cider, too; Well, what if he did? I'm certain He's the hero of Tippecanoe. 

I give the following verses of one of the best, which used to besung with tremendous effect:

 The times are bad, and want curing; They are getting past all enduring; Let us turn out Martin Van Buren, And put in old Tippecanoe. The best thing we can do, Is to put in old Tippecanoe. 

 It's a business we all can take part in, So let us give notice to Martin That he must get ready for sartin', For we'll put in old Tippecanoe. The best thing we can do Is to put in old Tippecanoe. 

 We've had of their humbugs a plenty; For now all our pockets are empty; We've a dollar now where we had twenty, So we'll put in old Tippecanoe. The best thing we can do, Is to put in old Tippecanoe. 

The following verses are perfectly characteristic:

 See the farmer to his meal Joyfully repair; Crackers, cheese and cider, too, A hard but homely fare. 

 Martin to his breakfast comes At the hour of noon; Sipping from a china cup, With a golden spoon. 

 Martin's steeds impatient wait At the palace door; Outriders behind the coach And lackeys on before. 

After the State election in Maine, a new song appeared, which atonce became a favorite, and from which I quote the following:

 And have you heard the news from Maine, And what old Maine can do? She went hell bent for Governor Kent, And Tippecanoe and Tyler too, And Tippecanoe and Tyler too. 

Such was this most remarkable Whig campaign, with its monstermeetings and music, its infinite drolleries, its rollicking fun, and its strong flavor of political lunacy. As to the canvass ofthe Democrats, the story is soon told. In all points it was thereverse of a success. The attempt to manufacture enthusiasm failedsignally. They had neither fun nor music in their service, andthe attempt to secure them would have been completely overwhelmedby the flood on the other side. It was a melancholy struggle, andconstantly made more so by the provoking enthusiasm and unboundedgood humor of the Whigs. It ended as a campaign of despair, whileits humiliating catastrophe must have awakened inexpressibledisappointment and disgust both among the leaders and masses ofthe party. 

This picture of party politics, forty-three years ago, is not veryflattering to our American pride, but it simply shows the workingof Democratic institutions in dealing with the "raw material" ofsociety and life at that time. The movement of 1840 was necessarilytransient and provisional, while underneath its clatter and nonsensewas a real issue. It was unrecognized by both parties, but it madeits advent, and the men who pointed its way quietly served noticeupon the country of their ulterior purposes. 

As long ago as the year 1817, Charles Osborn had established ananti-slavery newspaper in Ohio, entitled "The Philanthropist, "which was followed in 1821 by the publication of Benjamin Lundy's"Genius of Universal Emancipation. " In 1831 the uprising of slavesin Southampton County, Virginia, under the lead of Nat. Turner, had startled the country and invited attention to the question ofslavery. In the same year Garrison had established "The Liberator, "and in 1835 was mobbed in Boston, and dragged through its streetswith a rope about his neck. In 1837 Lovejoy had been murdered inAlton, Illinois, and his assassins compared by the Mayor of Bostonto the patriots of the Revolution. In 1838 a pro-slavery mob hadset fire to Pennsylvania Hall, in Philadelphia, and defied the cityauthorities in this service of slavery. President Jackson and AmosKendall, his Postmaster General, had openly set the Constitutionat defiance by justifying the rifling of the mails and the suppressionof the circulation of anti-slavery newspapers in the South. The"gag" resolutions had been introduced in the House of Representativesin 1836, which provoked the splendid fights of Adams, Giddings andSlade for the right of petition and the freedom of speech. Dr. Channing had published his prophetic letter to Henry Clay, on theannexation of Texas, in 1837, and awakened a profound interest inthe slavery question on both sides of the Atlantic. We had beendisgraced by two Florida wars, caused by the unconstitutionalespousal of slavery by the General Government. President Van Burenhad dishonored his administration and defied the moral sense ofthe civilized world by his efforts to prostitute our foreign policyto the service of slavery and the slave trade. In February, 1839, Henry Clay had made his famous speech on "Abolitionism, " and thusrecognized the bearing of the slavery question upon the presidentialelection of the following year. The Abolitionists had laid siegeto the conscience and humanity of the people, and their moralappeals were to be a well-spring of life to the nation in its finalstruggle for self-preservation; but as yet they had agreed upon noorganized plan of action against the aggressions of an institutionwhich threatened the overthrow of the Union and the end of Republicangovernment. But now they were divided into two camps, the largerof which favored political action, organized as a party, andnominated, as its candidate for President, James G. Birney, whoreceived nearly seven thousand votes. 

This was a small beginning, but it was the beginning of the end. That slavery was to be put down without political action in agovernment carried on by the ballot was never a tenable proposition, and the inevitable work was at last inaugurated. It was doneopportunely. Harrison and Van Buren were alike objectionable toanti-slavery men who understood their record. To choose betweenthem was to betray the cause. Van Buren had attempted to shelterthe slave trade under the national flag. He had allied himself tothe enemies of the right of petition and the freedom of debate, asthe means of conciliating the South. He had taken sides withJackson in his lawless interference with the mails at the biddingof slave-holders. In a word, he had fairly earned the descriptionof "a Northern man with Southern principles. " General Harrison, on the other hand, was a pro-slavery Virginian. While Governor ofIndiana Territory he had repeatedly sought the introduction ofslavery into that region through the suspension of the ordnance of1787, which had forever dedicated it to freedom. He had takensides with the South in 1820 on the Missouri question. He had nosympathy with the struggle of Adams and his associates, againstthe gag and in favor of the right of petition, and regarded thediscussion of the slavery question as unconstitutional. The firstdraft of his inaugural was so wantonly offensive to the anti-slaveryWhigs who had aided in his election, that even Mr. Clay condemnedit, and prevailed on the General to modify it. He had declaredthat "the schemes of the Abolitionists were fraught with horrors, upon which an incarnate devil only could look with approbation. "With such candidates the hour had fairly struck for anti-slaverymen, who believed in the use of the ballot, to launch the grandmovement which was finally to triumph over all opposition; whileto oppose this movement, however honestly, was to encourage men tochoose between parties equally untrustworthy, and by thus prolongingtheir rule to defeat all practical anti-slavery work. It was thesingular mistake of the non-voting Abolitionists at this time, that, while they looked forward to political action as the ultimateresult of their moral agitation, they vehemently opposed theformation of an anti-slavery political party, and either withheldtheir votes or divided them between these pro-slavery chieftains, though giving by far the larger proportion to the Whig candidate. 

From this time forward anti-slavery progress was more marked. Thestruggle over the right of petition in Congress continued, and wascharacterized by a constantly increasing measure of fierceness onthe part of the South. This is vividly depicted in a passage fromthe diary of Mr. Adams, in March, 1841, in which he declares that"The world, the flesh, and all the devils in hell are arrayedagainst any man who now, in this North American Union, shall dareto join the standard of Almighty God to put down the African slavetrade; and what can I, upon the verge of my seventy-fourth birthday, with a shaking hand, a darkening eye, a drowsy brain, and with allmy faculties dropping from me one by one as the teeth are droppingfrom my head, what can I do for the cause of God and man, for theprogress of human emancipation, for the suppression of the Africanslave-trade? Yet my conscience presses me on; let me but die uponthe breach. "

The celebrated trial of Mr. Adams the following year, for presentinga petition from the citizens of Haverhill, requesting Congress totake steps toward a peaceable dissolution of the Union, was a greatnational event, and his triumph gave a new impulse to the cause offreedom. The censure of Mr. Giddings which followed, for offeringresolutions in the House embodying the simplest truisms respectingthe relations of the General Government to slavery, and the elaborateState paper of Mr. Webster, which provoked these resolutions, inwhich he attempted to commit the Government to the protection ofslavery on the high seas, in accordance with the theories of Mr. Calhoun, still further kept alive the anti-slavery agitation, andawakened the interest of Northern men. A kindred aid, unwittinglyrendered the anti-slavery cause, was the infamous diplomacy ofGeneral Cass, our Ambassador to France in 1842, in connection withthe Quintuple Treaty for the suppression of the African slave trade. His monstrous effort to shield that trade under the flag of theUnited States was characterized by Mr. Adams as "a compound ofYankee cunning, of Italian perfidy, and of French _légéreté_, cemented by shameless profligacy unparalleled in American diplomacy. "In October, 1842, Henry Clay himself became an anti-slavery agitatorthrough his famous "Mendenhall Speech" at Richmond, Indiana. Inresponse to a petition asking him to emancipate his slaves, he toldthe people "that whatever the law secures as property _is_ property, "and described his slaves as "being well fed and clad, " and aslooking "sleek and hearty. " "Go home, Mr. Mendenhall, " said he, "and mind your own business, and leave other people to take careof theirs. " Mr. Mendenhall was an anti-slavery Quaker; but Mr. Clay, while rebuking him severely, took pains to compliment thesociety itself on its practically pro-slavery attitude, and thusstung into redoubled earnestness and zeal the men who had recentlybeen driven out of it on account of their "abolitionism. " On theday following this speech, which was the Sabbath, he was escortedto the yearly meeting by Elijah Coffin, its clerk, seated in a veryconspicuous place, honored by every mark of the most obsequiousdeference, and thus made the instrument of widening the breachalready formed in the society, while feeding the anti-slavery fireswhich he was so anxious to assuage. 

The work of agitation was still further kept alive by conflictsbetween the Northern and Southern States respecting the reclamationof fugitives from crime. Virginia had demanded of New York thesurrender of three colored sailors who were charged with havingaided a slave to escape. Governor Seward refused to deliver themup, for the reason that the Constitutional provision on the subjectmust be so understood as that States would only be required tosurrender fugitives accused of an offense considered a crime inthe State called upon to make the surrender as well as in the Stateasking for it. Similar controversies occurred between other States, in all of which the South failed in her purpose. The anti-slaveryspirit found further expression in 1843 in Massachusetts, whoseLegislature resolved to move, through the Representatives of theState in Congress, an Amendment to the Constitution, basingrepresentation on the free population only of the States; whichproposition gave rise to a most memorable debate in the nationalHouse of Representatives. It was in the August of the same yearthat the voting Abolitionists held a National Convention in Buffalo, in which all the free States, except New Hampshire, were represented;while in the following year the Methodist Episcopal Church was rentin twain by the same unmanageable question, which had previouslydivided other ecclesiastical communions. 

In the meanwhile, the question of Texan annexation had been steadilyadvancing to the political front, and stirring the blood of thepeople both North and South. This "robbery of a realm, " as Dr. Channing had styled it, was the unalterable purpose and unquenchabledesire of the slave-holding interest, and its accomplishment wasto be secured by openly espousing the principle that the endjustifies the means, and setting all consequences at defiance. This is exactly what the Government did. The diplomacy throughwhich the plot was prosecuted was marked by a cunning, audacity, and perfidy, which, in these particulars, leave the administrationof John Tyler unrivalled in its ugly pre-eminence, and form one ofthe blackest pages in the history of the Republic. The momentousquestion was now upon us; and on the dawning of the year 1844, allparties saw that it was destined to be the overshadowing issue inthe ensuing presidential campaign. 

CHAPTER II. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1844--ANNEXATION AND SLAVERY. The nomination of Clay--His position on the slavery question andannexation--Van Buren's letter to Hammet, and its effect upon theSouth--His repudiation, and the nomination of Polk--The surpriseof the country--Unbounded confidence of the Whigs--The course ofthe New York Democrats--The "Kane Letter"--Trouble among the Whigson the annexation question--Fierceness of the contest, and singularability of the leaders--The effect of Clay's defeat upon the Whigs--Causes of the defeat--The Abolitionists, and the abuse heapedupon them--Cassius M. Clay--Mr. Hoar's mission to South Carolina--Election of John P. Hale--Annexation and war with Mexico--Polk'smessage, and the Wilmot proviso--The Oregon question, and Alex. H. Stephens. 

The times were serious. The fun and frolic of 1840 had borne nofruit, and that part of our history could not be repeated. Thecampaign of 1844 promised to be a struggle for principle; and amongthe Whigs all eyes were turned for a standard-bearer to Mr. Clay, who had been so shabbily treated four years before. He wasunanimously nominated on the first of May, with Theodore Frelinghuysenas the candidate for Vice President. The party issues were notvery sharply defined, but this was scarcely necessary with acandidate who was proverbially regarded as himself "the embodimentof Whig principles. " On the subject of annexation, he clearlydefined his position in his letter of the 17th of April to the"National Intelligencer. " He declared that annexation and war withMexico were identical, and placed himself squarely against it, except upon conditions specified, which would make the project ofimmediate annexation impossible. On the slavery question, he hadnot yet seriously offended the anti-slavery element in his ownparty, and was even trusted by some of the voting anti-slavery men. In a speech at Raleigh, in April of this year, he declared it tobe "the duty of each State to sustain its own domestic institutions. "He had publicly said that the General Government had nothing to dowith slavery, save in the matters of taxation, representation, andthe return of fugitive slaves. He had condemned the censure ofMr. Giddings in 1842 as an outrage, and indorsed the principleslaid down in his tract, signed "Pacificus, " on the relations ofthe Federal Government to slavery, and the rights and duties ofthe people of the free States. In his earlier years, he had beenan outspoken emancipationist, and had always frankly expressed hisopinion that slavery was a great evil. These considerations, andespecially his unequivocal utterances against the annexation scheme, were regarded as hopeful auguries of a thoroughly united party, and its triumph at the polls; while Mr. Webster, always on thepresidential anxious-seat, and carefully watching the signs of thepolitical zodiac, now cordially lent his efforts to the Whig cause. 

With the Democracy, Mr. Van Buren was still a general favorite. His friends felt that the wrong done him in 1840 should now berighted, and a large majority of his party undoubtedly favored hisrenomination. But his famous letter to Mr. Hammet, of Mississippi, dated March 27th, on the annexation of Texas, placed a lion in hispath. In this lengthy and elaborate document he committed himselfagainst the project of immediate annexation, and the effect was atonce seen in the decidedly unfriendly tone of Democratic opinionin the South. He had been faithful to the Slave oligarchy in manythings, but his failure in one was counted a breach of the wholelaw. By many acts of patient and dutiful service he had earnedthe gratitude of his Southern task-masters; but now, when drivento the wall, he mustered the courage to say, "Thus far, no farther";and for this there was no forgiveness. General Jackson came tohis rescue, but it was in vain. The Southern heart was set uponimmediate annexation as the golden opportunity for rebuilding theendangered edifice of slavery, and Mr. Van Buren's talk aboutnational obligations and the danger of a foreign war was treatedas the idle wind. The Southern Democrats were bent upon hisoverthrow, and they went about it in the Baltimore Convention ofthe 27th of May as if perfectly conscious of their power over theNorthern wing of the party. They moved and carried the "two-thirdsrule, " which had been acted on in the National Convention of 1832, and afterward in that of 1835, although this could not have beendone without the votes of a majority of the convention, which wasitself strongly for Van Buren. The rule was adopted by a considerablemajority, the South being nearly unanimous in its favor, while theNorth largely "supplied the men who handed Van Buren over to hisenemies with a kiss. " Even General Cass, the most gifted andaccomplished dough-face in the Northern States, failed to receivea majority of the votes of the Convention on any ballot, and JamesK. Polk was finally nominated as the champion of immediate annexation, with George M. Dallas as the candidate for Vice President. 

The nomination was a perfect surprise to the country, because Mr. Polk was wholly unknown to the people as a statesman. Like GovernorHayes, when nominated in 1876, he belonged to the "illustriousobscure. " The astonished native who, on hearing the news, suddenlyinquired of a bystander, "Who the devil is Polk?" simply echoedthe common feeling, while his question provoked the general laughterof the Whigs. For a time the nomination was somewhat disappointingto the Democrats themselves; but they soon rallied, and finallywent into the canvass very earnestly, and with a united front. The Whigs began the campaign in high hopes and in fact with unboundedconfidence in their success. Their great captain was in command, and they took comfort in his favorite utterance that "truth isomnipotent, and public justice certain. " To pit him against sucha pigmy as Polk seemed to them a miserable burlesque, and theycounted their triumph as already perfectly assured. They claimedthe advantage on the question of annexation, and still more as tothe tariff, since the act of 1842 was popular, and Polk was knownto be a free-trader of the Calhoun school. As the canvass proceeded, however, it became evident that the fight was to be fierce andbitter to the last degree, and that the issue, after all, was notso certain. Mr. Polk, notwithstanding his obscurity, was able torouse the enthusiasm of his party, North and South, to a veryremarkable degree. The annexation pill was swallowed by manyDemocrats whose support of him had been deemed morally impossible. In New York, where the opposition was strongest, leading Democrats, with William Cullen Bryant as their head, denounced the annexationscheme and repudiated the paragraph of the National platform whichfavored it, and yet voted for Polk, who owed his nomination solelyto the fact that he had committed himself to the policy of immediateand unconditional annexation, thus anticipating the sickly politicalmorality of 1852, when so many men of repute tried in vain to saveboth their consciences and their party orthodoxy by "spitting uponthe platform and swallowing the candidate who stood upon it. "History will have to record that the action of these New YorkDemocrats saved the ticket in that State, and justly attaches tothem the responsibility for the very evils to the country againstwhich they so eloquently warned their brethren. The power of thespoils came in as a tremendous make-weight, while the party lashwas vigorously flourished, and the "independent voter" was ashateful to the party managers on both sides as we find him to-day. Those who refused to wear the party collar were branded by the"organs" as a "pestiferous and demoralizing brood, " who deserved"extermination. " Discipline was rigorously enforced, and made totake the place of argument. As regards the tariff question, Mr. Polk's letter to Judge Kane, of Philadelphia, of the 19th of June, enabled his friends completely to turn the tables on the Whigs ofPennsylvania, where "Polk, Dallas, and the tariff of 1842, " wasblazoned on the Democratic banners, and thousands of Democrats wereactually made to believe that Polk was even a better tariff manthan Clay. This letter, committing its free-trade author to theprinciple of a revenue tariff, with "reasonable incidental protectionto our home industries, " was translated into German and printed inall the party papers; and as a triumphant effort to make the peoplebelieve a lie, and a masterpiece of political duplicity employedby the great party as a means of success, it had no precedent inAmerican politics. In later times, however, it has been completelyeclipsed by the scheme of "tissue ballots, " and other wholesalemethods of balking the popular will in the South, by the successfuleffort to cheat the nation out of the right to choose its ChiefMagistrate in 1876, and by the startling bribery of a greatcommonwealth four years later, now unblushingly confessed by theparty leaders who accomplished it. 

In the meantime the spirit of discontent began to manifest itselfamong the Whigs of the South respecting Mr. Clay's attitude on thequestion of annexation, and in a moment of weakness he wrote hisunfortunate "Alabama letter, " of the 27th of July. In that letterhe said: "I do not think the subject of slavery ought to affectthe question one way or the other. Whether Texas be independentor incorporated into the United States, I do not believe it willprolong or shorten the duration of that institution. " He alsodeclared that he would be "glad to see it, without dishonor, withoutwar, with the common consent of the Union, and upon just and fairterms. " These words were perfectly chilling to his anti-slaverysupporters, who were utterly opposed to annexation on _any_ terms, because the power of slavery would thus inevitably be extended andstrengthened in the United States. The letter was an irreparablemistake. It was a fresh example of his besetting tendency tomediate between opposing policies, and undoubtedly drove from hissupport many who would otherwise have followed the Whig banner tothe end. 

But the Whigs kept up the fight. The issues were joined, and itwas too late to change front. The real question in dispute wasthat of annexation, and the election of Polk was certain to secureit, and to involve the nation in war. Clay was unquestionablyright in saying that annexation and war were identical; and, althoughon the slavery question he might be feared as a compromiser, therewas no reason to doubt that, if elected, he would vigorously resistthe annexation scheme, except upon conditions already stated, whichcould not fail to defeat it as a present measure and avoid thecalamities of war. I was inexpressibly disappointed and grievedby his letter; but I agreed with Cassius M. Clay, that oppositionto annexation except "with the common consent of the Union" waspractically absolute opposition, and I therefore kept up the fightin which I had enlisted in the beginning and made my first ventureas a stump speaker. I cared little about the old party issues. I had outgrown the teachings of the Whigs on the subject ofprotection, and especially their pet dogma of "the higher the dutythe lower the price of the protected article. " As to a nationalbank, I followed Webster, who had pronounced it "an obsolete idea";and I totally repudiated the land policy of the Whigs, having atthat early day espoused the principle that the public lands shouldcease to be a source of revenue, and be granted in small homesteadsto the landless poor for actual settlement and tillage. But onthe subject of slavery, though it had escaped my attention in thehurrah of 1840, I was thoroughly aroused. This came of my Quakertraining, the speeches of Adams and Giddings, the anti-slaverynewspapers, and the writings of Dr. Channing, all of which I hadbeen reading with profound interest since the Harrison Campaign. Being perfectly sure that annexation would lead to slavery-extensionand war, I thought it my clear and unhesitating duty to resist theelection of Polk with all my might. This I did to the end, and indoing it I employed substantially the same arguments on which Ijustified my separation from the Whigs four years later. 

The contest proceeded with its variety of charges and counter-charges, and was prosecuted on both sides with extraordinary vigorand zeal in every part of the Union. I think it was everywhereand pre-eminently a struggle between the men of brains on eitherside. I am quite sure this was true in my own State. Indiana wasremarkable at that time, not only for her gifted stump orators, but for her men of real calibre and power of argument. On the sideof the Whigs were such men as Oliver H. Smith, Joseph G. Marshall, George G. Dunn, Joseph L. White, Richard W. Thompson, Caleb B. Smith, George H. Proffit, Henry S. Lane, Samuel W. Parker, andJames H. Cravens. The Democrats could boast of Tilghman A. Howard, James Whitcomb, Edward A. Hannegan, William W. Wick, John Law, Joseph A. Wright, Jesse D. Bright, John W. Davis, Thomas J. Henly, and John L. Robinson. The best talking talent of the nation wascalled into service, including such Democratic giants as Thomas H. Benton, William Allen, Silas Wright, Robert J. Walker, JamesBuchanan, and Daniel S. Dickinson; and such Whigs to match them asDaniel Webster, Rufus Choate, Thomas F. Marshall, Thomas Corwin, S. S. Prentiss, Thomas Ewing, and W. C. Preston. The fight wasmore ably if not more hotly contested than any preceding nationalstruggle, raging and blazing everywhere, while the forces marshaledagainst each other were more evenly balanced than in any contestsince the year 1800. The race was so close that the result hungin agonizing doubt and suspense up to the evening following theelection. Party feeling rose to a frenzy, and the consuming desireof the Whigs to crown their great Chief with the laurels of victorywas only equaled by that of the Democrats for the triumph of theunknown Tennessean whose nomination had provoked the aggravatinglaughter of the enemy in the beginning. 

It is not possible to describe the effect of Mr. Clay's defeat uponthe Whigs. It was wholly unexpected, and Mr. Clay especiallyremained sanguine as to his triumph up to the last moment. Whenthe result became known, it was accepted by his friends as a greatnational calamity and humiliation. It shocked and paralyzed themlike a great tragedy. I remember very vividly one zealous Whig, afterward a prominent Free Soiler and Republican leader, who wasso utterly overwhelmed that for a week he lost the power of sleep, and gave himself up to political sorrow and despair. Letters ofthe most heart-felt condolence poured in upon Mr. Clay from allquarters, and the Whigs everywhere seemed to feel that no statesmanof real eminence could ever be made President. They insisted thatan overwhelming preponderance of the virtue, intelligence andrespectability of the country had supported their candidate, whilethe larger element of ignorance and "unwashed" humanity, includingour foreign-born population, gave the victory to Mr. Polk. Theirfaith in republican government was fearfully shaken, while thecauses of the great disaster were of course sought out, and madethe text of hasty but copious moralizings. One of these causeswas the Kane letter, which undoubtedly gave Mr. Polk the State ofPennsylvania. Another was the baneful influence of "nativism, "which had just broken out in the great cities, and been made theoccasion of such frightful riot and bloodshed in Philadelphia asto alarm our foreign-born citizens, and throw them almost unanimouslyagainst the Whigs. The Abolitionists declared that Mr. Clay'sdefeat was caused by his trimming on the annexation question, whichdrew from him a sufficient number of conscientious anti-slaverymen to have turned the tide in his favor. The famous Plaqueminefrauds in Louisiana unquestionably lost that State to Mr. Clay. This infamous conspiracy to strangle the voice of a sovereign Statewas engineered by John Slidell, and it consisted of the shipmentfrom New Orleans to Plaquemine of two steamboats loaded with roughsand villains, whose illegal votes were sufficient to turn the Stateover to the Democrats. 

But the cause of Mr. Clay's defeat which was dwelt upon with mostemphasis and feeling was the action of the Liberty party. Birney, its candidate for President, received 66, 304 votes, and these, itwas alleged, came chiefly from the Whig party. The vote of thesemen in New York and Michigan was greater than the Democraticmajority, so that if they had united with the Whigs, Clay wouldhave been elected in spite of all other opposition. Mr. Polk'splurality over Clay in New York was only 5, 106, while Birney receivedin that State 15, 812; and Horace Greeley insisted that if only onethird of this vote had been cast for Mr. Clay, he would have beenPresident. The feeling of the Whigs against these anti-slaverymen was bitter and damnatory to the last degree. The Plaqueminefrauds, the Kane letter, and everything else, were forgotten inthe general and abounding wrath against these "fanatics, " who weredenounced as the betrayers of their country and of the cause whicha very great and critical opportunity had placed it in their powerto save. "The Abolitionists deserve to be damned, and they willbe, " said a zealous Whig to an anti-slavery Quaker; and this wassimply the expression of the prevailing feeling at this time, atleast in the West. 

But this treatment of the Abolitionists was manifestly unjust. Their organization four years before was neither untimely norunnecessary, but belonged to the inevitable logic of a great anddominating idea. A party was absolutely necessary which shouldmake this idea paramount, and utterly refuse to be drawn away fromit by any party divisions upon subsidiary questions. It should beremembered, too, that the Liberty party was made up of Democraticas well as Whig deserters, and that if it had disbanded, or hadnot been formed, the result of this election would have been thesame. The statement of Mr. Greeley, that one third of Birney'svote in New York would have elected Clay, was unwarranted, unlesshe was able to show what would have been the action of the othertwo thirds. In justice to these Abolitionists it should also beremembered and recorded, to say the very least, that Mr. Clayhimself divided with them the responsibility of his defeat by hisAlabama letter, and that now, in the clear perspective of history, they stand vindicated against their Whig assailants, whose feveredbrains and party intolerance blinded their eyes to the truth. Doubtless there were honest differences of opinion as to the bestmethod of serving the anti-slavery cause in this exasperatingcampaign, and these differences may still survive as an inheritance;but abolitionism, as a working force in our politics, had to havea beginning, and no man who cherishes the memory of the old FreeSoil party, and of the larger one to which it gave birth, willwithhold the meed of his praise from the heroic little band ofsappers and miners who blazed the way for the armies which were tofollow, and whose voices, though but faintly heard in the whirlwindof 1840, were made significantly audible in 1844. Although theywere everywhere totally misunderstood and grossly misrepresented, they clearly comprehended their work and courageously entered uponits performance. Their political creed was substantially identicalwith that of the Free Soilers of 1848 and the Republicans of 1856and 1860. They were anything but political fanatics, and historywill record that their sole offense was the espousal of the truthin advance of the multitude, which slowly and finally followed intheir footsteps. 

But the war against slavery was not at all intermitted by thevictory of the Democrats. Events are schoolmasters, and thistriumph only quickened their march toward the final catastrophe. Cassius M. Clay, who had espoused the Whig cause in this canvasswith great vigor and zeal, and on anti-slavery grounds, re-enlistedin the battle against slavery, and resolved to prosecute it by newmethods. He had been sorely tried by Mr. Clay's Alabama letterand the Whig defeat, but he was now armed with fresh courage, andresolved to "carry the war into Africa" by the establishment ofhis newspaper, the "True American, " in Lexington, in his own State. His arraignment of slavery was so eloquent and masterly that alarge meeting of slave-holders appointed a committee to wait onhim, and request the discontinuance of his paper. His reply was:"Go, tell your secret conclave of cowardly assassins that CassiusM. Clay knows his rights, and how to defend them. " These wordsthrilled all lovers of liberty, and sounded to them like a trumpetcall to battle. Another fruitful event was the effort of Massachusetts, in the fall of this year, to protect her colored seamen in theports of Charleston and New Orleans, where they were seized onmerchant ships and sold into slavery under local police regulations. When Mr. Hoar visited Charleston as the accredited agent of hisState for the purpose of taking measures to test the constitutionalityof these regulations, the Legislature of South Carolina, by a voteof one hundred and nineteen against one, passed a series of outrageousresolutions culminating in a request to the Governor to expel himfrom the State as a confessed disturber of the peace. He wasobliged summarily to depart, as the only means of escaping thevengeance of the mob. This open and insolent defiance of thenational authority could not fail to strengthen anti-slavery opinionin the Northern States. The same end was served by an unexpectedmovement in New Hampshire. This State, like Massachusetts andVermont, had taken ground against annexation, but it wheeled intoline after Polk was nominated. John P. Hale, however, then aDemocratic member of Congress from that State, refused to followhis party, and for this reason, after he had been formally declaredits choice for re-election, he was thrown overboard, and anothercandidate nominated. No election, however, was effected, and hisseat remained vacant during the 29th Congress, but he obtained aseat in the Legislature in 1846, and the following year was chosenUnited States Senator, while Amos Tuck, afterward a prominent FreeSoiler, was elected to the Lower House of Congress. These werepregnant events, and especially the triumph of Hale, who became avery formidable champion of freedom, and a thorn in the side ofslavery till it perished. 

In the meantime the hunger for immediate annexation had been whettedby the election of Mr. Polk, and its champions hurried up theirwork, and pushed it by methods in open disregard of the Constitutionand of our treaty obligations with Mexico. In the last hours ofthe administration of John Tyler the atrocious plot received itsfinishing touch and the Executive approval, and, in the apt wordsof the ablest and fairest historian of the transaction, "the bridaldress in which Calhoun had led the beloved of the slaveocracy tothe Union was the torn and tattered Constitution of the UnitedStates. " War with Mexico, as prophesied by the Whigs, speedilyfollowed. As early as August, 1845, General Taylor was ordered byPresident Polk to advance to a position on the Nueces. In Marchof the following year, in pursuance of further orders, his armyagain advanced, taking its position on the east bank of the RioGrande, and, of course, on the soil of Mexico. Hostilities naturallyfollowed, and after two battles the President, in his message toCongress, declared that "American blood has been shed on Americansoil. " This robust Executive falsehood, with which the slave powercompelled him to face the civilized world, must always hold a veryhigh rank in the annals of public audacity and crime. It is whatThomas Carlyle might have styled "the second power of a lie, " andis only rivaled by the parallel falsehood of Congress in declaringthat "by the act of the Republic of Mexico a state of war existsbetween that Government and the United States. " In the message ofthe President referred to, he recommended that a considerable sumof money be placed at his disposal for the purpose of negotiatinga peace, and it was on the consideration of this message that DavidWilmot fortunately obtained the floor, and moved his memorableproviso for the interdiction of slavery in any territory whichmight be wrested from Mexico by our arms. This was the session ofCongress for 1846-47, and the proposition passed the House withgreat unanimity as to the Northern members. At the followingsession of Congress, on the 28th of February, 1848, the provisoagain came before the House, and the motion to lay it on the tablefailed, all the Whigs and a large majority of the Democrats fromthe free States voting in the negative. It passed the House onthe 13th of December following, on a similar division of partiesand sections, but the Senate refused to concur, and the ThirtiethCongress adjourned without any provisions whatever for the organizationor government of our recently acquired Territories. 

It is worth while to notice in passing that on the first introductionof the Wilmot proviso, in August, 1846, General Cass was decidedlyin its favor, and regretted that it had been talked to death bythe long speech of John Davis; but on the 24th of December, 1847, he wrote his famous "Nicholson letter, " proclaiming his gospel of"popular sovereignty" in the Territories, which proved the seed-plot of immeasurable national trouble and disaster. "I am stronglyimpressed with the opinion, " said he, "that a great change is goingon in the public mind on this subject--in my own mind as well asothers"; and he had before declared, on the 19th of February, thatthe passage of the Wilmot proviso "would be death to the war, deathto all hope of getting an acre of territory, death to theadministration, and death to the Democratic party. " This wasthoroughly characteristic, and in perfect harmony with his action, already referred to, respecting the Quintuple treaty; but it showedhow the political waters were being troubled by the slavery question, and how impossible it was to accommodate the growing anti-slaveryfeeling of the country by any shallow expedients. 

But another conspiracy against freedom was now hatched; and if theSenate had strangled the Wilmot proviso, it was gratifying to findthe House ready to strangle this monster of senatorial birth. Iallude to the now almost forgotten "Clayton Compromise, " whichpassed the Senate by a decided majority on the 26th of July. Bysubmitting the whole question of slavery in all our Territories tothe Supreme Court of the United States, as then constituted, itwould almost certainly have spawned the curse in all of them, including Oregon, which had long been exposed to peril and massacreby the reckless opposition of our slave-masters to a governmentthere without the recognition of slavery. The defeat of thisnefarious proposition, which was happily followed by the passageof a bill giving Oregon a territorial government, is largely dueto Alexander H. Stephens, whose motion to lay it on the table inthe House prevailed by a small majority. In this action he hadthe courage to separate himself from the great body of the leadingmen of his own section; but in doing so he was prompted by hissupreme devotion to slavery. This he has since denied and laboredto explain in his private correspondence and published works, butthe record is fatally against him. He was unwilling to trust theinterests of the South in the hands of the Supreme Court, and hisspeech of August 7th, in the House of Representatives, in defenseof his motion, gave very plausible reasons for his apprehensions;but the Dred Scott decision of a few years later showed how completelyhe misjudged that tribunal, and how opportunely his blindness cameto the rescue of freedom. It seems now to have been providential;for in this Continental plot against liberty the superior sagacityof Calhoun and his associates was demonstrated by subsequent events, while Mr. Stephens, with his great influence in the South, couldalmost certainly have secured its triumph if he had become itschampion instead of its enemy. 

CHAPTER III. THE CAMPAIGN OF 1848--ITS INCIDENTS AND RESULTS. The approach of another presidential campaign--Party divisionsthreatened by the Wilmot proviso--Nomination of Gen. Cass--The"Nicholson Letter"--Democratic division in New York--The nominationof Gen. Taylor--Whig divisions--Birth of the Free Soil party--TheBuffalo Convention--Nomination of Van Buren and Adams--Difficultyof uniting on Van Buren--Incidents--Rev. Joshua Leavitt--The workof the campaign--Mr. Webster and Free Soil--Greeley and Seward--Abuse of Whig bolters--Remarkable results of the canvass. 

The approach of another presidential year was thus marked by asteadily growing interest in the question of slavery. The conflictwith it seemed far more irrepressible than ever before. The Libertyparty had nominated John P. Hale as its candidate in 1847. TheWhigs in Massachusetts were threatened with an incurable divisioninto "Conscience Whigs" and "Cotton Whigs, " growing out of thequestion of annexation and the government of our new Territories. The same causes were dividing the Democrats of New York, and thefeud was seriously aggravated by remembering the defeat of Mr. VanBuren in 1844, for the one sin of opposing the immediate annexationof Texas, while a large majority of the party favored his nomination. The Van Buren element in the Democratic party threatened revolt inother States, while both Whigs and Democrats in the North werecommitted to the policy of the Wilmot proviso. This was to be thegreat question of the ensuing national canvass, and the rousedspirit of the people of the free States seemed clearly to foreshadowthe triumph of freedom in the organization and government of ourMexican acquisitions. 

But the virtue and courage of our politicians were now to be severelytried. The power of party discipline and the tempting bait of thespoils were to be employed as never before in swerving men fromtheir convictions. The South, of course, was a perfect unit, andfully resolved upon the spread of slavery over our Territories. It had always been the absolute master of the Northern Democracy, and had no dream of anything less than the supremacy of its ownwill. Its favorite candidate was now Gen. Cass, and he was nominatedby the Baltimore National Convention on the 22d day of May. Itwas a fit nomination for the party of slavery. He had been thirstingfor it many years, and had earned it by multiplied acts of the mostobsequious and crouching servility to his Southern overseers. Again and again he had crawled in the dust at their feet, and, ifthey could not now reward him with the presidency, it seemed utterlyuseless for any Northern man to hope for their favor. The "Nicholsonletter" was not all that the South wanted, but it was a veryimportant concession, and with Gen. Cass as its interpreter itmeant the nearest thing possible to a complete surrender. In thisNational Convention the State of New York had two sets of delegates, both of which were formally admitted, as a compromise; but themembers of the Van Buren or Free Soil wing refused to take theirseats, and thus held themselves in reserve for such revolutionarywork as should afterward seem to them advisable. 

The Whig National Convention met in Philadelphia on the 7th ofJune. The party seemed completely demoralized by the defeat ofMr. Clay in the previous canvass, and was now in search of "anavailable candidate, " and inspired by the same miserable policy ofexpediency which had been so barren of results in 1840. The NorthernWhigs appeared to be unanimously and zealously committed to theprohibition of slavery in our Territories, but equally unanimousand zealous in the determination to succeed in the canvass. Formore than a year Gen. Taylor had been growing into favor with theparty as a candidate, and he had now become decidedly formidable. The spectacle was a melancholy one, since it demonstrated thereadiness of this once respectable old party to make completeshipwreck of everything wearing the semblance of principle, forthe sake of success. General Taylor had never identified himselfin any way with the Whig party. He had spent his life as a meresoldier on the frontier, and had never given a vote. He had franklysaid he had not made up his mind upon the questions which dividedthe parties. He not only refused to be the exponent of Whigprinciples, but accepted the nomination of bodies of men not knownas Whigs, who scouted the idea of being bound by the acts of anynational convention. He was a very large slave-owner, and thusidentified in interest, and presumably in sympathy, with the South;but he could not be induced to define his position. His activesupporters were chiefly from the slave-holding States and thosefree States which had generally given Democratic majorities, whilethe men most violent in their opposition to the Wilmot proviso werehis most conspicuous followers; but the Whigs from the free Statesvouched for his soundness on the slavery issue. His letterscontained nothing but vague generalities, and he utterly declinedto commit himself on the question that was stirring the nation toits depths. To the different sections of the Union he wore adifferent face, and each section seemed confident that the otherwould be duped, while cordially joining in a common struggle forthe spoils of office which constituted the sole bond of union. His early letters, before he fell into the hands of the politicians, were frank and unstudied, reflecting his character as a plain oldsoldier without any political training; but his later letters werediplomatic, not wanting in style and finish, and obviously writtenby others. His second letter to Allison, on which the campaignwas finally fought, was written in the room of Alexander H. Stephens, in Washington, after consulting with Toombs and Crittenden, andafterward forwarded to Taylor, who gave it to the world as his own. He had constantly about him a sort of political body-guard, or"committee of safety, " to direct his way during the canvass, andno one could reasonably pretend that any principle whatever wouldbe settled by the election. He had whipped the Mexicans, and theWhig platform was "Rough and Ready, " "A little more Grape, CaptainBragg, " and political success. 

The nomination, moreover, was accomplished by methods which madeit exceedingly exasperating to Mr. Clay and his friends. Thetreachery of the Whig managers to their great leader exceeded thatwhich had sacrificed him at the Harrisburg Convention of 1839. The Whigs of Virginia nominated Taylor on the credit of a forgeddispatch, to the effect that Kentucky had decided in his favor, and thus abandoned her favorite son. General Scott had expressedhis willingness to run for Vice President if Clay should be nominatedfor President, but the member of Congress who had been authorizedto make this known kept it a secret. Clay allowed his name to gobefore the Convention on the assurance of Governor Bebb that Ohiowould stand by him, but the delegation voted for Scott. On thefirst ballot, even seven delegates from Kentucky voted for Taylor, and he was nominated by 171 votes, with 63 for Scott, and only 32for Clay. Of the votes for Taylor, on the first ballot, 97 werecast by States that had voted for Polk in 1844; and of the 94 Whigdelegates from the Free States he received the votes of only four. He was nominated as the candidate of the Whigs who believed in theextension of slavery, by a Convention which repeatedly andcontemptuously voted down the Wilmot proviso, already endorsed byall the Whig Legislatures of the Free States, while no platform ofprinciples was adopted; and Horace Greeley was thus perfectlyjustified in branding it as "the slaughter-house of Whig principles. "Such an exhibition of shameless political prostitution has rarelybeen witnessed, and three of the leading Whigs of Massachusetts--Charles Allen, Henry Wilson, and Stephen C. Phillips--left theConvention in disgust, and severed their connection with the partyforever. 

In this state of the country, and of the old parties, a neworganization and another nomination became inevitable. The followersof Mr. Van Buren, in New York and other States, were aching forthe opportunity to make themselves felt in avenging the wrong doneto their chief in 1844, and were quite ready to strike hands withthe members of the Liberty party. The members of that party weregenerally ready to withdraw their candidate for President and unitewith the anti-slavery Whigs and Democrats of the Northern States, if an honorable basis of action could be agreed upon. The "ConscienceWhigs" of Massachusetts, and thousands of Whigs in other States, who regarded the freedom of our Territories as a vital issue, andwere thoroughly soured by the nomination of General Taylor, wereequally anxious to fuse with the other elements of politicaldiscontent, and make their voices heard in a new and independentorganization. There was little time for delay, and as soon as thetroubled political elements would permit, a call was issued for aNational Free Soil Convention, at Buffalo, on the 9th of August. 

The Convention was historic. It marked a new and significantdeparture in party politics, and was a conspicuous milestone inthe anti-slavery journey. It met in a spacious pavilion, and wasone of the largest political gatherings ever assembled in thecountry, and animated by unbounded earnestness and enthusiasm. Its leading spirits were men of character and undisputed ability. The "Barnburners" of New York were largely in attendance, includingsuch veteran leaders as Preston King, Benjamin F. Butler, DavidDudley Field, Samuel J. Tilden, and James W. Nye. Ohio sent aformidable force headed by Joshua R. Giddings, Salmon Chase, andSamuel Lewis. The "Conscience Whigs" of Massachusetts were wellrepresented, with Charles Francis Adams, Stephen C. Phillips, andFrancis W. Bird, in the front. The Liberty party sent its delegates, including such men as the Rev. Joshua Leavitt, Samuel Lewis, andHenry B. Stanton. The disappointed Clay Whigs were there, led bysuch representative men as Joseph L. White, who were eager to layhold of any weapon by which they could hope to strike down thebetrayers of the Whig cause. The "Land Reformers" and "Workingmen"of New York were represented, as also the special advocates of"Cheap postage for the people, " who longed to be rid of the tariffof twenty-five cents on the privilege of sending a single letterthrough the mails, and whose wishes afterward found expression inthe platform. 

Could these elements be harmonized? Could the bolters from theWhig party overcome their traditional hatred of Martin Van Buren?If so, could the Liberty party men be prevailed upon to give uptheir chosen candidate, and labor for the election of the "foxyold politician" whose reputation for tricky and ambidextrouspolitical methods had become proverbial? If not, could theBarnburners, with their large following, be united on the candidateof the Liberty party, or some new man? These questions had to bemet; but preliminary to the nomination was the construction of aplatform. This was accomplished without serious difficulty, and, considering the circumstances of the country, it was perhaps themost admirable declaration of principles ever promulgated by anyparty. It was chiefly the work of Mr. Chase, assisted by CharlesFrancis Adams, Benjamin F. Butler, and others, and it declared, among its pregnant and telling sentences, that "Congress has nomore power to make a slave than to make a king, " and that "it isthe duty of the Federal Government to relieve itself of allresponsibility for the existence or continuance of slavery whereverthat Government possesses authority to legislate and is thusresponsible for its existence. " The reading of these declarationscalled forth thunders of applause, while the last plank in theplatform "resolved, that we inscribe on our banner free soil, freespeech, free labor, and free men, and under it we will fight onand fight ever, until a triumphant victory shall reward ourexertions. "

The nominating Convention assembled in the large Universalist Churchin Buffalo. Mr. Van Buren was not understood as desiring thenomination, but it was now authoritatively stated that he wouldaccept it if tendered, and that he would, without hesitation orevasions, accept the platform of the Convention. The differentelements of this movement had been in conference, and the time foraction was at hand. In common with my Whig associates, I had allalong felt that I could not support Mr. Van Buren under anycircumstances; but the pervading tone of earnestness in theConvention, and the growing spirit of political fraternity, hadmodified our views. We saw that several of the great leaders ofthe Liberty party were quite ready to meet the "Barnburners" oncommon ground. It seemed very desirable to combine with so largea body of helpers, and to profit by their experience and trainingin the school of practical politics. Mr. Van Buren had certainlygone great lengths as the servant of the slave power, but therewas _one_ great and vital issue to freedom on which he had takenthe right side, and maintained it without flinching in the presenceof a great temptation; and for this he had been anathematized bythe South, and driven into retirement. If nominated by the anti-slavery men of the free States, and squarely committed to theirprinciples, it was altogether improbable, if not morally impossible, that he would again lend himself to the service of slavery. Besides, the whole country had been so demoralized by this evil that it wasnot easy to find any public man of eminence whose record had beenspotless; and it was a part of the work of earnest anti-slaverymen to forget party memories and prejudices for the sake of thecause, and to cultivate the virtues of hope and trust, rather thanthe spirit of doubt and suspicion, in dealing with a man who wasnow ready to unfurl the flag of freedom, and had been stricken downby her foes. The nomination of Mr. Van Buren would undoubtedlymean the freedom of our Territories and the denationalization ofslavery, and this was the great point. In this movement there wasno element of compromise. It was wholly unhampered by a Southernwing; and even should the nominee betray the men who now trustedhim, their choice of him, as their standard bearer, would bevindicated by the circumstances of the hour. 

Mr. Chase, then in the prime of his manhood, and a splendid figure, was the president of this nominating Convention, and its workproceeded. There was a feeling of intense anxiety about the result, and an earnestness and real seriousness which I have never witnessedin any other Convention. There were leading Whigs and Libertyparty men, whose action in respect to Mr. Van Buren was not yetgenerally known. Several delegates remarked, "I want to know whatSamuel Lewis will do before I decide, " or, "I want to hear fromJoshua Leavitt. " After the nomination of Mr. Van Buren had beenmoved, Mr. Leavitt rose from his seat, and all eyes were instantlyturned upon him. He was then in middle life, and his tall anderect form and fine physiognomy were singularly striking. He wasfull of emotion, and seemed at first to lack the power of utterance, while the stillness of death prevailed in the Convention. He beganby saying: "Mr. Chairman, this is the most solemn experience ofmy life. I feel as if in the immediate presence of the DivineSpirit. " He paused here for a few moments, while there did notseem to be a dry eye in the Convention; but he proceeded grandlywith his speech, defined his position, and seconded the motion forMr. Van Buren's nomination, upon which the mingled politicalenthusiasm and religious fervor of the Convention broke over allbounds, and utterly defied description. Men laughed and cried atthe same time, and gave themselves up to the perfect abandon oftheir feelings. All divisions had completely died away, and thenomination of Mr. Van Buren by acclamation became a matter ofcourse. Charles Francis Adams was then nominated for Vice President, when the Convention adjourned, and its members returned to theirhomes to prepare for the coming canvass under the banner of "VanBuren and Free Soil--Adams and Liberty. "

The new national party was now launched, and the work of thepresidential canvass began in earnest. John A. Dix, then one ofthe United States Senators from New York, was nominated for Governor, with Seth M. Gates, the anti-slavery colleague of Adams and Giddingsin Congress, for Lieutenant-Governor. The Free Soil State Conventionof Ohio set the ball in motion in that State, and the new party, by securing the balance of power in the Legislature, was able toplace Mr. Chase in the Senate of the United States. Stephen C. Phillips was nominated for Governor in Massachusetts, where themovement was very formidable, and exceedingly annoying to the"Cotton Whigs. " Like conventions were held in Indiana and otherfree States, organizations effected, and candidates nominated, while the movement extended to the border slave states, in whichit afterward did excellent service. The canvass of the Democratswas not remarkably enthusiastic. The division of the party andthe probable loss of the State of New York had a very depressinginfluence. The Whig canvass was perhaps marked by still lessearnestness and spirit. It was hollow and false, and the best menin the party felt it. The only enthusiasm of the campaign was inthe new party, and it was perfectly spontaneous and fervid. Themost remarkable feature of this contest was the bitterness of theWhigs toward the Free Soilers, and especially those who had desertedfrom the Whig ranks. They seemed to be maddened by the imputationthat they were not perfectly sound on the Free Soil issue. Thiswas particularly true of Mr. Webster, who had been branded by Mr. Adams as a "Traitor to freedom, " as far back as the year 1843, andwho afterward justified these strong words in his "Seventh of MarchSpeech. " In the Whig State Convention of Massachusetts, held atSpringfield, in 1847, Mr. Webster, speaking of the Wilmot proviso, had said: "Did I not commit myself to that in the year 1838, fully, entirely? I do not consent that more recent discoverers shall takeout a patent for the discovery. Allow me to say, sir, it is nottheir thunder. " He then claimed Free Soil as a distinctive Whigdoctrine, and in a speech at Abingdon, he now said: "The gentlemenwho have joined this new party, from among the Whigs, pretend thatthey are greater lovers of liberty and greater haters of slaverythan those they leave behind them. I do not admit it. I do notadmit any such thing. I think we are as good Free Soil men as theyare. " The same ground was urged by Washington Hunt, James Brooks, and other leading Whigs; and Mr. Greeley declared that "at no timepreviously had Whig inculcations throughout the free States beenso decidedly and strongly hostile to the extension of slavery, andso determined in requiring its inhibition by Congress, as duringthe canvass of 1848. " These statements appear very remarkable, when it is remembered that the Whig nominee was a Louisiana planter, and that he was nominated at the bidding of the slave-holding wingof the party, and by a convention which not only contemptuouslyvoted down the Wilmot proviso, but treated its advocates as"fanatics. " But even Governor Seward strangely clung to the oldparty after the death and burial of its conscience, and seriouslybrought his personal integrity into question by urging the supportof General Taylor upon those who favored the abolition of slavery. In a speech at Cleveland, Ohio, in October of that year, he said:"Freedom insists on the emancipation and development of labor;slavery demands a soil moistened with tears and blood--freedom asoil that exults under the elastic tread of man in his nativemajesty. These elements divide and classify the American peopleinto two parties, " and he proceeded to argue as if the Whigs andDemocrats were thus divided, when he knew that both were in theabsolute control of the slave power. 

The Free Soilers, of course, did not particularly relish thesemoral lectures on slavery by men who had sold their principles atpublic auction for the chance of office and plunder through theelevation of a mere military chieftain to the Presidency. But theWhigs were not content with claiming the complete monopoly of anti-slavery virtue, and parading it before the country; they becameabusive and insulting to the full measure of their insincerity. Their talk about "renegades" and "apostates" anticipated the abuseheaped upon the Greeley men of 1872, when the Republican party hadso completely triumphed over the integrity of its earlier life. The course of the Whigs in Indiana supplies a striking illustration. After the presidential election of 1844, I resolved that I wouldnever vote for another slaveholder, and the course of events andmy own reflections had constantly strengthened this purpose. Isaw no honorable way of escape, and my position was well known tomy Whig brethren; but, as soon as General Taylor was nominated, the policy of browbeating and threats was invoked. I had no tastefor politics, and had determined to devote myself entirely to myprofession. I was especially anxious to avoid any strife with theWhigs, who were overwhelmingly in the ascendant in Eastern Indiana, and in whose ranks were most of my clients and best friends. Butthe party leaders talked to me in the imperative mood. They sawmy embarrassment, and seemed determined to coerce me into submissionby the supposed extremity of my situation; and I was obliged tooffer them open defiance. I was made an elector for Van Buren andAdams in the Fourth Indiana District, and entered upon the contestwith a will; and from that time forth I was subjected to a torrentof billingsgate which rivalled the fish market. Words were neitherminced nor mollified, but made the vehicles of political wrath andthe explosions of personal malice. The charge of "abolitionism"was flung at me everywhere, and it is impossible now to realizethe odium then attaching to that term by the general opinion. Iwas an "amalgamationist" and a "woolly-head. " I was branded asthe "apostle of disunion" and "the orator of free-dirt. " It wasa standing charge of the Whigs that I carried in my pocket a lockof the hair of Frederick Douglass, to regale my senses with itsaroma when I grew faint. They declared that my audiences consistedof "eleven men, three boys, and a negro, " and sometimes I couldnot deny this inventory was not very far from the truth. I wasthreatened with mob violence by my own neighbors, and treated asif slavery had been an established institution of the State, withits machinery of overseers and background of pauperized whites;while these same Whigs, as if utterly unconscious of the irony oftheir professions, uniformly resolved, in their conventions, that"the Whig party is the only true Free Soil party. "

I was not, of course, a non-resistant in the warfare, and for twomonths I gave myself up to the work absolutely. I was seriouslyembarrassed in the outset by the question of transportation, havingneither horse nor carriage, nor the financial ability to procureeither; but an anti-slavery Quaker, and personal friend, namedJonathan Macy, came to my rescue. He furnished me an old whitehorse, fully seventeen hands high, and rather thin in flesh, butwhich served my purpose pretty well. I named him "Old Whitey, " inhonor of General Taylor's famous war steed, and sallied forth inthe work of the campaign. Having a first-class pair of lungs andmuch physical endurance, I frequently spoke as often as three timesa day, and generally from two to three hours at each meeting. Ispoke at cross-roads, in barns, in pork houses, in saw-mills, inany place in which a few or many people would hear me; but I wasrarely permitted to enter any of the churches. I was so perfectlyswallowed up in my work and dominated by the singleness of mypurpose, that I took no thought of anything else; and the vigor ofmy invective in dealing with the scurrilous attacks of my assailantswas very keenly realized, and, I believe, universally acknowledged. With the truth on my side, I was delighted to find myself perfectlyable, single-handed, to fight my battle against the advantages ofsuperior talent and the trained leadership of men of establishedreputations on the stump. But the fight, as I have said, wasunspeakably relentless, vitriolic and exhausting, and nothing couldredeem it but an overmastering sense of duty and self-respect. The worst passions of humanity were set on fire among the Whigs bythis provoking insurrection against their party as the mere toolof slavery, while animosities were engendered that still survive, and which many men have carried to their graves. This is only asingle illustration of the spirit of the canvass, for similarconflicts marked the struggle in Ohio, Massachusetts and otherStates, and they were made inevitable by the desperation of a partyalready dead in its trespasses, and which deserved a funeral insteadof a triumph. 

The results of this contest were most remarkable. General Taylorwas elected but his triumph was the death of the Whig party. Thelong-coveted prize of the presidency was snatched from GeneralCass, and the Democratic party divided and humiliated by its struggleto serve two masters, while the friends of Mr. Van Buren had theirlonged-for revenge. The Free Soil ticket received a little lessthan three hundred thousand votes, and failed to carry the electoralvote of a single State; but the effect of the movement was inestimablyimportant. It seated Chase in the United States Senate from Ohio, and sent to the lower branch of Congress a sufficient number ofanti-slavery men from different States to hold the balance of powerin that body. It was very savingly felt in Congress in July ofthis year, on the vote by which Oregon, with a territory nearlyequal to that of the thirteen original States, narrowly escapedthe damnation of slavery. It emphasized the demand of the millionfor "cheap postage, " and the freedom of the public domain, and thushelped stereotype these great measures into law; and it played itspart in creating the public opinion which compelled the admissionof California as a free State. These were great achievements, butthey were mere preliminaries to the magnificent and far-reachingwork of succeeding years, of which the revolt of 1848 was thepromise and pledge. 

CHAPTER IV. REMINISCENCES OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS. Novel political complications--The Compromise Measures--Firstelection to Congress--Sketch of the "immortal nine"--The speakershipand Wm. J. Brown--Gen. Taylor and the Wilmot proviso--Slave-holdingbanter--Compromise resolutions of Clay, and retreat of NorthernWhigs--Visit to Gen. Taylor--To Mr. Clay--His speeches--Webster'sseventh of March speech--Character of Calhoun--Speech on the slaveryquestion. 

The scheme of "pacification" and "final settlement, " which waslaunched in 1850, under the leadership of Henry Clay, constitutesone of the chief landmarks in the history of the great conflictbetween freedom and slavery. It was the futile attempt of legislativediplomacy to escape the fatal logic of antecedent facts. The warwith Mexico, like the annexation of Texas which paved the way forit, was inspired by the lust for slave territory. No sophistrycould disguise this fact, nor could its significance be overstated. The prophets of slavery saw clearly that restriction meant destruction. They girded themselves for battle on this issue, and were not atall placated by Northern disclaimers of "abolitionism, " and reiterateddisavowals of any right or purpose to intermeddle with slavery asthe creature of State law. Its existence was menaced by the policyof confinement and ultimate suffocation; and therefore no compromiseof the pending strife over its prohibition in New Mexico, Utah andCalifornia was possible. 

This strife was aggravated by its peculiar relations to the dominantpolitical parties. The sacrifice of Martin Van Buren in 1844, because of his manly letter on the annexation of Texas, had beena sore trial to his devoted friends. They could neither forgivenor forget it; and when the opportunity for revenge finally camein 1848, they laid hold of it with the sincerest and most heartfeltsatisfaction. As we have seen, they bolted from their party, threwthemselves into the Free Soil movement, and thus made the defeatof Gen. Cass inevitable by the election of Gen. Taylor. Thousandsof these bolting Democrats, particularly in the State of New York, cared more for the personal and political fortunes of Mr. Van Burenthan for the slavery question, as their subsequent return to theirparty allegiance made manifest; but their action was none the lessdecisive in the emergency which called it forth. The trouble inthe Whig camp was also serious. The last hopes of Mr. Clay andhis worshipers had perished forever in the nomination of the heroof the Mexican war and the owner of two hundred slaves, by aConvention which became famous as "the slaughter house of Whigprinciples. " Very many of these Clay Whigs, like the devotees ofMr. Van Buren, would have been satisfied with almost any dispensationof the slavery issue if their chief had been nominated, but theywere now enlisted in the anti-slavery army, and, like Joseph L. White, of Indiana, vociferously shouted for "liberty and revenge. "Mr. Webster and his friends were also profoundly disgusted, andlent a strong hand to the work of party insubordination, while theelection of Gen. Taylor was quite naturally followed by formidableparty coalitions. One of these, as already stated, made Salmon P. Chase a senator of the United States from Ohio, as John P. Halehad been chosen from New Hampshire some time before, and CharlesSumner came in a little later from Massachusetts; and the House ofRepresentatives now contained nine distinctly anti-slavery men, chosen from different States by kindred combinations, who hadcompletely renounced their allegiance to the old parties, and wereable to wield the balance of power in that body. Such were thecomplications of the great problem which confronted the Thirty-first Congress at the opening of its first session, on the thirdday of December, 1849. 

In this Congress I was a representative, for the first time, ofthe Fourth Indiana District. This district contained a large Quakerpopulation, and in the matter of liberality and progress was inadvance of all other portions of the State; and yet the immeasurablewrath and scorn which were lavished upon the men who deserted theWhig party on account of the nomination of General Taylor canscarcely be conceived. The friends of a life-time were suddenlyturned to enemies, and their words were often dipped in venom. Itseemed as if a section of Kentucky or Virginia had in some wayusurped the geography of Eastern Indiana, bringing with it thediscipline of the slave-master, and a considerable importation of"white trash. " The contest was bitter beyond all precedent; butafter a hard fight, and by a union of Free Soilers, Democrats, andIndependent Whigs, I was elected by a small majority. Owing toserious illness, resulting from the excitement and overwork of thecanvass, I did not reach Washington till the 19th of December--justin time to cast my vote for speaker on the fifty-sixth ballot inthis first important "dead-lock" in the organization of the House. With the exception of two Indiana members, I had no personalacquaintance in either branch of Congress, and, on entering theold Hall of Representatives, my first thought was to find the FreeSoil members, whose political fortunes and experience had been sosimilar to my own. The seat of Mr. Giddings was pointed out to mein the northwest corner of the Hall, where I found the stalwartchampion of free speech busy with his pen. He received me withevident cordiality, and at once sent a page for the other Free Soilmembers. Soon the "immortal nine, " as we were often sportivelystyled, were all together: David Wilmot, of Pennsylvania, thenfamous as the author of the "Provsio, " short and corpulent inperson, and emphatic in speech; Preston King, of New York, withhis still more remarkable rotundity of belt, and a face beamingwith good humor; the eccentric and witty "Jo Root, " of Ohio, alwaysready to break a lance with the slave-holders; Charles Allen, ofMassachusetts, the quiet, dignified, clear-headed and genialgentleman, but a good fighter and the unflinching enemy of slavery;Charles Durkee, of Wisconsin, the fine-looking and large-heartedphilanthropist, whose enthusiasm never cooled; Amos Tuck, of NewHampshire, amiable and somewhat feminine in appearance, but firmin purpose; John W. Howe, of Pennsylvania, with a face radiant withsmiles and good will, and full of anti-slavery fervor; and JoshuaR. Giddings, of Ohio, with his broad shoulders, giant frame, unquenchable love of freedom, and almost as familiar with theslavery question, in all its aspects, as he was with the alphabet. These, all now gone to their reckoning, were the elect of freedomin the lower branch of this memorable Congress. They all greetedme warmly, and the more so, perhaps, because my reported illnessand doubtful recovery had awakened a peculiar interest in my fortunesat that time, on account of the political situation, and the possiblesignificance of a single vote. John P. Hale happened to enter thehall during these congratulations, and still further lighted upthe scene by his jolly presence; while Dr. Bailey, of the "NationalEra, " also joined in the general welcome, and at once confirmedall the good opinions I had formed of this courageous and single-minded friend of the slave. I was delighted with all my brethren, and at once entered fully into their plans and counsels. 

An incident connected with the organization of the House, whichcaused intense excitement at the time, seems to deserve some notice. It occurred on the 12th of December, while William J. Brown, ofIndiana, was being voted for as the Democratic candidate for Speaker. He was a pro-slavery Democrat, through and through, and commandedthe entire and unhesitating confidence of Southern members; andyet, on the last ballot for him, he received the votes of Allen, Durkee, Giddings, King, and Wilmot, and came within two votes ofan election. The support of Mr. Brown by the leading Free Soilerswas a great surprise to both sides of the House, and the suspicionthat some secret arrangement had been made gave birth to a rumorto that effect. After the balloting, while Mr. Bailey, of Virginia, was on the floor, Mr. Ashmun, of Massachusetts, asked him whethera secret correspondence had not taken place between some member ofthe Free Soil party and Mr. Brown, by which the latter had agreedto constitute the Committees on the Judiciary, on Territories, andon the District of Columbia, in a manner satisfactory to that party. Mr. Bailey scouted the idea, and asked Mr. Ashmun what authorityhe had for the statement. Mr. Ashmun replied, "Common rumor"; towhich Mr. Bailey rejoined, "Does not the gentleman know that commonrumor is a common liar?" Turning to Mr. Brown, he said, "Has anysuch correspondence taken place?" Mr. Brown shook his head, andMr. Bailey became more emphatic than ever in his denial. But thefever was now up, and the Southern members scented treason. Severalof them withheld their votes from Mr. Brown because of his FreeSoil support, and thus prevented his election. He was in a verytrying dilemma with his Southern friends, while the Free Soilerswho had supported him were also placed in a novel predicament, andsubjected to catechism. The fact was finally revealed in the courseof a long and exciting debate, that Mr. Wilmot _had_ entered intoa correspondence with Mr. Brown on the subject of the organizationof the Committees named, and that the latter _had_ promised inwriting to constitute them as stated in Mr. Ashumn's inquiry--declaring that he had "always been opposed to the extension ofslavery, " and believed that "the Federal Government should berelieved from the responsibility of slavery where it had theconstitutional right to abolish it. " This, in substance, was thewhole Free Soil gospel; and the disappointment and rage of Southernmembers, when the letter was produced, can be more easily imaginedthan described. Mr. Brown labored very painfully to explain hisletter and pacify his Southern friends, but the effort was utterlyvain. He was branded with treachery and duplicity by Bailey, Harris, Burt, Venable, Stanton, and McMullen, while no man fromthe South pretended to excuse him. In the midst of great excitementhe withdrew from the contest for Speaker, and the catastrophe ofhis secret maneuver was so unspeakably humiliating that even hisenemies pitied him. But he was unjustly dealt with by his Southernbrethren, whose fear of betrayal and morbid sensitiveness made allcoolness of judgment impossible. While he possessed very socialand kindly personal traits of character, no man in this Congresswas more inflexibly true to slavery, as his subsequent career amplydemonstrated. If he had been chosen Speaker he would doubtlesshave placed some of the Free Soil members on the Committees specified, but the whole power of his office would have been studiouslysubservient to the behests of the slave oligarchy; and nothingcould excuse the conduct of Mr. Wilmot and his associates but theirentire ignorance of his political character and antecedents. Iregretted this affair most sincerely, for I knew Mr. Brown well, and could undoubtedly have prevented the negotiation if I had beenpresent. 

The Speakership was obviously the first question on which the slavepower must be met in the Thirty-first Congress. No question couldmore completely have presented the entire controversy between thefree and slave States which had so stirred the country during theprevious eighteen months. In view of the well-nigh autocraticpower of the Speaker over legislative measures, no honest FreeSoiler could vote for a candidate who was not known to be sound onthe great issue. We could not support Howell Cobb, of Georgia, the nominee of the Democratic party, however anxious our Democraticconstituents might be to have us do so; nor could we vote for RobertC. Winthrop, of Massachusetts, to please the Whigs and semi-FreeSoilers who affiliated with them, since Giddings, Palfrey and othershad demonstrated that he was wholly untrustworthy in facing theragged issue of slavery. This had been proved by his acts asSpeaker in the preceding Congress. We therefore united in thedetermination to vote for neither of these candidates. The contestwas protracted till December 22d, when, on the sixty third ballot, Mr. Cobb was chosen. The result was effected, by adopting, at theinstigation of the Whigs, what was called the "plurality rule, "the operation of which enabled a minority to choose the speaker. The Whigs, when they entered upon this proceeding, well knew thatthe Free Soilers were willing and anxious to vote for ThaddeusStevens, or any other reliable member of the party. They well knewthat none of us would vote for Mr. Winthrop, under any circumstances, and for excellent reasons which we had announced. Further, theywell knew that without Free Soil votes Mr. Cobb would certainly bechosen; and yet the angry cry went up from the Whigs in Congressand throughout the Northern States that the Free Soilers had electeda slave-holder to be speaker of the House! For a time the ridiculouscharge served the purpose of its authors, but the subsequent careerof Mr. Winthrop finally and entirely vindicated the sagacity ofthe men whose resolute opposition had thwarted his ambition. 

In the further organization of the House Mr. Campbell, a Tennesseeslave-holder, was chosen clerk on the twentieth ballot, by the helpof Southern Democrats, over John W. Forney, who was then theparticular friend of James Buchanan, and who had made himself soconspicuous by his abuse of anti-slavery men that the Free Soilmembers could not give him their support. On the eighth ballotMr. Glossbrenner, of Pennsylvania, the nominee of the Democrats, was chosen sergeant-at-arms, and after fourteen ineffectual ballotsfor doorkeeper, Mr. Horner, the Whig incumbent in the precedingCongress, was continued by resolution of the House. This was onJanuary 18th, and the organization of the House was not yet completed, but further proceedings in this direction were now postponed tillthe first of March. 

In the meantime the slavery question had been receiving dailyattention. The strife over the Speakership had necessarily involvedit, and constantly provoked its animated discussion. The greatissue was the Congressional prohibition of slavery in the Territories, then popularly known as the "Wilmot proviso"; and the first voteon it was taken December 31st, upon the motion to lay on the tableMr. Root's resolution which embodied it. The yeas were 83, nays101; being a majority of only 18 in its favor. The Southern menseemed to gather hope and courage from this vote. On January 4th, the President sent in his special message relative to Californiaand New Mexico, announcing his famous "Non-action" policy, whichwas simply another name for the "Non-intervention" dogma of Gen. Cass. A year before he had declared that the new Territories mustnot be "surrendered to the pistol and the bowie-knife"; but a newlight now dawned upon him, and he advised Congress to leave theTerritories to themselves till their people should be prepared toask admission into the Union as States. He talked glibly about"geographical parties" and the "operation of natural causes" asany trained Whig politician, and seemed to have totally forgottenhis repeated pledges not to interfere with the action of Congressrespecting "domestic questions. " While the hand of the Executivewas thus at work, extreme men in both Houses led the way in violentand inflammatory speeches. "When we ask for justice, and to belet alone, " said Mr. Clingman, of North Carolina, "we are met bythe senseless and insane cry of Union, Union! Sir, I am disgustedwith it. When it comes from Northern gentlemen who are attackingus, it falls on my ear as it would do if a band of robbers hadsurrounded a dwelling, and when the inmates attempted to resist, the assailants should raise the cry of peace, union, harmony!" Hegave out the threat, that unless the slave-holders were allowed toextend their system over the virgin soil of our Territories, theywould block the wheels of Government, and involve the nation inthe horrors of civil war. He charged that the free States "keepup and foster in the bosoms Abolition Societies, whose main purposeis to scatter fire-brands throughout the South, to incite servileinsurrections, and stimulate by licentious pictures our negroes toinvade the persons of our white women. " Mr. Brown, of Mississippi, said he regarded slavery "as a great moral, social and _religious_blessing, --a blessing to the slave, and a blessing to the master. "He graciously admitted that Northern people thought slavery anevil; but he added, "Very well, think so; _but keep your thoughtsto yourselves_. " Jefferson Davis, then as ever afterward, theapostle of disunion, declared that "slavery existed in the tentsof the patriarchs, and in the households of His own chosen people";that "it was established by the decree of Almighty God, " and"sanctioned in the Bible--in both Testaments--from Genesis toRevelations. " Southern members pointed to the battle-fields ofthe Revolution, and warned the people of the free States to beware;while the menace was uttered that if the representatives of theNorthern States should vote California into the Union as a freeState, without some compensating measures to the South, theirnumbers would be decimated by violence. Mr. Toombs, in referringto the exclusion of slavery from the common territory, said "I willthen, if I can, bring my children and my constituents to the altarof liberty, and like Hamilcar, I will swear them to eternal hostilityto your foul domination. " On January 29th, Mr. Clay introducedhis eight resolutions of compromise, which still further weakenedthe anti-slavery policy of Northern Whigs; and when, on February4th, another vote was taken on the Wilmot proviso, it was laid onthe table by yeas 104, noes 75;--showing a majority of 29, and achange of 47 votes in a little more than one month! Thus beganthe sickening career of political apostacy, which so gatheredmomentum during the spring and summer months that it became impossibleto admit the free State of California into the Union until thepassage of the Texas Boundary Bill and the new Fugitive Slave Acthad been made certain. 

Early in the session I called on President Taylor with Mr. Giddingsand Judge Allen. I had a very strong curiosity to see the manwhose name I had used so freely in two exasperating politicalcampaigns, and desired to stand corrected in my estimate of hischaracter, if I should find such correction to be demanded by thetruth. Our interview with the old soldier was exceedingly interestingand amusing. I decidedly liked his kindly, honest, farmer-likeface, and his old-fashioned simplicity of dress and manners. Hisconversation was awkward and labored, and evinced a lack of self-possession; while his whole demeanor suggested his frontier life, and that he had reached a position for which he was singularlyunfitted by training and experience, or any natural aptitude. Inthe few remarks he addressed to me about farming in the West, hegreatly amused us by saying, "I would like to visit Indiana, andsee your plows, hoes--and other reaping implements"; failing, ashe often did, to find the word he wanted. He frequently mispronouncedhis words, hesitated and stammered, and sometimes made a breakdownin the middle of a sentence. But although he seemed to be in thehands of the slave-holders, and was about to proclaim his policyof non-intervention with slavery in the Territories, he impressedme as being personally honest and patriotic. In this impressionI was fully confirmed later in the session, when he sorrowfullybut manfully resisted the attempt of Senator Davis, his son-in-law, and other extreme men, to bully him into their measures, and avowedhis sympathy with the anti-slavery sentiment of the country. Ibelieve his dying words in July, "I have tried to do my duty, " werethe key-note of his life, and that in the Presidential campaign of1848, I did him much, though unintentional, injustice. 

It was about the same time that I called with other Western membersto see Mr. Clay, at the National Hotel. He received us with themost gracious cordiality, and perfectly captivated us all by thepeculiar and proverbial charm of his manners and conversation. Iremember nothing like it in the social intercourse of my life. One of our party was Hon. L. D. Campbell, then a prominent Whigpolitician of Ohio, and an old friend of Mr. Clay, who seemedanxious to explain his action in supporting Gen. Scott in theNational Convention of 1848. He failed to satisfy Mr. Clay, whoseeye kindled during the conversation, and who had desired and countedon the nomination himself. Mr. Clay, addressing him, but turningto me, said: "I can readily understand the position of our friendfrom Indiana, whose strong opinions on the slavery question governedhis action; but your position was different, and, besides, GeneralScott had no chance for the nomination, and you were under noobligation to support him. " He spoke in kindly terms of the FreeSoil men; said they acted consistently in supporting Van Buren inpreference to Taylor, and that the election of the latter wouldprove the ruin of the Whigs. I heard Mr. Clay's great speech inthe Senate on the Compromise Measures, and although I believed himto be radically wrong, I felt myself at times drawn toward him bythat peculiar spell which years before had bound me to him as myidolized political leader. I witnessed his principal encounterswith Col. Benton during this session, in which I thought the latterhad the better of the argument; but his reply to Mr. Barnwell, ofSouth Carolina, on July 22d, in which he said: "I owe a paramountallegiance to the whole Union, a subordinate one to my State, " anddenounced the treasonable utterances of Mr. Rhett, was altogetherinimitable and unsurpassed. In the same speech he showed as littlequarter to the Abolitionists. Turning to Mr. Hale, he said, "Theylive by agitation. It is their meat, their bread, the air whichthey breathe; and if they saw in its incipient state, a measuregiving them more of that food, and meat, and bread, and air, doyou believe they would oppose themselves to its adoption? Do younot believe that they would _hail_ [Hale] it as a blessing? * * *They see their doom as certain as there is a God in heaven, whosends his providential dispensations to calm the threatening storm, and to tranquilize agitated men. As certain as God exists inheaven, your business, your vocation, is gone. " His devotion tothe Union was his ruling passion, and in one of his numerous speechesduring this session he held up a fragment of Washington's coffin, and with much dramatic effect pleaded for reconciliation and peacebetween the warring sections. 

His scheme of compromise, or "omnibus bill, " was the darling childof his political ambition and old age; and when, after lovinglynursing it and gallantly fighting for it through seven or eightweary months, he saw it cruelly dismembered on July 31st, and hissovereign remedy for our national troubles insulted by the separatepassage of the bill providing a Territorial Government for Utah, I could not help feeling a profound personal sympathy with him. Beaten at last on every point, deserted by some senators in whomhe had trusted implicitly, crushed and exhausted by labors whichfew young and vigorous men could have endured, he bowed to theinevitable, and retired from the Senate Chamber. But in the nextmorning, prior to his departure for the sea-shore, he was in hisseat; and with lightning in his eye, and figure erect as ever, hepaid his respects to the men whose work of political havoc hedeplored. His impassioned arraignment of the disunionists wasloudly applauded by the galleries, and clearly indicated the parthe would have played in the late Rebellion had his life been sparedto witness that direful event. "So long, " said he, "as it pleasesGod to give me a voice to express my sentiments, or an arm, weakand enfeebled as it may be by age, that voice and that arm will beon the side of my country, for the support of the general authority, and for the maintenance of the powers of this Union. "

I heard the famous "Seventh of March Speech" of Mr. Webster. Tome his oratory was a perfect surprise and curiosity. He not onlyspoke with very unusual deliberation, but with pauses having norelation whatever to the sense. His sentences were broken intothe oddest fragments, and the hearer was perplexed in the endeavorto gather his meaning. In declaring, for example, that he "wouldput in no Wilmot proviso for the purpose of a taunt, " etc. , he madea long pause at "Wilmot, " perhaps half a minute, and finally, havingapparently recovered his breath, added the word "proviso"; andthen, after another considerable pause, went on with his sentence. His speaking seemed painfully laborious. Great drops of perspirationstood upon his forehead and face, notwithstanding the slowness ofhis utterance, suggesting, as a possible explanation, a very recentand heavy dinner, or a greatly troubled conscience over his finalact of apostasy from his early New England faith. The latter wasprobably the truth, since he is known to have long and seriouslypondered the question of his ultimate decision; and with hisnaturally great and noble traits of character he could not haveannounced it without manifest tokens of uneasiness. I was greatlyinterested in the brief dialogue between him and Mr. Calhoun, whichfollowed this speech. Reference was made to their famous passage-at-arms twenty years before; and Mr. Calhoun, while taking exceptionto some of Mr. Webster's positions, congratulated him on his strongdeliverance in the interest of slavery. The great Carolinian wasthen wrestling with the disease which soon afterward terminatedhis life, and was thin, pale, and feeble of step; but his singularlyintellectual face, and the peculiar light which flashed from hiseye while speaking, made him the most strikingly picturesque figurein the Senate. No man can compute the evils wrought by his politicaltheories; but in private life he was thoroughly upright and pure, and no suspicion of political jobbery was ever whispered in connectionwith his name. In his social relations he was most genial andkindly, while he always welcomed the society of young men who soughtthe aid of his friendly counsel. Politically, he has been singularlymisunderstood. He was not, as has been so generally thought, adisunionist. He was the champion of State Sovereignty, but hebelieved that this was the sure basis and bond of Union. He thoughtthe right of State nullification, if recognized, would hold thecentral power in check, and thus cement the Union; while his devotionto African slavery as a defensible form of society, and a solutionof the conflict between capital and labor, was doubtless as sincereas it was fanciful. 

During the first months of this session my spare time was devotedto the preparation of a speech on the slavery question. Myconstituents expected this, and so did my anti-slavery and FreeSoil friends generally. It was my darling purpose, and I resolvedto do my best upon it. I not only meant that they should not beashamed of it, but that, if possible, it should stand the test ofcriticism, both as to matter and diction. I re-examined the questionin its various aspects, and more thoroughly than I had been ableto do before, giving special attention to the speeches of Southernmembers in both Houses, and carefully noting their vulnerablepoints. I overhauled the question of "Northern aggression" prettythoroughly, and endeavored to expose the absurdity of that complaint, while crowding into my task such facts and arguments as would helpeducate the people in right thinking. I had my task completed inMarch, and now anxiously waited the opportunity for its delivery. I was very curious to know how it would sound, and what would bethought of it, while my constitutional self-distrust made me dreadthe experiment unspeakably. My scuffle for the floor was a soretrial of patience, and it was not until the fourteenth of May thatthe competitive contest was ended. I got through with the workbetter than I anticipated, was handsomely listened to, and wenthome in triumph. A great burden of anxiety had been lifted, whileI received letters from the leading Abolitionists of New Englandand elsewhere, very cordially complimenting the speech, which wascopied into the principal anti-slavery newspapers, and quitefavorably noticed. I was flattered beyond measure, and found myself-esteem germinating into new life under these fertilizing dews. 

CHAPTER V. REMINISCENCES OF THE THIRTY-FIRST CONGRESS (CONTINUED). Fracas between Col. Benton and Senator Foote--Character of Benton--Death of Gen. Taylor--The funeral--Defeat of the "Omnibus Bill"--Its triumph in detail--Celebration of the victory--"Lower law"sermons and "Union-saving" meetings--Slave-holding literature--Mischievous legislation--Visit to Philadelphia and Boston--Futileefforts to suppress agitation--Andrew Johnson and the homesteadlaw--Effort to censure Mr. Webster--Political morality in thisCongress--Temperance--Jefferson Davis and other notable men--JohnP. Hale--Thaddeus Stevens--Extracts from speeches--The famous menin both Houses--The Free Soilers and their vindication. 

I happened to be in the Senate on April 17th, just before thememorable fracas between Foote, of Mississippi, and Col. Benton. They had had an unfriendly encounter not long before, and it waswell understood that Benton had made up his mind that Foote shouldnot henceforward name him or allude to him in debate. Foote hadsaid: "I do not denounce him as a _coward_--such language isunfitted for this audience--but if he wishes to be blackguarded inthe discharge of his duty, and the culprit go unpunished? Islanguage to be used here which would not be permitted to be usedin the lowest pot-house, tavern, or oyster cellar, and for the useof which he would be turned out of any tavern by a decent landlord?"Benton's wrath had not in the least cooled since this altercation. Foote was on the floor, and in speaking of the late "Southernaddress, " referred to Benton in terms which everybody understood. In an indirect way he became more and more personal as he proceeded. Col. Benton finally arose from his seat with every appearance ofintense passion, and with a quick pace moved toward Foote, who wasaddressing the Senate from his desk near the main aisle. The VicePresident demanded "order, " and several senators tried to holdBenton back, but he broke loose from his keepers, and was movingrapidly upon his foe. When he saw Benton nearing him, Foote spranginto the main aisle, and retreated toward the Vice President, presenting a pistol as he fled, or, as he afterward expressed it, "advanced backward. " In the meantime Benton had been so obstructedby the sergeant-at-arms and others that Foote, if disposed to shoot, could not have done so without firing through the crowd. ButBenton, with several senators hanging to him, now proceeded roundthe lobby so as to meet Foote at the opposite side of the Chamber. Tearing himself away from those who sought to hold him, and throwingopen his bosom, he said: "Let him shoot me! The cowardly assassinhas come here to shoot me; let him shoot me if he dares! I nevercarry arms, and he knows it; let the assassin fire!" He was anembodied fury, and raged and raved, the helpless victim of hispassions. I had never seen such an uproar in a legislative body;but the sergeant-at-arms at last restored order, when Mr. Claysuggested that both parties should voluntarily enter into bonds tokeep the peace, upon which Benton instantly rose and said: "I'llrot in jail, sir, before I will do it! No, sir! I'll rot in jailfirst. I'll rot, sir!" and he poured forth a fresh torrent ofbitter words upon the man who was then so well known throughoutthe Northern States as "Hangman Foote. "* Benton was not only aman of tremendous passion, but unrivalled as a hater. Nor did hishatred spend itself entirely upon injustice and meanness. It waslargely personal and unreasoning. He was pre-eminently unforgiving. He hated Calhoun with a real vengeance, styling him "John CatalineCalhoun, " and branding him as a "coward cur that sneaked to hiskennel when the Master of the Hermitage blew his bugle horn. " Heseemed to relent a little, however, when he saw the life of thegreat Carolinian rapidly ebbing away, and on one occasion declaredthat, "When God lays his hand on a man, I take mine off. " His witwas sometimes as pungent as his invective. In his famous speechon the Compromise measures, he gave Mr. Clay a telling hit bycomparing the boasted panacea of his "Omnibus Bill, " or "five oldbills tacked together, " to "old Dr. Jacob Townsend's sarsaparilla, "and contrasting it with the alleged worthlessness of the samemeasures when separately proposed, which he likened to "young Dr. Samuel Townsend's" extract from the same vegetable. "Sarsaparilla"was thus more widely advertised than ever before, but it aided thetriumph of the "young Dr. , " and the defeat of Mr. Clay's pet scheme. 

[* So named because of his declaration in the Senate the yearbefore, that if John P. Hale would come to Mississippi he would behung to "one of the tallest trees of the forest, " and that he(Foote) would himself "assist in the operation. "]

The sudden death of Gen. Taylor, July 9, 1850, produced a veryprofound impression. The shock to the people of the Northern Stateswas felt the more keenly because of the peculiarly threateningaspect of public affairs, and of the unexpectedly manly course ofthe President in withstanding the imperious and insolent demandsof the extreme men of his own section. Millard Fillmore then stoodwell before the country, and was quite as emphatically committedto the growing anti-slavery sentiment of the Free States as Gov. Seward himself; but he was now to be severely tried, and no onecould tell whether he would be true to the policy of his predecessorin resisting the ultra demands of the South, or repeat the perfidyof John Tyler by flagrantly turning his back on his past life. For the time, however, the national bereavement seemed too absorbingfor any political speculations. The funeral pageant, which tookplace on the 13th, was very imposing. The funeral car was a long-coupled running gear, with wheels carved from solid blocks of wood. Over this was raised a canopy covered with broadcloth, and surmountedby a magnificent eagle. Curtains of black and white silk inalternating festoons hung from the canopy, with rosettes, fringes, and tassels. The car was drawn by eight white horses, richlycaparisoned, and led by as many grooms, who were all white men. "Old Whitey, " the venerable war steed of the President, followedimmediately behind the remains of his master, and attracted universalattention. The procession was accompanied by the tolling of bells, the firing of heavy ordnance, and plaintive strains of music; andthe whole affair exceeded anything of the kind that had ever takenplace in Washington, although the outpouring of the people wouldbear no comparison with that of several notable funerals of lateryears. 

The dreadful heat of the summer months, and the monotonous "ding-dong" of the debate on the Compromise measures, made life drearyenough. The "rump-session, " as it was then called, became moreand more dismal as it dragged its slow length into the fall months. Members grew pale and thin, and sighed for their homes; but theCongressional mill had to be kept running till the grists of theslave-power could be got fully ready for the hopper, and ground intheir regular order. Mr. Clay's Omnibus Bill having gone to pieces, the "five gaping wounds" of the country, about which he had talkedso eloquently, called for treatment in detail; and by far the mostthreatening of these was the dispute between Texas and New Mexico. The remedy was the Texas Boundary Bill, which surrendered a largebelt of country to Texas and slavery, and gave her ten milliondollars besides. It was vehemently opposed in the House, and itsfate seemed to hang in doubt up to the final vote upon it; butits passage was really assured from the beginning by the corruptappliances of its friends. Texas bonds, which were then worth tencents on the dollar, would be lifted nearly to par by this measure, and its success was undoubtedly secured by the bribery of members. The territorial question was disposed of by the legislative covenantthat new States might be admitted from our Mexican acquisitions, either with or without slavery, as their people might determine. This was not only an open abandonment of the Wilmot proviso, buta legislative condemnation of the Missouri compromise line, as aviolation of the principle of "popular sovereignty, " and was sureto breed the mischiefs which followed four years later. But ofthe several compromise or "healing measures" of this session, theFugitive Slave Bill was by far the most atrocious. It made the_ex parte_ interested oath of the slave-hunter final and conclusiveevidence of the fact of escape, and of the identity of the partypursued, while the simplest duties of humanity were punished asfelonies by fine and imprisonment. The method of its enactmentperfectly accorded with its character. It was reached on theSpeaker's table on September 12th, and on motion of Mr. Thompson, of Pennsylvania, who served as the parliamentary hangman of hisemployers, the previous question was seconded on its passage; andthus, without reference to any committee, without even being printed, and with no opportunity whatever for debate, it became a law. Itis needless to say that these pretended measures of final adjustmentpaved the way for the repeal of the Missouri restriction, the bloodyraid into Kansas, the Dred Scott decision, and the final chapterof the Civil War; while they completely vindicated the little partyof Independents in this Congress in standing aloof from the Whigand Democratic organizations, and warning the country againstfurther submission to their rule. One hundred guns were fired inWashington over the final triumph of slavery in this memorablestruggle; and Congress adjourned, at last, on September 30th, thesession having lasted nearly ten months, and being considerablythe longest thus far since the formation of the Government. 

The adjournment was followed by great "Union-saving" meetingsthroughout the country, which denounced "abolitionism" in theseverest terms, and endorsed the action of Congress. Multitudesof "lower law" sermons by conservative Doctors of Divinity werescattered over the Northern States through the mails, and a regularsystem of agitation to _suppress_ agitation was inaugurated. Thesickly air of compromise filled the land, and for a time the deludedmasses were made to believe that the Free Soilers had brought thecountry to the verge of ruin. Both clergy and laity zealouslydedicated themselves to the great work of sectional pacification. The labors of Dr. Nehemiah Adams and Dr. Lord in this directionwill not be forgotten. The Rev. Moses Stuart, of Andover TheologicalSeminary, in a work in the interest of peace, spoke of the "blessingsand comforts" of slavery, and declared that "Christ doubtless feltthat slavery might be made a very tolerable condition--aye, evena blessing, to such as were shiftless and helpless. " Another book, entitled "Aunt Phillis's Cabin; or Southern Life as it is, " wasissued from the press, in which it was said that slavery was"authorized by God, permitted by Jesus Christ, sanctioned by theApostles, and maintained by good men in all ages. " A very remarkablebook made its appearance, entitled "A Choice of Evils; or ThirteenYears in the South. By a Northern man. " Its author was a Mr. Hooker, of Philadelphia. In this work he announced the discoverythat slavery is not only an unspeakable blessing, but a great"missionary institution for the conversion of the heathen. " Oneof the chapters of this book is on "The Pleasures of Slavery. " Hedeclared that the Southern slave is not merely contented, but a"joyous fellow"; and that "in willing and faithful subjection toa benignant and protecting power, and that visible to his senses, he leans upon it in complete and sure confidence, as a trustingchild holds on to the hand of his Father, and passes joyously alongthe thronged and jostling way, where he would not dare to be leftalone. " Mr. Hooker declared that "his are the thoughts that makeglad the cared-for child, led by paternal hand"; and that "of allthe people in the world, the pleasures of the Southern slaves seem, as they really are, most unalloyed. " The press teemed with kindredpublications, while "Graham's Magazine, " Harper's "Journal ofCivilization, " the "Literary World, " "Godey's Ladies' Book, " andother periodicals, joined in the united effort to shout the anti-slavery agitation into silence. 

During this session some laws were passed having no connection withthe slavery question, which were pregnant with very great mischief, and have only yielded up their meaning as they have been practicallyapplied and extended. The act of September 28th, granting landbounties to the soldiers of the Mexican war, opened the way forthe monopoly of many millions of acres of the public domain bysharks and speculators, while proving a wretched mockery of thejust claims of the men in whose name it was urged. The Swamp LandAct of the same date, owing to its loose and unguarded provisionsand shameful mal-administration, has been still more fruitful ofwide-spread spoilation and plunder. The act of September 20th, granting alternate sections of land in aid of the Illinois CentralRailway, inaugurated our famous land-grant policy, which, becomingmore and more reckless and improvident in its exactions, andcunningly combining the power of great corporations with vastmonopolies of the public domain, has signally eclipsed all otherschemes of commercial feudalism, and left to coming generations aproblem involving the very life of our popular institutions. Thefruits of this legislation were not foreseen at the time, but thelegislation itself fitly belongs to the extraordinary work of thisCongress. 

The events of this session formed a new band of union among anti-slavery men everywhere, and naturally strengthened the wish I hadlong cherished to meet some of the famous people with whose namesI had been most familiar. Accordingly, I paid a visit to Jamesand Lucretia Mott in Philadelphia, which I greatly enjoyed, meetingthere Dr. Elder, J. Miller McKim, Dr. Furness, and other well knownfriends of freedom. Oddly enough, I was invited to dine with JudgeKane, then conspicuous through his remarkable rulings in fugitiveslave cases, and I found his manners and hospitality as charmingas his opinions about slavery were detestable. From PhiladelphiaI went to Boston, and attended the Free Soil State Convention whichmet there early in October, 1850, where Sumner and Burlingame werethe principal speakers. The latter was extremely boyish inappearance, but was counted a marvel in native eloquence. Mr. Sumner was then comparatively a young man, apparently somewhatfastidious, with a winning face, commanding figure, and a voicesingularly musical. At this time he was only famous through hisorations, and I think knew relatively little of American life andsociety outside of Boston and his books. He told me he had recentlybeen lecturing at several points out of the city, and had beendelighted to find the people so intelligent and so capable ofunderstanding him. He seemed much surprised when I told him howmany admirers he had in Indiana, and I found that others sharedhis unflattering impressions respecting the general intelligenceof the West. At this convention I met Dr. Palfrey, then activelyinterested in anti-slavery politics, and Charles Francis Adams, the Free Soil nominee for Vice President in 1848, with whom I dinedat the old Adams mansion in Quincy a few days later. I enjoyedthe honor of a call from Theodore Parker while in the city, butfailed to meet Mr. Garrison, who was absent. At the "Liberator"office, however, I met Stephen S. Foster, who entertained me withhis views on "non-resistance. " I attended a spirited anti-fugitive-slave-law meeting in Lynn, where I first met Wendell Phillips, andenjoyed the long-coveted pleasure of hearing him speak. The musicof his voice so charmed me that I became completely his captive. From Boston I went to Worcester, and after a delightful visit withmy excellent friend, Judge Allen, returned to my home in the West. 

After a vacation of two months, the work of the Thirty-first Congresswas resumed at the opening of its second session. Members returnedso refreshed and invigorated that they did not appear like the samemen. All parties seemed more friendly, but the agitation of theslavery question had not been suppressed. Thousands of fugitiveslaves had fled to Canada or to remote sections of the NorthernStates, through the fear of recapture under the harsh features ofthe new Fugitive Slave Act. The method of enforcing it in differentStates, involving the intervention of the army and navy, had stirredthe blood of thousands who had else remained unmoved by the slaveryissue. The effort of the National Government to make the harboringof a fugitive constructive treason, was the farthest thing possiblefrom a peace-offering to the Abolitionists, but the friends of theCompromise measures failed to see that their scheme had provedentirely abortive, and made one further effort to silence the voiceof humanity. They entered into a solemn compact in writing tosupport no man for President or Vice President of the United States, or for senator or representative in Congress, or member of a Statelegislature, who was not known to be opposed to disturbing their"final settlement" of the slavery question. The signature of HenryClay was the first on this document, and was followed by those ofvarious prominent men of the free and slave States, and of differentpolitical parties. But the extreme men of the South and most ofthe moderate men of the North refused to assume this obligation, while the Free Soilers felt perfectly sure that their cause wouldbe advanced by the very measures which had been taken to defeatit. In this they were not mistaken. "Uncle Tom's Cabin, " born ofthe Fugitive Slave Act, was then making its first appearance inweekly numbers of Dr. Bailey's "National Era. " Hildreth's "WhiteSlave" and Sumner's "White Slavery in the Barbary States" werewidely circulated, and exerted a powerful influence. The writingsof Judge Jay and William Goodell on the slavery question found morereaders than ever before, while the pro-slavery literature and"south side" theology, already referred to, called forth repliesfrom various writers, and contributed largely to the general fermentwhich the friends of the Compromise measures were so anxious totranquilize. Indeed, while the champions of slavery were exertingthemselves as never before to stifle the anti-slavery spirit ofthe free States, the Abolitionists were delighted with the tokensof progress which everywhere saluted their vision and animated themwith new courage and hope. 

It was early in the first session of this Congress that severalmembers of the House introduced bills providing homesteads of onehundred and sixty acres each to actual landless settlers, withoutcost, on prescribed conditions of occupancy and improvement. Thefirst of these bills in the order of time was that of Andrew Johnson, which was referred to the Committee on Agriculture, and subsequentlyreported favorably, and debated at different times. Similarpropositions were offered in the Senate by Mr. Webster, and bySenator Walker, of Wisconsin. The fact is also worthy of note, that Horace Greeley, during his short term of service in the previousCongress, had offered a bill giving landless men the right to pre-empt one hundred and sixty acres for seven years, and, on conditionof occupancy and improvement, the "right of unlimited occupancy"to forty acres of the same, without price, by a single man, oreighty acres by the married head of a family. But the legislativeinitiation of the Homestead law, substantially as we now have it, belongs to the House of Representatives of the Thirty-first Congress, and its policy was borrowed from the Free Soil platform of 1848and the Land Reformers of New York. This measure completely reversedthe early policy of the Government, when settlers on the publiclands were dealt with as trespassers, while its triumph, yearsafterward, marked an epoch in our legislation, and has done moreto make the American name honored and loved at home and abroad thanany single enactment since the year 1789. Having earnestly espousedthis policy years before, I sought the acquaintance of Mr. Johnsonfor the purpose of co-operating with him in urging it, and foundhim its sincere friend. Although loyal to his party, he seemed tohave little sympathy with the extreme men among its leaders, andno unfriendliness to me on account of my decided anti-slaveryopinions. When my homestead speech was ready for delivery, althoughthe slave-holders hated its doctrines as heartily as they hated"abolitionism" itself, and it was through his friendly tactics thatI finally obtained the floor, in opposition to the earnest wishand determined purpose of Speaker Cobb. 

Near the close of this session, at the instance of Charles Allen, of Massachusetts, a man of real ability and stainless life, apreamble and resolutions were offered by myself calling for acommittee to inquire into the alleged corrupt conduct of DanielWebster in accepting the office of Secretary of State as thestipendary of Eastern capitalists. On the motion to suspend therules to allow this to be done, the yeas were only thirty-five;but this vote was quite as large as could have been expected, considering the excellent standing of Mr. Webster at that time withthe pro-slavery sentiment of the country. I think it is not doubtedthat, being then poor, he accepted office, as he had done before, on condition of pecuniary indemnity by his rich friends in Wallstreet and State street; but in the light of the far greaterimmoralities and profligacies of later times, it now seems arelatively small matter. 

Political morality was at a very low ebb during the period coveredby the Thirty-first Congress. The Whigs, now that they were inpower, saw nothing amiss in the spoils system inaugurated by Gen. Jackson, which was in full blast. The President had declared thathe had "no friends to reward and no enemies to punish, " but underthe party pressure he totally lost sight of these words, and seemedalmost as powerless to withstand it as did Gen. Grant in lateryears. Thousands of officials were turned adrift for no other thanparty reasons, while political nepotism was the order of the day. Under the brief administration of Gen. Taylor, unprecedentedpolitical jobbery prevailed, both in the legislative and executivedepartments of the Government, and these evils seemed to be aggravatedby the accession of Mr. Fillmore, and to gather strength as thespirit of liberty declined. Nor was the personal morality ofmembers more to be commended than their political. The vice ofintemperance was not, as now, restricted to a few exceptional cases, but was fearfully prevalent. A glass of wine could sometimes beseen on the desk of a senator while engaged in debate, and the freeuse of intoxicating drinks by senators was too common to provokeremark. It was still more common in the House; and the scenes ofdrunkenness and disorder in that body on the last night of the lastsession beggared description. Much of the most important legislationof the session, involving the expenditure of many millions, remainedto be disposed of at that sitting; and, as a preparation for thework, a large supply of whisky had been deposited in a roomimmediately connected with the Hall of Representatives, which wasthronged by members at all hours of the night. The chairman ofthe Ways and Means Committee became so exhilarated that he had tobe retired from his post; and some of his brethren, who had beencalling him to order in a most disorderly manner, were quite asincapable of business as himself, while order had sought herworshipers elsewhere. The exhibition was most humiliating, but itnow pleasantly reminds us of the wonderful changes which have beenwrought by thirty years. 

In this Congress, the men who afterward became the chief leadersof the Rebellion were conspicuous, and foreshadowed their futurecourse. Jefferson Davis had a military and magisterial look. Hisestimate of himself was so exalted that his ordinary demeanor towardothers seemed like a personal condescension, if not an insinuationof contempt. One of the most striking personalities in the Senatewas A. P. Butler, the colleague of Mr. Calhoun, and uncle of PrestonS. Brooks, of infamous memory. His robust physique, floridcomplexion, sparkling eye, heavy bushy suit of snow-white hair, and a certain indefinable expression of mischievous audacity, madehim a very attractive figure. In his eulogy upon Calhoun he marredthe solemnity of the occasion by pronouncing the world "always" asif written "allers, " and by kindred evidences of "life among thelowly. " The wit of John P. Hale was effective and unfailing, andgave him a decided advantage over Mr. Chase, who had nothing buthis dignity and power of argument with which to confront thetremendous odds against him. This was happily illustrated earlyin the first session of this Congress, in his reply to Mr. Clemens, of Alabama, who, in a furious tirade against the Abolitionists, had pronounced the Union dissolved already. "There are many timidpeople at the North, " said Hale, "who have looked forward withexcited nerves and trembling fears at the 'wreck of matter and thecrush of worlds' which they believed would be the result of thedissolution of this Union. I think they will be exceedingly quietnow, when they find it has already taken place and they did notknow it, for the honorable senator from Alabama tells us it isalready dissolved. If it is not a matter too serious for pleasantillustration, let me give you one. Once in my life, in the capacityof a justice of the peace--for I held that office before I was asenator--I was called on to officiate in uniting a couple in thebonds of matrimony. They came up, and I made short work of it. I asked the man if he would take the woman whom he held by the handto be his wedded wife; he replied, 'To be sure I will, I came hereto do that very thing. ' I then put the question to the lady, whether she would have the man for her husband. And when sheanswered in the affirmative, I told them they were man and wife. She looked up with apparent astonishment, and inquired 'Is thatall?' 'Yes, ' I said, 'that is all. ' 'Well, ' said she, 'it is notsuch a mighty affair as I expected it to be, after all. '"

Some of the finest of Mr. Seward's speeches were delivered duringthe first session of this Congress, but in the same husky voicewhich marked his later efforts. Decidedly the finest looking manin the Senate was General Shields, of Illinois, then in his prime, and crowned with the laurels he had won in the Mexican War. Theappearance of Mr. Douglas, familiarly known as the "little giant, "was in striking contrast with that of his colleague. He carednothing about dignity and refinement, and had a slovenly and"unwashed" appearance. The towering and erect form of GeneralHouston always commanded attention in the Senate, and he added tohis attractiveness by wearing an old-fashioned knit cap, and alwaysdevoting a portion of his time to whittling a pine board. The mostfascinating member of the Senate was Soule, of Louisiana. Therewas a tropical charm about his oratory, which was heightened byhis foreign accent and his singularly striking presence andphysiognomy. Winthrop was the most accomplished gentleman in theHouse. Edward D. Baker, since so famous, was a member from Illinois, but made no mark. Stephens, of Georgia, looked like a corpse, buthis clear and ringing voice always commanded attention, and hiswords went directly to the mark. Toombs was recognized as a leaderof Southern opinion, but disfigured his speeches by his swaggerand defiance. Among the notable men from the Northern States, Hannibal Hamlin, lately retired from public life, was in the Senate. He was then a young man, erect, fine looking, a thorough Democrat, but not the tool of slavery. Thaddeus Stevens was in the House, and just at the beginning of his remarkable congressional life;but the slave power, then in full sweep of its despotism, took goodcare to keep him in the background in the organization of thecommittees. He made several speeches, in which he displayed hisrare powers of invective, irony, and sarcasm, in dealing with theSouthern leaders; and no one who listened to his speech of Feb. 20, 1850, could ever forget his withering reply to Mr. Mead, ofVirginia, who had argued against the prohibition of slavery in theTerritories because it would conflict with the interests of Virginiaas a breeder of slaves. I quote the following:

"Let us pause for a moment over this humiliating confession. Inplain English, what does it mean? That Virginia is now only fitto be the breeder, not the employer, of slaves! That she is reducedto the condition that her proud chivalry are compelled to turnslave-traders for a livelihood! Instead of attempting to renovatethe soil, and by their own honest labor compelling the earth toyield her abundance; instead of seeking for the best breed of cattleand horses to feed on her hills and valleys, and fertilize theland, the sons of that great State must devote their time toselecting and grooming the most lusty sires and the most fruitfulwenches, to supply the slave barracoons of the South! And thelearned gentleman pathetically laments that the profits of thisgenteel traffic will be greatly lessened by the circumscription ofslavery! This is his picture, not mine. "

Mr. Stevens was equally merciless in dealing with the tribe of"dough-faces. " This was illustrated in a speech later in thesession, in which he alluded to his colleague from Bucks County, Mr. Ross, who had attacked him in a violent pro-slavery harangue:

"There is, " said Mr. Stevens, "in the natural world, a little, spotted, contemptible animal, which is armed by nature with a fetid, volatile, penetrating _virus_, which so pollutes whoever attacksit as to make him offensive to himself and all around him for along time. Indeed, he is almost incapable of purification. Nothing, sir, no insult, shall provoke me to crush so filthy a beast. " Asthese words were being uttered, Mr. Ross was seen precipitatelymaking his way out of the hall under the return fire of his foe. But Mr. Stevens then gave no clear promise of the wonderful careeras a parliamentary leader which awaited him in later years, whenperfectly unshackled by the power that at first held him in check. 

The Thirty-first Congress was not alone remarkable for the greatquestions it confronted and its shameless recreancy to humanityand justice; it was equally remarkable for its able and eminentmen. In the Senate, the great triumvirate of Webster, Clay, andCalhoun, appeared in public life for the last time. With them wereassociated Benton, Cass, Douglas, Seward, Chase, Bell, Berrien, Soule, Davis of Mississippi, Dayton, Hale, Ewing, Corwin, Hamlin, Butler, Houston, and Mason. In the House were Thaddeus Stevens, Winthrop, Ashmun, Allen, Cobb of Georgia, McDowell, Giddings, Preston King, Horace Mann, Marshall, Orr, Schenck, Stanley, Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, and Vinton. If mere talent could havesupplemented the lack of conscience, the slave power might havebeen overborne in 1850, and the current of American history turnedinto the channels of liberty and peace. But the better days ofthe Republic, when high integrity and unselfish devotion to thecountry inspired our statesmen, were past, and we had entered uponthe era of mean ambitions and huckstering politics. "The bulk ofthe nation, " as Harriet Martineau said, a little later, "was belowits institutions, " and our fathers "had laid down a loftier programthan their successors were able to fulfill. " It was not strange, therefore, that the little band of Free Soilers in this Congressencountered popular obloquy and social outlawry at the Capital. Their position was offensive, because it rebuked the ruling influencesof the times, and summoned the real manhood of the country to itsrescue. They were treated as pestilent fanatics because theybravely held up the ideal of the Republic, and sought to make itreal. But they pressed forward along the path of their aspirations. They found a solace for their social ostracism in delightfulgatherings which assembled weekly at the residence of Dr. Bailey, where they met philanthropists, reformers, and literary notables. They had the courage of their opinions, and the genuine satisfactionwhich accompanies manliness of character; and they lived to seetheir principles vindicated, and the political and social tablesturned upon the men who had honored them by their scorn and contempt. The anti-slavery revolt of 1848, which they represented, savedOregon from slavery, made California a free State, and launchedthe policy of free homes on the public domain which finally prevailedin 1862; and it was the prophecy and parent of the larger movementwhich rallied under Fremont in 1856, elected Lincoln in 1860, andplayed its grand part in saving the nation from destruction by thearmed insurgents whom it had vanquished at the ballot-box. Thiswill be the sure award of history; but history will find anotherparentage for the party despotism and political corruption whichhave since disgraced the administration of the Government. 

CHAPTER VI. THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY. Pro-slavery reaction--Indiana and Ohio--Race for Congress--FreeSoil gains in other States--National Convention at Cleveland--National canvass of 1852--Nomination of Pierce and Scott, and the"finality" platforms--Free Soil National Convention--Nomination ofHale--Samuel Lewis--The Whig canvass--Webster--Canvass of theDemocrats--Return of New York "Barnburners" to the party--The FreeSoil campaign--Stumping Kentucky with Clay--Rev. John G. Fee--Incidents--Mob law in Indiana--Result of the canvass--Ruin of theWhigs--Disheartening facts--The other side of the picture. 

The reaction which followed the passage of the compromise acts of1850 was quite as remarkable as the anti-slavery revolt of 1848, which frightened the champions of slavery into the espousal ofthese desperate measures. Immense meetings were held in Philadelphia, New York, Boston, and other cities and towns throughout the country, in which leading Whigs and Democrats united in pledging themselvesto make the suppression of abolitionism paramount to any questionof party allegiance. These demonstrations were vigorously secondedby leading clergymen and doctors of divinity, whose sermons wereplentifully scattered over the land under the frank of members ofCongress and otherwise. The press put forth its whole power onthe side of anti-slavery submission and peace, while the Executiveand Judicial departments of the Government made haste to abasethemselves by their super-serviceable zeal in the enforcement ofthe new Fugitive Slave law. The tables seemed to be completelyturned, and the time-honored rule of our slave-masters impregnablyre-established. The anti-slavery commotion which a little whilebefore had rocked the country from one end of the Union to theother was hushed in the restored order which succeeded, and gavepromise of that longed-for "finality" for which the two greatparties had so ardently labored. 

In no section of the non-slaveholding States was this reaction morestrikingly felt than in the West, and especially in Illinois andIndiana. These States were outlying provinces of the empire ofslavery. Their black codes and large Southern population borewitness to their perfect loyalty to slave-holding traditions. Indiana, while a Territory, had repeatedly sought the introductionof slavery into her borders. Her black laws had disfigured herlegislation from the beginning, and in 1850 were made still blackerby her new Constitution, the 13th article of which, forbiddingnegroes from coming into the State and white men from encouragingthem to remain, was submitted to the people separately, and ratifiedby a popular majority of nearly ninety thousand votes. Ten yearsbefore, in the Harrison campaign, Mr. Bigger, the Whig candidatefor Governor, made himself very popular by proving that Van Burenhad favored negro suffrage in New York. In 1842, four of theIndiana delegation in Congress--namely, Lane, Wallace, Thompson, and Kennedy--voted for the censure of Mr. Giddings, which Mr. Clayindignantly denounced at the time, and two only--namely, White andCravens--voted in the negative. Although the execution of theFugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a matter of Federal cognizanceexclusively, yet the State code made the harboring of a fugitivean offense against its peace and dignity, punishable by fine andimprisonment. The colored people were denied any share in theschool fund, but were taxed for its support; and under the lawforbidding them to testify in cases where white men were parties, they were at the mercy of any white villain who might take theprecaution of perpetrate an outrage upon them in the absence ofwhite witnesses. Of course, the organization of an anti-slaveryparty strong enough to rule such States as these, was to be thework of time, toil, and patience. It was only possible to lay thefoundation, and build as the material could be commanded; but theFree Soilers, whether in the east or in the West, were undismayedby the crisis, and fully resolved upon keeping up the fight. Incompliance with the wishes of my anti-slavery friends, and by wayof doing my part in the work, I decided to stand for a re-electionfrom the Fourth Indiana District in the spring of 1851. The Wilmotproviso Democrats who had been chosen with me two years before onthe strength of their Free Soil pledges, including such men asJoseph E. McDonald and Graham N. Fitch, now stood squarely on theCompromise measures. 

The Whigs of the State, following the lead of Webster and Clay, and including Edward W. McGaughey, their only delegate in Congress, had also completely changed their base. My competitor, Samuel W. Parker, whom I had defeated two years before, and who had theninsisted that the Whigs were better anti-slavery men than the FreeSoilers themselves, now made a complete somersault, fully committinghimself to the Compromise acts, and especially the Fugitive Slavelaw, which he declared he approved without changing the dotting ofan _i_ or the crossing of a _t_. Foote, Cass, and Webster werenow the oracles of the Whig faith; but, oddly enough, the Democrats, who had formed by far the larger portion of my support two yearsbefore, now stood firm, and I would undoubtedly have been re-electedbut for very vigorous outside interference. Wm. J. Brown, who hadintrigued with the leading Free Soilers for the Speakership in1849, as I have already shown, and favored the passage of the Wilmotproviso in order to "stick it at old Zach, " was now the editor ofthe "Sentinel, " the State organ of the Democracy, which wassufficiently orthodox on the slavery question to pass muster inSouth Carolina. It was this organ which afterward insisted thatmy abolitionism entitled me to at least five years service at hardlabor in the penitentiary. Mr. Brown's dread of this fearful heresyseemed as intense as it was unbounded, and he resolved at allhazards to avert any further alliance with it by Democrats in anyportion of the State. By very hard work and the most unscrupulousexpedients he succeeded in enlisting a few ambitious local magnatesof his party in the district, who were fully in sympathy with hisspirit and aims, and of whom Oliver P. Morton was the chief; andby thus drawing away from the democracy from two to three hundredpro-slavery malcontents and turning them over to my Whig competitor, my defeat was accomplished. 

But the effort to stem the tide of slavery fared better elsewhere. While Mr. Webster was publicly ridiculing the "higher law, " andblurting his contempt upon one of the noted anti-slavery strongholdsof the country as "a laboratory of abolitionism, libel, and treason, "Massachusetts sent Charles Sumner to the Senate of the UnitedStates, and elected Horace Mann, Charles Allen and Robert Rantoulas members of the House. Amos Tuck was returned from New Hampshire, Preston King from New York, Thaddeus Stevens and John W. Howe fromPennsylvania, Charles Durkee from Wisconsin, and Giddings andTownsend from Ohio. These events were exceedingly gratifying, andlent new life to the cause throughout the Northern States. Duringthe summer of this year Mr. Sumner moved the repeal of the FugitiveSlave Act, and although it received but ten votes, it led to anangry and protracted discussion, which showed how signally theattempt to suppress anti-slavery agitation had failed. In thelatter part of September of this year a Free Soil National Conventionmet at Cleveland, to take into consideration the state of the countryand the duty of anti-slavery men. It was large and enthusiastic. It adopted a series of spirited resolutions and a timely publicaddress, and admirable speeches were made by Cassius M. Clay, JoshuaR. Giddings, Samuel Lewis, George Bradburn, and others. The onlydrawback to the prevailing spirit of hopefulness and courage wasthe absence of Mr. Chase, who had just withdrawn from the Free Soilparty and united his fortunes with the Democrats of Ohio, who hadadopted a platform which admitted an interpretation covering, substantially, the principles of the Free Soil creed. 

As the time for another Presidential election drew near, Whigs andDemocrats were alike engrossed with the consideration of their"final settlement" of the slavery question, and their attituderespecting it in the impending struggle. Among the latter therewas substantially no division. Their experience in 1848 with Gen. Cass and his "Nicholson letter, " had convinced them that nothingwas to be gained by mincing matters, and that a hearty, completeand unhesitating surrender to slavery was the surest means ofsuccess. The Democrats in Congress, both North and South, had verygenerally favored this "settlement, " and there was now no divisionin the party except as to men. The candidates were Cass, Buchanan, Douglas, and Marcy; and the National Convention assembled on thefirst of June. The platform of the party began with the declarationof its "trust in the intelligence, the patriotism, and thediscriminating justice of the American people"; and then, in thefourth and fifth resolutions, pronounced the Fugitive Slave Actequally sacred with the Constitution, and pledged the party to"resist all attempts at renewing, in Congress or out of it, theagitation of the slavery question, under whatever shape or colorthe attempt may be made. " So far as slavery was concerned it thusbecame a recognized and authoritative principle of American Democracyto muzzle the press and crush out the freedom of speech, as themeans of upholding and perpetuating its power. On this platformFranklin Pierce was nominated on the forty-ninth ballot; and inhis letter of acceptance he declared that "the principles it embracescommand the approbation of my judgment, and with them I believe Ican safely say that no word nor act of my life is in conflict. "It is difficult to conceive of any words by which he could morecompletely have abdicated his manhood and self-respect, and soundedthe knell of his own conscience. There was no lower deep, and hewas evidently the right man in the right place. 

The Whig National Convention assembled on the sixteenth of June, with Scott, Fillmore and Webster as the candidates. There was yeta considerable anti-slavery element in the party, but it wasparalyzed and powerless. It had made a fatal mistake in submittingto the nomination of Gen. Taylor, and became still more completelydemoralized by the accession of Fillmore, who turned his back uponhis past life, and threw himself into the arms of the slave-holders. The old party had gone astray too long and too far to return, andnow determined to seek its fortunes in the desperate effort tooutdo the Democrats in cringing servility to the South. The platformof the Convention expressed the reliance of the Whigs "upon theintelligence of the American people, " but in its eighth resolutiondeclared their acquiescence in the Compromise Acts of 1850 "as afinal settlement, in principle and substance, of the subjects towhich they relate"; and it deprecated "all further agitation ofthe questions thus settled, as dangerous to our peace, " and pledgedthe party "to discountenance all efforts to continue or renew suchagitation, whenever, wherever, or however made. " On this platform, which is well understood to have been the work of Mr. Webster, Gen. Scott was nominated on the fifty-ninth ballot by a vote of twohundred and twenty-seven to sixty-six, while the highest votereceived by Mr. Webster was twenty-nine. Here at last, the Whigparty had made a complete surrender of its integrity, and verifiedall that had ever been said by Free Soilers as to its treachery tofreedom; and here, finally, these rival parties were tumbled togetherinto the ditch of slavery, and wallowing in the mire of theirdegradation and shame. The only issue of the canvass was slavery, and on this they were perfectly agreed, while each, for the sakeof the spoils of office, was trying to surpass the other in thedamning proofs of its treason to humanity and contempt for thefundamental truths of republican government. 

The spectacle was most pitiably humiliating, but I counted it anomen of progress. The old parties were now unequivocally committedto the policy of nationalizing the sectional interest of slavery, and the way thus opened for a fair fight. The lines were clearlydrawn, and the issue unmistakably made between freedom and freespeech on the one side, and slavery and the gag on the other. Ithought we should have no more anti-slavery professions from Whigsand Democrats, no further courting of Free-Soilers, and no moremutual upbraidings of servility to the South; and that thus theway would be smoothed for intelligent and effective anti-slaverywork. 

The Free Soil National Convention met in Pittsburg on the eleventhof August, and I believe an assemblage of purer men never convenedfor any political purpose. All the compromising and trading elementsthat had drifted into the movement in 1848 had now gravitated backto the old parties, leaving a residuum of permanent adherents ofthe cause, who were perfectly ready to brave the frowns of publicopinion and the proscription and wrath of the old parties. HenryWilson was made president of the convention, and the platformadopted was substantially that of 1848. A few additional resolves, however, were added, including the declaration "that emigrants andexiles from the old world should find a cordial welcome to homesof comfort and fields of enterprise in the new, " and that "everyattempt to abridge their privilege of becoming citizens and ownersof the soil among us ought to be resisted with inflexibledetermination. " It was also declared "that the Free Democraticparty was not organized to aid either the Whig or Democratic wingof the great Slave Compromise party of the Nation, but to defeatthem both; and that, repudiating and renouncing both as hopelesslycorrupt and utterly unworthy of confidence, the purpose of the FreeDemocracy is to take possession of the Federal Government, andadminister it for the better protection of the rights and interestsof the whole people. " On this platform John P. Hale was nominatedfor the Presidency. My own nomination for the second place on theticket was to me a complete surprise. I fully expected this honorwould fall upon Samuel Lewis, of Ohio, and the delegation from myown State was unitedly for him. He coveted the nomination, and sodid his many devoted friends, simply as a fitting recognition ofhis faithful service in the cause of freedom, to which he had beenunselfishly devoted since the year 1841. He had made himself apublic benefactor by his long and powerful championship of thecause of education in Ohio. He was a man of brains, and enthusiasticallydevoted to every work of practical philanthropy and reform. As animpassioned, eloquent, and effective popular orator, he had noequal in the country. His profound earnestness, perfect sincerity, and religious fervor conquered all hearts, and made his anti-slaveryappeals irresistible. He was a strong and brave old man, who richlydeserved whatever distinction his nomination could confer; but forreasons unknown to me he encountered in the convention the formidableopposition of Mr. Chase, and he wrote me very touchingly a few daysafterward that "among the thousands who have given their lives andfortunes to this cause, my name will be forgotten, while those whohave coolly stood by and watched the signs of the times, and filledtheir sails with the wind that others have raised, will go down tohistory as heroes and martyrs in a cause for which they never foughta battle nor suffered a sacrifice. "

The canvass of the Whigs was totally without heart or enthusiasm. The Southern wing of the party had dictated the platform, but didnot like Gen. Scott. Stephens and Toombs, of Georgia, and Jonesand Gentry, of Tennessee, refused to support him. The NorthernWhigs were greatly embarrassed, and while they felt constrained tosupport the candidate, tried to relieve their consciences by"spitting upon the platform" on which he stood. Mr. Webster didnot disguise his hostility to the ticket, and predicted the speedydissolution of the party. The Democrats were united in this contest. Notwithstanding their atrocious platform they succeeded in persuadingthe leading Barnburners of 1848 to return to the party and musteragain in the army of slavery. Dix, the Van Burens, David DudleyField, Tilden, and a host of others, including even Robert Rantouland Preston King, were now fighting for Pierce, while Bryant's"Evening Post" and Greeley's "Tribune" cravenly submitted to theshackles of slavery. In the light of such facts as these it waseasy to forecast the result of the contest. 

The real enthusiasm of this campaign was in the ranks of the FreeSoilers. They had, of course, no dream of success, or even ofcarrying a single electoral vote; but they were profoundly inearnest, and united as one man against the combination of the oldparties in behalf of slavery. I took the stump, and early in thecampaign accepted an invitation to join Cassius M. Clay in thecanvass of the counties of Lewis, Bracken, and Mason, in Kentucky. On my way to our first appointment I stopped at Maysville, whereI found myself in the midst of a considerable excitement about somethirty or forty slaves who had just crossed the Ohio on their wayto Canada. I met Mr. Clay at the residence of the Rev. John G. Fee, some eight miles distant in Lewis county, where we talked overthe plan of our campaign. Mr. Fee was the founder of an anti-slavery colony, a free school, and a free church, in that region, and was a scholar, philanthropist, and reformer. His whole heartwas in the anti-slavery cause, and his courage had never failedhim in facing the ruffianism and brutality which slavery employedin its service; but I would not have felt very safe in this enterprisewithout the presence of Mr. Clay, who was known in Kentucky, andeverywhere else, as "a fighting Christian, " who would defend thefreedom of speech at any hazard. Our first meeting was in Mr. Fee's church, in the rocky and mountainous region of the county, where we had perfect order and an attentive and sympathetic audience. From this point we proceeded the next day to our appointment inMaysville, finding a good deal of excitement in the city as to thepropriety of allowing us to speak in the court house. It wasfinally thrown open to us, and in the afternoon I was handsomelyintroduced by Mr. Clay to a fine audience, speaking at length, andwith great plainness, on the issues of the canvass, and beingfrequently applauded. Mr. Clay spoke at night to a still largeraudience, while perfect order prevailed. So far our success seemedgratifying, and Mr. Fee was delighted; and we proceeded the followingmorning to our next appointment at Brooksville, in Bracken county. Here we found assembled a large crowd of that brutalized rabbleelement which formed the background of slavery everywhere. Theaboriginal creatures gazed at us like so many wild animals, butshowed not the slightest disposition to enter the house in whichwe were to speak. Mr. Clay remarked that they must be Whigs, sincethey did not seemed inclined to "resist, " but only to "discountenance"our agitation; but we had come to speak, and with Mr. Fee's familyand a few friends who had come with us for an audience, we spokeabout an hour and a half each, just as if the house had been filled. A few straggled in during the speaking, and several hung about thewindows and listened, though they tried to seem not to do so; butthe most remarkable and praiseworthy thing about this congregationof Yahoos was that they did not mob us. It must have seemed tothem a strange waste of power to spare such notorious disturbersof the peace, and return to their homes without any laurels. Thisended our work in Kentucky, where we could boast that the "finality"platform had been openly set at defiance, and I returned to my workon the other side of the Ohio. 

Later in the canvass, on my return from Wisconsin and Illinois, Ilearned that Andrew L. Robinson, the Free Soil candidate for Governorof Indiana, had been mobbed in the city of Terre Haute, and preventedfrom making an anti-slavery speech. This was not surprising, asthis section of the State was largely settled by people fromMaryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, who were as intolerant ofabolitionism as those of Bracken county already described. Iimmediately sent a telegram making an appointment to speak in thatcity, and on the day appointed reported for duty. I found myfriends uneasy and apprehensive. They evidently regretted mycoming, and some of them advised me quietly to return home. Thetown was full of rumors that I was not to be allowed to speak, andwas to be "wabashed, " as the rowdies phrased it. But I had nothought of returning without being heard; and accordingly, at theappointed hour, I repaired to the court house, where I found asmall crowd assembled, with restless countenances, and a gang ofruffians outside, armed with stones and brickbats. The audiencegradually increased, and as I began to speak I noticed that theroughs themselves began to listen, which they continued to do duringthe hour and a half I devoted to the most unmistakable utteranceson the slavery question. The ringleader of the mob, for somereason, failed to give the signal of attack, and free speech wasvindicated. Timid men grew brave, and boasted of the love of orderthat had prompted the people of the town to stand by my rights;yet the mob would probably have triumphed but for the presence ofJoseph O. Jones, the post-master of the city, himself a Kentuckian, but a believer in the right of free speech and the duty of defendingit at all hazards. 

The result of this Presidential canvass was a surprise to allparties. The triumph of the Democrats was anticipated, but it wasfar more signal than they expected. Pierce received two hundredand fifty-four electoral votes, and Scott only forty-two, representingonly four States of the Union. So far as the Whig party wasconcerned, the result was overwhelming and final. The party wasburied forever in the grave it had dug for itself. Hale receiveda little more than one hundred and fifty-six thousand votes, beingabout one-twentieth of the entire popular vote cast at this election;so that nineteen-twentieths of the people of the United States in1852, and only a little more than a dozen years before slavery wasswept from the land, voted themselves bound and dumb before thisMoloch of American politics, while only one-twentieth had thecourage to claim their souls as their own. These were very startlingfacts after more than a quarter of a century of anti-slavery agitation, and they were naturally interpreted by the victorious party everywhereas clearly foreshadowing the complete triumph of the "finalsettlement" made by Congress in 1850. Certainly they seemed verydisheartening to anti-slavery men; for, however confidently theymight believe in the final success of their struggle, they couldnot fail to see the immense odds and fearful obstacles againstwhich they would have to contend. The debauched masses who hadbeen molded and kneaded by the plastic touch of slavery into suchbase uses, were the only possible material from which recruitscould be drawn for a great party of the future, which shouldregenerate our politics and re-enthrone the love of liberty; andthis should be remembered in estimating the courage and faith ofthe men who in that dark hour held aloft the banner of freedom, inspite of all temptations to go with the multitude. 

But there was another view of the situation which thoughtful anti-slavery men did not fail to enforce. The overwhelming triumph ofPierce was not an unmixed victory for slavery. It had anotherexplanation. It was to be remembered, to the credit of the Whigparty, that thousands of its members, notwithstanding their dislikeof Pierce and their admiration of Gen. Scott as a man and a soldier, and despite the attempted drill of their leaders and the influenceof Greeley and Seward, could not be induced to support the ticket, and were now ready for further acts of independence. It was likewiseto be remembered that in the complete rout and ruin of the partya great obstacle to anti-slavery progress had been removed. Theslave-holders at once recognized this fact. They had aimed todefeat the party, not to annihilate it. They saw clearly whatslavery needed was two pretty evenly divided parties, pitted againsteach other on economic issues, so that under cover of their strifeit could be allowed to have its way; and they were justly alarmedat the prospect of a new movement, having its action upon moralgrounds, and gathering into its ranks the unshackled conscienceand intelligence of the Northern States. The "Washington Union, "then the national organ of the Democracy, deplored the death ofthe Whig party, and earnestly hoped for its resurrection. The facthad always been patent to anti-slavery men that these parties werealike the bulwarks of slavery, since the Southern wing of each gavelaw to the whole body, and that until one or the other could betotally destroyed, a really formidable anti-slavery party wasimpossible. There was also great cause for encouragement in theevident signs of a growing anti-slavery public opinion. "UncleTom's Cabin" had found its way to the millions on both sides of theAtlantic, and the rage for it among all classes was without parallelin the history of literature. It was served up for the masses insixpenny editions, dramatized and acted on the stage, and coinedinto poetry and song. Slave-holders were alarmed at its wonderfulsuccess, because they saw the grand part it was playing in creatingthat "public opinion of the civilized world" which Mr. Webster haddeclared to be "the mightiest power on earth. " The replies to thiswonderful book, and the anti-slavery and pro-slavery literature towhich it gave birth, largely contributed to the progress of freedom, and the final repudiation of the "finality" which the great partieshad combined to establish. 

Nor was the small vote for Hale a matter of serious discouragement. It was much smaller than that cast for Van Buren in 1848; but thatwas a deceptive epoch. Multitudes, and especially in the State ofNew York, then voted the Free Soil ticket who had never beforeshown any interest in the slavery question, and did not manifestit afterward. They were not Free Soil men, but Van Buren men, whohated Gen. Cass. The vote for Hale represented the _bona fide_strength of our cause after this element had been eliminated, andits quality went far to atone for its quantity. The proper testof anti-slavery progress was a comparison of the anti-slavery voteof 1844 with that of 1852, and this showed an increase of nearlythree-fold in the intervening space of eight years. This steadyevolution of anti-slavery opinion from the deadening materialismand moral inertia of the times could not go backward, but in thevery nature of things would repeat itself, and gather fresh momentumfrom every effort put forth to stay its advance. 

CHAPTER VII. THE EVOLUTION OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY (CONTINUED). A notable fugitive slave case--Inauguration of Pierce--Repeal ofthe Missouri compromise--Its effect upon the parties--The Free Soilposition--Know-Nothingism--The situation--First steps in theformation of the Republican party--Movements of the Know-Nothings--Mistake of the Free Soilers--Anti-slavery progress--Election ofBanks as Speaker--Call for a Republican National Convention atPittsburg--Organization of the party--The Philadelphia conventionand its platform--Nomination of Fremont--Know-Nothing and Whignominations--Democratic nomination and platform--The grand issueof the campaign--The Democratic canvass--The splendid fight forFremont--Triumph of Buchanan--Its causes and results--The teachingof events. 

It was early in the year 1853 that a notable fugitive slave caseoccurred in Indiana. The alleged fugitive was John Freeman, whohad once resided in Georgia, but for many years had been a residentof Indianapolis and had never been a slave. The marshal of theState, though he had voted against the passage of the Fugitive Actof 1850, entered upon the service of Ellington, the claimant, witha zeal and alacrity which made him exceedingly odious to anti-slavery men. He accompanied Ellington into the jail in whichFreeman was confined, and compelled him to expose his shouldersand legs, so that the witnesses could identify him by certain marks, and swear according to the pattern, which they did. The case becamecritical for Freeman; but the feeling in Indianapolis was so strongin his favor that a continuance of the hearing was granted to enablehim to prepare his proofs. He hired friends to go to Georgia, whosucceeded in bringing back with them several men who had known himthere many years before, and testified that he was a free man. Onthe day of the trial Ellington became the fugitive, while Freemanwas preparing his papers for a prosecution for false imprisonment. The large crowd in attendance was quite naturally turned into ananti-slavery meeting, which was made to do good service in the wayof "agitation. " The men from Georgia were on the platform, andwhile they were complimented by the speakers on their love ofjustice and humanity in coming to the rescue of Freeman, no quarterwas given to the Northern serviles and flunkeys who had made hasteto serve the perjured villains who had undertaken to kidnap acitizen of the State under the forms of an atrocious law. Themeeting was very enthusiastic, and the tables completely turned onthe slave-catching faction. 

When President Pierce was inaugurated, on the fourth of March, 1853, the pride and power of the Democratic party seemed to be attheir flood. In his inaugural message he expressed the ferventhope that the slavery question was "forever at rest, " and hedoubtless fully believed that this hope would be realized. In hisannual message, in December following, he lauded the Compromisemeasures with great emphasis, and declared that the repose whichthey had brought to the country should receive no shock during histerm of office if he could avert it. The anti-slavery element inthe Thirty-third Congress was scarcely as formidable as in thepreceding one, though there were some accessions. Benjamin F. Wadewas now in the Senate, and De Witt of Massachusetts, Gerrit Smithof New York, and Edward Wade of Ohio, were members of the House. In the beginning the session gave promise of a quiet one, but onthe twenty-third of January the precious repose of the country, towhich the President had so lovingly referred in his message, wasrudely shocked by the proposition of Senator Douglas to repeal theMissouri compromise. This surprising demonstration from a leadingfriend of the Administration and a champion of the compromisemeasures marked a new epoch in the career of slavery, and rekindledthe fires of sectional strife. After a very exciting debate inboth houses, which lasted four months, the measure finally becamea law on the thirtieth of May, 1854. It was a sprout from thegrave of the Wilmot proviso; for if, under the Constitution, itwas the duty of Congress to abandon the policy of restriction in1850, and provide that Utah and New Mexico should be received intothe Union, with or without slavery, according to the choice oftheir people, the Missouri compromise line should never have beenestablished, and was a rock of offense to the slave-holders. TheCompromise Acts of 1850 had not abrogated that line, and relatedonly to our Mexican acquisitions; but they had affirmed a principle, and if that principle was sound, the Missouri restriction wasindefensible. The whole question of slavery was thus reopened, for the sacredness of the compact of 1820 and the wickedness ofits violation depended largely upon the character of slavery itself, and our constitutional relations to it. 

On all sides the situation was exceedingly critical and peculiar. The Whigs, in their now practically disbanded condition, were freeto act as they saw fit, and were very indignant at this newdemonstration in the interest of slavery, while they were yet inno mood to countenance any form of "abolitionism. " Multitudes ofDemocrats were equally indignant, and were quite ready to joinhands with the Whigs in branding slavery with the violation of itsplighted faith. Both made the sacredness of the bargain of 1820and the crime of its violation the sole basis of their hostility. Their hatred of slavery was geographical, spending its force northof the Missouri restriction. They talked far more eloquently aboutthe duty of keeping covenants, and the wickedness of revivingsectional agitation, than the evils of slavery, and the cold-bloodedconspiracy to spread it over an empire of free soil. Their watch-word and rallying cry was "the restoration of the Missouri compromise";but this demand was not made merely as a preliminary to othermeasures, which would restore the free States to the completeassertion of their constitutional rights, but as a means ofpropitiating the _spirit_ of compromise, and a convenient retreatto the adjustment acts of 1850 and the "finality" platforms of1852. In some States and localities the anti-slavery position ofthese parties was somewhat broader; but as a general rule the groundon which they marshaled their forces was substantially what I havestated. 

The position of the Free Soilers was radically different. Theyopposed slavery upon principle, and irrespective of any compact orcompromise. They did not demand the restoration of the Missouricompromise; and although they rejoiced at the popular condemnationof the perfidy which had repealed it, they regarded it as a falseissue. It was an instrument on which different tunes could beplayed. To restore this compromise would prevent the spread ofslavery over soil that was free; but it would re-affirm the bindingobligation of a compact that should never have been made, and fromwhich we were now offered a favorable opportunity of deliverance. It would be to recognize slavery as an equal and honorable contractingparty, waiving its violated faith, and thus precluding us frompleading its perfidy in discharge of all compromises. It woulddegrade our cause to the level of those who washed their hands ofall taint of abolitionism, and only waged war against the Administrationbecause it broke up the blessed reign of peace which descended uponthe country in the year 1850. These Free Soilers insisted thatthe breach of this compact was only a single link in a great chainof measures aiming at the absolute supremacy of slavery in theGovernment, and thus inviting a resistance commensurate with thatpolicy; and that this breach should be made the exodus of the peoplefrom the bondage of all compromises. They argued that to cut downthe issue between slavery and freedom to so narrow, equivocal, andhalf-hearted a measure, at a time when every consideration pleadedfor radical and thorough work, was practical infidelity to thecause and the crisis. It was sporting with humanity, and givingto the winds a glorious victory for the right when it was withinour grasp. 

The situation was complicated by two other political elements. One of these was Temperance, which now, for the first time, hadbecome a most absorbing political issue. The "Maine Law" agitationhad reached the West, and the demand of the temperance leaders was"search, seizure, confiscation, and destruction of liquors keptfor illegal sale. " Keenly alive to the evils of drunkenness, andtoo impatient to wait for the inevitable conditions of progress, they thought the great work could be accomplished by a legislativeshort-cut. They insisted that the "accursed poison" of the"rumseller, " wherever it could be found, should be poured into thegutter along with other filth, while he should be marched off toanswer to the charge of a crime against society, and take his rankamong other great offenders. Instead of directing their chiefattack against the appetite for drink and seeking to lessen thedemand, their effort was to destroy the supply. They had evidentlygiven no thought to the function of civil government in dealingwith the problem, nor did they perceive that the vice of drunkennessis an effect, quite as much as a cause, having its genesis in theunequal laws, in the domination of wealth over the poor, in thelack of general education, in inherited infirmities, physical andmental, in neglected household training; in a word, in untowardsocial conditions which must be radically dealt with before we canstrike with effect at the root of the evil. They did not see thatthe temperance question is thus a many-sided one, involving thegeneral uplifting of society, and that no legislation can availmuch which loses sight of this truth. For these very reasons theagitation for a time swept everything before it. Its current wasresistless, because it was narrow and impetuous. If the leadershad comprehended the logic of their work and its unavoidablelimitations, and had only looked forward to the overthrow of thefabric of intemperance by undermining its foundations, the regularcurrent of politics would not have been perceptibly affected, whilethe way would have been left open for a more perfect union on thereally vital and overshadowing issue of slavery. 

The other element referred to made its appearance in the closingmonths of 1853, and took the name of the Know-Nothing party. Itwas a secret oath-bound political order, and its demand was theproscription of Catholics and a probation of twenty-one years forthe foreigner as a qualification for the right of suffrage. Itscareer was as remarkable as it was disgraceful. Thousands weremade to believe that the Romish hierarchy was about to overthrowour liberties, and that the evils of "foreignism" had become soalarming as to justify the extraordinary measures by which it wasproposed to counteract them. Thousands, misled by political knavesthrough the arts of the Jesuits believed that the cause of freedomwas to be sanctified and saved by this new thing under the sun. Thousands, through their unbridled credulity, were persuaded thatpolitical hacks and charlatans were to lose their occupation underthe reign of the new Order, and that our debauched politics wereto be thoroughly purified by the lustration which it promisedforthwith to perform. Thousands, eager to bolt from the old parties, but fearful of being shot down on the way as deserters, gladlyavailed themselves of this newly devised "underground railroad" inescaping from the service of their old masters. Under these variousinfluences the Whigs generally, and a large proportion of the FreeSoilers and Democrats, were enlisted in the service of this remarkablemovement. Pretending to herald a new era in our politics in whichthe people were to take the helm and expel demagogues and tradersfrom the ship, it reduced political swindling to the certainty andsystem of a science. It drew to itself, as the great festeringcentre of corruption, all the known rascalities of the previousgeneration, and assigned them to active duty in its service. Itwas an embodied lie of the first magnitude, a horrid conspiracyagainst decency, the rights of man, and the principle of humanbrotherhood. 

Its birth, simultaneously with the repeal of the Missouri compromise, was not an accident, as any one could see who had studied thetactics of the slave-holders. It was a well-timed scheme to dividethe people of the free States upon trifles and side issues, whilethe South remained a unit in defense of its great interest. Itwas the cunning attempt to balk and divert the indignation arousedby the repeal of the Missouri restriction, which else would spendits force upon the aggressions of slavery; for by thus kindlingthe Protestant jealousy of our people against the Pope, and enlistingthem in a crusade against the foreigner, the South could all themore successfully push forward its schemes. 

On this ground, as an anti-slavery man, I opposed it with all mymight from the beginning to the end of its life. For a time itcarried everything with a high hand. It was not only irresistiblein numbers, but it fought in the dark. It pretended to act openlyand in friendly conference with its enemies as to questions whichit had already settled in secret conclave. Its opponents did notknow how to wage war against it, because they did not know who weretheir friends. If a meeting was called to expose and denounce itsschemes, it was drowned in the Know-Nothing flood which, at theappointed time, completely overwhelmed the helpless minority. Thishappened in my own county and town, where thousands of men, includingmany of my old Free Soil brethren, assembled as an organized mobto suppress the freedom of speech; and they succeeded by bruteforce in taking possession of every building in which their opponentscould meet, and silencing them by savage yells. At one time Ithink I had less than a dozen political friends in the State, andI could see in the glad smile which lighted up the faces of my old-time enemies that they considered me beyond the reach of politicalresurrection. But I never for a moment intermitted my warfare, ordoubted that in the end the truth would be vindicated, although Idid not dream that in less than two years I would be the recognizedleader of the men composing this mob, who would be found denyingtheir membership of this secret order, or confessing it with shame. It was a strange dispensation; and no record of independent journalismwas ever more honorable than that of the "New York Tribune" and"National Era, " during their heroic and self-sacrificing fightagainst this organized scheme of bigotry and proscription, whichcan only be remembered as the crowning and indelible shame of ourpolitics. It admits of neither defense or palliation, and I amsorry to find Henry Wilson's "History of the Rise and Fall of theSlave Power" disfigured by his elaborate efforts to whitewash itinto respectability, and give it a decent place in the records ofthe past. 

Such were the elements which mingled and commingled in the politicalferment of 1854, and out of which an anti-slavery party was to beevolved capable of trying conclusions with the perfectly disciplinedpower of slavery. The problem was exceedingly difficult, and couldnot be solved in a day. The necessary conditions of progress couldnot be slighted, and the element of time must necessarily be alarge one in the grand movement which was to come. The dispersionof the old parties was one thing, but the organization of theirfragments into a new one on a just basis was quite a differentthing. The honor of taking the first step in the formation of theRepublican party belongs to Michigan, where the Whigs and FreeSoilers met in State convention on the sixth of July, formed acomplete fusion into one party, and adopted the name Republican. This action was followed soon after by like movements in the Statesof Wisconsin and Vermont. In Indiana a State "fusion" conventionwas held on the thirteenth of July, which adopted a platform, nominated a ticket, and called the new movement the "People'sParty. " The platform, however, was narrow and equivocal, and theticket nominated had been agreed on the day before by the Know-Nothings, in secret conclave, as the outside world afterward learned. The ticket was elected, but it was done by combining opposite andirreconcilable elements, and was not only barren of good fruitsbut prolific of bad ones, through its demoralizing example; forthe same dishonest game was attempted the year following, and wasoverwhelmingly defeated by the Democrats. In New York the Whigsrefused to disband, and the attempt to form a new party failed. The same was true of Massachusetts and Ohio. The latter State, however, in 1855, fell into the Republican column, and nominatedMr. Chase for Governor, who was elected by a large majority. ARepublican movement was attempted this year in Massachusetts, whereconservative Whiggery and Know-Nothingism blocked the way ofprogress, as they did also in the State of New York. In Novemberof the year 1854 the Know-Nothing party held a National Conventionin Cincinnati, in which the hand of slavery was clearly revealed, and the "Third Degree" or pro-slavery obligation of the order, wasadopted; and it was estimated that at least a million and a halfof men afterward bound themselves by this obligation. In June ofthe following year another National Convention of the order washeld in Philadelphia, and at this convention the party was finallydisrupted on the issue of slavery, and its errand of mischiefhenceforward prosecuted by fragmentary and irregular methods; buteven the Northern wing of this Order was untrustworthy on theslavery issue, having proposed, as a condition of union, to limitits anti-slavery demand to the restoration of the Missouri restrictionand the admission of Kansas and Nebraska as free States. 

Indeed, the outlook as to the formation of a triumphant anti-slaveryparty was not so promising towards the close of the year 1855 asit had seemed in the spring of the preceding year. If the FreeSoilers had been clear-sighted enough to distinguish between thatwhich was transient and that which was permanent in the forceswhich had roused the people of the free States, and, availingthemselves of the repeal of the Missouri restriction as a God-sendto their cause, had summoned the manhood of the country to theirhelp, a powerful impulse would have been given in the right direction. But in the general confusion and bewilderment of the times many ofthem lost their way, and were found mustering with the mongrelhordes of Know-Nothingism, and under captains who were utterlyunworthy to lead them. Instead of inflexibly maintaining theirground and beckoning the people to come up and possess it, theymeanly deserted it themselves, while vainly expecting others tooccupy it. The Whigs were totally powerless to render any servicewithout first disbanding their party, and this, in many localities, they declined to do. Both wings of the Know-Nothing movement wereorganized obstacles to the formation of a new party, while thebolters from the Democrats were as unprepared for radical anti-slavery work as the Whigs or Know-Nothings. But notwithstandingall these drawbacks, real progress had been made. In the Thirty-fourth Congress, Wilson, Foster, Harlan, Trumbull, and Durkee werechosen senators. In the House were Burlingame, Buffington, Banks, Hickman, Grow, Covode, Sherman, Bliss, Galloway, Bingham, Harlan, Stanton, Colfax, Washburn, and many others. These were great gains, and clearly pointed to still larger accessions, and the finalsubordination of minor issues to the grand one on which the peopleof the free States were to take their stand. An unprecedentedstruggle for the Speakership began with the opening of the Thirty-fourth Congress, and lasted till the second day of February, whenthe free States finally achieved their first victory in the electionof Banks. Northern manhood at last was at a premium, and this waslargely the fruit of the "border ruffian" attempts to make Kansasa slave State, which had stirred the blood of the people duringthe year 1855. In the meantime, the arbitrary enforcement of theFugitive Slave Act still further contributed to the growth of ananti-slavery opinion. The famous case of Anthony Burns in Boston, the prosecution of S. M. Booth in Wisconsin, and the decision ofthe Supreme Court of that State, the imprisonment of PassmoreWilliamson in Philadelphia, and the outrageous rulings of JudgeKane, and the case of Margaret Garner in Ohio, all played theirpart in preparing the people of the free States for organizedpolitical action against the aggressions of slavery. 

Near the close of the year 1855, the chairmen of the RepublicanState Committees of Ohio, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and Wisconsin, issued a call for a National Republican Conventionto be held at Pittsburg, on the 22d of February, 1856, for thepurpose of organizing a National Republican party, and makingprovision for a subsequent convention to nominate candidates forPresident and Vice President. It was very largely attended, andbore witness to the spirit and courage which the desperate measuresof the slave oligarchy had awakened throughout the Northern States. All the free States were represented, and eight of the slave-holding, namely: Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Kentucky, Missouri, Tennessee, North Carolina, and Texas. The convention assembled in LafayetteHall, and the Hon. John A. King, of New York, a son of Rufus King, was made temporary chairman, and Francis P. Blair, of Maryland, the intimate friend of President Jackson, was made its permanentpresident. He was most enthusiastically greeted on taking thechair, and began his address with the remark that this was thefirst time he had ever been called on to make a speech. His viewswere too conservative in tone to satisfy the demands of the crisis, but he was most cordially welcomed as a distinguished delegate froma slave State. The convention was opened by a prayer from OwenLovejoy, and there was a suppressed murmur of applause when heasked God to enlighten the mind of the President of the UnitedStates, and turn him from his evil ways, and if this was notpossible, to take him away, so that an honest and God-fearing manmight fill his place. Horace Greeley was seen in the audience, and was loudly and unitedly called on for a speech. He spokebriefly, saying that he had been in Washington several weeks, andfriends there "counseled extreme caution in our movements. " Thiswas the burden of his exhortation. At the close of his remarksMr. Giddings was tumultuously called for, and responded by sayingthat Washington was the last place in the world to look for counselor redress, and related an anecdote of two pious brothers, namedJoseph and John, who in early times had begun a settlement in theWest. Joseph prayed to the Lord: "O, Lord! we have begun a goodwork; we pray thee to carry it on thus, "--giving specific directions. But John prayed: "O, Lord, we have begun a good work; carry it onas you think best, and don't mind what Joe says. " Mr. Giddingsthen introduced the Rev. Owen Lovejoy, of Illinois, --"not Joe, butJohn. " Mr. Lovejoy delighted the audience, and was followed byPreston King and other speakers; and it was quite manifest thatthis was a _Republican_ convention, and not a mere aggregation ofWhigs, Know-Nothings, and dissatisfied Democrats. It contained aconsiderable Know-Nothing element, but it made no attempt atleadership, while Charles Remelin and other speakers wereenthusiastically applauded when they denounced Know-Nothingism asa mischievous side issue in our politics, which the new movementshould openly repudiate. The convention was in session two days, and was singularly harmonious throughout. Its resolutions andaddress to the people did not fitly echo the feeling and purposeof its members, but this was a preliminary movement, and it wasevident that nothing could stay the progress of the cause. Aschairman of the committee on organization, I had the honor to reportthe plan of action through which the new party took life, providingfor the appointment of a National Executive Committee, the holdingof a National Convention in Philadelphia on the 17th of June, forthe nomination of candidates for President and Vice President, andthe organization of the party in counties and districts throughoutthe States. 

The Philadelphia convention was very large, and marked by unboundedenthusiasm. The spirit of liberty was up, and side issues forgotten. If Know-Nothingism was present, it prudently accepted an attitudeof subordination. The platform reasserted the self-evident truthsof the Declaration of Independence, and denied that Congress, thepeople of a Territory, or any other authority, could give legalexistence to slavery in any Territory of the United States. Itasserted the sovereign power of Congress over the Territories, andits right and duty to prohibit it therein. Know-Nothingism receivedno recognition, and the double-faced issue of the restoration ofthe Missouri compromise was disowned, while the freedom of Kansaswas dealt with as a mere incident of the conflict between libertyand slavery. On this broad platform John C. Fremont was nominatedfor President on the first ballot, and Wm. L. Dayton was unanimouslynominated for Vice-President. The National Republican party wasthus splendidly launched, and nothing seemed to stand in the wayof its triumph but the mischievous action of the Know-Nothing party, and a surviving faction of pro-slavery Whigs. The former partymet in National Convention in Philadelphia, on the twenty-secondof February, and nominated Millard Fillmore for President and AndrewJ. Donelson for Vice President. Some bolters from this conventionsubsequently nominated Nathaniel P. Banks and William F. Johnsonas their candidates, and a remnant of the Whig party held a conventionat Baltimore on the seventeenth of September, and endorsed Fillmoreand Donelson; but a dissatisfied portion of the convention afterwardnominated Commodore Stockton and Kenneth Raynor. All these factionswere destined soon to political extinction, but in a hand-to-handfight with the slave power they yet formed a considerable obstacleto that union and harmony in the free States which were necessaryto success. 

The Democratic National Convention met at Cincinnati on the secondof June. The candidates were Buchanan, Pierce, and Douglas. Onthe seventeenth ballot Buchanan was unanimously nominated forPresident, and on the second ballot John C. Breckenridge wasnominated for Vice President. The platform re-affirmed the actionof Congress respecting the repeal of the Missouri compromise andthe compromises of 1850, and recognized the right of the people ofall the Territories, including Kansas and Nebraska, whenever thenumber of their inhabitants justified it, to form a Constitutionwith or without domestic slavery, and to be admitted into the Unionupon terms of equality with the other States. These declarations, together with the express denial to Congress of the right tointerfere with slavery in the Territories, were accepted assatisfactory to the South, and were fairly interpreted to mean thatthe people of the Territories, pending their territorial condition, had no power to exclude slavery therefrom. In Mr. Buchanan's letterof acceptance, he completely buried his personality in the platform, and Albert G. Brown of Mississippi, and Governor Wise of Virginia, pronounced him as true to the South as Mr. Calhoun himself. Thesewere the tickets for 1856, but the real contest was between Buchananand Fremont. It was pre-eminently a conflict of principles. Theissues could hardly have been better defined, and they were vital. It was a struggle between two civilizations, between reason andbrute force, between the principles of Democracy and the creed ofAbsolutism; and the case was argued with a force, earnestness, andfervor, never before known. No Presidential contest had ever sotouched the popular heart, or so lifted up and ennobled the peopleby the contagion of a great and pervading moral enthusiasm. Thecampaign for Buchanan, however, was not particularly animated, atleast in the Northern States. It illustrated the power of partymachinery, and the desperate purpose to press forward along a pathwhich had been followed too far to call a halt. It was a strugglefor party ascendancy by continual and most humiliating concessionsto the ever-multiplying demands of slavery; and the ardor of thestruggle must have been cooled by many troublesome misgivings asto the final effect of these concessions, and the policy of purchasinga victory at such a price. 

The excitement of the canvass was aggravated by very exasperatingcircumstances. The brutal and cowardly assault of Brooks uponSumner was the counterpart of border ruffianism in Kansas, andperhaps did more to stir the blood of the people of the NorthernStates than any of the wholesale outrages thus far perpetrated inthat distant border. These outrages, however, were now multipliedin all directions, and took on new shapes. They were legislative, executive, and judicial, cropping out in private pillage andassassination, in organized marauding and murder, and in armedviolence; and these horrid demonstrations enlivened the canvass tothe end. Republican enthusiasm reached its white heat, borrowingthe self-forgetting devotion and dedicated zeal of a religiousconversion. Banks and tariffs and methods of administration werecompletely forgotten, while thousands of Democrats who had beentrained in the school of slavery, and hundreds of thousands ofconservative Whigs, caught the spirit of liberty which animatedthe followers of Fremont and Dayton. The canvass had no parallelin the history of American politics. No such mass-meetings hadever assembled. They were not only immense in numbers, but seemedto come together spontaneously, and wholly independent of machinery. The processions, banners, and devices were admirable in all theirappointments, and no political campaign had ever been inspired bysuch charming and soul-stirring music, or cheered by such a followingof orderly, intelligent, conscientious and thoroughly devoted menand women. To me the memory of this first great national strugglefor liberty is a delight, as the part I played in it was a realjubilee of the heart. I was welcomed by the Republican masseseverywhere, and the fact was as gratifying to me as it provedmortifying to the party chiefs who, a little while before, hadfound such comfort in the assurance that henceforward they wererid of me. With many wry faces they submitted, after all sorts ofmanoeuvers early in the canvass to keep me in the background, variedby occasional threats to drive me out of the party. As their ownparty standing became somewhat precarious they completely changedtheir base, and often amused the public by super-serviceable displaysof their personal friendship. Even the ring-leader of the Know-Nothing mob of two years before, standing up to his full height of"six feet six, " used to introduce me at mass meetings as "Yourhonored representative in Congress, and war-worn veteran in thecause of liberty. "

But Buchanan triumphed. The baleful interposition of Know-Nothingismstood in the way of that union of forces which the situationdemanded, and was thus chiefly responsible for the Republicandefeat. The old Whigs who had so recently stepped from their"finality" platform, could not be unitedly rallied, and the Democraticbolters were only half converted. In my own State the oppositionto the Democracy repudiated even the name Republican, and enteredthe field as "the People's party. " It was a combination ofweaknesses, instead of a union of forces. All the Fillmore Know-Nothings and Silver-Grey Whigs of the State were recognized asbrethren. At least one man on the State ticket, of which OliverP. Morton was the head, was a Fillmore man, while both Fillmoreand anti-Fillmore men had been chosen as delegates to Philadelphiaand electors for the State. The political managers even went sofar as to suppress their own electoral ticket during the canvass, as a peace-offering to old Whiggery and Know-Nothingism, while theadmission of Kansas as a free State was dealt with as the soleissue, and border ruffian outrages and elaborate disclaimers of"abolitionism" were the regular staple of our orators, who openlydeclared that the Republican party was a "white man's party. " Anti-slavery speakers like Clay and Burlingame were studiously kept outof Southern Indiana, where the teachings of Republicanism wereespecially needed, and Richard W. Thompson, then the professedchampion of Fillmore, but in reality the stipendary of the Democrats, traversed that region on the stump, denounced the Republicans as"Abolitionists, " "disunionists, " and "incendiaries, " and waseverywhere unchallenged in his course. Similar tactics, thoughnot so deplorably despicable, prevailed in several of the otherStates, giving unmistakable evidence of the need of a still furtherand more thorough enlightenment of the people as to the spirit andaims of slavery. In the light of these facts, I was not at allcast down by the defeat of Fremont. He was known as an explorer, and not as a statesman. If he had succeeded, with mere politiciansin his cabinet, a Congress against him, and only a partiallydeveloped anti-slavery sentiment behind him, the cause of freedomwould have been in fearful peril. The revolution so hopefullybegun might have been arrested by half-way measures, promoting theslumber rather than the agitation of the truth, while the irritatingnostrums of Buchanan Democracy, so necessary to display theabominations of slavery, would have been lost to us. The moralpower of the canvass for Fremont was itself a great gain, notwithstanding the cowardice of some of its leaders. The Republicanmovement could not now go backward, and with a probation of fouryears to prepare for the next conflict, unembarrassed by theresponsibilities of power, and free to profit by the blunders andmisdeeds of its foe, it was pretty sure of a triumph in 1860. Fremont had received a popular vote of one million three hundredand forty-one thousand two hundred and sixty-four, carrying elevenStates and one hundred and fourteen electoral votes; while onlyfour years before, John P. Hale, standing on substantially the sameplatform, had received only a little more than one hundred andfifty-seven thousand, and not a single electoral vote. This showeda marvelous anti-slavery progress, considering the age of themovement, the elements it forced into combination, and the difficultiesunder which it struggled into life; and no one could misinterpretits significance. 

CHAPTER VIII. PROGRESS OF REPUBLICANISM. The Dred Scott decision--The struggle for freedom in Kansas--Instructive debates in Congress--Republican gains in the Thirty-fifth Congress--The English bill--Its defeat and the effect--Defection of Douglas--Its advantages and its perils--Strange courseof the New-York Tribune and other Republican papers--Republicanretreat in Indiana--Illinois Republicans stand firm, and hold theparty to its position--Gains in the Thirty-sixth Congress--Southernbarbarism and extravagance--John Brown's raid--Cuba and the slavetrade--Oregon and Kansas--Aids to anti-slavery progress--TheSpeakership and Helper's book--Southern insolence and extravagance--Degradation of Douglas--Slave code for the Territories--Outragesin the South--Campaign of 1860--Charleston convention and divisionof the Democrats--Madness of the factions--Bell and Everett--Republican National Convention and its platform--Lincoln and Seward--Canvass of Douglas--The campaign for Lincoln--Conduct of Seward--Republican concessions and slave-holding madness. 

The Republicans, however, were sorely disappointed by their defeat;but this second great victory of slavery did not at all check theprogress of the anti-slavery cause. It had constantly gatheredstrength from the audacity and recklessness of slave-holdingfanaticism, and it continued to do so. On the 6th of March, 1857, the Supreme Court of the United States harnessed itself to the carof slavery by its memorable decision in the case of Dred Scott, affirming that Congress had no power to prohibit slavery in theTerritories, and, inferentially, that the Constitution carried withit the right to hold slaves there, even against the will of theirpeople. The point was not before the court, and the opinion ofChief Justice Taney was therefore purely extra-judicial. It wassimply a political harangue in defense of slavery. It created aprofound impression throughout the free States, and became a powerfulweapon in the hands of Republicans. It was against the wholecurrent of adjudications on the subject, and they denounced it asa vile caricature of American jurisprudence. They characterizedit as the distilled diabolism of two hundred years of slavery, stealthily aiming at the overthrow of our Republican institutions, while seeking to hide its nakedness under the fig-leaves of judicialfairness and dignity. They branded it as the desperate attempt ofslave-breeding Democracy to crown itself king, by debauching theFederal judiciary and waging war against the advance of civilization. Their denunciations of the Chief Justice were unsparing andremorseless; and they described him as "pouring out the hoardedvillainies of a life-time into a political opinion which he triedto coin into law. " When Senator Douglas sought to ridicule theirclamor by inquiring whether they would take an appeal from theSupreme Court of the United States to a town meeting, they answered:"Yes, we appeal from the court to the people, who made theConstitution, and have the right, as the tribunal of last resort, to define its meaning. " Nothing could more clearly have markedthe degradation to which the power of slavery had reduced thecountry than this decision, and no other single event could haveso prepared the people for resistance to its aggressions. It wasthoroughly cold-blooded in its letter and spirit, and no SpanishInquisitor ever showed less sympathy for his victim than did theChief Justice for the slave. 

But the Dred Scott iniquity did not stand alone. It had beenprocured for the purpose of fastening slavery upon all the Territories, and it had, of course, a special meaning when applied to thedesperate struggle then in progress to make Kansas a slave State. The conduct of the Administration during this year, in its treatmentof the free State men of that Territory, forms one of the blackestpages in the history of slavery. The facts respecting their labors, trials, and sufferings, and the methods employed to force upon themthe Lecompton Constitution, including wholesale ballot-stuffingand every form of ruffianism, pillage, and murder, need not berecalled; but all these were but the outcroppings and counterpartof the Dred Scott decision, and the horrid travesty of the principleof popular sovereignty in the Territories. The whole power of theAdministration, acting as the hired man of slavery, was ruthlesslyemployed for the purpose of spreading the curse over Kansas, andestablishing it there as an irreversible fact; and all the departmentsof the Government now stood as a unit on the side of this devilishconspiracy. Everybody knew the Lecompton constitution was the workof outside ruffians, and not of the people of the Territory, whoseLegislature in February, 1858, solemnly protested against theiradmission under that Constitution, and whose protest was totallyunheeded. The Congressional debates during this period greatlycontributed to the anti-slavery education of the people, by moreclearly unmasking the real spirit and designs of the slaveholders. We were treated to the kind of talk then becoming current about"Northern mud-sills, " "filthy operatives, " the "ownership of laborby capital, " and the beauties and beatitudes of slavery. Suchmaddened extremists as Hammond and Keitt of South Carolina, and suchblatant doughfaces as Petit of Indiana, became capital missionariesin the cause of freedom. Their words were caught up by the pressof the free States, and added their beneficent help to the work sosplendidly going forward through the providential agency of "UncleTom's Cabin. "

In the meantime, freedom had made large gains in the compositionof the Thirty-fifth Congress, which now had charge of the Lecomptonswindle. The Senate contained twenty Republican members and theHouse ninety-two. Kansas had not been forced into the Union as aslave State, but she was helpless at the feet of the Executive. In the midst of the angry debate a new proposition was broughtforward, on the twenty-third of April, which was even more detestablethan the Lecompton bill itself. This was known as the "Englishbill, " which offered Kansas a very large and tempting land grant, if she would come into the Union under the Lecompton Constitution, but provided that if she voted to reject the land grant she shouldneither receive the land nor be admitted as a State until theTerritory acquired a population sufficient to elect a representativeto the House. The infamy of this proposition was heightened bythe fact that these long-suffering pioneers, weary and harassed bytheir protracted struggle and longing for peace, were naturallytempted to purchase it at any price. It was a proposition ofgigantic bribery, after bluster and bullying had been exhausted. It was, in fact, both a bribe and a menace, and measured at oncethe political morality of the men who favored it, and the extremityto which the slave-holders were driven in the prosecution of theirdesperate enterprise. After a protracted debate in both Houses, and at the end of a struggle of five months, the bill was passedand received the Executive approval; but the rejoicing of the slave-holders and their allies was short-lived. The people of Kansaswere not in the market. They had suffered too much and too longin the battle for freedom to make merchandise of their convictionsand sacrifice the future of a great commonwealth. They spurnedthe bribe, and took the chances of triumph through an indefinitelyprolonged conflict, while recruits to the ranks of freedom werenaturally falling into line throughout the Northern States. 

In December of this year I attended another fugitive slave case inIndianapolis. The claimant was one Vallandingham, of Kentucky, whose agent caught the alleged fugitive in Illinois, and was passingthrough Indianapolis on his way home. The counsel for the negro, Ellsworth, Coburn, Colley, and myself, brought the case beforeJudge Wallace, on _habeas corpus_, and had him discharged. Theclaimant immediately had him arrested and taken before CommissionerRea, for trial. We asked for the continuance of the case on theaffidavit of the negro that he was free, and could prove it ifallowed three weeks' time in which to procure his witnesses; butthe Commissioner ruled that the proceeding was a summary _ex-parte_one, and that the defendant had no right to any testimony. Ofcourse we were forced into trial, and after allowing secondaryproof where the highest was attainable, and permitting hearsayevidence and mere rumor, the Commissioner granted his certificatefor the removal of the adjudged fugitive. We again brought thecase before Judge Wallace, on _habeas corpus_, when the negro deniedall the material facts of the marshal's return, under oath, andasked to be allowed to prove his denial; but the Judge refusedthis, and he was handed over to the marshal for transportationSouth. On the trial he was shown to have been free by the act ofhis master in sending him into a free State; but under cover of aninfamous law, and by the help of truculent officials, he was remandedinto slavery. The counsel for the negro, with a dozen or more whojoined them, resolved upon one further effort to save him. Theproject was that two or three men selected for the purpose were toask of the jailer the privilege of seeing him the next morning andgiving him good-bye; and while one of the party engaged the jailerin conversation, the negro was to make for the door, mount a horsehitched near by, and effect his escape. The enterprise had afavorable beginning. The negro got out, mounted a horse, and mighthave escaped if he had been a good horseman; but he was awkwardand clumsy, and unfortunately mounted the wrong horse, and a verypoor traveler; and when he saw the jailer in pursuit, and heardthe report of his revolver, he surrendered, and was at once escortedSouth. Walpole and his brother were for the claimant. This isthe only felony in which I was ever involved, but none of theparties to it had any disposition whatever to confess it at thetime. 

The Republican party gathered fresh courage and strength in theyear 1858 from the defection of Douglas. His unmistakable abilityand hitherto unquestioned devotion to slavery had singled him outas the great leader and coming man of his party. He was ambitious, and by no means scrupulous in his political methods. The moralcharacter of slavery gave him not the slightest concern, ostentatiouslydeclaring that he did not care whether it was "voted up or voteddown" in the Territories, and always lavishing his contempt uponthe negro. He was the great champion of popular sovereignty, butat the same time fully committed himself to the decision of theSupreme Court of the United States, whatever it might be; and afterthat decision had been given, and, in effect, against his particularhobby, he defended it, while vainly striving to vindicate hisconsistency. But the Lecompton swindle was so revolting a mockeryof the right of the people of Kansas, that his own Democraticconstituents would not endorse it, and he was obliged, contrary tohis strong party inclinations, to take his stand against it. Itwas an event of very great significance, both North and South, andgave great comfort to anti-slavery men of all shades of opinion;but it brought with it, at the same time, a serious peril to theRepublican party. 

His accession to the Anti-Lecompton ranks was deemed so importantthat many leading Republicans, of different States, thought heshould be welcomed and honored by the withdrawal of all partyopposition to his re-election to the Senate. They argued that inno other way could the despotic power of the Democratic power beso effectually broken, and the real interests of republicanismadvanced. This feeling, for a time, prevailed extensively, andthreatened to put in abeyance or completely supersede the principlesso broadly laid down in the national platform of 1856. The "NewYork Tribune" took the lead in beating this retreat. It sympathizedwith Douglas to the end of his canvass, and in connection withkindred agencies probably saved him from defeat. It urged thedisbanding of the Republican party, and the formation of a newcombination against the Democrats, composed of Republicans, DouglasDemocrats, Know-Nothings, and old Whigs, but without any avowal ofprinciples. It proposed that by the common consent of these partiesthe Republicans should be allowed to name the next candidate forthe Presidency, and the other parties the candidate for the VicePresidency; or that this proposition should be reversed, if foundadvisable, with a view to harmony. The different wings of thiscombination were to call themselves by such names and proclaim suchprinciples in different States and localities as might seem to themmost conducive to local success and united ascendancy. Thisabandonment of republicanism was likewise favored by such papersas the "Cincinnati Gazette, " which pronounced the policy ofCongressional prohibition worthless as a means of excluding slaveryfrom the Territories, and openly committed itself to the admissionof more slave States, whenever demanded by a popular majority inany Territory. "The Indianapolis Journal" and other leadingRepublican organs spoke of Congressional prohibition as "murderedby Dred Scott, " and as having no longer any practical value. Inthe spring of this year the Republicans of Indiana, in their Stateconvention, not only surrendered the policy of Congressionalprohibition, and adopted the principle of popular sovereignty, butmade opposition to the Lecompton Constitution the sole issue ofthe canvass. Under such leaders as Oliver P. Morton and his Whigand Know-Nothing associates, Republicanism simply meant oppositionto the latest outrage of slavery, and acquiescence in all precedingones; but this shameful surrender of the cause to its enemies wasdeservedly condemned in the election which followed. The Legislatureof the State, however, at its ensuing session, overwhelminglyendorsed the Douglas dogma, and even the better class of Republicanpapers urged the abandonment of the Republican creed. But, veryfortunately for the cause, the Republicans of Illinois could notbe persuaded to take Mr. Douglas into their embrace on the scoreof a single worthy act, and forget, if not forgive, his long careerof effective and untiring hostility to the principles they cherished;and his nomination by the Democrats, on a platform very offensiveto Republicans, fully justified their course. The result was thenomination of Mr. Lincoln as a candidate for the succession to Mr. Douglas, and the great joint debate which did so much to educatethe mind of the free States and prepare the way for Mr. Lincoln'snomination the following year, while revealing the moral unworthinessof his great rival, and justifying the policy which made necessarythis memorable contest in Illinois. 

The steady march of the Republican party toward ascendancy wasshown in the Thirty-sixth Congress, which met in December, 1859. There were now twenty-four Republican senators, and one hundredand nine representatives. Early in the first session of thisCongress an interesting debate occurred in the Senate on a propositionto provide for the education of the colored children of the Districtof Columbia. Mr. Mason condemned the proposition, and said it waswise to prohibit the education of the colored race. JeffersonDavis declared that the Government was not made for them, and that"we have no right to tax our people to educate the barbarians ofAfrica. " These and kindred utterances were very well calculatedto aid the work of anti-slavery progress. John Brown's raid intoVirginia kindled the ire of the slave-holders to a degree as yetunprecedented, and although his act found few defenders in theNorthern States, the heroism with which he met his fate, the pithycorrespondence between Gov. Wise and Mrs. Child, the language ofSouthern senators in dealing with the subject, and the efforts madeto ferret out Brown's associates, all tended to strengthen thegrowing hostility to slavery and prepare the way for the finalconflict. The designs of the slaveholders upon Cuba, which wereavowed in this Congress, and their purpose to acquire it for theextension of slavery, by purchase if they could, but if not by war, served the same purpose. The growing demand for the revival ofthe African slave trade, as shown by the avowals of leading men inboth houses of Congress, and their cold-blooded utterances on thesubject, produced a profound impression on the country, and calledforth the startling fact that the city of New York was then one ofthe greatest slave-trading marts in the world, and that from thirtyto sixty thousand persons a year were taken from Africa to Cuba byvessels from that single port. Such facts as these, and that thelaws of the Union for the suppression of the traffic were not onlya dead letter but that the slave masters and their allies sullenlyrefused to take any steps whatever for the remedy of this organizedinhumanity, were capital arguments for the Republicans, which theyemployed with telling effect. The refusal to admit Oregon as aState without a constitutional provision excluding people of color, the rejection of Kansas on her application with a Constitutionfairly adopted by her people, and the great speech of Sumner on"The Barbarism of Slavery, " which this last application calledforth, all served their purpose in the growth of anti-slaveryopinion. So did the attempt to divide California for the purposeof introducing slavery into the southern portion; the veto of anAct of the Territorial Legislature of Kansas abolishing slavery, and of a similar act in Nebraska; the acts of several SouthernStates permitting free colored persons to sell themselves as slavesif they chose to do so in preference to expulsion from the land oftheir birth and their homes; the decision of the courts of Virginiathat slaves had no social or civil rights, and no legal capacityto choose between being emancipated or sold as slaves; the refusalof the Government to give a passport to a colored physician ofMassachusetts, for the reason that such privileges were neverconferred upon persons of color; and the revolutionary sentimentsuttered by governors and legislatures of various Southern States, some of which declared that the election of a Republican Presidentwould be sufficient cause for withdrawal from the Union. Thatthese were important aids to the progress of freedom was shown bythe passage of laws in various Northern States for the protectionof personal liberty, forbidding the use of local jails for thedetention of persons claimed as fugitive slaves, and securing forthem the right of trial by jury and the benefit of the writ of_habeas corpus_. This healthy reaction was still further shown inwholesome judicial decisions in several Northern States affirmingthe citizenship of negroes, and denying the right of transit ofslave-holders with their slaves over their soil. 

The struggle for the Speakership in this Congress, which lastedeight weeks, was also a first-rate training school for Republicanism. Helper's famous book, "The Impending Crisis, " had made a decidedsensation throughout the country, and John Sherman, the principalcandidate of the Republicans for Speaker, had endorsed it, thoughhe now denied the fact. Mr. Millson of Virginia, declared thatthe man who "consciously, deliberately, and of purpose, lends hisname and influence to the propagation of such writings, is not onlynot fit to be Speaker, but he is not fit to live. " De Jarnette, of the same State, said that Mr. Seward was "a perjured traitor, whom no Southerner could consistently support or even obey, shouldthe nation elect him President. " Mr. Pryor said that eight millionSouthern freemen could not be subjugated by any combination whatever, "least of all by a miscellaneous mob of crazy fanatics and conscience-stricken traitors. " Mr. Keitt said that "should the Republicanparty succeed in the next Presidential election, my advice to theSouth is to snap the cords of the Union at once and forever. " Mr. Crawford of Georgia said, "we will never submit to the inaugurationof a black Republican President"; and these and like utteranceswere applauded by the galleries. The growing madness and desperationin the Senate were equally noteworthy. This was shown by theremoval of Mr. Douglas from the chairmanship of the Committee onTerritories, and the determined purpose to read him out of theparty for refusing to violate the principle of popular sovereigntyin the Territory of Kansas. The attempt to hunt down a man whohad done the South such signal service in dragooning the NorthernDemocracy into its support could not fail to divide the party, andat the same time completely unmask the extreme and startling designswhich the slave power had been stealthily maturing. But that powerwas now absolutely bent upon its purpose, and morally incapable ofpausing in its work. Its demand was a slave code for the Territories, and it would accept nothing less. Jefferson Davis was the championof this policy, which he embodied in a series of resolutions andmade them the text of an elaborate argument; and Mr. Douglas repliedin a speech which at once vindicated himself and overwhelminglycondemned the party with which he had so long acted. The resolutions, however, were adopted by the Senate, which thus proclaimed itspurpose to nationalize slavery. 

In the meantime these remarkable legislative proceedings had theircounterpart in increasing lawlessness and violence throughout theSouth. This was illustrated in such facts as the expulsion ofmembers of the Methodist Church North from Texas, the imprisonmentof Rev. Daniel Worth, in North Carolina, for circulating Helper's"Impending Crisis"; the exile from Kentucky of the Rev. John G. Fee and his colony of peaceable and law-abiding people, on accountof their anti-slavery opinions; and the espionage of the mails byevery Southern postmaster, who under local laws had the power tocondemn and "burn publicly" whatever he deemed unfit for circulation, which laws had been pronounced constitutional by Caleb Cushing, while Attorney General of the United States under Mr. Pierce, andwere "cheerfully acquiesced in" by Judge Holt, Postmaster Generalunder Buchanan. In Virginia the spirit of lawlessness became sucha rage that one of her leading newspapers offered a reward of fiftythousand dollars for the head of Wm. H. Seward, while another paperoffered ten thousand dollars for the kidnapping and delivery inRichmond of Joshua R. Giddings, or five thousand dollars for hishead. In short, the reign of barbarism was at last fully usheredin, and the whole nation was beginning to realize the truth of Mr. Lincoln's declaration, which he borrowed from St. Mark, that "ahouse divided against itself can not stand. " The people of thefree States were at school, with the slaveholders as their masters;and the dullest scholars were now beginning to get their lessons. Even the Know-Nothings and Silver-Grey Whigs were coming up to theanxious seat, under the enlightening influence and saving-grace ofslaveholding madness and crime. The hour was ripe for action, andthe dawn of freedom in the South was seen in the coming emancipationof the North. 

The Presidential Campaign of 1860 was a very singular commentaryon the Compromise measures of 1850 and the "finality" platforms of1852. The sectional agitation which now stirred the countryoutstripped all precedent, and completely demonstrated the follyof all schemes of compromise. The Democratic National Conventionmet in the city of Charleston on the twenty-third day of May. Itsaction now seems astounding, although it was the inevitable resultof antecedent facts. The Democratic party had the control of everydepartment of the Government, and a formidable popular majoritybehind it. It had the complete command of its own fortunes, andthere was no cause or even excuse for the division which threatenedits life. The difference between the Southern Democrats and thefollowers of Douglas was purely metaphysical, eluding entirely thepractical common sense of the people. Both wings of the party nowstood committed to the Dred Scott decision, and that surrenderedeverything which the extreme men of the South demanded. It was "aquarrel about goats' wool, " and yet the Southern Democrats weremaddened at the thought of submitting to the nomination of Douglasfor the Presidency. His sin in the Lecompton affair was countedunpardonable, and they seemed to hate him even more intensely thanthey hated the Abolitionists. A committee on resolutions wasappointed, which submitted majority and minority, or Douglas andanti-Douglas, reports. These were hotly debated, but the Douglasplatform was adopted, which led to the secession of the Southerndelegates. On the fifty-seventh ballot Mr. Douglas received aclear majority of the Electoral College, but the Convention thenadjourned till the eighteenth of June, in the hope that harmonymight in some way be restored. On reassembling this was foundimpossible, and the balloting was resumed, which finally gave Mr. Douglas all the votes cast but thirteen, and he was declared theDemocratic nominee. The Convention then nominated for the VicePresidency Herschel V. Johnson, of Georgia, a disciple of Calhoun, whose extreme opinions were well known. He was unequivocallycommitted to the doctrine that neither the General Government nora Territorial Government can impair the right of slave property inthe common Territories. This illustration of the political profligacyof the Douglas managers, and burlesque upon popular sovereignty, was as remarkable as the madness of the seceders in fighting himfor his supposed anti-slavery prejudices. The bolters from thisconvention afterward nominated John C. Breckenridge as theircandidate for President and Joseph Lane for Vice President. TheDemocratic canvass was thus inaugurated, and the overthrow of theparty provided for in the mere wantonness of political folly. 

On the ninth of May what was called the Constitutional Union Partyheld its convention at Baltimore, and nominated John Bell forPresident and Edward Everett for Vice President. It adopted noplatform, and owing to its neutrality of tint, its action had nosignificance aside from its possible effect on the result of thestruggle between the Democrats and Republicans. 

The Republican National Convention met at Chicago on the sixteenthof May. It was attended by immense numbers, and its action wasregarded with profound and universal solicitude. The platform ofthe Convention affirmed the devotion of the party to the union ofthe States and the rights of the States; denounced the new dogmathat the Constitution carried slavery into the Territories; declaredfreedom to be their normal condition; denied the power of Congressor of a Territorial Legislature to give legal existence to slaveryin any territory; branded as a crime the reopening of the Africanslave trade; condemned the heresy of Know-Nothingism, and demandedthe passage of a Homestead law. The principles of the party werethus broadly stated and fully re-affirmed, and the issues of thecanvass very clearly presented. The leading candidates were Sewardand Lincoln, who pretty evenly divided the Convention, and thuscreated the liveliest interest in the result. The friends of Mr. Seward had unbounded confidence in his nomination, and their devotionto his fortunes was intense and absolute. The radical anti-slaveryelement in the party idolized him, and longed for his success asfor a great and coveted national blessing. The delegates from NewJersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, and Illinois, representing asuperficial and only half-developed Republicanism, labored withuntiring and exhaustless zeal for the nomination of Mr. Lincoln, fervently pleading for "Success rather than Seward. " Henry S. Laneand Andrew G. Curtin, then candidates for Governor in the Statesof Indiana and Pennsylvania, respectively, were especially activeand persistent, and their appeals were undoubtedly effective. WhenSeward was defeated many an anti-slavery man poured out his tearsover the result, while deploring or denouncing the conservatism ofold fossil Whiggery, which thus sacrificed the ablest man in theparty, and the real hero of its principles. Time, however, ledthese men to reconsider their estimate both of Seward and Lincoln, and convinced them that the action of the convention, after all, was for the best. On the second ballot Hamlin was nominated forVice President over Clay, Banks, Hickman, and others, and theRepublican campaign thus auspiciously inaugurated. 

The canvass for Douglas was prosecuted with remarkable energy andzeal. He was himself the great leader of his party on the stump, and his efforts evinced singular courage, audacity, and will. Itsoon became evident, however, that his election was impossible;but this did not cool his ardor or relax his efforts. He kept upthe fight to the end; and after his defeat, and when he saw thepower that had destroyed him organizing its forces for the destructionof the Union, he espoused the side of his country, and never falteredin his course. But as to slavery he seemed to have no conscience, regarding it as a matter of total moral indifference, and thuscompletely confounding the distinction between right and wrong. During the closing hours of his life he probably saw and lamentedthis strange infatuation; and he must, at all events, have deploredthe obsequious and studied devotion of a life-time to the serviceof a power which at last demanded both the sacrifice of his countryand himself. The canvass for Lincoln was conducted by the ablestmen in the party, and was marked by great earnestness and enthusiasm. It was a repetition of the Fremont campaign, with the added differenceof a little more contrivance and spectacular display in itsdemonstrations, as witnessed in the famous organization known asthe "Wide-Awakes. " The doctrines of the Chicago platform were verythoroughly discussed, and powerfully contributed to the furtherpolitical education of the people. The speeches of Mr. Seward weresingularly able, effective and inspiring, and he was the acknowledgedleader of his party and the idol of the Republican masses everywhere. This was the day of his glory, and nothing yet foreshadowed thepolitical eclipse which awaited him in the near future. The triumphof the Republicans in this struggle was not, however, final. Agreat work yet remained to be done. A powerful anti-slavery partyhad at last appeared, as the slow creation of events and the fruitof patient toil and endeavor; but it had against it a popularmajority of nearly a million. Both Houses of Congress and theSupreme Court of the United States disputed its authority andopposed its advance. The President-elect could not form his cabinetwithout the leave of the Senate, which was controlled by slavery, nor could he set the machinery of his Administration in motion, athome or abroad, through the exercise of his appointing power, without the consent of his political opponents. As Mr. Sewarddeclared in the Senate, "he could not appoint a minister or evena police agent, negotiate a treaty or procure the passage of a law, and could hardly draw a musket from the public arsenal to defendhis own person. " The champions of slavery had no dream of surrender, and no excuse whatever for extreme measures; and with moderatecounsels and the prudent economy of their advantages, they werethe undoubted masters of their own fortunes for indefinite yearsto come. But their extravagant and exasperating demands, and thesplendid madness of their latter day tactics as illustrated intheir warfare against Douglas, were the sure presages of theiroverthrow. There was method in their madness, but it was the methodof self-destruction. This was made still more strikingly manifestduring the months immediately preceding the inauguration of Mr. Lincoln. The Republicans, notwithstanding their great victory, sorecoiled from the thought of sectional strife that for the sake ofpeace they were ready to forego their demand for the Congressionalprohibition of slavery in the Territories. They were willing toabide by the Dred Scott decision and the enforcement of the FugitiveSlave law. They even proposed a Constitutional amendment whichwould have made slavery perpetual in the Republic; but the pamperedfrenzy of the slave oligarchy defied all remedies, and hurried itheadlong into the bloody conspiracy which was to close forever itscareer of besotted lawlessness and crime. 

CHAPTER IX. THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR. Visit to Mr. Lincoln--Closing months of Mr. Buchanan's Administration--Efforts to avoid war--Character of Buchanan--Lincoln's Inauguration--His war policy--The grand army of office seekers--The July sessionof Congress--The atmosphere of Washington--Battle of Bull Run--Apologetic resolve of Congress--First confiscation act--Regularsession of Congress--Secretary Cameron--Committee on the conductof the war--Its conference with the President and his Cabinet--Secretary Stanton and General McClellan--Order to march uponManassas. 

Early in January, 1861, I paid a visit to Mr. Lincoln at his homein Springfield. I had a curiosity to see the famous "rail splitter, "as he was then familiarly called, and as a member-elect of theThirty-seventh Congress I desired to form some acquaintance withthe man who was to play so conspicuous a part in the impendingnational crisis. Although I had zealously supported him in thecanvass, and was strongly impressed by the grasp of thought andaptness of expression which marked his great debate with Douglas, yet as a through-going Free Soiler and a member of the radical wingof Republicanism, my prepossessions were against him. He was aKentuckian, and a conservative Whig, who had supported GeneralTaylor in 1848, and General Scott four years later, when the Whigparty finally sacrificed both its character and its life on thealtar of slavery. His nomination, moreover, had been securedthrough the diplomacy of conservative Republicans, whose morbiddread of "abolitionism" unfitted them, as I believed, for leadershipin the battle with slavery which had now become inevitable, whilethe defeat of Mr. Seward had been to me a severe disappointmentand a real personal grief. The rumor was also current, and generallycredited, that Simon Cameron and Caleb B. Smith were to be madeCabinet Ministers, in recognition of the important services renderedby the friends of these gentlemen in the Chicago Convention. Still, I did not wish to do Mr. Lincoln the slightest injustice, while Ihoped and believed his courage and firmness would prove equal tothe emergency. 

On meeting him I found him far better looking than the campaignpictures had represented. His face, when lighted up in conversation, was not unhandsome, and the kindly and winning tones of his voicepleaded for him like the smile which played about his ruggedfeatures. He was full of anecdote and humor, and readily foundhis way to the hearts of those who enjoyed a welcome to his fireside. His face, however, was sometimes marked by that touching expressionof sadness which became so generally noticeable in the followingyears. On the subject of slavery I was gratified to find him lessreserved and more emphatic than I expected. The Cabinet rumorreferred to was true. He felt bound by the pledges which hisleading friends had made in his name pending the National Convention;and the policy on which he acted in these and many other appointmentswas forcibly illustrated on a subsequent occasion, when I earnestlyprotested against the appointment of an incompetent and unworthyman as Commissioner of Patents. "There is much force in what yousay, " said he, "but, in the balancing of matters, I guess I shallhave to appoint him. " This "balancing of matters" was a source ofinfinite vexation during his administration, as it has been toevery one of his successors; and its most deplorable results havebeen witnessed in the assassination of a president. Upon the whole, however, I was much pleased with our first Republican Executive, and I returned home more fully inspired than ever with the purposeto sustain him to the utmost in facing the duties of his greatoffice. 

The closing months of Mr. Buchanan's Administration were dismaland full of apprehension. One by one the slaveholding States wereseceding from the Union. The President, in repeated messages, denied their right to secede, but denied also the right of theGovernment to coerce them into obedience. It should be remembered, to his credit, that he did insist upon the right to enforce theexecution of the laws in all the States, and earnestly urged uponCongress the duty of arming him with the power to do this; butCongress, much to its discredit, paid no attention to his wishes, leaving the new Administration wholly unprepared for the impendingemergency, while strangely upbraiding the retiring President forhis non-action. For this there could be no valid excuse. Thepeople of the Northern States, now that the movement in the Southwas seen to be something more than mere bluster, were equallyalarmed and bewildered. The "New York Herald" declared that"coercion, if it were possible, is out of the question. " The"Albany Argus" condemned it as "madness. " The "Albany EveningJournal" and many other leading organs of Republicanism, East andWest, disowned it, and counseled conciliation and further concessionsto the demands of slavery. The "New York Tribune" emphaticallycondemned the policy of coercion, and even after the cotton Stateshad formed their Confederacy and adopted a provisional Government, it declared that "whenever it shall be clear that the great bodyof the Southern people have become conclusively alienated from theUnion and anxious to escape from it, we will do our best to forwardtheir views. " The "Tribune" had before declared that "whenever aconsiderable section of our Union shall deliberately resolve to goout, we shall resist all coercive measures designed to keep it in. We hope never to live in a Republic whereof one section is pinnedto the other by bayonets. " It is true, that it justified thesecession of the Southern States as a revolutionary right; butalthough these States defended it as a constitutional one, thebroader and higher ground of Mr. Greeley necessarily gave powerfulaid and comfort to their movement. In the meantime, great meetingsin Philadelphia and New York strongly condemned the Abolitionists, and urged the most extravagant additional concessions to slaveryfor the sake of peace. On the 12th of January Mr. Seward made hisgreat speech in the Senate, declaring that he could "afford to meetprejudice with conciliation, exaction with concession which surrendersno principle, and violence with the right hand of peace. " He waswilling to give up Congressional prohibition of slavery in theTerritories, enforce the Fugitive Slave law, and perpetuate slaveryin our Republic by amending the Constitution for that purpose. The Crittenden compromise, which practically surrendered everythingto slavery, only failed in the Senate by one vote, and this failureresulted from the non-voting of six rebel senators, who were soperfectly devil-bent upon the work of national dismemberment thatthey would not listen to any terms of compromise, or permit theiradoption. The Peace Congress, assembled for the purpose of devisingsome means of national pacification, agreed upon a series of measurescovering substantially the same ground as the Crittenden compromise, while both Houses of Congress agreed to a constitutional amendmentdenying any power to interfere with slavery "until every State inthe Union, by its individual State action, shall consent to itsexercise. " The feverish dread of war which prevailed throughoutthe Northern States was constantly aggravated by multiplyingevidences of slaveholding desperation. The general direction ofpublic opinion pointed to the Abolitionists as the authors of thesenational troubles, while the innocent and greatly-abused slaveholderswere to be petted and placated by any measures which could possiblyserve their purpose. Indeed, the spirit of Northern submissionhad never, in the entire history of the anti-slavery conflict, beenmore strikingly exhibited than during the last days of the Thirty-sixth Congress, when the Capital of the Republic was threatened byarmed treason, and the President-elect reached Washington in adisguise which baffled the assassins who had conspired against hislife. To the very last the old medicine of compromise and conciliationseemed to be the sovereign hope of the people of the free States;and although it had failed utterly, and every offer of friendshipand peace had been promptly spurned as the evidence of weakness orcowardice, they clung to it till the guns of Fort Sumter rousedthem from their perilous dream. 

The inauguration of the President was awaited with great anxietyand alarm. The capture of Washington by the rebels was seriouslyapprehended, and had undoubtedly been meditated. The air was filledwith rumors respecting the assassination of the President, and thestories told of the various methods of his taking off would havebeen amusing if the crisis had not been so serious. General Scotttook all the precautions for the preservation of the peace whichthe small force at his command, and the District militia, enabledhim to do. The day was beautiful, and the procession to the Capitolquite imposing. Mr. Lincoln and ex-President Buchanan entered theSenate chamber arm in arm; and the latter was so withered and bowedwith age that in contrast with the towering form of Mr. Lincoln heseemed little more than half a man. The crowd which greeted thePresident in front of the east portico of the Capitol was immense, and has never been equaled on any similar occasion with the singleexception of General Garfield's inauguration. Mr. Lincoln's voice, though not very strong or full-toned, rang out over the acres ofpeople before him with surprising distinctness, and was heard inthe remotest parts of his audience. The tone of moderation, tenderness, and good-will, which marked his address, made an evidentimpression, and the most heartfelt plaudits were called forth bythe closing passage:

"We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Thoughpassion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, stretching from every battle-field andpatriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over thisbroad land, will yet swell the chorus of union, when again touched, as they surely will be, by the better angels of their nature. "

But as an offering of friendship and fair dealing to the South, this speech failed of its purpose as signally as all kindredendeavors had done from the beginning. The "Richmond Enquirer"and "Whig, " the "Charleston Mercury, " and other leading organs ofsecession, denounced the inaugural, and seemed to be maddened bythe very kindliness of its tone and the moderation of its demands. Their purpose was disunion and war, and every passing day multipliedthe proofs that no honorable escape from this fearful alternativewas possible. 

The policy of the new Administration prior to the attack upon Sumterforms perhaps the most remarkable chapter in the history of thewar. All the troubles of the previous Administration were nowturned over to Mr. Lincoln, and while no measures had been providedto aid him in their settlement the crisis was constantly becomingmore imminent. The country was perfectly at sea; and while allhope of reconciliation was fading from day to day, Mr. Sewardinsisted that peace would come within "sixty days. " His optimismwould have been most amusing, if the salvation of the country hadnot been at stake. The President himself not only still hoped, but believed, that there would be no war; and notwithstanding allthe abuse that had been heaped upon Mr. Buchanan by the Republicansfor his feeble and vacillating course, and especially his denialof the right of the government to coerce the recusant States, thepolicy of the new Administration, up to the attack upon Sumter, was identical with that of his predecessor. In Mr. Seward's officialletter to Mr. Adams, dated April 10, 1861, he says the President"would not be disposed to reject a cardinal dogma of theirs (thesecessionists), namely, that the Federal Government could not reducethe seceding States to obedience through conquest, even though hewere disposed to question that proposition. But in fact thePresident willingly accepts it as true. Only and imperial anddespotic Government could subjugate thoroughly disaffected andinsurrectionary members of the State. * * * The President, on theone hand, will not suffer the Federal authority to fall intoabeyance, nor will he, on the other hand, aggravate existing evilsby attempts at coercion, which must assume the direct form of waragainst any of the revolutionary States. " These are very remarkableavowals, in the light of the absolute unavoidableness of the conflictat the time they were made; and they naturally tended to precipitaterather than avert the threatened catastrophe. It will not do tosay that Secretary Seward spoke only for himself, and not for theAdministration; for the fact has since been established by theevidence of other members of the Cabinet that Mr. Lincoln, whilehe had great faith in Mr. Seward at first, was always himself thePresident. No member of it was his dictator. I do not say thathe endorsed all Mr. Seward's peculiar views, for the latter wentstill further, as the country has since learned, and favored theabandonment of Fort Sumter and other Southern forts, as a part ofa scheme of pacification looking to an amendment to the Constitutionin the interest of slavery. During this early period Mr. Chasehimself, with all his anti-slavery radicalism and devotion to theUnion, became so far the child of the hour as to deprecate thepolicy of coercion and express his belief that if the rebel Stateswere allowed to go in peace they would soon return. But "warlegislates, " and the time had now come when nothing else couldbreak the spell of irresolution and blindness which threatened theUnion even more seriously than armed treason itself. 

Notwithstanding this strange epoch of Republican feebleness andindecision, the warfare against Mr. Buchanan was never intermitted. It had been prosecuted with constantly increasing vigor since theyear 1856, and had now become so perfectly relentless and overwhelmingthat he was totally submerged by the waves of popular wrath; andfor twenty odd years no political resurrection has been thoughtpossible. Although his personal integrity was as unquestionableas that of John C. Calhoun or George III, and his private life asstainless, yet his public character has received no quarter fromhis enemies and but little defense from his friends. One of hismost formidable critics, writing long years after the war, describeshim as "hungry for regard, influence, and honor, but too diminutivein intellect and character to feel the glow of true ambition--aman made, so to speak, to be neither loved nor hated, esteemed nordespised, slighted nor admired; intended to play an influentialpart in the agitation of parties, and by history to be silentlynumbered with the dead, because in all his doings there was not asingle deed; a man to whom fate could do nothing worse than placehim at the helm in an eventful period. " While there is a measureof truth in this picture, I believe any fair-minded man willpronounce it over-drawn, one-sided, and unjust, after reading therecently published life of Mr. Buchanan by George Ticknor Curtis, dealing fully with his entire public career in the clear, coldlight of historic facts. The most pronounced political foe of Mr. Buchanan can not go over the pages of this elaborate and long-delayeddefense without modifying some of his most decided opinions; butone thing remains obviously true, and that is in dealing with thequestion of slavery Mr. Buchanan was wholly without a conscience. The thought seems never to have dawned upon him that the slave wasa man, and therefore entitled to his natural rights. In a publicspeech on the ninth of July, 1860, defining his position, andreferring to the Dred Scott decision, he says: "It is to me themost extraordinary thing in the world that this country should nowbe distracted and divided because certain persons at the North willnot agree that their brethren at the South should have the samerights in the Territories which they enjoy. What would I, as aPennsylvanian, say or do, supposing any one was to contend that theLegislature of any Territory could outlaw iron or coal within theTerritory? The principle is precisely the same. The Supreme Courtof the United States has decided, what was known to us all to havebeen the existing state of affairs for fifty years, that slavesare property. Admit that fact, and you admit everything. "

In this passage, as in all that he has written on the subject ofslavery, humanity is totally ignored. The right of property inman is just as sacred to him, "as a Pennsylvanian, " as the rightof property in iron or coal. He unhesitatingly accepts the DredScott decision as law, which the moral sense of the nation and itsablest jurists pronounced a nullity. Mr. Jefferson, in speakingof slavery, said he trembled for his country, and declared thatone hour of bondage is fraught with more misery than whole ages ofour colonial oppression. Such a sentiment in the mouth of Mr. Buchanan would have been as unnatural as a voice from the dead. He saw nothing morally offensive in slavery, or repugnant to theprinciples of Democracy. He reverenced the Constitution, but alwaysforgot that its compromises were agreed to in the belief that theinstitution was in a state of decay, and would soon wear out itslife under the pressure of public opinion and private interest. Throughout his public life he never faltered in his devotion tothe South, joining hands with alacrity in every measure which soughtto nationalize her sectional interest. The growing anti-slaveryopinion of the free States, which no power could prevent, and thegreat moral currents of the times, which were as resistless as thetides of the sea, had no meaning for him, because the Democracy hebelieved in had no foundation in the sacredness of human rights. 

Mr. Lincoln, in spite of the troubled state of the country, wasobliged to encounter an army of place-seekers at the very beginningof his administration. I think there has been nothing like it inthe history of the Government. A Republican member of Congresscould form some idea of the President's troubles from his ownexperience. I fled from my home in the later part of February, inthe hope of finding some relief from these importunities; but onreaching Washington I found the business greatly aggravated. Thepressure was so great and constant that I could scarcely find timefor my meals, or to cross the street, and I was obliged to give mydays and nights wholly to the business, hoping in this way I shouldbe able in a while to finish it; but it constantly increased. Imet at every turn a swarm of miscellaneous people, many of themlooking as hungry and fierce as wolves, and ready to pounce uponmembers as they passed, begging for personal intercession, lettersof recommendation, etc. During my stay in Washington through themonths of March and April, there was no pause in this business. After Fort Sumter had been taken and the armory at Harper's Ferryhad been burned; after a Massachusetts regiment had been fired onin passing through Baltimore, and thirty thousand men were inWashington for defensive purposes; after the President had calledfor seventy-five thousand volunteers, and the whole land was in ablaze of excitement, the scuffle for place was unabated, and thepressure upon the strength and patience of the President unrelieved. This was not very remarkable, considering the long-continued monopolyof the offices by the Democrats; but it jarred upon the sentimentof patriotism in such a crisis, and to those who were constantlybrought face to face with it, it sometimes appeared as if the loveof office alone constituted the animating principle of the party. 

When Congress assembled in special session on the Fourth of July, the atmosphere of the Northern States had been greatly purified bythe attack on Fort Sumter. The unavoidableness of war was nowabsolute, and the tone of the President's message was far bolderand better than that of his inaugural. The policy of tendernesstowards slavery, however, still revealed itself, and called forththe criticism of the more radical Republicans. They began todistrust Mr. Seward, who no longer seemed to them the hero ofprinciple they had so long idolized, while his growing indifferenceto the virtue of temperance was offensive to many. He impressedhis old anti-slavery friends as a deeply disappointed man, who wasin danger of being morally lost. Their faith was even a _little_shaken in Secretary Chase. Of course, they did not believe himfalse to his long-cherished anti-slavery convictions, but he wasamazingly ambitious, and in the dispensation of his patronage heseemed anxious to make fair weather with some of his old conservativefoes, while apparently forgetting the faithful friends who hadstood by him from the very beginning of his career, and wereconsidered eminently fit for the positions they sought. The rumorwas afloat that even Charles Sumner was urging the claims of Mr. Crittenden to a place on the Supreme Bench, as a means of conciliatingthe State of Kentucky. Washington was largely a city of secessionists, and the departments of the Government were plentifully supplied bysympathizers with treason, while the effort put forth at thissession to dislodge them was not responded to by the Administration. What became known as the Border State policy was beginning to assertitself everywhere, and was strikingly illustrated in the captureof fugitive slaves and their return to their rebel masters by ourcommanding generals, and by reiterated and gratuitous disavowalsof "abolitionism" by prominent Republicans. 

But the war spirit was fully aroused, and active preparations wereon foot for an advance upon the enemy. The confidence in GeneralScott seemed to be unbounded, and I found everybody taking it forgranted that when the fight began our forces would prove triumphantlyvictorious. On the day before the battle of Bull Run I obtaineda pass from General Scott, intending to witness the engagement, believing I could do so, of course, with perfect safety, as ourarmy would undoubtedly triumph. I had a very strong curiosity tosee a great battle, and was now gratified with the prospect ofdoing so; but a lucky accident detained me. The battle was onSunday, and about eleven o'clock at night I was roused from myslumber by Col. Forney, who resided on Capitol Hill near my lodgings, and who told me our army had been routed, and that the rebels weremarching upon the capital and would in all probability capture itbefore morning. No unmiraculous event could have been more startling. I was perfectly stunned and dumbfounded by the news; but I hasteneddown to the Avenue as rapidly as possible, and found the spacebetween the Capitol and the Treasury Building a moving mass ofhumanity. Every man seemed to be asking every man he met for thelatest news, while all sorts of rumors filled the air. A feelingof mingled horror and despair appeared to possess everybody. Theevent was so totally unlooked for, and the disappointment soterrible, that people grew suddenly sick at heart, and felt as iflife itself, with all its interests and charms, had been snatchedfrom their grasp. The excitement, turmoil and consternationcontinued during the night and through the following day; but noone could adequately picture or describe it. Our soldiers camestraggling into the city, covered with dirt and many of them wounded, while the panic which led to the disaster spread like a contagionthrough all classes. 

On the day following this battle Congress met as usual, andundoubtedly shared largely in the general feeling. A little beforethe battle General Mansfield had issued an order declaring thatfugitive slaves would under no circumstances whatever be permittedto reside or be harbored in the quarters and camps of the troopsserving in his department; and now, both Houses of Congress promptlyand with great unanimity and studious emphasis declared that thepurpose of the war was not the "conquest" or "subjugation" of theconspirators who were striking at the Nation's life, or the overthrowof their "established institutions, " but to defend "the supremacyof the Constitution, " and to "preserve the Union"; and that "assoon as these objects are accomplished the war ought to cease. "To through-going anti-slavery men this seemed like an apology forthe war, and a most ill-timed revival of the policy of conciliation, which had been so uniformly and contemptuously spurned by the enemy. It failed utterly of its purpose, and this historic resolve ofCongress was only useful to the rebels, who never failed to wieldit as a weapon against us, after the teaching of events had compelledus to make slavery the point of attack. The Confiscation Act ofthe 6th of August was regarded as a child of the same sicklyancestry. The section of the Act making free the slaves employedagainst us by the rebels in their military operations was criticisedas a bribe to them to fight us, rather than a temptation to espouseour cause. If they engaged in the war at all, they were obligedto do so as our enemies; but if they remained at home on theirplantations in the business of feeding the rebel armies, they wouldhave the protection of both the loyal and Confederate Governments. The policy of both parties to the struggle was thus subordinatedto the protection of slavery. 

But on the 31st of August a new war policy was inaugurated by theproclamation of General Fremont, giving freedom to the slaves ofrebels in his department. It was greeted by the people of theNorthern States with inexpressible gladness and thanksgiving. TheRepublican press everywhere applauded it, and even such Democraticand conservative papers as the "Boston Post, " the "Detroit FreePress, " the "Chicago Times, " and the "New York Herald" approvedit. During the ten days of its life all party lines seemed to beobliterated in the fires of popular enthusiasm which it kindled, and which was wholly unprecedented in my experience. I was thenon the stump in my own State, and I found the masses everywhere sowild with joy, that I could scarcely be heard for their shouts. As often as I mentioned the name of "Fremont, " the prolonged hurrahsof the multitude followed, and the feeling seemed to be universalthat the policy of "a war on peace principles" was abandoned, andthat slavery, the real cause of the war, was no longer to be thechief obstacle to its prosecution. 

But in the midst of this great exultation and joy the Presidentannulled the proclamation because it went beyond the ConfiscationAct of the 6th of August, and was offensive to the Border States. It was a terrible disappointment to the Republican masses, whocould not understand why loyal slaveholders in Kentucky should beoffended because the slaves of rebels in Missouri were declaredfree. From this revocation of the new war policy, dated the pro-slavery reaction which at once followed. It balked the popularenthusiasm which was drawing along with it multitudes of conservativemen. It caused timid and halting men to become cowards outright. It gave new life to slavery, and encouraged fiercer assaults upon"abolitionism. " It revived and stimulated Democratic sympathy fortreason wherever it had existed, and necessarily prolonged theconflict and aggravated its sorrows; while it repeated the ineffablefolly of still relying upon a policy of moderation and conciliationin dealing with men who had defiantly taken their stand outside ofthe Constitution and laws, and could only be reached by the powerof war. 

When Congress met in December, the policy of deference to slaverystill continued. The message of the President was singularlydispassionate, deprecating "radical and extreme measures, " andrecommending some plan of colonization for the slaves made free bythe Confiscation Act. Secretary Cameron, however, surprised thecountry by the avowal of a decidedly anti-slavery war policy inhis report; but in a discussion in the House early in December, onGeneral Halleck's "Order No. Three, " I took occasion to expose hisinsincerity by referring to his action a little while before inrestoring to her master a slave girl who had fled to the camp ofColonel Brown, of the Twentieth Indiana regiment, who had refusedto give her up. On the nineteenth of December, a joint selectCommittee on the Conduct of the War was appointed, composed ofthree members of the Senate and four members of the House. TheSenators were B. F. Wade, of Ohio; Z. Chandler, of Michigan, andAndrew Johnson, of Tennessee; and the House members were JohnCovode, of Pennsylvania; M. F. Odell, of New York; D. W. Gooch, ofMassachusetts, and myself. The committee had its birth in thepopular demand for a more vigorous prosecution of the war, and lesstenderness toward slavery; and I was gratified with my position onit because it afforded a very desirable opportunity to learnsomething of the movements of our armies and the secrets of ourpolicy. 

On the sixth of January, by special request of the President, thecommittee met him and his Cabinet at the Executive Mansion, toconfer about the military situation. The most striking fact revealedby the discussion which took place was that neither the Presidentnor his advisers seemed to have any definite information respectingthe management of the war, or the failure of our forces to makeany forward movement. Not a man of them pretended to know anythingof General McClellan's plans. We were greatly surprised to learnthat Mr. Lincoln himself did not think he had any _right_ to know, but that, as he was not a military man, it was his duty to deferto General McClellan. Our grand armies were ready and eager tomarch, and the whole country was anxiously waiting some decisivemovement; but during the delightful months of October, Novemberand December, they had been kept idle for some reason which no mancould explain, but which the President thought could be perfectlyaccounted for by the General-in-Chief. Secretary Cameron said heknew nothing of any plan for a forward movement. Secretary Sewardhad entire confidence in General McClellan, and thought the demandof the committee for a more vigorous policy uncalled for. ThePostmaster-General made no definite avowals, while the other membersof the Cabinet said nothing, except Secretary Chase, who verydecidedly sympathized with the committee in its desire for someearly and decisive movement of our forces. The spectacle seemedto us very disheartening. The testimony of all the commandinggenerals we had examined showed that our armies had been ready tomarch for months; that the weather and roads had been most favorablesince October; and that the Army of the Potomac was in a fine stateof discipline, and nearly two hundred thousand strong, while onlyabout forty thousand men were needed to make Washington perfectlysafe. Not a general examined could tell why this vast force hadso long been kept idle, or what General McClellan intended to do. The fate of the nation seemed committed to one man called a "General-in-Chief, " who communicated his secrets to no human being, and whohad neither age nor military experience to justify the extraordinarydeference of the President to his wishes. He had repeatedly appearedbefore the committee, though not yet as a witness, and we couldsee no evidence of his pre-eminence over other prominent commanders;and it seemed like a betrayal of the country itself to allow himto hold our grand armies for weeks and months in unexplainedidleness, on the naked assumption of his superior wisdom. Mr. Wade, as Chairman of the committee, echoed its views in a remarkablybold and vigorous speech, in which he gave a summary of the principalfacts which had come to the knowledge of the committee, arraignedGeneral McClellan for the unaccountable tardiness of his movements, and urged upon the Administration, in the most undiplomatic plainnessof speech, an immediate and radical change in the policy of thewar. But the President and his advisers could not yet be disenchanted, and the conference ended without results. 

When General McClellan was placed at the head of our armies thecountry accepted him as its idol and hero. The people longed fora great captain, and on very inadequate grounds they assumed thatthey had found him, and that the business of war was to be carriedon in earnest. But they were doomed to disappointment, and thepopular feeling was at length completely reversed. The pendulumvibrated to the other extreme, and it is not easy to realize thewide-spread popular discontent which finally revealed itselfrespecting the dilatory movements of our forces. The people becameinexpressibly weary of the reiterated bulletins that "all is quieton the Potomac"; and the fact that General McClellan was in fullsympathy with the Border State policy of the President aggravatedtheir unfriendly mood. A majority of the members of the committeebecame morbidly sensitive, and were practically incapable of doingGeneral McClellan justice. They were thoroughly discouraged anddisgusted; but when Secretary Cameron left the Cabinet and Stantontook his place, their despondency gave place to hope. He had faithin the usefulness of the committee, and co-operated with it to theutmost. He agreed with us fully in our estimate of General McClellan, and as to the necessity of an early forward movement. We weredelighted with him, and had perfect confidence in his integrity, sagacity and strong will. We worked from five to six hours perday, including the holiday season, and not excepting the Sabbath, going pretty thoroughly into the Bull Run disaster, the battle ofBall's Bluff, and the management of the Western Department. 

During the months of January and February, the committee maderepeated visits to the President for the purpose of urging thedivision of the Army of the Potomac and its organization into armycorps. We insisted upon this on the strength of the earnestrecommendations of our chief commanders, and with a view to greatermilitary efficiency; but the President said General McClellan wasopposed to it, and would, he believed, resign his command in thealternative of being required to do it. Mr. Lincoln said he dreaded"the moral effect of this"; but in the latter part of February, hebegan to lose his faith in the General, and finally, after nearlytwo months of perseverance by the committee, he gave his orderearly in March, which General McClellan obeyed with evident hesitationand very great reluctance. A few days later the long-tried patienceof the President became perfectly exhausted. He surprised anddelighted the committee by completely losing his temper, and onthe 11th relieved General McClellan from the command of all ourforces except the Army of the Potomac. The rebels, in the meantime, had evacuated their works at Centreville and Manassas, and retreatedwith their munitions in safety. A majority of the committee atthis time strongly suspected that General McClellan was a traitor, and they felt strengthened in this suspicion by what they afterwardsaw for themselves at Centreville and Manassas, which they visitedon the thirteenth of March. They were certain, at all events, thathis heart was not in the work. He had disregarded the President'sgeneral order of the nineteenth of January, for a movement of allour armies, which resulted in the series of victories of Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, etc. , which so electrified the country. He hadprotested against the President's order of the thirty-first ofJanuary, directing an expedition for the purpose of seizing a pointupon the railroad southwest of Manassas Junction. He had opposedall forward movements of the Army of the Potomac, and resolutelyset his face against the division of our forces into army corps, as urged by all our chief commanders. And he had again and againrefused to co-operate with the navy in breaking up the blockade ofthe Potomac, while his order to move in the direction of the enemyat Centreville and Manassas was given after the evacuation of thesepoints. 

Our journey to Manassas was full of interest and excitement. Aboutten miles from Washington we came in sight of a large division ofthe Grand Army of the Potomac, which had started toward the enemyin obedience to the order of General McClellan. The forest oneither side of the road was alive with soldiers, and their whitetents were to be seen in all directions through the pine forests, while in the adjacent fields vast bodies of soldiers in theiruniforms were marching and counter-marching, their bayonets glitteringin the sunlight. Large bodies of cavalry were also in motion, andthe air was filled with the sound of martial music and the blastsof the bugle. Soldiers not on drill were running races, playingball, and enjoying themselves generally in every sort of sport. The spectacle was delightfully exhilarating, and especially so tomen just released from the dreary confinement and drudgery of theircommittee rooms. 

CHAPTER X. THE NEW ADMINISTRATION AND THE WAR (CONTINUED). The wooden guns--Conference with Secretary Stanton--His relationsto Lincoln--Strife between Radicalism and Conservatism--Passage ofthe Homestead Law--Visit to the President--The Confiscation Actand rebel landowners--Greeley's "prayer of twenty millions, " andLincoln's reply--Effort to disband the Republican party--The battleof Fredericksburg and General Burnside--The Proclamation ofEmancipation--Visit to Mr. Lincoln--General Fremont--Report of theWar Committee--Visit to Philadelphia and New York--Gerrit Smith--The Morgan Raid. 

On approaching Centreville the first object that attracted ourattention was one of the huge earthworks of the enemy, with largelogs placed in the embrasures, the ends pointing toward us, andpainted black in imitation of cannon. The earthworks seemed veryimperfectly constructed, and from this fact, and the counterfeitguns which surmounted them, it was evident that no fight had beenseriously counted on by the absconding forces. The substantialcharacter of their barracks, bake-ovens, stables, and otherimprovements, confirmed this view; and on reaching Manassas wefound the same cheap defenses and the same evidences of security, while the rebel forces were much less than half as great as ours, and within a day's march from us. What was the explanation of allthis? Why had we not long before, driven in the rebel pickets, and given battle to the enemy, or at least ascertained the factsas to the weakness of his position? Could the commander be loyalwho had opposed all the previous forward movements of our forces, and only made this advance after the enemy had evacuated? Thesewere the questions canvassed by the members of the committee intheir passionate impatience for decisive measures, and which theyafterward earnestly pressed upon the President as a reason forrelieving General McClellan of his command. They were also greatlymoved by the fact already referred to, that General McClellan hadneglected and repeatedly refused to co-operate with the navy inbreaking up the blockade of the Potomac, which could have been donelong before according to the testimony of our commanders, while hehad disobeyed the positive order of the President respecting thedefenses of Washington by reserving only nineteen thousand imperfectlydisciplined men for that service, through which the capital hadbeen placed at the mercy of the enemy. Meanwhile the flame ofpopular discontent had found further fuel in the threats of McClellanto put down slave insurrections "with an iron hand, " and his orderexpelling the Hutchinsons from the Army of the Potomac for singingWhittier's songs of liberty. Of course I am not dealing with thecharacter and capacity of General McClellan as a commander, butsimply depicting the feeling which extensively prevailed at thistime, and which justified itself by hastily accepting merely apparentfacts as conclusive evidence against him. 

On the 24th day of March, Secretary Stanton sent for the committeefor the purpose of having a confidential conference as to militaryaffairs. He was thoroughly discouraged. He told us the Presidenthad gone back to his first love as to General McClellan, and thatit was needless for him or for us to labor with him, although hehad finally been prevailed on to restrict McClellan's command tothe Army of the Potomac. The Secretary arraigned the General'sconduct in the severest terms, particularizing his blunders, andbranding them. He told us the President was so completely in thepower of McClellan that he had recently gone to Alexandria in personto ask him for some troops from the Army of the Potomac for GeneralFremont, which were refused. He said he believed there were traitorsamong the commanders surrounding General McClellan, and if he hadhad the power he would have dismissed eight commanders when thewooden-gun discovery was made; and he fully agreed with us as tothe disgraceful fact that our generals had not long before discovered, as they could have done, the real facts as to the rebel forces andtheir defences. 

It was quite evident from these facts that Stanton, with all hisforce of will, did not rule the President, as the public hasgenerally supposed. He would frequently overawe and sometimesbrowbeat others, but he was never imperious in dealing with Mr. Lincoln. This I have from Mr. Watson, for some time AssistantSecretary of War, and Mr. Whiting, while Solicitor of the WarDepartment. Lincoln, however, had the highest opinion of Stanton, and their relations were always most kindly, as the followinganecdote bears witness: A committee of Western men, headed byLovejoy, procured from the President an important order looking tothe exchange and transfer of Eastern and Western soldiers with aview to more effective work. Repairing to the office of theSecretary, Mr. Lovejoy explained the scheme, as he had before doneto the President, but was met with a flat refusal. 

"But we have the President's order, sir, " said Lovejoy. 

"Did Lincoln give you an order of that kind?" said Stanton. 

"He did, sir. "

"The he is a d----d fool, " said the irate secretary. 

"Do you mean to say the President is a d----d fool?" asked Lovejoy, in amazement. 

"Yes, sir, if he gave you such an order as that. "

The bewildered Illinoisan betook himself at once to the President, and related the result of his conference. 

"Did Stanton say I was a d----d fool?" asked Lincoln at the closeof the recital. 

"He did, sir, and repeated it. "

After a moment's pause, and looking up, the President said, "IfStanton said I was a d----d fool, then I must be one, for he isnearly always right, and generally says what he means. I will stepover and see him. "

Whether this anecdote is literally true or not, it illustrates thecharacter of the two men. 

On Sunday, the thirteenth of April, we were again summoned to meetSecretary Stanton, and he had also invited Thaddeus Stevens, ofthe House Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Fessenden, of the SenateFinance Committee, and Mr. Wilson and Colonel Blair, of the Senateand House Military Committees. The business of this conferencewas to consider the necessity of immediate measures for raisingthirty million dollars to pay the troops unwisely accepted by thePresident in excess of the number called for by Congress, and theproper action to be taken relative to the sale of Austrian guns bya house in New York for shipment to the enemy. The Secretary wasthis time in fine spirits, and I was much interested in the freetalk which occurred. Mr. Stevens indulged in his customary bluntnessof speech, including a little spice of profanity by way of emphasisand embellishment. He declared that not a man in the Cabinet, thepresent company excepted, was fit for his business. Mr. Fessendensaid he fully endorsed this, while sly glances were made to ColonelBlair, whose brother was thus palpably hit. Mr. Stevens said hewas tired of hearing d----d Republican cowards talk about theConstitution; that there _was_ no Constitution any longer so faras the prosecution of the war was concerned; and that we shouldstrip the rebels of all their rights, and given them a reconstructionon such terms as would end treason forever. Secretary Stantonagreed to every word of this, and said it had been his policy fromthe beginning. Fessenden denounced slave-catching in our army, and referred to a recent case in which fugitives came to our lineswith most valuable information as to rebel movements, and wereordered out of camp into the clutches of their hunters. Stantonsaid that ten days before McClellan marched toward Manassas, contrabands had come to him with the information that the rebelswere preparing to retreat, but that McClellan said he could nottrust them. Wade was now roused, and declared that he had heardMcClellan say he had uniformly found the statements of these peoplereliable, and had got valuable information from them. But McClellanwas still king, and the country was a long way yet from that vigorouswar policy which alone could save it. 

In the meantime the strife between the radical and conservativeelements in the Republican party found expression in other directions. Secretary Seward, in his letter to Mr. Dayton, of the 22d of April, declared that "the rights of the States and the condition of everyhuman being in them will remain subject to exactly the same lawsand forms of administration, whether the revolution shall succeedof whether it shall fail. " Secretary Smith had previously declared, in a public speech, that "this is not a war upon the institutionof slavery, but a war for the restoration of the Union, " and that"there could not be found in South Carolina a man more anxious, religiously and scrupulously, to observe all the features of theConstitution, than Abraham Lincoln. " He also opposed the armingof the negroes, declaring that "it would be a disgrace to the peopleof the free States to call upon four millions of blacks to aid inputting down eight millions of whites. " Similar avowals were madeby other members of the Cabinet. This persistent purpose of theAdministration to save the Union and save slavery with it, naturallyprovoked criticism, and angered the anti-slavery feeling of theloyal States. The business of slave-catching in the army continuedthe order of the day, till the pressure of public opinion finallycompelled Congress to prohibit it by a new article of war, whichwas approved by the President on the 13th of March. The repressivepower of the Administration, however, was very formidable, andalthough the House of Representatives, as early as the 20th ofDecember, 1861, had adopted a resolution offered by myself, instructing the Judiciary Committee to report a bill so amendingthe Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 as to forbid the return of fugitiveswithout proof first made of the loyalty of the claimant, yet onthe 26th of May, 1862, the House, then overwhelmingly Republican, voted down a bill declaring free the slaves of armed rebels, andmaking proof of loyalty by the claimant of a fugitive necessary tohis recovery. This vote sorely disappointed the anti-slaverysentiment of the country. On this measure I addressed the Housein a brief speech, the spirit of which was heartily responded toby my constituents and the people of the loyal States generally. They believed in a vigorous prosecution of the war, and were sickof "the never-ending gabble about the sacredness of the Constitution. ""It will not be forgotten, " I said, "that the red-handed murderersand thieves who set this rebellion on foot went out of the Unionyelping for the Constitution which they had conspired to overthrowby the blackest perjury and treason that ever confronted theAlmighty. " This speech was the key-note of my approachingCongressional canvass, and I was one of the very few men of decidedanti-slavery convictions who were able to stem the conservativetide which swept over the Northern States during this dark anddismal year. I had against me the general drift of events; theintense hostility of Governor Morton and his friends throughoutthe State; nearly all the politicians in the District, and nine ofits twelve Republican newspapers, and the desperate energy andcunning of trained leaders in both political parties, who hadpursued me like vultures for a dozen years. My triumph had notaint of compromise in it, and nothing saved me but perfect courageand absolute defiance of my foes. 

One of the great compensations of the war was the passage of theHomestead Act of the 20th of May. It finally passed the House andSenate by overwhelming majorities. Among the last acts of Mr. Buchanan's administration was the veto of a similar measure, atthe bidding of his Southern masters; and the friends of the policyhad learned in the struggle of a dozen years that its success wasnot possible while slavery ruled the government. The beneficentoperation of this great and far-reaching measure, however, wasseriously crippled by some unfortunate facts. In the first place, it provided no safeguards against speculation in the public domain, which had so long scourged the Western States and Territories, andwas still extending its ravages. Our pioneer settlers were offeredhomes of one hundred and sixty acres each on condition of occupancyand improvement, but the speculator could throw himself acrosstheir track by buying up large bodies of choice land to be heldback from settlement and tillage for a rise in price, and thusforce them further into the frontier, and on to less desirablelands. 

In the next place, under the new and unguarded land-grant policy, which was simultaneously inaugurated, millions of acres fell intothe clutches of monopolists, and are held by them to-day, whichwould have gone to actual settlers under the Homestead law, andthe moderate land grant policy originated by Senator Douglas in1850. This was not foreseen or intended. The nation was thenengaged in a struggle for its existence, and thus exposed to theevils of hasty legislation. The value of the lands given away wasnot then understood as it has been since, while the belief wasuniversal that the lands granted would be restored to the publicdomain on failure to comply with the conditions of the grants. The need of great highways to the Pacific was then regarded asimperative, and unattainable without large grants of the publiclands. These are extenuating facts; but the mischiefs of this ill-starred legislation are none the less to be deplored. 

In the third place, under our new Indian treaty policy, inventedabout the same time, large bodies of land, when released by ourIndian tribes, were sold at low rates to individual speculatorsand monopolists, or to railway corporations, instead of beingconveyed, as before, to the United States, and thus subjected togeneral disposition, as other public land. These evils are nowremedied, but for nearly ten years they were unchecked. The titleto Indian lands was secured through treaties concocted by a ringof speculators and monopolists outside of the Senate, and frequentlyratified by that body near the close of a long session, when lessthan half a dozen members were in their seats, and the entirebusiness was supervised by a single Western senator acting as theagent of his employers and the sharer in their plunder. Thesefatal mistakes in our legislation have made the Homestead law ahalf-way measure, instead of that complete reform in our land policywhich was demanded, and they furnish a remarkable commentary uponthe boasted friendship of the Republican party for the landlesspoor. 

The conservative war-policy of the Administration continued toassert itself. The action of the President in promptly revokingthe order of General Hunter, of the ninth of May, declaring freethe slaves of the States of Georgia, Florida, and South Carolina, aggravated the growing impatience of the people. On the ninth dayof June I submitted a resolution instructing the judiciary committeeto report a bill repealing the Fugitive Slave Act, which was laidon the table by a vote of sixty-six to fifty-one, sixteen Republicansvoting in the affirmative. On the second of July I called to seethe President, and had a familiar talk about the war. He lookedthin and haggard, but seemed cheerful. Although our forces werethen engaged in a terrific conflict with the enemy near Richmond, and everybody was anxious as to the result, he was quite as placidas usual, and could not resist his "ruling passion" for anecdotes. If I had judged him by appearances I should have pronounced himincapable of any deep earnestness of feeling; but his manner wasso kindly, and so free from the ordinary crookedness of the politicianand the vanity and self-importance of official position, thatnothing but good-will was inspired by his presence. He was stillholding fast his faith in General McClellan, and this was steadilywidening the breach between him and Congress, and periling thesuccess of the war. The general gloom in Washington increased tillthe adjournment, but Mr. Sumner still had faith in the President, and prophesied good things as to his final action. 

The Confiscation Act of this session, which was approved by thePresident on the seventeenth day of July, providing that slaves ofrebels coming into our lines should be made free, and that theproperty of their owners, both real and personal, should beconfiscated, would have given great and wide-spread satisfaction;but the President refused to sign the bill without a modificationfirst made exempting the fee of rebel land-owners from its operation, thus powerfully aiding them in their deadly struggle against us. This action was inexpressibly provoking; but Congress was obligedto make the modification required, as the only means of securingthe important advantages of other features of the measure. Thisanti-republican discrimination between real and personal propertywhen the nation was struggling for its life against a rebelliousaristocracy founded on the monopoly of land and the ownership ofnegroes, roused a popular opposition which thus far was altogetherunprecedented. The feeling in Congress, however, was far moreintense than throughout the country. No one at a distance couldhave formed any adequate conception of the hostility of Republicanmembers toward Mr. Lincoln at the final adjournment, while it wasthe belief of many that our last session of Congress had been heldin Washington. Mr. Wade said the country was going to hell, andthat the scenes witnessed in the French Revolution were nothing incomparison with what we should see here. 

Just before leaving Washington I called on the President again, and told him I was going to take the stump, and to tell the peoplethat he would co-operate with Congress in vigorously carrying outthe measures we had inaugurated for the purpose of crushing therebellion, and that now the quickest and hardest blows were to bedealt. He told me I was authorized to say so, but said that morethan half the popular clamor against the management of the war wasunwarranted; and when I referred to the movements of GeneralMcClellan he made no committal in any way. 

On the nineteenth of August Horace Greeley wrote his famous anti-slavery letter to the President, entitled "The Prayer of TwentyMillions. " It was one of the most powerful appeals ever made inbehalf of justice and the rights of man. In his reply Mr. Lincolnsaid: "If I could save the Union without freeing any slave, Iwould do it; if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I woulddo it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving othersalone, I would do that. " These words served as fresh fuel to thefires of popular discontent, and they were responded to by Mr. Greeley with admirable vigor and earnestness. The anti-slaverycritics of the President insisted that in thus dealing with slaveryas a matter of total indifference he likened himself to Douglas, who had declared that he didn't care whether slavery was voted upor voted down in the Territories. They argued that as slavery wasthe cause of the war and the obstacle to peace, it was the duty ofthe Government to lay hold of the conscience of the quarrel, andstrike at slavery as the grand rebel. Not to do so, they contended, now that the opportunity was offered, was to make the contest amere struggle for power, and thus to degrade it to the level ofthe wars of the Old World, which bring with them nothing for freedomor the race. They insisted that the failure of the Government togive freedom to our millions in bondage would be a crime only tobe measured by that of putting them in chains if they were free. They reminded the President of his declaration that a house dividedagainst itself can not stand, and that the Republic can notpermanently exist half slave and half free; and they urged thatthis baptism of fire and blood would be impious if the cause whichproduced it should be spared to canker the heart of the nationanew, and repeat its diabolical deeds. A Union with slavery sparedand reinstated would not be worth the cost of saving it. To arguethat we were fighting for a political abstraction called the Union, and not for the destruction of slavery, was to affront common sense, since nothing but slavery had brought the Union into peril, andnothing could make sure the fruits of the war but the removal ofits cause. It was to delude ourselves with mere phrases, andconduct the war on false pretenses. It was to rival the folly ofthe rebels, who always asservated that they were not fighting forslavery, but only for the right of local self government, when thewhole world knew the contrary. These ideas, variously presentedand illustrated, found manifold expression in innumerable Congressionalspeeches and in the newspapers of the Northern States, and a monthlater brought forth the President's proclamation of the twenty-second of September, giving the insurgents notice that on the firstday of January following he would issue his proclamation of generalemancipation, if they did not in the meantime lay down their arms. The course of events and the pressure of opinion were at lastforcing him to see that the nation was wrestling with slavery inarms; that its destruction was not a debatable and distant alternative, but a pressing and absolute necessity; and that his Border Statepolicy, through which he had so long tried to pet and please thepower that held the nation by the throat, was a cruel and fatalmistake. This power, however, had so completely woven itself intothe whole fabric of American society and institutions, and had solong fed upon the virtue of our public men, that the Administrationwas not yet prepared to divorce itself entirely from the madnessthat still enthralled the conservative element of the Republicanparty. 

It was during this year that a formidable effort was made by theold Whig element in the Republican party to disband the organizationand form a new one, called the "Union party. " They were disposedto blame the Abolitionists for the halting march of events, and torun away from the real issues of the conflict. They were believersin the Border State policy, and favored the colonization of thenegroes, while deprecating "radical and extreme measures. " Theyforgot that the Republican principle was as true in the midst ofwar as in seasons of peace, and that instead of putting it inabeyance when the storm came, we should cling to it with redoubledenergy and purpose. They forgot that the contest of 1860 was notonly a struggle between slavery and freedom, but a struggle of lifeand death, inasmuch as the exclusion of slavery from all federalterritory would not only put the nation's brand upon it in theStates of the South, and condemn it as a public enemy, but virtuallysentence it to death. They forgot that the charge of "abolitionism, "which was incessantly hurled at the Republican party, was thus byno means wanting in essential truth, and that when the slaveholderswere vanquished in the election of Mr. Lincoln, their appeal fromthe ballot to the bullet was the logical result of their insanedevotion to slavery, and their conviction that nothing could saveit but the dismemberment of the Republic. They forgot that theRebellion was simply an advanced stage of slaveholding rapacity, and that instead of tempting us to cower before it and surrenderour principles, it furnished an overwhelming argument for standingby them to the death. This movement was fruitful of great mischiefthroughout the loyal States, and on my return to Washington in thefall of this year I was glad to find this fact generally admitted, and my earnest opposition to it fully justified by the judgment ofRepublican members of Congress. 

Immediately after the battle of Fredericksburg, on the 13th ofDecember, the Committee on the Conduct of the War visited thatplace for the purpose of inquiring into the facts respecting thatfearful disaster. The country was greatly shocked and excited, and eager to know who was to blame. We examined Burnside, Hooker, Sumner, and Woodbury; but prior to this, in a personal interviewwith General Burnside, he frankly told me that _he_ was responsiblefor the attack. He seemed to be loaded down with a mountain oftrouble and anxiety, and I could see that he felt just as a patrioticman naturally would, after sacrificing thousands of men by a mistakenmovement. He said he had no military ambition, and frankly confessedhis incapacity to command a large army, as he had done to thePresident and Secretary of War, when they urged him to assume thisgreat responsibility; and that he was very sorry he had everconsented to accept it. His conversation disarmed all criticism, while his evident honesty decidedly pleased me. It was a sadthought, while standing on the banks of the Rappahannock, that herewere more than a hundred thousand men on either side of a narrowriver, brethren and kindred, and naturally owing each other nothingbut good will, who were driven by negro slavery into the wholesaleslaughter of each other. But General Burnside told me our men didnot feel toward the rebels as they felt toward us, and he assuredme that this was the grand obstacle to our success. Our soldiers, he said, were not sufficiently fired by resentment, and he exhortedme, if I could, to breathe into our people at home the same spirittoward our enemies which inspired them toward us. As I approachedone of the principal hospitals here, I was startled by a pile ofarms and legs of wounded soldiers, and on entering the building Ifound scores of men in the last stages of life, stretched on thefloor with nothing under them but a thin covering of hay, andnothing over them but a coarse blanket or quilt, and without aspark of fire to warm them, though the weather was extremely coldand they were literally freezing to death. Some of them were toofar gone to speak, and looked at me so pleadingly that I can neverforget the impression it made. Arrangements were made for theircomfort as soon as it was possible. 

On New Year's day I joined the immense throng of callers at theWhite House, but did not enjoy the delay of the President in issuinghis Proclamation of Emancipation. It came late in the day, andbrought relief to multitudes of anxious people. Perhaps no subjecthas ever been more widely misunderstood than the legal effect ofthis famous document, and the circumstances under which it wasissued. Mr. Lincoln was himself opposed to the measure, and whenhe very reluctantly issued his preliminary proclamation in September, he wished it distinctly understood that the deportation of theslaves was, in his mind, inseparably connected with the policy. Like Mr. Clay and other prominent leaders of the old Whig party, he believed in colonization, and that the separation of the tworaces was necessary to the welfare of both. He was at that timepressing upon the attention of Congress a scheme of colonizationin Chiriqui in Central America, which Senator Pomeroy espoused withgreat zeal, and in which he had the favor of a majority of theCabinet, including Secretary Smith, who warmly endorsed the project. Subsequent development, however, proved that it was simply anorganization for land-stealing and plunder, and it was abandoned;but it is by no means certain that if the President had foreseenthis fact, his preliminary notice to the rebels would have beengiven. There are strong reasons for saying that he doubted hisright to emancipate under the war power, and that he meant what hesaid when he compared an executive order to that effect to the"Pope's Bull against the Comet. "

But he saw no way of escape. The demand for such an edict was wide-spread and rapidly extending in the Republican party. The powerto issue it was taken for granted. All doubts on the subject wereconsumed in the burning desire of the people, or forgotten in thetravail of war. The anti-slavery element was becoming more andmore impatient and impetuous. Opposition to that element nowinvolved more serious consequences than offending the Border States. Mr. Lincoln feared that enlistments would cease, and that Congresswould even refuse the necessary supplies to carry on the war, ifhe declined any longer to place it on a clearly defined anti-slaverybasis. It was in yielding to this pressure that he finally becamethe liberator of the slaves through the triumph of our arms whichit ensured. 

The authority to emancipate under the war power is well settled, but it could only be asserted over territory occupied by our armies. Each Commanding General, as fast as our flag advanced, could haveoffered freedom to the slaves, as could the President himself. This was the view of Secretary Chase. A paper proclamation offreedom, as to States in the power of the enemy, could have no morevalidity than a paper blockade of their coast. Mr. Lincoln'sproclamation did not apply to the Border States, which were loyal, and in which slavery was of course untouched. It did not pretendto operate upon the slaves in other large districts, in which itwould have been effective at once, but studiously excluded them, while it applied mainly to States and parts of States within themilitary occupation of the enemy, where it was necessarily void. But even if the proclamation could have given freedom to the slavesaccording to its scope, their permanent enfranchisement would nothave been secured, because the _status_ of slavery, as it existedunder the local laws of the States prior to the war, would haveremained after the re-establishment of peace. All emancipatedslaves found in those States, or returning to them, would have beensubject to slavery as before, for the simple reason that no militaryproclamation could operate to abolish their municipal laws. Nothingshort of a Constitutional amendment could at once give freedom toour black millions and make their re-enslavement impossible; and"this, " as Mr. Lincoln declared in earnestly urging its adoption, "is a king's cure for all evils. It winds the whole thing up. "All this is now attested by high authorities on International andConstitutional law, and while it takes nothing from the honor souniversally accorded to Mr. Lincoln as the great Emancipator, itshows how wisely he employed a grand popular delusion in the salvationof his country. His proclamation had no present legal effect withinterritory not under the control of our arms; but as an expressionof the spirit of the people and the policy of the Administration, it had become both a moral and a military necessity. 

During this month I called with the Indiana delegation to see thePresident respecting the appointment of Judge Otto, of Indiana, asAssistant Secretary of the Interior. He was afterward appointed, but Mr. Lincoln then only responded to our application by treatingus to four anecdotes. Senator Lane told me that when the Presidentheard a story that pleased him he took a memorandum of it and filedit away among his papers. This was probably true. At any rate, by some method or other, his supply seemed inexhaustible, and alwaysaptly available. Early in February General Burnside came beforethe War Committee, and gave the most startling testimony as to thedemoralization of the Army of the Potomac, the bickerings andjealousies of the commanding generals, and the vexations of thePresident in dealing with the situation. On the 18th of March Icalled on Mr. Lincoln respecting the appointments I had recommendedunder the conscription law, and took occasion to refer to thefailure of General Fremont to obtain a command. He said he didnot know where to place him, and that it reminded him of the oldman who advised his son to take a wife, to which the young manresponded, "Whose wife should I take?" The President proceeded topoint out the practical difficulties in the way by referring to anumber of important commands which might suit Fremont, but whichcould only be reached by removals he did not wish to make. Iremarked that I was very sorry if this was true, and that it wasunfortunate for our cause, as I believed his restoration to dutywould stir the country as no other appointment could. He said, "it would stir the country on one side, and stir it the other wayon the other. It would please Fremont's friends, and displeasethe conservatives; and that is all I can see in the _stirring_argument. " "My proclamation, " he added, "was to stir the country;but it has done about as much harm as good. " These observationswere characteristic, and showed how reluctant he was to turn awayfrom the conservative counsels he had so long heeded. 

On the 3d day of April the final report of the Committee on theConduct of the War was completed, and the portion of it relatingto the Army of the Potomac was in the hands of the Associated Press, and awaited by the public with a curiosity which it is not easynow to realize. The formation of the committee, as already stated, grew out of the popular demand for a more vigorous war policy, andits action was thus exposed to the danger of hasty conclusions;but the press and public opinion of the loyal States, with remarkableunanimity, credited it with great usefulness to the country, throughits labors to rescue the control of the war from incompetent andunworthy hands. 

I returned home by way of Philadelphia and New York, and had adelightful visit in the former place with James and Lucretia Mott, whom I had not seen since 1850. In New York I attended the great"Sumter meeting" of the 13th, and spoke at one of the stands withGeneral Fremont and Roscoe Conkling. While in the city I met Mr. Bryant, Phebe Carey, Mr. Beecher and other notables, and on my wayhome tarried two days with Gerrit Smith, at his hospitable home inPeterboro. According to his custom he invited a number of hisneighbors and friends to breakfast, and by special invitation Iaddressed the people in the evening, at the "free church" of thetown, on topics connected with the war. I could see that Mr. Smithdid not approve the severity of my language, and that this was asource of amusement to some of his neighbors, but the course ofevents afterward radically changed his views, and he admitted thatin his public addresses he was greatly aided by the imprecatorypsalms. I had several delightful rambles with him, our conversationturning chiefly upon reformatory and theological topics, and Ifound myself more than ever in love with this venerable philanthropistwhom I had only met once before, on his visit to Washington theprevious year. 

On the night of the 8th of July the fire-bells of the town ofCentreville, in which I resided, roused the people, who rushed intothe streets to learn that General John Morgan, with six thousandcavalry and four pieces of artillery, had crossed the Ohio, andwas moving upon the town of Corydon. The Governor had issued acall for minute men for the defense of the State, and within forty-eight hours sixty five thousand men tendered their services. Messengers were at once dispatched to all parts of Wayne Countyconveying the news of the invasion, and the next morning the peoplecame pouring in from all directions, while the greatest excitementprevailed. The town had eighty muskets, belonging to its HomeGuard, and I took one of them, which I afterward exchanged for agood French rifle; and having put on the military equipments, andsupplied myself with a blanket and canteen, I was ready for marchingorders. The volunteers who rallied at Centreville were shipped toIndianapolis, and were about seven hours on the way. I was a memberof Company C, and the regiment to which I belonged was the OneHundred and Sixth, and was commanded by Colonel Isaac P. Gray. Ofthe force which responded to the call of the Governor, thirteenregiments and one battalion were organized specially for theemergency, and sent into the field in different directions, exceptthe One Hundred and Tenth and the One Hundred and Eleventh, whichremained at Indianapolis. The One Hundred and Sixth was shippedby rail to Cincinnati, and but for a detention of several hours atIndianapolis, caused by the drunkenness of an officer high incommand, it might possibly have encountered Morgan near Hamilton, the next morning, on the way South. Our reception in Cincinnatiwas not very flattering. The people there seemed to feel that Ohiowas able to take care of herself; and, in fact, nothing could havebeen more unreasonable than sending a body of infantry one hundredmiles in pursuit of a cavalry force in that vicinity, where anample body of cavalry was in readiness, and the river well guardedby gun-boats. 

We were re-shipped to Indianapolis by rail, where we were musteredout of service and returned to our homes after a campaign of eightdays. This was the sum of my military experience, but it affordedme some glimpses of the life of a soldier, and supplied me withsome startling facts respecting the curse of intemperance in ourarmies. 

CHAPTER XI. INCIDENTS AND END OF THE WAR. Campaigning in Ohio--Attempted repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law--Organized movement in favor of Chase for the Presidency--Confiscationof rebel lands--Fort Pillow and the treatment of Union soldiers atRichmond--Mr. Lincoln's letter to Hodges--Southern Homestead Billand controversy with Mr. Mallory--Nomination of Andrew Johnson--Enforcement of party discipline--Mr. Lincoln's change of opinionas to confiscation of rebel lands--Opposition to him in Congress--General Fremont and Montgomery Blair--Visit to City Point--Adoptionof the XIII Constitutional Amendment--Trip to Richmond and incidents--Assassination of the President--Inauguration of Johnson andannouncement of his policy--Feeling toward Mr. Lincoln--Capitulationwith Gen. Johnston. 

In the latter part of July of this year I addressed several meetingsin Ohio, in company with Gov. Brough, beginning at Toledo. Hisspeeches were too conservative for the times, as he soon discoveredby their effect upon the people; but I found him singularly genialand companionable, and full of reminiscences of his early intimacywith Jackson, Van Buren and Silas Wright. Early in September Ireturned to Ohio to join Hon. John A. Bingham in canvassing Mr. Ashley's district under the employment of the State RepublicanCommittee. Mr. Vallandigham, then temporarily colonized in Canada, was the Democratic candidate for Governor, and the canvass was "red-hot. " At no time during the war did the _spirit_ of war morecompletely sway the loyal masses. It was no time to mince thetruth, or "nullify damnation with a phrase, " and I fully enteredinto the spirit of General Burnside's advice already referred to, to breathe into the hearts of the people a feeling of animosityagainst the rebels akin to that which inspired their warfare againstus. I remember that at one of the mass-meetings I attended, whereCol. Gibson was one of the speakers, a Cincinnati reporter who hadprepared himself for his work dropped his pencil soon after theoratorical fireworks began, and listened with open mouth and themost rapt attention till the close of the speech; and he afterwardwrote to his employer an account of the meeting, in which he saidthat reporting was simply impossible, and he could only say thespeaking was "beautifully terrible. " As a stump-speaker Col. Gibsonwas then without a rival in the West. His oratory was an irresistiblefascination, and no audience could ever grow tired of him. Thespeeches of Mr. Bingham were always admirable. His rhetoric wassingularly charming. He was an artist in his work, but seldomrepeated himself, while gathering fresh inspiration, and followingsome new line of thought at every meeting. After our work was donein the Toledo district I accompanied Mr. Ashley to Jefferson, wherehe and others were to address a mass-meeting, which we foundassembled in front of the court house. The day was rainy anddismal, and the meeting had already been in session for hours; butafter additional speeches by Ashley and Hutchins I was so loudlycalled for a little while before sunset, that I responded for aboutthree-quarters of an hour, when I proposed to conclude, the peoplehaving been detained already over four hours while standing in acold drizzling rain; but the cry of "go on" was very emphatic, andseemed to be unanimous. "Go ahead, " said a farmer, "we'll hearyou; it's past milking time anyhow!" It seemed to me I had nevermet such listeners. I was afterward informed that the test ofeffective speaking on the Reserve is the ability to hold an audiencefrom their milking when the time for it comes, and I thought Ipassed this test splendidly. After my return from Ohio I made abrief canvass in Iowa, along with Senator Harlan and GovernorStone, and spent the remainder of the fall on the stump in my ownState. 

In the 38th Congress, Speaker Colfax made me Chairman of theCommittee on Public Lands, which gratified me much. It opened acoveted field of labor on which I entered with zeal. On the 14thof December I introduced a bill for the repeal of the FugitiveSlave Law, and in order to test the sense of the House on thequestion, I offered a resolution instructing the Judiciary Committeeto report such a bill. Greatly to my astonishment it was laid onthe table by a vote of yeas eighty-two, nays seventy-four. ManyRepublicans declined to vote, and we were evidently still underthe lingering spell of slavery. Early in January an organizedmovement was set on foot in the interest of Mr. Chase for thePresidency, and I was made a member of a Central Committee whichwas appointed for the purpose of aiding the enterprise. I was adecided friend of Mr. Chase, and as decidedly displeased with thehesitating military policy of the Administration; but on reflectionI determined to withdraw from the committee and let the presidentialmatter drift. I had no time to devote to the business, and I foundthe committee inharmonious, and composed, in part, of men utterlyunfit and unworthy to lead in such a movement. It was fearfullymismanaged. A confidential document known as the "Pomeroy circular, "assailing Mr. Lincoln and urging the claims of Mr. Chase, was sentto numerous parties, and of course fell into the hands of Mr. Lincoln's friends. They became greatly excited, and by vigorouscounter measures created a strong reaction. A serious estrangementbetween the President and his Secretary was the result, which lastedfor several months. The Chase movement collapsed, and when theRepublican members of the Ohio Legislature indorsed the re-nominationof Mr. Lincoln, Mr. Chase withdrew from the contest. The oppositionto Mr. Lincoln, however, continued, and was secretly cherished bymany of the ablest and most patriotic men in the party. The extentof their opposition in Congress can never be known, and it wasgreatly aggravated by successive military failures; but it lackedboth courage and leadership, and culminated in the nomination ofGeneral Fremont in the latter part of May. 

In this Congress a new joint select committee on the "conduct ofthe war" was organized, armed with new powers, and authorized tosit in vacation; and in common with most of the members of theformer committee I was re-appointed. During the latter part ofJanuary I reported from the Committee on Public Lands a propositionto extend the Homestead Law of 1862 to the forfeited and confiscatedlands of Rebels. It was a very radical proposition, proposing todeal with these lands as _public_ lands, and parcel them out intosmall homesteads among the poor of the South, black and white. The subject was a large one, involving many important questions, and I devoted much time and thought to the preparation of a speechin support of the measure. In the month of April a portion of theCommittee on the Conduct of the War visited Fort Pillow, for thepurpose of taking testimony respecting the rebel atrocities at thatplace; and this testimony and that taken at Annapolis, early inMay, respecting the treatment of our soldiers in the prisons atRichmond was published, as a special instalment of our proceedings, for popular use, accompanied by photographs of a number of prisonersin their wasted and disfigured condition. The report produced apowerful effect on the public mind, and caused unspeakable troubleand vexation to the enemy. I assisted in the examination of ourprisoners at Annapolis, and never before had been so touched byany spectacle of human suffering. They were in the last stages oflife, and could only answer our questions in a whisper. They wereliving skeletons, and it seemed utterly incredible that life couldbe supported in such wasted and attenuated shadows of themselves. They looked at us, in attempting to tell their story, with anexpression of beseeching tenderness and submission which no wordscould describe. Not one of them expressed any regret that he hadentered into the service of the country, and each declared that hewould do so again, if his life should be spared and the opportunityshould be offered. In examining one of these men I was perfectlyunmanned by my tears; and on retiring from the tent to give themvent I encountered Senator Wade, who had fled from the work, andwas sobbing like a child. It was an altogether unprecedentedexperience, and the impression it produced followed me night andday for weeks. 

The conservative policy of the Administration found a new andcareful expression in Mr. Lincoln's letter to A. G. Hodges, of the4th of April. It showed great progress as compared with previousutterances, but his declaration that "I claim not to have controlledevents, but confess plainly that events have controlled me, " wasdispleasing to the more anti-slavery Republicans. They insistedthat the Administration had no right to become the foot-ball ofevents. It had no right, they said, at such a time, to make itselfa negative expression or an unknown quantity in the Algebra whichwas to work out the great problem. It had no right, they insisted, to take shelter beneath a debauched and sickly public sentiment, and plead it in bar of the great duty imposed upon it by the crisis. It had no right, certainly, to lag behind that sentiment, to magnifyits extent and potency, and then to become its virtual ally, insteadof endeavoring to control it, and to indoctrinate the country withideas suited to the emergency. It was the duty of the President, like John Bright and the English Liberals, to lead, not followpublic opinion. These criticisms found every variety of utterancethrough Congressional speeches and the press, and met with a cordialresponse from the people; and they undoubtedly played their partin preparing the country and the Administration for the more vigorouspolicy which was to follow. 

On the 12th of May the House passed my Southern Homestead Bill bythe strictly party vote of seventy-five to sixty-four. In myclosing speech on the subject I was frequently interrupted by Woodof New York, and Mallory of Kentucky, and the debate ran into verysharp personalities, but the opposition of these members only tendedto strengthen the measure. On the 19th I was drawn into anexceedingly angry altercation with Mr. Mallory, who charged me withforging some very personal remarks about himself, and interpolatingthem into the "Congressional Globe" as a part of my speech of the12th. He was exceedingly insolent and overbearing in his manner, growing more and more so as he proceeded, and strikingly recallingthe old days of slavery. He summoned a number of friends aswitnesses, who testified that they did not _hear_ me use the languagein question, and several of them, like Kernan of New York, declaredthat they had occupied positions very near me, had given particularattention to my words, and would certainly have remembered them ifthey had been uttered. I kept cool, but asserted very positivelythat I did use the exact words reported, and in proof of my statementI appealed to a number of my friends, who sustained me by theirdistinct and positive recollections. Here was a conflict oftestimony in which every witness recollected the facts accordingto his politics; but pending the proceedings I was fortunate enoughto find the notes of the "Globe" reporter, which perfectly vindicatedme from Mr. Mallory's charges, and suddenly put his bluster andbillingsgate to flight. He unconditionally retracted his charges, while his swift witnesses were sufficiently rebuked and humiliatedby this unexpected catastrophe. I was heartily complimented on mytriumph, and my dialogue with Mr. Mallory was put in pamphlet asa campaign document by his opponents and liberally scattered overhis district, where it did much service in defeating his re-electionto the House. 

The passage of the Southern Homestead Bill, however, could onlyprove a very partial measure without an enactment reaching the feeof rebel land owners, and I confidently anticipated the endorsementof such a measure by the Republican National Convention, which wasto meet in Baltimore, on the seventh of June. I was much gratifiedwhen the National Union League approved it, in its Convention inthat city the day before; and a resolution embodying it was alsoreported favorably by the sub-committee on resolutions of theNational Republican Convention the next day. But the GeneralCommittee, on the motion of McKee Dunn of Indiana, always anincorrigible conservative, struck it out, much to the disappointmentof the Republican masses. To me it was particularly vexatious, asthe measure was a pet one of mine, having labored for it with muchzeal, and in the confidence that the National Convention wouldapprove it. Mr. Dunn was a Kentuckian of the Border State School, and although a friend of mine, and an upright and very gentlemanlyman, he had a genius for being on the wrong side of vital questionsduring the war. Speaker Colfax used to say, laughingly, that indetermining his own course he first made it a point to find outwhere McKee Dunn stood; and then, having ascertained Julian'sposition, he always took a middle ground, feeling perfectly surehe was right. 

But to me the nomination of Andrew Johnson for Vice President wasa still greater disappointment. I knew he did not believe in theprinciples embodied in the platform. I had become intimatelyacquainted with him while we were fellow-members of the Committeeon the Conduct of the War, and he always scouted the idea thatslavery was the cause of our trouble, or that emancipation couldever be tolerated without immediate colonization. In my earlyacquaintance with him I had formed a different opinion; but he was, at heart, as decided a hater of the negro and of everything savoringof abolitionism, as the rebels from whom he had separated. Hisnomination, however, like that of Mr. Lincoln, seemed to have beenpreordained by the people, while the intelligent, sober men, inCongress and out of Congress, who lamented the fact, were notprepared to oppose the popular will. Mr. Lincoln's nomination wasnearly unanimous, only the State of Missouri opposing him; but ofthe more earnest and through-going Republicans in both Houses ofCongress, probably not one in ten really favored it. It was notonly very distasteful to a large majority of Congress but to manyof the most prominent men of the party throughout the country. During the month of June the feeling against Mr. Lincoln becamemore and more bitter and intense, but its expression never foundits way to the people. 

Notwithstanding the divisions which existed in the Republican ranks, party discipline was vigorous and absolute. "Civil Service Reform"was in the distant future, and the attempt to inaugurate it wouldhave been counted next to treasonable. Loyalty to Republicanismwas not only accepted as the best evidence of loyalty to the country, but of fitness for civil position. After my nomination for re-election this year, Mr. Holloway, who was still holding the positionof Commissioner of Patents, and one of the editors of a Republicannewspaper in my district, refused to recognize me as the partycandidate, and kept the name of my defeated competitor standing inhis paper. It threatened discord and mischief, and I went to thePresident with these facts, and on the strength of them demandedhis removal from office. He replied, "If I remove Mr. Holloway Ishall have a quarrel with Senator Lane on my hands. " I repliedthat Senator Lane would certainly not quarrel with him for turninga man out of office who was fighting the Republican party and thefriends of the Administration. "Your nomination, " said he, "is asbinding on Republicans as mine, and you can rest assured that Mr. Holloway shall support you, openly and unconditionally, or losehis head. " This was entirely satisfactory, but after waiting aweek or two for the announcement of my name I returned to Mr. Lincoln with the information that Mr. Holloway was still keepingup his fight, and that I had come to ask of him decisive measures. I saw in an instant that the President now meant business. Hedispatched a messenger at once, asking Mr. Holloway to report tohim forthwith, in person, and in a few days my name was announcedin his paper as the Republican candidate, and that of my competitorwithdrawn. 

Having understood that Mr. Lincoln had changed his position respectingthe power of Congress to confiscate the landed estates of rebels, I called to see him on the subject on the 2d of July, and askedhim if I might say to the people that what I had learned on thissubject was true, assuring him that I could make a far better fightfor our cause if he would permit me to do so. He replied that whenhe prepared his veto of our law on the subject two years before, he had not examined the matter fully, but that on further reflection, and on reading Solicitor Whiting's law argument, he had changedhis opinion, and thought he would now sign a bill striking at thefee, if we would send it to him. I was much gratified by thisstatement, which was of service to the cause in the canvass; but, unfortunately, constitutional scruples respecting such legislationgained ground, and although both Houses of Congress at differenttimes endorsed the principle, it never became a law, owing tounavoidable differences between the President and Congress on thequestion of reconstruction. The action of the President in dealingwith the rebel land owners was of the most serious character. Itparalyzed one of the most potent means of putting down the Rebellion, prolonging the conflict and aggravating its cost, and at the sametime left the owners of large estates in full possession of theirlands at the end of the struggle, who naturally excluded from theownership of the soil the freedmen and poor whites who had beenfriendly to the Union; while the confiscation of life estates asa war measure was of no practical advantage to the Government ordisadvantage to the enemy. 

The refusal of the President to sign the Reconstruction Act whichpassed near the close of the session, and his proclamation andmessage giving his reasons therefor, still further exasperated aformidable body of earnest and impatient Republicans. A scathingcriticism of the President's position by Henry Winter Davis, whichwas signed by himself and Senator Wade, fitly echoed their feelings. Mr. Davis was a man of genius. Among the famous men in the Thirty-eighth Congress he had no superior as a writer, debater and orator. He was a brilliant man, whose devotion to his country in this crisiswas a passion, while his hostility to the President's policy wasas sincere as it was intense; but the passage of the somewhatincongruous bill vetoed by the President, would probably have proveda stumbling-block in the way of the more radical measures whichafterward prevailed. This could not then be foreseen, and as themeasure was an advanced one, the feeling against Mr. Lincoln waxedstronger and stronger among his opposers. They had so completelylost their faith in him that when Congress adjourned they seriouslyfeared his veto of the bill just enacted, repealing the FugitiveSlave law; while the independent movement in favor of GeneralFremont threatened a serious division in the Republican ranks, andthe triumph of General McClellan. "These, " as Mr. Lincoln said onanother occasion, "were dark and dismal days, " and they were madestill more so by the course of military events. The capture ofRichmond, which General Grant had promised, had not been accomplished, although he had been furnished with all the troops he wanted. OurGrand Army of the Potomac made advances in that direction, but withgreat slaughter and no actual results; while the Administrationwas blamed for his failures. General Grant finally reached theposition occupied by McClellan in 1862, but with terrific losses, and Richmond still in possession of the rebels. His delay andinaction at this point created great popular discontent in theNorth; but while Lincoln supplied him with ample reinforcements, and he now had an army twice as large as that of General Lee, whichwas costing the nation over a million dollars per day, he continuedidle during the summer. It was evident that nothing could save usbut military success; and most fortunately for the Republican causeit came in due season, rallied and reunited its supporters, andthus secured their triumph at the polls. 

Near the close of the canvass, while on a visit to Washington, Ilearned how it happened that Montgomery Blair had finally been gotout of the Cabinet, and General Fremont induced to leave the trackas the candidate of the Cleveland Convention. The radical pressureupon Mr. Lincoln for the removal of Blair was very formidable, andthe emergency seemed so critical that it finally resulted in acompromise, by which Fremont agreed to retire from the race, ifBlair should be required to leave the Cabinet. This was carriedout, and thus, at last, the President was obliged to make termswith the "Pathfinder, " who achieved a long-coveted victory over anold foe. The election of Mr. Lincoln was followed by a remarkablemeasure of party union and harmony, and the tone of his message inDecember was encouraging. The appointment and confirmation of Mr. Chase as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court met the most cordialapproval of Republicans everywhere. As a healing measure, followinghis retirement from the treasury for valid reasons, it was mosttimely. 

During the month of December, the Committee on the Conduct of theWar visited City Point, for the purpose of taking testimony respectingthe explosion of the mine at Petersburg. General Grant spentseveral hours with the Committee, speaking very freely and familiarlyof the faults and virtues of our various commanders, and impressingevery one by his strong common sense. While at dinner with us onour steamer, he drank freely, and its effect became quite manifest. It was a painful surprise to the Committee, and was spoken of withbated breath; for he was the Lieutenant-General of all our forces, and the great movements which finally strangled the Rebellion werethen in progress, and, for aught we knew, might possibly be deflectedfrom their purpose by his condition. 

In January, 1865, the Committee on the Conduct of the War investigatedthe famous Fort Fisher expedition, in which three hundred tuns ofpowder were to be exploded in the vicinity of the Fort as a meansof demolishing it, or paralyzing the enemy. The testimony ofGeneral Butler in explanation and defense of the enterprise wasinteresting and spicy, and he was subsequently contradicted byGeneral Grant on material points. On the last day of this monthone of the grandest events of the century was witnessed in theHouse of Representatives in the final passage of the ConstitutionalAmendment forever prohibiting slavery. Numerous propositions onthe subject had been submitted, but the honor of drafting the oneadopted belongs to Lyman Trumbull, who had introduced it early inthe first session of this Congress. It passed the Senate on the8th of April, 1864, only six members voting against it, namely, Davis, Hendricks, McDougall, Powell, Riddle and Saulsbury, butfailed in the House on the 15th of June following. It now came upon the motion of Mr. Ashley to reconsider this vote. Congress hadabolished slavery in the District of Columbia, and prohibited itin all the Territories. It had repealed the Fugitive Slave law, and declared free all negro soldiers in the Union armies and theirfamilies; and the President had played his grand part in theProclamation of Emancipation. But the question now to be decidedcompletely overshadowed all others. The debate on the subject hadbeen protracted and very spirited, the opposition being led byPendleton, Fernando Wood, Voorhees, Mallory and Eldridge, who alldenied that the power to amend the Constitution conferred the rightto abolish slavery, as Garrett Davis and Saulsbury had done in theSenate. The time for the momentous vote had now come, and nolanguage could describe the solemnity and impressiveness of thespectacle pending the roll-call. The success of the measure hadbeen considered very doubtful, and depended upon certain negotiations, the result of which was not fully assured, and the particulars ofwhich never reached the public. The anxiety and suspense duringthe balloting produced a deathly stillness, but when it becamecertainly known that the measure had prevailed the cheering in thedensely-packed hall and galleries surpassed all precedent andbeggared all description. Members joined in the general shouting, which was kept up for several minutes, many embracing each other, and others completely surrendering themselves to their tears ofjoy. It seemed to me I had been born into a new life, and thatthe world was overflowing with beauty and joy, while I wasinexpressibly thankful for the privilege of recording my name onso glorious a page of the nation's history, and in testimony of anevent so long only dreamed of as possible in the distant future. The champions of negro emancipation had merely hoped to speed theirgrand cause a little by their faithful labors, and hand over tocoming generations the glory of crowning it with success; but theynow saw it triumphant, and they had abundant and unbounded causeto rejoice. It has been aptly said that the greatest advantage ofa long life is the opportunity it gives of seeing moral experimentsworked out, of being present at the fructification of social causes, and of thus gaining a kind of wisdom which in ordinary cases seemsreserved for a future life; but that an equivalent for this advantageis possessed by such as live in those critical periods of societywhen retribution is hastened, or displayed in clear connection withthe origin of events. It strengthens faith to observe the sureoperation of moral causes in ripening into great and beneficentresults. To be permitted to witness the final success of thegrandest movement of ancient or modern times was a blessed opportunity. To have labored for it in the goodly fellowship of its confessorsand martyrs was cause for devout thanksgiving and joy. To beaccredited to share in the great historic act of its formalconsummation was a priceless privilege. A few days after theratification of this Amendment, on the motion of Mr. Sumner, Dr. Rock, a colored lawyer of Boston, was admitted to practice in theSupreme Court of the United States, which had pronounced the DredScott decision only a few years before; and this was followed afew days later by a sermon in the hall of the House by Rev. Mr. Garnett, being the first ever preached in the Capitol by a coloredman. Evidently, the negro was coming to the front. 

In the latter part of March I visited New York, where I witnessedthe immense throngs of shouting people on Wall Street, calledtogether by the news of the fall of Richmond. Broadway, robed inits innumerable banners, was one of the finest sights I had everbeheld. On the tenth of April the Committee on the Conduct of theWar left Washington for South Carolina, for the purpose of takingfurther testimony, and intending to be present at the greatanniversary of the thirteenth at Charleston. We reached FortressMonroe the next evening, where we learned that the "Alabama, " whichthe Navy Department had furnished us, would be detained twenty-fourhours to coal, by reason of which we proceeded directly to Richmondon the "Baltimore. " At City Point, Admiral Porter furnished uswith a pilot, as there was some danger of torpedoes up the JamesRiver. Our steamer reached the city about bedtime, but we remainedon board till morning, lulled into a sweep sleep by the music ofthe guitar and the singing of the negroes below. At eight o'clockin the morning our party went out sight-seeing, some in carriages, but most of us on horseback, with an orderly for each to show himthe way. The first notable place we visited was General Weitzel'sheadquarters, just vacated by Jefferson Davis. The building wasa spacious three-story residence, with a large double parlor, aladies' parlor, and a small secluded library attached, in whichall sorts of treason were said to have been hatched. We nextvisited the capitol, an ancient-looking edifice, which would bearno comparison with our modern State Capitols in size or style ofarchitecture. The library made a respectable appearance, but Ithink it contained few modern publications, especially of our ownauthors. I noticed, however, a liberal supply of theological worksof the most approved orthodoxy. The view of the city from the topof the building was admirable. We could see Libby Prison, CastleThunder and Belle Isle, the former of which we afterward visited. After seeing the rebel fortifications we were glad to get back toour steamer. Before starting the next morning we saw the "RichmondWhig, " containing an order signed by General Weitzel, invitingHunter, McMullen and other noted rebel leaders, including membersof the rebel legislature, to meet in Richmond on the twenty-fifthto confer with our authorities on the restoration of peace, transportation and safe conduct being ordered for the purpose. Wewere all thunderstruck, and fully sympathized with the hot indignationand wrathful words of the chairman of our committee. We soonafterwards learned that the order had been directed by the President, and while we were thoroughly disgusted by this display of misguidedmagnanimity we saw rebel officers strutting around the streets infull uniform, looking as independent as if they had been mastersof the city. We left on the afternoon of the twelfth, and wereinterested in seeing Drury's Landing, Dutch-Gap Canal, MalvernHill and other points of historic interest. Before reachingFortress Monroe the next day, Senators Wade and Chandler changedtheir minds respecting our journey to Charleston, which was abandoned, and after spending a few hours very pleasantly at that place andPoint Lookout, we reached Washington on the evening of thefourteenth. 

Soon after retiring I was roused from a deep sleep by loud raps atmy door. W. L. Woods, clerk of my committee, entered in the greatestexcitement, and told me that Lincoln had just been assassinated, and Seward and son probably, and that rebel assassins were aboutto take the town. Supposing all this to be true I grew suddenlycold, heart-sick and almost helpless. It was a repetition of myexperience when the exaggerated stories about the Bull Run disasterfirst reached me in the summer of 1861. I soon rallied, however, and joined the throng on the street. The city was at once in atempest of excitement, consternation and rage. About seven and ahalf o'clock in the morning the church bells tolled the President'sdeath. The weather was as gloomy as the mood of the people, whileall sorts of rumors filled the air as to the particulars of theassassination and the fate of Booth. Johnson was inaugurated ateleven o'clock on the morning of the 15th, and was at once surroundedby radical and conservative politicians, who were alike anxiousabout the situation. I spent most of the afternoon in a politicalcaucus, held for the purpose of considering the necessity of a newCabinet and a line of policy less conciliatory than that of Mr. Lincoln; and while everybody was shocked at his murder, the feelingwas nearly universal that the accession of Johnson to the Presidencywould prove a god-send to the country. Aside from Mr. Lincoln'sknown policy of tenderness to the Rebels, which now so jarred uponthe feelings of the hour, his well-known views on the subject ofreconstruction were as distasteful as possible to radical Republicans. In his last public utterance, only three days before his death, hehad declared his adherence to the plan of reconstruction announcedby him in December, 1863, which in the following year so stirredthe ire of Wade and Winter Davis as an attempt of the Executive tousurp the powers of Congress. According to this plan the work ofreconstruction in the rebel States was to be inaugurated and carriedon by those only who were qualified to vote under the Constitutionand laws of these States as they existed prior to the Rebellion. Of course the negroes of the South could have no voice in framingthe institutions under which they were to live, and the questionof negro suffrage would thus have been settled by the President, if he had lived and been able to maintain this policy, while nodoubt was felt that this calamity had now been averted and the wayopened for the radical policy which afterward involved the impeachmentof Johnson, but finally prevailed. It was forgotten in the feverand turbulence of the moment, that Mr. Lincoln, who was never anobstinate man, and who in the matter of his Proclamation ofEmancipation had surrendered his own judgment under the pressureof public opinion, would not have been likely to wrestle withCongress and the country in a mad struggle for his own way. 

On the following day, in pursuance of a previous engagement, theCommittee on the Conduct of the War met the President at his quartersin the Treasury Department. He received us with decided cordiality, and Mr. Wade said to him: "Johnson, we have faith in you. By thegods, there will be no trouble now in running the government!"The President thanked him, and went on to define his well-rememberedpolicy at that time. "I hold, " said he, "that robbery is a crime;rape is a crime; murder is a crime; _treason_ is a crime, and_crime_ must be punished. Treason must be made infamous, andtraitors must be impoverished. " We were all cheered and encouragedby this brave talk, and while we were rejoiced that the leadingconservatives of the country were not at Washington, we felt thatthe presence and influence of the committee, of which Johnson hadbeen a member, would aid the Administration in getting on the righttrack. We met him again the next day and found the symptoms of avigorous policy still favorable, and although I had some misgivings, the general feeling was one of unbounded confidence in his sincerityand firmness, and that he would act upon the advice of GeneralButler by inaugurating a policy of his own, instead of administeringon the political estate of his predecessor. 

In the meantime the prevailing excitement was greatly aggravatedby the news of the capitulation between General Sherman and GeneralJohnston on the 16th of April. Its practical surrender of all thefruits of the national triumph so soon after the murder of thePresident, produced an effect on the public mind which can not bedescribed. General Sherman had heard of the assassination whenthe capitulation was made, and could not have been ignorant of thefeeling it had aroused. On the face of the proceeding his actionseemed a wanton betrayal of the country to its enemies; but whenthis betrayal followed so swiftly the frightful tragedy which wasthen believed to have been instigated by the Confederate authorities, the patience of the people became perfectly exhausted. For thetime being, all the glory of his great achievements in the warseemed to be forgotten in the anathemas which were showered uponhim from every quarter of the land; but the prompt repudiation ofhis stipulations by the Administration soon assuaged the populardiscontent, while it provoked an estrangement between SecretaryStanton and himself which was never healed. 

The outpouring of the people at Mr. Lincoln's funeral was whollyunprecedented, and every possible arrangement was made by whichthey could manifest their grief for their murdered President; buttheir solicitude for the state of the country was too profound tobe intermitted. What policy was now to be pursued? Mr. Lincoln'slast utterances had been far from assuring or satisfactory. Thequestion of reconstruction had found no logical solution, and allwas confusion respecting it. The question of negro suffrage wasslowly coming to the front, and could not be much longer evaded. The adequate punishment of the rebel leaders was the demand of thehour. What would the new President do? He had suddenly becomethe central figure of American politics, and both radicals andconservatives were as curious to know what line of policy he wouldfollow as they were anxious to point his way. His demeanor, atfirst, seemed modest and commendable, but his egotism soon beganto assert itself, while his passion for stump-speaking was pamperedby the delegations which began to pour into the city from variousStates and flatter him by formal addresses, to which he replied atlength. This business was kept up till the people became weary ofthe din and clatter of words, and impatient for action. 

CHAPTER XII. RECONSTRUCTION AND SUFFRAGE--THE LAND QUESTION. Visit of Indianans to the President--Gov. Morton and reconstruction--Report of Committee on the Conduct of the War--Discussion ofnegro suffrage and incidents--Personal matters--Suffrage in theDistrict of Columbia--The Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment--Breach between the President and Congress--Blaine and Conkling--Land bounties and the Homestead Law. 

On the twenty-first of April I joined a large crowd of Indianansin one of the calls on the President referred to at the close ofthe last chapter. Gov. Morton headed the movement, which I nowfound had a decidedly political significance. He read a lengthyand labored address on "The Whole Duty of Man" respecting thequestion of Reconstruction. He told the President that a Statecould "neither secede nor by any possible means be taken out ofthe Union"; and he supported and illustrated this proposition bysome very remarkable statements. He elaborated the propositionthat the loyal people of a State have the right to govern it; buthe did not explain what would become of the State if the peoplewere all disloyal, or the loyal so few as to be utterly helpless. The lawful governments of the South were overthrown by treason;and the Governor declared there was "no power in the FederalGovernment to punish the people of a State collectively, by reducingit to a territorial condition, since the crime of treason isindividual, and can only be treated individually. " According tothis doctrine a rebellious State become independent. If the peoplecould rightfully be overpowered by the national authority, thatvery fact would at once re-clothe them in all their rights, justas if they had never rebelled. In framing their new governmentsCongress would have no right to prescribe any conditions, or togovern them in any way pending the work of State reconstruction, since this would be to recognize the States as Territories, andviolate the principle of State rights. The Governor's theory ofreconstruction, in fact, made our war for the Union flagrantlyunconstitutional. The crime of treason being "individual, " andonly to "be treated individually, " we had no right to hold prisonersof war, seize property, and capture and confiscate vessels, withouta regular indictment and trial; and this being so, every Rebel inarms was in the full legal possession of his political rights, andno power could prevent him from exercising them except throughjudicial conviction of treason in the district in which the overtact was committed. Singularly enough, he seemed entirely unawareof the well-settled principle which made our war for the Union aterritorial conflict, like that of a war with Mexico or England;that the Rebels, while still liable to be hung or otherwise dealtwith for treason, had taken upon themselves the further characterof public enemies; and that being now conquered they were conqueredenemies, having simply the rights of a conquered people. TheGovernor further informed the President that if the revolteddistricts should be dealt with as mere Territories, or conqueredprovinces, the nation would be obliged to pay the debts contractedby them prior to the war. These remarkable utterances, which herepudiated in less than a year afterward, were emphatically endorsedby the President, who entered upon the same theme at a dismallength, freely indulging in his habit of bad English and incoherenceof thought. I was disgusted, and sorry that the confidence of somany of my radical friends had been entirely misplaced. 

During the latter part of April and early part of May the Committeeon the Conduct of the War completed its final report, making eightconsiderable volumes, and containing valuable material for anytrustworthy history of the great conflict. Its opinions weresometimes colored by the passions of the hour, and this was especiallytrue in the case of General McClellan; but subsequent events havejustified its conclusions generally as to nearly every officer andoccurrence investigated, while its usefulness in exposing militaryblunders and incompetence, and in finally inaugurating the vigorouswar policy which saved the country, will scarcely be questioned byany man sufficiently well-informed and fair-minded to give anopinion. 

On the 12th of May, a caucus of Republicans was held at the NationalHotel to consider the necessity of taking decisive measures forsaving the new Administration from the conservative control whichthen threatened it. Senators Wade and Sumner both insisted thatthe President was in no danger, and declared, furthermore, that hewas in favor of negro suffrage; and no action was taken because ofthe general confidence in him which I was surprised to find stillprevailed. In the meantime, pending the general drift of events, the suffrage question was constantly gaining in significance, anddemanding a settlement. It was neither morally nor logicallypossible to escape it; and on my return to my constituents I preparedfor a thorough canvass of my district. The Republicans wereeverywhere divided on the question, while the current of opinionwas strongly against the introduction of the issue as premature. The politicians all opposed it on the plea that it would dividethe Republicans and restore the Democrats to power, and that wemust wait for the growth of a public opinion that would justifyits agitation. Governor Morton opposed the policy with inexpressiblebitterness, declaring, with an oath, that "negro suffrage must beput down, " while every possible effort was made to array the soldiersagainst it. His hostility to the suffrage wing of his party seemedto be quite as relentless as to the Rebels, while the great bodyof the Republicans of the district deferred strongly to his views. In the beginning of the canvass I even found a considerable portionof my old anti-slavery friends unprepared to follow me; but feelingperfectly sure I was right, and that I could revolutionize thegeneral opinion, I entered upon the work, and prosecuted it withall my might for nearly four months. My task was an arduous one, but I found the people steadily yielding up their prejudices, andready to lay hold of the truth when fairly and dispassionatelypresented, while the soldiers were among the first to accept myteachings. The tide was at length so evidently turning in my favorthat on the 28th of September Governor Morton was induced to makehis elaborate speech at Richmond, denouncing the whole theory ofRepublican reconstruction as subsequently carried out, and opposingthe policy of negro suffrage by arguments which he seemed to regardas overwhelming. He made a dismal picture of the ignorance anddegradation of the plantation negroes of the South, and scoutedthe policy of arming them with political power. But their fitnessfor the ballot was a subordinate question. A great nationalemergency pleaded for their right to it on other and far moreimperative grounds. The question involved the welfare of bothraces, and the issues of the war. It involved not merely the fateof the negro, but the safety of society. It was, moreover, aquestion of national honor and gratitude, from which no escape wasmorally possible. To leave the ballot in the hands of the ex-rebels, and withhold it from these helpless millions, would be toturn them over to the unhindered tyranny and misrule of theirenemies, who were then smarting under the humiliation of theirfailure, and making the condition of the freedmen more intolerablethan slavery itself, through local laws and police regulations. 

The Governor referred to the Constitution and laws of Indiana, denying the ballot to her intelligent negroes, and subjectingcolored men to prosecution and fine for coming into the State; andasked with what face her people could insist upon conferring thesuffrage upon the negroes of the Southern States? But this was anevasion of the question. The people of Indiana had no right totake advantage of their own wrong, or to sacrifice the welfare offour million blacks on the altar of Northern consistency. He shouldhave preached the duty of practical repentance in Indiana, insteadof making the sins of her people an excuse for a far greaterinhumanity to the negroes of the South. 

He urged that the policy of negro suffrage would give the lie toall the arguments that had ever been employed against slavery asdegrading and brutalizing to its victims. He said it was "to paythe highest compliment to the institution of slavery, " and "stultifyourselves. " But this was belittling a great national question, bythe side of which all considerations of party consistency wereutterly trivial and contemptible. The ballot for the negro was alogical necessity, and it was a matter of the least possibleconsequence whether the granting of it would "stultify ourselves"or not. 

He insisted that the true policy was to give the Southern negroesa probation of fifteen or twenty years to prepare for the ballot. He would give them "time to acquire a little property; time to geta little education; time to learn something about the simplestforms of business, and to prepare themselves for the exercise ofpolitical power. " But he did not explain how all this was to bedone, under the circumstances of their condition. He declared thatnot one of them in five hundred could read, or was worth fivedollars in property of any kind, owning nothing but their bodies, and living on the plantations of white men upon whom they weredependent for employment and subsistence. How could such menacquire "education, " and "property, " under the absolute sway of apeople who regarded them with loathing and contempt? Who wouldgrant them this "probation, " and help them turn it to good account?Was some miracle to be wrought through which the slave-masters wereto be transfigured into negro apostles and devotees? Besides, under Governor Morton's theory of reconstruction and State rights, neither Congress nor the people of the loyal States had anythingto do with the question. It was no more their concern in SouthCarolina than in Massachusetts. His suggestion of a probation forSouthern negroes was therefore an impertinence. If not, why didhe not recommend a "probation" for the hordes of "white trash" thatwere as unfit for political power as the negroes?

He was very earnest and eloquent in his condemnation of Mr. Sumnerfor proposing to give the ballot to the negroes and disfranchisethe white Rebels, but his moral vision failed to discern anythingamiss in his own ghastly policy of arming the white Rebels withthe ballot and denying it to the loyal negroes. 

He argued that the right to vote carried with it the right to holdoffice, and that negro suffrage would lead to the election of negroGovernors, negro judges, negro members of Congress, a negro balanceof power in our politics, and a war of races. He seemed to haveno faith at all in the beneficent measures designed to guard theblack race from outrage and wrong, while full of apprehension thatthe heavens would fall if such measures were adopted. 

This speech was published in a large pamphlet edition and extensivelyscattered throughout the country; but it proved a help rather thana hindrance to my enterprise. I replied to it in several incisivenewspaper articles, and made its arguments a text for a still morethorough discussion of the issue on the stump, and at the close ofmy canvass the Republicans of the district were as nearly a unitin my favor as a party can be made respecting any controverteddoctrine. 

I now extended my labors briefly outside of my district, and byspecial invitation from citizens of Indianapolis and members ofthe Legislature, then in session, I spoke in that city on the 17thof November. Every possible effort was made by the JohnsonizedRepublicans to prevent me from having an audience, but they failedutterly; and I analyzed the positions of Governor Morton in a speechof two hours, which was reported for the "Cincinnati Gazette" andsubsequently published in a large pamphlet edition. The politicalrage and exasperation which now prevailed in the ranks of the Anti-Suffrage faction can be more readily imagined than described. Their organ, the "Indianapolis Journal, " poured out upon me anincredible deliverance of vituperation and venom for scattering myheresies outside of my Congressional district, declaring that Ihad "the temper of a hedgehog, the adhesiveness of a barnacle, thevanity of a peacock, the vindictiveness of a Corsican, the hypocrisyof Aminadab Sleek and the duplicity of the devil. " I rather enjoyedthese paroxysms of malignity, which broke out all over the Stateamong the Governor's conservative satellites, since my only offensewas fidelity to my political opinions, the soundness of which Iwas finding fully justified by events; for the friends of theGovernor, in a few short months, gathered together and crematedall the copies of his famous speech which could be found. But thedisowned document was printed as a campaign tract by the Democratsfor a dozen successive years afterward, and circulated largely inseveral of the Northern States, while the Governor himself, by asudden and splendid somersault, became the champion and exemplarof the very heresies which had so furiously kindled his ire againstme. These performances are sufficiently remarkable to deservenotice. They did much to make Indiana politics spicy and picturesque, and showed how earnestly the radical and conservative wings of theRepublican party could wage war against the common enemy withoutin the least impairing their ability or disposition to fight eachother. 

I have referred to these facts because they form a necessary partof the story I am telling. The question of Negro Suffrage was avery grave one, and the circumstances connected with its introductionas a political issue are worthy of record; while Governor Mortonwas a sort of phenomenal figure in American politics during thewar period, and played a very remarkable part in the affairs ofIndiana. It has aptly been said of him, and not by an enemy, thathis inconsistencies, in a study of his character, form the mostcharming part of it, and that no man in public life ever broughtsuch magnificent resources to the support of both sides of aquestion. His force of will was as matchless as his ambition forpower was boundless and unappeasable. He was made for revolutionarytimes, and his singular energy of character was pre-eminentlydestructive; but it can not be denied that his services to thecountry in this crisis were great. Mr. Von Holst, in his"Constitutional and Political History of the United States, " hasa chapter on "The Reign of Andrew Jackson. " When the history ofIndiana shall be written, it might fitly contain a chapter on "TheReign of Oliver P. Morton. " He made himself not merely the masterof the Democratic party of the State, and of its Rebel element, but of his own party as well. His will, to a surprising extent, had the force of law in matters of both civil and militaryadministration. His vigor in action and great personal magnetismso rallied the people to his support, that with the rarest exceptionsthe prominent leaders of his party quietly succumbed to his ambition, and recoiled from the thought of confronting him, even where theybelieved him in the wrong. 

His hostility to me began with my election to Congress in 1849, inwhich, as a Free Soiler, I had the united support of the Democraticparty of my district, of which he was then a member. I neverobtained his forgiveness for my success in that contest, and hisunfriendliness was afterward aggravated by his failure as a Republicanleader to supplant me in the district, and it continued to the end. I knew him from his boyhood. We resided in the same village nearlytwenty years, and began our acquaintance as members of the samedebating club. For years we were intimate and attached friends, and I believe no man was before me in appreciating his talents andpredicting for him a career of political distinction and usefulness. During the war, earnest efforts were made by his friends and minelooking to a reconciliation, and the restoration of that harmonyin the party which good men on both sides greatly coveted; but allsuch efforts necessarily failed. If I had been willing to subordinatemy political convictions and sense of duty to his ambition, peacecould at once have been restored; but as this was impossible, Iwas obliged to accept the warfare which continued and increased, and which I always regretted and deplored. I only make thesestatements in justice to the truth. 

The bill providing for negro suffrage in the District of Columbiawas among the first important measures of the Thirty-ninth Congress. The debate upon it in January, 1866, was singularly able andthorough, and gave strong evidence of political progress. Allefforts to postpone the measure, or make the suffrage restrictive, were voted down, and on the announcement of its passage the cheeringwas tremendous. Beginning on the floor, it was quickly caught upby the galleries, and the scene resembled that which followed thepassage of the Constitutional Amendment already referred to. Themajority was over two to one, thus clearly foreshadowing theenfranchisement of the negro in the insurrectionary districts. Ibelieve only two of my colleagues voted with me for its passage. 

The question of reconstruction was brought directly before Congressby the report of the joint select committee on that subject, submitting the Fourteenth Constitutional Amendment. The secondsection of the Amendment was a measure of compromise, and attemptedto unite the radical and conservative wings of the party byrestricting the right of representation in the South to the basisof suffrage, instead of extending that basis in conformity to theright of representation. It was a proposition to the Rebels thatif they would agree that the negroes should not be counted in thebasis of representation, we would hand them over, unconditionally, to the tender mercies of their old masters. It sanctioned thebarbarism of the Rebel State Governments in denying the right ofrepresentation to their freedmen, simply because of their race andcolor, and thus struck at the very principle of Democracy. It wasa scheme of cold-blooded treachery and ingratitude to a people whohad contributed nearly two hundred thousand soldiers to the armiesof the Union, and among whom no traitor had ever been found; andit was urged as a means of securing equality of white representationin the Government when that object could have been perfectly attainedby a constitutional amendment arming the negroes of the South withthe ballot, instead of leaving them in the absolute power of theirenemies. Of course, no man could afford to vote against theproposition to cut down rebel representation to the basis ofsuffrage; but to recognize the authority of these States to makepolitical outlaws of their colored citizens and incorporate thisprinciple into the Constitution of the United States, was a wantonbetrayal of justice and humanity. Congress, however, was unpreparedfor more thorough work. The conservative party which had so longsought to spare slavery was obliged, as usual, to feel its waycautiously, and wait on the logic of events; while the negro, asI shall show, was finally indebted for his franchise to the desperatemadness of his enemies in rejecting the dishonorable propositionof his friends. 

As the question of reconstruction became more and more engrossing, the signs of a breach between the President and Congress revealedthemselves. He had disappointed the hopes of his radical friends, and begun to show his partiality for conservative and Democraticideas. His estrangement from his party probably had its genesisin the unfortunate exhibition of himself at the inauguration ofMr. Lincoln, and the condemnation of it by leading Republicans, which he could not forget. Instead of keeping his promise to bethe "Moses" of the colored people he turned his back upon them ina very offensive public speech. His veto of the Freedmen's Bureaubill finally stripped him of all disguises, and placed him squarelyagainst Congress and the people, while the House met his defianceby a concurrent resolution emphatically condemning his reconstructionpolicy, and thus opening the way for the coming struggle betweenExecutive usurpation and the power of Congress. His maudlin speechon the 22d of February to the political mob which called on him, branding as traitors the leaders of the party which had electedhim, completely dishonored him in the opinion of all Republicans, and awakened general alarm. Everybody could now see the mistakeof his nomination at Baltimore, and that he was simply a narrow-minded dogmatist and a bull-dog in disposition, who would doanything in his power to thwart the wishes of his former friends. 

During the month of March of this year, at the request of intelligentworking men in the employ of the Government, I introduced a billmaking eight hours a day's work in the navy yards of the UnitedStates. This was the beginning of the eight hour agitation inCongress. I had not given much thought to the necessity for suchlegislation in this country, but the proposed measure seemed to mean augury of good to the working classes, as the Ten Hour movementhad proved itself to be twenty years before. It could plead thetime laws of England as a precedent, enacted to protect humanityagainst the "Lords of the Loom. " These laws recognized labor ascapital endowed with human needs, and entitled to the specialguardianship of the State, and not as merchandise merely, to begoverned solely by the law of supply and demand. While I was abeliever in Free Trade, I was not willing to follow its logic inall cases of conflict between capital and labor. My warfare againstchattel slavery and the monopoly of the soil had assumed the dutyof the Government to secure fair play and equal opportunities tothe laboring masses, and I was willing to embody that idea in aspecific legislative proposition, and thus invite its discussionand the settlement of it upon its merits. 

In April of this year a notable passage at arms occurred in theHouse between Mr. Conkling and Mr. Blaine, which has been madehistoric by the subsequent career of these great Republican chiefs. The altercation between them was protracted and very personal, andgrew out of the official conduct of Provost Marshal General Fry. The animosity engendered between these rivals at this early dayseems never to have been intermitted, and it can best be appreciatedby referring to the closing passages of their remarkable war ofwords on the 30th of this month. Mr. Conkling's language was verycontemptuous, and in concluding he said:

"If the member from Maine had the least idea of how profoundlyindifferent I am to his opinion upon the subject which he has beendiscussing, or upon any other subject personal to me, I think hewould hardly take the trouble to rise here and express his opinion. And as it is a matter of entire indifference to me what that opinionmay be, I certainly will not detain the House by discussing the questionwhether it is well or ill-founded, or by noticing what he says. I submit the whole matter to the members of the House, making, asI do, an apology (for I feel that it is due to the House) for thelength of time which I have been occupied in consequence of beingdrawn into explanations, originally by an interruption which Ipronounced the other day ungentlemanly and impertinent, and havingnothing whatever to do with the question. "

Mr. Blaine, in reply, referred to Mr. Conkling's "grandiloquentswell" and his "turkey gobbler strut, " and concluded:

"I know that within the last five weeks, as members of the Housewill recollect, an extra strut has characterized the gentleman'sbearing. It is not his fault. It is the fault of another. Thatgifted and satirical writer, Theodore Tilton, of the 'New YorkIndependent, ' spent some weeks recently in this city. His letterspublished in that paper, embraced, with many serious statements, a little jocose satire, a part of which was the statement that themantle of the late Winter Davis had fallen upon the member fromNew York. The gentleman took it seriously, and it has given hisstrut additional pomposity. The resemblance is great. It isstriking. Hyperion to a satyr, Thersites to Hercules, mud tomarble, dung-hill to diamond, a singed cat to a Bengal tiger, awhining puppy to a roaring lion. Shade of the mighty Davis, forgivethe almost profanation of that jocose satire!"

This uncomely sparring match seemed to have no significance at thetime beyond the amusement it afforded and the personal discreditit attached to the combatants; but in its later consequences ithas not only seriously involved the political fortunes of boththese ambitious men, but rent the Republican party itself intowarring factions. Still more, it has connected itself in the sameway, and not very remotely, with the nomination of General Garfieldin 1880, and his subsequent assassination. Such are the strangepolitical revenges of a personal quarrel. 

During this session of Congress the policy of Military Land Bountieswas very earnestly agitated, and threatened the most alarmingconsequences. Probably no great question has been so imperfectlyunderstood by our public men as the land question, and the truthof this is attested by the multiplied schemes of pillage and plunderto which the public domain has been exposed within the past thirtyor forty years. Among these the project of Land Bounties to soldiershas been conspicuous. Of the millions of acres disposed of by theGovernment through assignable land-warrants in the pretended interestof the soldiers of the Mexican War a very small fraction wasappropriated to their use. The great body of the land fell intothe hands of monopolists, who thus hindered the settlement andproductive wealth of the country, while the sum received by thesoldier for his warrant was in very many cases a mere mockery ofhis just claims, and in no instance an adequate bounty. The policy, however, had become traditional, and now, at the close of thegrandest of all our wars, it was quite natural for the country'sdefenders to claim its supposed benefits. Congress was floodedwith their petitions, and it required uncommon political courageto oppose their wishes. It was very plausibly urged that theNation, with its heavy load of debt, could not pay a bounty inmoney, and that it should be done by drawing liberally upon thethousand million acres of the public domain. Some of the advocatesof this policy openly favored the repeal of the Homestead law forthis purpose, just as Thurlow Weed, earlier in the war, had demandedits repeal so that our public lands could be mortgaged to Europeancapitalists in security for the money we needed to carry on thestruggle. The situation became critical. Everybody was eager toreward the soldier, and especially the politicians; and there seemedto be no other way to do it than by bounties in land, for whichall our previous wars furnished precedents. The House Committeeon Public Lands considered the question with great care and anxiety, and in the hope of check-mating that project made a report inresponse to one of the many petitions for land bounty which hadbeen referred to it, embodying some very significant facts. Itshowed that more than two millions and a quarter of soldiers wouldbe entitled to a bounty in land, and that it would require morethan one third of the public domain remaining undisposed of, andcover nearly all of it that was really fit for agriculture; thatthe warrants would undoubtedly be made assignable, as in the caseof previous bounties, and that land speculation would thus findits new birth and have free course in its dreadful ravages; andthat it would prove the practical overthrow of the policy of ourpre-emption and homestead laws and turn back the current of Americancivilization and progress. The report further insisted that theNation could not honorably plead poverty in bar of the great debtit owed its defenders, and it was accompanied by a bill providinga bounty in money at the rate of eight and one third dollars permonth for the time of their service, which was drawn after conferringwith intelligent men among them who fully appreciated the factsand arguments of the committee. This report and its accompanyingbill had an almost magical effect. They not only perfectly satisfiedthe soldiers everywhere, but revolutionized the opinion of bothHouses of Congress, and thus saved the public domain from thewholesale spoilation that had threatened it. The bill was referredto the Military Committee, and afterward became well known by itstitle of "General Schenck's bill. " It passed the House, but failedin the Senate. It passed the House repeatedly at different sessionof Congress afterward, although it never became a law; but it wasthe timely and fortunate instrument through which the public domainwas saved from the wreck which menaced it in the hasty adoption ofa scheme which would have proved as worthless to our soldiers asdisastrous to the country. 

CHAPTER XIII. MINERAL LANDS AND THE RIGHT OF PRE-EMPTION. The lead and copper lands of the Northwest--The gold-bearing regionsof the Pacific, and their disposition--A legislative reminiscence--Mining Act of 1866, and how it was passed--Its deplorable failure, and its lesson--Report of the Land Commission--The Right of Pre-emption, and the "Dred Scott decision" of the settlers. 

The action of the Government in dealing with the mineral lands ofthe United States forms one of the most curious chapters in thehistory of legislation. It had its beginning in the famousCongressional Ordinance of May 20, 1785, which reserved one thirdpart of all gold, silver, lead and copper mines to be sold orotherwise disposed of as Congress might direct. From this timetill the discovery of gold in California in 1848, the legislationof Congress respecting mineral lands related exclusively to thosecontaining the base or merely useful metals, and applied only tothe regions now embraced by the States of Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Illinois and Missouri. The policy of reserving mineral landsfrom sale was obviously of feudal origin, and naturally led to theleasing of such lands by the Government, which was inaugurated bythe Act of Congress of March 3, 1807. The Act of Congress of March3, 1829, provided for the sale of the reserved lead mines andcontiguous lands in Missouri, on six months' notice, but minerallands elsewhere remained reserved, and continued to be leased bythe Government. This policy was thoroughly and perseveringly tried, and proved utterly unprofitable and ruinous. President Polk, inhis message of December 2, 1845, declared that the income derivedfrom the leasing system for the years 1841, 1842, 1843 and 1844was less than one fourth of its expense, and he recommended itsabolition, and that these lands be brought into market. The leasingpolicy drew into the mining regions a population of vagrants, idlersand gamblers, who resisted the payment of tax on the product ofthe mines, and defied the agents of the Government. It excludedsober and intelligent citizens, and hindered the establishment oforganized communities and the development of the mines. The minerswere violently opposed to the policy of sale, but the evils incidentto the leasing policy became so intolerable that the Governmentwas at length obliged to provide for the sale of the lands in fee, which it did by Acts of Congress of July 11, 1846, and March 1 and3, 1847. The tracts occupied and worked by the miners under theirleases possessed every variety of shape and boundary, but therewere no difficulties which were not readily adjusted under therectangular system of surveys and the regulations of the LandDepartment. A new class of men at once took possession of theseregions as owners of the soil, brought their families with them, laid the foundations of social order, expelled the semi-barbarianswho had secured a temporary occupancy, and thus, at once promotedtheir own welfare, the prosperity of the country, and the financialinterests of the Government. Under this reformed policy the leadand copper lands of the regions named were disposed of in fee. 

But the gold-bearing regions covered by our Mexican acquisitionscreated a new dispensation in mining, and invited the attention ofCongress to the consideration of a new and exceedingly importantquestion. How should these mineral lands be disposed of? Theycovered an area of a million square miles, and their explorationand development became a matter of the most vital moment, not onlyin a financial point of view, but as a means of promoting thesettlement and tillage of the agricultural lands contiguous to themineral deposits. President Fillmore, in his message of December2, 1849, recommended the sale of these lands in small parcels, andMr. Ewing, his Secretary of the Interior, urged upon Congress theconsideration of the subject, and recommended the policy of leasingthem; but no attention seems to have been given to these recommendations. By Act of Congress of September 27, 1850, mineral lands in Oregonwere reserved from sale; and by Acts of March 3, 1853, and of July22, 1854, they were reserved in California and New Mexico. Thiswas the extent of Congressional action. Early in the late war, the Secretary of the Interior, Hon. Caleb B. Smith, referred tothe question, and the Commissioner of the General Land Officeafterward repeatedly recommended the policy of leasing, but Congresstook no notice of the subject. My interest in the question wasfirst awakened in the fall of 1864, in carefully overhauling ourland policy. Our mineral lands for more than sixteen years hadbeen open to all comers from whatever quarter of the globe, duringwhich time more than a thousand million dollars had been extracted, from which not a dollar of revenue reached the National Treasurysave the comparatively trifling amount derived from the InternalRevenue tax on bullion. This fact was so remarkable that it wasdifficult to accept it as true. The Government had no policywhatever in dealing with these immense repositories of nationalwealth, and declined to have any; for a policy implies that somethingis to be done, and points out the method of doing it. It hadprohibited the sale of mineral lands, and then come to a dead halt. The Constitution expressly provides that Congress shall have power"to make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territoryor other property belonging to the United States"; but Congress, in reserving these lands from sale and taking no measures whateverrespecting their products, simply abandoned them, and, as thetrustee of the Nation, became as recreant as the father who abandonshis minor child. 

The case was a very curious one, and the more I considered it, themore astonished I became at the strange indifference of theGovernment, and that no public man of any party had ever given thesubject the slightest attention. The Nation had been selling itslands containing iron, copper and lead, and the policy of vestingan absolute fee in individual proprietors had been accepted onactual trial, and after the leasing policy had signally failed, and I could see nothing in the distinction between the useful andprecious metals which required a different policy for the latter. Some policy was absolutely demanded. The country, loaded down bya great and continually increasing war debt, could not afford toturn away from so tempting a source of revenue. To sleep over itsgrand opportunity was as stupid as it was criminal. It was obviousthat if the Government continued to reserve these lands from sale, some form of tax or royalty on their products must be resorted toas a measure of financial policy; but this would have involved thesame political anomaly as the policy of leasing, and the samefailure. In principle it was the same. To retain the fee of thelands in the Government and impose a rent upon their occupiers, would make the Government a great landlord, and the miners itstenants. Such a policy would not be American, but European. Itwould not be Democratic, but Feudal. It would be to follow theGovernments of the Old World, which reserve their mineral landsfor the Crown, because they are esteemed too precious for thepeople. It was at war with our theory of Democracy, which hasrespect chiefly to the individual, and seeks to strengthen theGovernment by guarding his rights and promoting his well-being. These considerations convinced me that the time had come to abandonthe non-action course of the Government, and adopt a policy inharmony with our general legislation; and that the survey and saleof these lands in fee was the best and only method of promotingsecurity of titles, permanent settlements, and thorough development. As early as December, 1864, I therefore introduced a bill embodyingthis policy, which was followed by a similar measure, early in theThirty-ninth Congress, accompanied by an elaborate report, arguingthe question pretty fully, and combating all the objections to theprinciple and policy of sale. My views were commended by SecretaryMcCullough, as they had been by Mr. Chase, while I was glad to findthem supported by intelligent men from California, who spoke fromactual observation and extensive experience in mining. 

But although this measure fully protected all miners in the rightof exploration and discovery, and carefully guarded against anyinterference with vested rights, the idea was in some way rapidlyand extensively propagated that it contemplated a sweeping confiscationof all their claims, and the less informed among them became wildwith excitement. The politicians of California and Nevada, insteadof endeavoring to enlighten them and quiet this excitement, yieldedto it absolutely. They became as completely its instruments asthey have since been of the Anti-Mongolian feeling. They argued, at first, that no Congressional legislation was necessary, and thatwhile the Government should retain the fee of these lands, theminers should have the entire control of them under regulationsprescribed by themselves. This, it was believed, would placatethe miners and settle the question; but the introduction of themeasure referred to, and the agitation of the question, had madesome form of legislation inevitable, and the question now was todetermine what that legislation should be. Senators Conness ofCalifornia, and Stewart of Nevada, who were exceedingly hostile tothe bill I had introduced, and feared its passage, sought to avertit by carrying through the Senate "a bill to regulate the occupationof mineral lands and to extend the right of pre-emption thereto, "which they hoped would satisfy their constituents and preventfurther legislation. They supported it as the next best thing tototal non-action by Congress. It provided for giving title to theminers, but it did this by practically abdicating the jurisdictionof the National Government over these lands, with its recognizedand well-settled machinery for determining all questions of titleand boundary, and handing them over to "the local custom or rulesof the miners. " These "local rules" were to govern the miner inthe location, extension and boundary of his claim, the manner ofdeveloping it, and the survey also, which was not to be executedwith any reference to base lines as in the case of other publiclands, but in utter disregard of the same. The Surveyor Generalwas to make a plat or diagram of the claim, and transmit it to theCommissioner of the General Land Office, who, as the mere agentand clerk of the miner, with no judicial authority whatever, wasrequired to issue the patent. In case of any conflict betweenclaimants it was to be determined by the "local courts, " withoutany right of appeal to the local land offices, the General LandOffice, or to the Federal courts. The Government was thus requiredto part with its lands by proceedings executed by officials whollyoutside of its jurisdiction, and irresponsible to its authority. The act not only abolished our rectangular system of surveys, butstill further insulted the principles of mathematics and the dictatesof common sense by providing that the claimant should have theright to follow his vein or lode, "with its dips, angles andvariations to any depth, although it may enter the land adjoining, which land adjoining shall be sold subject to this condition"; aright unknown to the mining codes of England, France or Prussia, and not sanctioned by those of Spain or Mexico. Subject to thisnovel principle the crudely extemporized rules of the miners wereto be recognized as law, and this system of instability anduncertainty made the basis of title and the arbiter of all disputes, instead of sweeping it away and ushering in a system of permanenceand peace through the well-appointed agency of the Land Department. It was easy to see that this was an act to encourage litigationand for the benefit of lawyers, and not to promote the real interestof the miners or increase the product of the mines. 

This was made perfectly clear at the time, by the report of a Senatecommittee of the Legislature of Nevada. In speaking of the locallaws of the miners, it says, "There never was confusion worseconfounded. More than two hundred districts within the limit ofa single State, each with its self-approved code; these codesdiffering not alone each from the other, but presenting numberlessinstances of contradiction in themselves. The law of one point isnot the law of another five miles distant, and a little further onwill be a code which is the law of neither of the former, and soon, _ad inifitum;_ with the further disturbing fact superadded, that the written laws themselves may be overrun by some peculiarcustom which can be found nowhere recorded, and the proof of whichwill vary with the volume of interested affidavits which may bebrought on either side to establish it. Again, in one districtthe work to be done to hold a claim is nominal, in another exorbitant, in another abolished, in another adjourned from year to year. Astranger, seeking to ascertain the law, is surprised to learn thatthere is no satisfactory public record to which he can refer; nopublic officer to whom he may apply, who is under any bond orobligation to furnish him information, or guarantee its authenticity. Often, in the new districts, he finds there is not even the semblanceof a code, but a simple resolution adopting the code of some otherdistrict, which may be a hundred miles distant. What guaranteehas he for the investment of either capital or labor under such asystem?" The report proceeds to show that these regulations canhave no permanency. "A miners' meeting, " it declares, "adopts acode; it stands apparently as the law. Some time after, on a fewdays' notice, a corporal's guard assembles, and, on simple motion, radically changes the whole system by which claims may be held ina district. Before a man may traverse the State, the laws of adistrict, which by examination and study he may have mastered, maybe swept away, and no longer stand as the laws which govern theinterest he may have acquired; and the change has been one whichby no reasonable diligence could he be expected to have knowledgeof. " Of course these facts thus officially stated in the interestof the miners of Nevada, were applicable to California, and allthe mining States and Territories, and they fitly and very forciblyrebuked the attempt to enact the Senate bill. 

When this bill reached the House it was properly referred to theCommittee on Public Lands, which then had under consideration thebill I had reported providing for the survey and sale of minerallands through the regular machinery of the Land Department. TheHouse Committee subsequently reported it favorably, and could notbe persuaded by the delegations from California and Nevada to adoptthe Senate bill as a substitute. Senators Stewart and Conness, finding their project thus baffled, and becoming impatient of delayas the session neared its close, called up a House bill entitled"An Act granting the right of way to ditch and canal owners overthe Public Lands in the States of California, Oregon and Nevada, "and succeeded, by sharp practice, in carrying a motion to strikeout the whole of the bill except the enacting clause, and insertthe bill which the Senate had already enacted and was then beforethe House Committee. This maneuver succeeded, and the bill, thusenacted by the Senate a second time, and now under a false title, was sent to the House, where it found its place on the Speaker'stable, and was lying in wait for the sudden and unlooked-for movementwhich was to follow. The title was misleading, and thus enabledMr. Ashley of Nevada, to obtain the floor when it was reached, andunder the gag, which of course would cut off all amendment anddebate, he attempted to force through a measure revolutionizingthe whole land policy of the Government so far as relates to theWestern side of the continent, and surrendering the nationalauthority over its vast magazines of mineral wealth to the legalizedjargon and bewilderment I have depicted. I succeeded in preventinga vote by carrying an adjournment, but the question came up thenext day, and the Senators referred to, with their allies in theHouse, had used such marvelous industry in organizing and drillingtheir forces, and the majority of the members knew so little aboutthe question involved, that I found the chances decidedly againstme. I was obliged, also, to encounter a prevailing but perfectlyunwarranted presumption that the representatives of the miningStates were the best judges of the question in dispute, while itwas foolishly regarded as a local one, with which the old Stateshad no concern. The clumsy and next to incomprehensible bill thusbecame a law, and by legislative methods as indefensible as themeasure itself. 

Such is the history of this remarkable experiment in legislation;but it is an experiment no longer. Its character has been perfectlyestablished by time, and the logic of actual facts. It has beenextensively and thoroughly tried, and after repeated attempts toamend it by supplementary legislation, its failure stands recordedin the manifold evils it has wrought. The Land Commission, appointedunder the administration of President Hayes in pursuance of an Actof Congress to classify the Public Lands and codify the laws relatingto their disposition, visited the mining States and Territories indetail, and devoted ample time to the examination of witnesses andexperts in every important locality touching the policy and practicaloperation of the laws in force relating to mineral lands. ThisCommission condemned these laws on the strength of overwhelmingevidence, and recommended a thorough and radical reform, includingthe reference of all disputed questions as to title and boundaryto the regular officials of the United States; the abolition ofthe "local custom or rules of miners, " with the "local courts"provided for their adjudication; and the adoption of the UnitedStates surveys as far as practicable, including the geodeticalprinciple of ownership in lieu of the policy of allowing the minerto follow his vein, "with its dips, angles and variations underthe adjoining land of his neighbor, " which policy is declared tobe the source of incalculable legislation. The Commission, inshort, urged the adoption of the principles of the Common Law andthe employment of the appropriate machinery of the Land Department, as a substitute for the frontier regulations which Congress madehaste to nationalize in 1866. It declared that under theseregulations "title after title hangs on a local record which maybe defective, mutilated, stolen for blackmail, or destroyed toaccomplish fraud, and of which the grantor, the Government, hasneither knowledge nor control"; that in the evidence taken "it wasrepeatedly shown that two or three prospectors, camped in thewilderness, have organized a mining district, prescribed regulationsinvolving size of claims, mode of location and nature of record, elected one of their number recorder, and that officer, on the backof an envelope, or on the ace of spades grudgingly spared from hispack, can make with the stump of a lead pencil an entry that theGovernment recognizes as the inception of a title which may conveymillions of dollars; that even when the recorder is duly electedhe is not responsible to the United States, is neither bonded norunder oath, may falsify or destroy his record, may vitiate thetitle to millions of dollars, and snap his fingers in the face ofthe Government; and that our present mining law might fitly beentitled 'An Act to cause the Government to join, upon unknownterms, with an unknown second party, to convey to a third party anillusory title to an indefinite thing, and encourage the subsequentrobbery thereof. '"

These strong statements are made by a Government commission composedof able and impartial men, who were guided in their patient searchafter the truth by the evidence of "a cloud of witnesses, " whospoke from personal knowledge and experience. The character ofour mining laws is therefore not a matter of theory, but ofdemonstrated fact. They scourge the mining States and Territorieswith the unspeakable curse of uncertainty of land titles, aseverywhere attested by incurable litigation and strife. They thusundermine the morals of the people, and pave the way for violenceand crime. They cripple a great national industry and source ofwealth, and insult the principles of American jurisprudence. Andthe misfortune of this legislation is heightened by the probabilityof its continuance; for it is not easy to uproot a body of lawsonce accepted by a people, however mischievous in their character. Custom, and the faculty of adaptation, have a very reconcilinginfluence upon communities as well as individuals. Moreover, menabsorbed in a feverish and hazardous industry, and stimulated bythe hope of sudden wealth, are not disposed to consider the advantagesof permanent ownership and security of title. Their business isto make their locations according to local custom, and sell out tothe capitalists; while the men who feel the burden of litigationand the evil of uncertain titles, are not the men who control publicopinion and influence the course of legislation. It may thus happenthat a system of laws initiated by itinerant miners solely for theprotection of their transient posessory interests, and carriedthrough Congress at their behest by parliamentary roguery, may bepermanently engrafted upon half the continent. If California hadbeen contiguous to the older States, and her mining operations hadonly kept pace with the progress of settlements, or if herrepresentatives had been less ready to sacrifice the enduringinterests of their constituents for temporary and selfish ends, the wretched travesty of law which now afflicts the States andTerritories of the West would have been unknown, and the same codeand forms of administration would have prevailed from the lakes tothe Pacific. 

The lesson of this vital mistake is a pregnant one. The lawsregulating the ownership and disposition of landed property notonly affect the well-being but frequently the destiny of a people. The system of primogeniture and entail adopted by the SouthernStates of our Union favored the policy of great estates, and theruinous system of landlordism and slavery which finally laid wastethe fairest and most fertile section of the republic and threatenedits life; while the New England States, in adopting a differentsystem, laid the foundations of their prosperity in the soil itself, and "took a bond of fate" for the welfare of unborn generations. Their political institutions were the logical outcome of their lawsrespecting landed property, which favored a great subdivision ofthe land and great equality among the people, thus promotingprosperous cultivation, compact communities, general education, ahealthy public opinion, democracy in managing the affairs of thechurch, and that system of local self government which has sinceprevailed over so many States. So intimate and vital are therelations between a community and the soil it occupies that in thenomenclature of politics the word "people" and "land" are convertibleterms; but no people can prosper under any system of land tenureswhich tolerates a vexatious uncertainty of title, and thus promptsevery man to become the enemy of his neighbor in the scuffle forhis rights. Such a state of affairs is worse than pestilence orfamine; but the evil of uncertain titles puts on new and veryaggravated forms in our gold-bearing regions. The business ofmining naturally awakens the strongest passions. It sharpens thefaculties and dulls the conscience. It gives to cupidity itskeenest edge. Its prizes are often rich and suddenly gained, andwhen they are sought through the forms of a law which compels aman to choose between an expensive and hazardous litigation androbbery, human nature is severely tried. No situation could wellbe more deplorable than that which obliges a man to pay heavy black-mail as the only means of saving his property from legal confiscationby another; and the moral ravages of a code which allows this cannot be computed. It tempts civilized men to become savages andsavages to become devils. It is not a mistake merely, but a greatmisfortune, that our laws touching so delicate and vital a questionas the ownership and transfer of mineral lands were not so framedas to avert these frightful evils. As far as the past is concernedthey are without remedy, and there is no positive safeguard forthe future but in a return to the time-honored principles whichgive to the owner of the surface all that may be found within hislines, extended downward vertically, and refer all disputes to theold-fashioned and familiar machinery of the General Land Office. This system gave order and peace to the great lead and copperregions of the Northwest, and it would bring with it the sameinestimable blessings to the harassed and sorely tried regions ofthe Pacific slope. 

About the same time the action of Congress supplied another exampleof hasty and slip-shod legislation, which has been perhaps equallyprolific of evil. The State of California, soon after her admission, had assumed the right to dispose of the public lands within herborders according to her own peculiar wishes, and in disregard ofthe authority of the United States. This led to such seriousconflicts and complications, that a remedy was sought in a bill toquiet land titles in that State. It was a very questionable measure, inasmuch as the parties claiming title under the State could onlybe relieved by recognizing her illegal acts as valid, and at theexpense of claimants under the laws of the United States. Itnecessarily involved the right of pre-emption, and this was distinctlypresented in connection with what was known as the Suscol Ranch inthat State. It contained about ninety thousand acres, and wascovered by an old Spanish grant which the Supreme Court of theUnited States in the year 1862 had pronounced void, soon afterwhich numerous settlers went upon the land as pre-emptors, as theyhad a right to do. Their claims as such, being disputed by partiesasserting title under the void grant, the General Land Office, onthe reference of the question to that department, decided in favorof the pre-emptors, upon which the opposing parties procured thesubmission of the question to the Attorney-General. That officergave his opinion to the effect that a settler under the pre-emptionlaws acquires no vested interest in the land he occupies by virtueof his settlement, and can acquire no such interest, till he hastaken _all_ the legal steps necessary to perfect an entrance inthe Land Office, being, in the meantime, a mere tenant-at-will, who may be ejected by the Government at any moment in favor ofanother party. In pursuance of this opinion scores of _bona fide_settlers were driven from their pre-emptions, which the laws ofthe United States had offered them, on certain prescribed conditions, with which they were willing and anxious to comply, and their homes, with the valuable improvements made upon them in good faith, werehanded over to speculators and monopolists. The proceeding was asoutrageous as the ruling which authorized it was surprising to thewhole country; and it naturally awakened uneasiness and alarm amongour pioneer settlers everywhere. It seemed to me very proper, therefore, that in a bill to quiet land titles in California, thesetroubles on this Ranch should be settled by a fitting amendment, which should protect the rights of these pre-emptors against theeffect of the ruling referred to. The opinions of the Attorney-General had completely overturned the whole policy of the Governmentas popularly understood, and I simply proposed to restore it by aproviso guarding the rights of _bona fide_ settlers who were claimingtitle under the laws of the United States; but to my perfectamazement I found the California delegation bitterly opposed tothis amendment. The reading of it threw them into a spasm of rage, and showed that they were less anxious to quiet titles in theirState than to serve the monopolies and rings which had trampled onthe laws of the United States, and thus involved themselves introuble. The zeal and industry of the delegation in this oppositioncould only be paralleled by their labors for the passage of theirmineral land bill; and the same appeals were made in both cases. They said this was a "local measure, " and that they understood theinterests of the Pacific coast better than men from the old States, while they begged and button-holed members with a pertinacity veryrarely witnessed in any legislative body. They turned the businessof log-rolling to such account that the amendment was defeated bya strong majority, while it proved the entering wedge to other andgreater outrages upon the rights of settlers which the country hassince witnessed, and was followed by a decision of the SupremeCourt of the United States, fully affirming the principle laid downin the opinion of the Attorney General. This ruling, which hasbeen aptly styled "the Dred Scott decision of the American Pioneer, "has been repeatedly re-affirmed, while the claim of pre-emption, once universally regarded as a substantial right, has faded awayinto a glamour or myth. 

CHAPTER XIV. RECONSTRUCTION AND IMPEACHMENT. Gov. Morton and his scheme of Gerrymandering--The XIV Amendment--Hasty reconstruction and the Territorial plan--The Military Bill--Impeachment--An amusing incident--Vote against impeachment--Thevote reversed--The popular feeling against the President--The trial--Republican intolerance--Injustice to senators and to Chief JusticeChase--Nomination of Gen. Grant--Re-nomination for Congress--Personal--Squabble of place-hunters--XVI Amendment. 

The fall elections of this year were complicated by the hostileinfluence of the Executive, but the popular current was stronglyon the side of Congress. A few prominent Republican members followedthe President, but the great body of them stood firm. In my ownCongressional district my majority was over 6, 200, notwithstandingthe formidable conservative opposition in my own party, and itsextraordinary efforts to divide the Republicans through the patronageof the Administration. Nearly all of my old opponents in thedistrict and State were now Johnsonized, except Gov. Morton, whosetemporary desertion the year before was atoned for by a prudentand timely repentance. He was not, however, thoroughly reconstructed;for in the Philadelphia Loyal Convention which met in September ofthis year to consider the critical state of the country, he usedhis influence with the delegates from the South to prevent theirespousal of Negro Suffrage, and begged Theodore Tilton to prevailon Frederick Douglass to take the first train of cars for home, inorder to save the Republican party from detriment. He was stillunder the shadow of his early Democratic training; and he and hissatellites, vividly remembering my campaign for Negro Suffrage theyear before, and finding me thoroughly intrenched in my Congressionaldistrict, hit upon a new project for my political discomfiture. This was the re-districting of the State at the ensuing session ofthe Indiana Legislature, which they succeeded in accomplishing bydisguising their real purpose. There was neither reason nor excusefor such a scheme at this time, apart from my political fortunes;and by the most shameless Gerrymandering three counties of mydistrict, which gave me a majority of 5, 000, were taken from me, and four others added in which I was personally but little acquainted, and which gave an aggregate Democratic majority of about 1, 500. This was preliminary to the next Congressional race, and the successof the enterprise remained to be tested; but it furnished a curiousillustration of the state of Indiana Republicanism at that time. 

On the meeting of Congress in December the signs of politicalprogress since the adjournment were quite noticeable. The subjectof impeachment began to be talked about, and both houses seemedready for all necessary measures. Since mingling freely with theirconstituents, very few Republican members insisted that the XIVConstitutional Amendment should be accepted as a finality, or asan adequate solution of the problem of reconstruction. The secondsection of that amendment, proposing to abandon the colored racein the South on condition that they should not be counted in thebasis of representation, was now generally condemned, and if thequestion had been a new one it could not have been adopted. Thisenlightenment of Northern representatives was largely due to theprompt and contemptuous rejection by the rebellious States of theXIV Amendment as a scheme of reconstruction, and their enactmentof black codes which made the condition of the freedmen moredeplorable than slavery itself. In this instance, as in that ofMr. Lincoln's Proclamation of Emancipation, it was rebel desperationwhich saved the negro; for if the XIV Amendment had been at firstaccepted, the work of reconstruction would have ended withoutconferring upon him the ballot. This will scarcely be denied byany one, and has been frankly admitted by some of the mostdistinguished leaders of the party. 

The policy of treating these States as Territories seemed now tobe rapidly gaining ground, and commended itself as the only logicalway out of the political dilemma in which the Government was placed. But here again the old strife between radicalism and conservatismcropped out. The former opposed all haste in the work ofreconstruction. It insisted that what the rebellious districtsneeded was not an easy and speedy return to the places they hadlost by their treasonable conspiracy, but a probationary training, looking to their restoration when they should prove their fitnessfor civil government as independent States. It was insisted thatthey were not prepared for this, and that with their large populationof ignorant negroes and equally ignorant whites, dominated by aformidable oligarchy of educated land-owners who despised the powerthat had conquered them, while they still had the sympathy of theirold allies in the North, the withdrawal of Federal interventionand the unhindered operation of local supremacy would as fatallyhedge up the way of justice and equality as the rebel despotismsthen existing. The political and social forces of Southern society, if unchecked from without, were sure to assert themselves, and themore decided anti-slavery men in both houses of Congress so warnedthe country, and foretold that no theories of Democracy could availunless adequately supported by a healthy and intelligent publicopinion. They saw that States must grow, and could not be suddenlyconstructed where the materials were wanting, and that forms areworthless in the hands of an ignorant mob. It was objected to theterritorial theory that it was arbitrary, and would lead to corruptionand tyranny like the pro-consular system of Rome; but it was simplythe territorial system to which we had been accustomed from thebeginning of the Government, and could not prove worse than thehasty re-admission of ten conquered districts to the dignity ofStates of the Union, involving, as it has done, the horrors ofcarpet-bag government, Ku Klux outrages, and a system of pro-consulartyranny as inconsistent with the rights of these States as it hasbeen disgraceful to the very idea of free government and fatal tothe best interests of the colored race. 

But the strange chaos of opinion which now prevailed was unfavorableto sound thinking or wise acting. Great and far-reaching interestswere at stake, but they were made the sport of politicians, anddisposed of in the light of their supposed effect upon the ascendancyof the Republican party. Statesmanship was sacrificed to partymanagement, and the final result was that the various territorialbills which had been introduced in both Houses, and the somewhatincongruous bills of Stevens and Ashley, were all superseded bythe passage of the "Military bill, " which was vetoed by the President, but re-enacted in the face of his objections. This bill was utterlyindefensible on principle. It was completely at war with the geniusand spirit of democratic government. Instead of furnishing theRebel districts with civil governments, and providing for a militaryforce adequate to sustain them, it abolished civil governmententirely, and installed the army in its place. It was a confessionof Congressional incompetence to deal with a problem which Congressalone had the right to solve. Its provisions perfectly exposed itto all the objections which could be urged to the plan of territorialreconstruction, while they inaugurated a centralized militarydespotism in the place of that system of well-understood local self-government which the territorial policy offered as a preparationfor restoration. The measure was analyzed and exposed with greatability by Henry J. Raymond, whose arguments were unanswered andunanswerable; but nothing could stay the prevailing impatience ofCongress for speedy legislation looking to the early return of therebel districts to their places in the Union. The bill was alegislative solecism. It did not abrogate the existing Rebel Stategovernments. It left the ballot in the hands of white Rebels, anddid not confer it upon the black loyalists. It sought to conciliatethe power it was endeavoring to coerce. It provided for negrosuffrage as one of the fundamental conditions on which the rebelliousStates should be restored to their places in the Union, but leftthe negro to the mercy of their black codes, pending the decisionof the question of their acceptance of the proposed conditions ofrestoration. The freedmen were completely in the power of theirold masters, so long as the latter might refuse the terms ofreconstruction that were offered; and they had the option to refusethem entirely, if they saw fit to prefer their own mad ascendancyand its train of disorders to compulsory restoration. This perfectlyinexcusable abandonment of negro suffrage was zealously defendedby a small body of conservative Republicans who were still lingeringin the sunshine of executive favor, and of whom Mr. Blaine was thechief; and it was through the timely action of Mr. Shellabarger, of Ohio, which these conservatives opposed, that the scheme ofreconstruction was finally so amended as to make the Rebel Stategovernments provisional only, and secure the ballot to the negroduring the period, whether long or short, which might interveneprior to the work of re-admission. This provision was absolutelyvital, because it took from the people of the insurrectionarydistricts every motive for refusing the acceptance of the termsproposed, and settled the work of reconstruction by this exerciseof absolute power by their conquerors. It was this provision whichsecured the support of the Radical Republicans in Congress; but itdid not meet their objections to this scheme of hasty militaryreconstruction, while these objections have been amply justifiedby time. 

Thaddeus Stevens never appeared to such splendid advantage as aparliamentary leader as in this protracted debate on reconstruction. He was then nearly seventy-six, and was physically so feeble thathe could scarcely stand; but his intellectual resources seemed tobe perfectly unimpaired. Eloquence, irony, wit, and invective, wre charmingly blended in the defense of his positions and hisattacks upon his opponents. In dealing with the views of Bingham, Blaine, and Banks, he was by no means complimentary. He referredto them in his closing speech on the bill, on the thirteenth ofFebruary, when he said, in response to an interruption by Mr. Blaine, "What I am speaking of is this proposed step toward universalamnesty and universal Andy-Johnsonism. If this Congress so decides, it will give me great pleasure to join in the _io triumphe_ of thegentleman from Ohio in leading this House, possibly by forbiddenpaths, into the sheep-fold or the goat-fold of the President. " Inspeaking of the amendment to the bill offered by General Banks, hesaid, "It proposes to set up a contrivance at the mouth of theMississippi, and by hydraulic action to control all the States thatare washed by the waters of that great stream. " He declared that, "The amendment of the gentleman from Maine lets in a vast numberof Rebels, and shuts out nobody. All I ask is that when the Housecomes to vote upon that amendment, it shall understand that theadoption of it would be an entire surrender of those States intothe hands of the Rebels. * * * If, sir, I might presume upon myage, without claiming any of the wisdom of Nestor, I would suggestto the young gentlemen around me, that the deeds of this burningcrisis, of this solemn day, of this thrilling moment, will casttheir shadows far into the future, and will make their impress uponthe annals of our history; and that we shall appear upon the brightpages of that history just in so far as we cordially, without guile, without bickering, without small criticisms, lend our aid to promotethe great cause of humanity and universal liberty. "

As a precautionary measure against executive usurpation, the FortiethCongress was organized in March, 1867, immediately after theadjournment of the Thirty-ninth. After a brief session it adjournedtill the third of July to await the further progress of events. On re-assembling I found the feeling in favor of impeachment hadconsiderably increased, but was not yet strong enough to prevail. All that could be done was the passage of a supplemental act onthe subject of reconstruction, which naturally provoked anotherveto, in which the President re-affirmed the points of his messagevetoing the original bill, and arraigned the action of Congress ashigh-handed and despotic. The message was construed by theRepublicans as an open defiance, and many of them felt that a greatduty had been slighted in failing to impeach him months before. The feeling against him became perfectly relentless, as I distinctlyremember it, and shared in it myself; but on referring to themessage now, I am astonished at the comparative moderation of itstone, and the strength of its positions. Its logic, in the main, is impregnable, if it be granted that the Rebel districts were notonly States, but States _in the Union, _ and the Congress which wasnow so enraged at the President had itself refused to deal withthem as Territories or outlying possessions, and thereby invitedthe aggravating thrusts of the message at the consistency of hisassailants. 

Just before the adjournment of this brief session of Congress, anamusing incident occurred in connection with the introduction ofthe following resolution in the House:

"_Resolved, _ That the doctrines avowed by the President of theUnited States, in his message to Congress of the fifteenth instant, to the effect that the abrogation of the governments of the RebelStates binds the Nation to pay the debts incurred prior to the lateRebellion, is at war with the principles of international law, adeliberate stab at the national credit, abhorrent to every sentimentof loyalty, and well-pleasing only to the vanquished traitors bywhose agency alone the governments of said States were overthrownand destroyed. "

The resolution was adopted by yeas one hundred, nays eighteen, andthe announcement of the vote provoked the laughter of both sidesof the House. It gratified the Republicans, because it was a thrustat Andrew Johnson, and perfectly accorded with their prevailingpolitical mood, which was constantly becoming more embittered towardhim. It equally gratified the Democrats, because they at onceaccepted it as a telling shot at Gov. Morton, who had fathered thecondemned heresy nearly two years before in his famous Richmondspeech, which he and his friends had been doing their best toforget. Party feeling had never before been more intense; but thisresolution performed its mediatorial office with such magical effectin playing with two utterly diverse party animosities, thatRepublicans and Democrats were alike surprised to find themselvessuddenly standing on common ground, and joyfully shaking hands intoken of this remarkable display of their good fellowship. 

Congress assembled again on the twenty-first of November, inconsequence of the extraordinary conduct of the President. Thepopular feeling in favor of impeachment had now become formidable, and on the twenty-fifth the Judiciary Committee of the House finallyreported in favor of the measure. The galleries were packed, andthe scene was one of great interest, while all the indicationsseemed to point to success; but on the seventh of December, theproposition was voted down by yeas fifty-seven, nays one hundredand eight. The vote was a great surprise and disappointment tothe friends of impeachment, and was construed by them as a wantonsurrender by Congress, and the prelude to new acts of executivelawlessness. These acts continued to be multiplied, and the removalof Secretary Stanton finally so prepared the way that on the twenty-fourth of February, 1868, the House, by a vote of one hundred andtwenty-six to forty-seven, declared in favor of impeachment. Thecrowds in the galleries, in the lobbies, and on the floor wereunprecedented, and the excitement at high tide. The fifty-sevenwho had voted for impeachment in December, were now happy. Theyfelt, at last, that the country was safe. The whole land seemedto be electrified, as they believed it would have been at anyprevious time if the House had had the nerve to go forward; andthey rejoiced that the madness of Johnson had at last compelledCongress to face the great duty. A committee of seven was appointedby the Speaker to prepare articles of impeachment, of whom ThaddeusStevens was chairman. He was now rapidly failling in strength, andevery morning had to be carried up stairs to his seat in the House;but his humor never failed him, and on one of these occasions hesaid to the young men who had him in charge, "I wonder, boys, whowill carry me when you are dead and gone. " He was very thin, paleand haggard. His eye was bright, but his face was "scarred by thecrooked autograph of pain. " He was a constant sufferer, and duringthe session of the Committee kept himself stimulated by sipping alittle wine or brandy; but he was its ruling spirit, and greatlyspeeded its work by the clearness of his perceptions and the strengthof his will. His mental force seemed to defy the power of disease. The articles of impeachment were ready for submission in a fewdays, and adopted by the House, on the second of March, by a majorityof considerably more than two thirds, when the case was transferredto the Senate. 

The popular feeling against the President was now rapidly nearingits climax and becoming a sort of frenzy. Andrew Johnson was nolonger merely a "wrong-headed and obstinate man, " but a "genius indepravity, " whose hoarded malignity and passion were unfathomable. He was not simply "an irresolute mule, " as General Schenck hadstyled him, but was devil-bent upon the ruin of his country; andhis trial connected itself with all the memories of the war, andinvolved the Nation in a new and final struggle for its life. Evenso sober and unimaginative a man as Mr. Boutwell, one of the managersof the impeachment in the Senate, lost his wits and completelysurrendered himself to the passions of the hour in the followingpassage of his speech in that body:

"Travelers and astronomers inform us that in the Southern heavens, near the Southern Cross, there is a vast space which the uneducatedcall the 'hole in the sky, ' where the eye of man, with the aid ofthe powers of the telescope, has been unable to discover nebulae, or asteroid, or comet, or plant, or star or sun. In that dreary, cold, dark region of space, which is only known to be less thaninfinite by the evidences of creation elsewhere, the great Authorof celestial mechanism has left the chaos which was in the beginning. If this earth were capable of the sentiments and emotions of justiceand virtue, which in human mortal beings are the evidences and thepledge of our divine origin and immortal destiny, it would heaveand throe with the energy of the elemental forces of nature, andproject this enemy of two races of men into that vast region, thereforever to exist, in a solitude as eternal as life, or as theabsence of life, emblematical of, if not really, that 'outerdarkness' of which the Savior of man spoke in warning to those whoare the enemies of themselves, of their race, and of their God. "

This fearful discharge of rhetorical fireworks at the Presidentfitly voiced the general sentiment of the Republicans. Partymadness was in the air, and quite naturally gave birth to the "holein the sky" in the agony of its effort to find expression. Noextravagance of speech or explosion of wrath was deemed out oforder during this strange dispensation in our politics. 

The trial proceeded with unabated interest, and on the afternoonof the eleventh of May the excitement reached its highest point. Reports came from the Senate, then in secret session, that Grimes, Fessenden and Henderson were certainly for acquittal, and thatother senators were to follow them. An indescribable gloom nowprevailed among the friends of impeachment, which increased duringthe afternoon, and at night when the Senate was again in session. At the adjournment there was some hope of conviction, but it wasgenerally considered very doubtful. On meeting my old anti-slaveryfriend, Dr. Brisbane, he told me he felt as if he were sitting upwith a sick friend who was expected to die. His face was thepicture of despair. To such men it seemed that all the trials ofthe war were merged in this grand issue, and that it involved theexistence of Free Government on this continent. The final votewas postponed till the sixteenth, owing to Senator Howard's illness, and on the morning of that day the friends of impeachment felt moreconfident. The vote was first taken on the eleventh article. Thegalleries were packed, and an indescribable anxiety was written onevery face. Some of the members of the House near me grew paleand sick under the burden of suspense. Such stillness prevailedthat the breathing in the galleries could be heard at the announcementof each senator's vote. This was quite noticeable when any of thedoubtful senators voted, the people holding their breath as thewords "guilty" or "not guilty" were pronounced, and then giving itsimultaneous vent. Every heart throbbed more anxiously as the nameof Senator Fowler was reached, and the Chief Justice propounded tohim the prescribed question: "How say you, is the respondent, Andrew Johnson, President of the United States, guilty or not guiltyof a high misdemeanor, as charged in this article of impeachment?"The senator, in evident excitement, inadvertently answered "guilty, "and thus lent a momentary relief to the friends of impeachment;but this was immediately dissipated by correcting his vote on thestatement of the Chief Justice that he did not understand thesenator's response to the question. Nearly all hope of convictionfled when Senator Ross, of Kansas, voted "not guilty, " and a longbreathing of disappointment and despair followed the like vote ofVan Winkle, which settled the case in favor of the President. 

It is impossible now to realize how perfectly overmastering wasthe excitement of these days. The exercise of calm judgment wassimply out of the question. As I have already stated, passionruled the hour, and constantly strengthened the tendency to one-sidedness and exaggeration. The attempt to impeach the Presidentwas undoubtedly inspired, mainly, by patriotic motives; but thespirit of intolerance among Republicans toward those who differedwith them in opinion set all moderation and common sense at defiance. Patriotism and party animosity were so inextricably mingled andconfounded that the real merits of the controversy could only beseen after the heat and turmoil of the strife had passed away. Time has made this manifest. Andrew Johnson was not the Devil-incarnate he was then painted, nor did he monopolize, entirely, the "wrong-headedness" of the times. No one will now dispute thatthe popular estimate of his character did him very great injustice. It is equally certain that great injustice was done to Trumbull, Fessenden, Grimes and other senators who voted to acquit thePresident, and gave proof of their honesty and independence byfacing the wrath and scorn of the party with which they had so longbeen identified. The idea of making the question of impeachmenta matter of party discipline was utterly indefensible and preposterous. "Those senators, " as Horace Greeley declared, "were sublimely inthe right who maintained their independent judgment--whether itwas correct or erroneous, in a matter of this kind, and whoindignantly refused all attempts to swerve them from their duty asthey had undertaken to perform it by solemn oaths. " The ChiefJustice was also cruelly and inexcusably wronged by imputing corruptmotives to his official action. His integrity and courage had beenamply demonstrated through many long years of thorough and severetrial; and yet many of his Republican friends, both in the Senateand House, who had known him throughout his political career, denounced him as an apostate and a traitor, and even denied himall social recognition. Senator Howe, of Wisconsin, was especiallyabusive, and made himself perfectly ridiculous by the extravaganceand malignity of his assaults. The judicial spirit was everywherewanting, and the elevation of Senator Wade to the Presidency inthe midst of so much passion and tumult, and with the peculiarpolitical surroundings which the event foreshadowed, would havebeen, to say the least, a very questionable experiment for thecountry. 

The excitement attending the trial of the President soon subsided, but the Republicans continued anxious about the state of the country. The work of reconstruction was only fairly begun, and its completionwas involved in the approaching presidential election. Chase andSeward had lost their standing in the party, and there was no longerany civilian in its ranks whose popularity was especially commandingor at all over-shadowing. Under these circumstances it was quitenatural to turn to the army, and to canvass the claims of Gen. Grant. The idea of his nomination was exceedingly distasteful tome. I personally knew him to be intemperate. In politics he wasa Democrat. He did not profess to be a Republican, and the onlyvote he had ever given was cast for James Buchanan in 1856, whenthe Republican party made its first grand struggle to rescue theGovernment from the clutches of slavery. Moreover, he had had notraining whatever in civil administration, and no one thought ofhim as a statesman. But the plea of his availability as a militarychieftain was urged with great effect, and was made irresistibleby the apprehension that if not nominated by the Republicans theDemocrats would appropriate him, and make him a formidable instrumentof mischief. His nomination, however, was only secured by cautiousand timely diplomacy, and potent appeals to his sordidness, in theshape of assurances that he should have the office for a secondterm. But as the nominee of his party, fairly committed to itsprinciples and measures touching the unsettled questions ofreconstruction and suffrage, I saw no other practicable alternativethan to give him my support. I was still further reconciled tothis by the action of the Democrats in the nomination of Seymourand Blair, and the avowal of the latter in his famous "Brodheadletter, " that "we must have a President who will execute the willof the people by trampling in the dust the usurpations of Congressknown as the Reconstruction Acts. "

In my new Congressional district I was unanimously re-nominated bythe Republicans, and entered at once upon the canvass, thoughscarcely well enough to leave my bed. The issue was doubtful, andmy old-time enemies put forth their whole power against me at theelection. They were determined, this time, to win, and to makesure of this they embarked in a desperate and shameless scheme ofballot-stuffing in the city of Richmond, which was afterward fullyexposed; but in spite of this enterprise of "Ku Klux Republicans, "I was elected by a small majority. The result, however, foreshadowedthe close of my congressional labors, which followed two yearslater, just as the XV Constitutional Amendment had made voters ofthe colored men of the State; but it was only made possible by myfailing health, which had unfitted me for active leadership. Inmy old district I had made myself absolutely invincible. For twenty-one years in succession, that is to say, from the year 1848 to theyear 1868, both inclusive, I canvassed that district by townshipsand neighborhoods annually on the stump. In the beginning, publicopinion was overwhelmingly and fiercely against me, but I resolved, at whatever cost, to reconstruct it in conformity with my ownearnest convictions. I literally wore myself out in the work, andam perfectly amazed when I recall the amount of it I performed, and the complete abandon of myself to the task. From the beginningto the end of this struggle the politicians of the district wereagainst me, and they were numerous and formidable, and in everycontest were reinforced by the politicians of the State. Althoughthe ranks of my supporters were constantly recruited and no manever had more devoted friends, I was obliged, during all theseyears, to stand alone as the champion of my cause in debate. Ibelieve no Congressional district in the Union was ever the theatreof so much hard toil by a single man; but although it involved theserious abridgement of health and life, the ruinous neglect of myprivate affairs, and the sacrifice of many precious friendships, I was not without my reward. I succeeded in my work. Step by stepI saw my constituents march up to my position, and the district atlast completely disenthralled by the ceaseless and faithfuladministration of anti-slavery truth. The tables were completelyturned. Almost everybody was an Abolitionist, and nobody any longermade a business of swearing that he was not. In canvassing mydistrict it became the regular order of business for a caravan ofcandidates for minor offices, who were sportively called the "sideshow, " to follow me from point to point, all vying with each otheras to which had served longest and most faithfully as my friends. They had always been opposed to slavery, and men who had taken thelead in mobbing Abolitionists in earlier days and gained a livelihoodby slave-catching, were now active and zealous leaders in theRepublican party. It was a marvelous change. Slavery itself, greatly to the surprise and delight of its enemies, had perished;but it was, after all, only one form of a world-wide evil. Theabolition of the chattel slavery of the Southern negro was simplythe introduction and prelude to the emancipation of all races fromall forms of servitude, and my Congressional record had been apractical illustration of my faith in this truth. The rights ofman are sacred, whether trampled down by Southern slave-drivers, the monopolists of the soil, the grinding power of corporate wealth, the legalized robbery of a protective tariff, or the power ofconcentrated capital in alliance with labor-saving machinery. 

During the winter preceding the inauguration of the President Iwas besieged by place-hunters more than ever before. They throngedabout me constantly, while I generally wrote from twenty to thirtyletters per day in response to inquiries about appointments frommy district. The squabbles over post-office appointments were byfar the most vexatious and unmanageable. They were singularlyfierce, and I found it wholly impossible to avoid making enemiesof men who had supported me with zeal. I was tormented for monthsabout the post-office of a single small town in Franklin county, where the rival parties pounced upon each other like cannibals, and divided the whole community into two hostile camps. I wasobliged to give my days and nights to this wretched business, andoften received only curses for the sincerest endeavors to do whatI believed was right. The experience became absolutely sickening, and could not be otherwise than seriously damaging to me politically. Such matters were wholly foreign to the business of legislation, and I wrote a very earnest letter to Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, heartily commending his measure proposed in the preceding Congressfor the reform of our Civil Service, and for which, as the realpioneer of this movement, he deserves a monument. 

It was on the eighth of December, 1868, that I submitted a proposedamendment to the Constitution, declaring that "the right of suffragein the United States shall be based upon citizenship, and shall beregulated by Congress"; and that "all citizens of the United States, whether native or naturalized, shall enjoy this right equally, without any distinction or discrimination whatever founded on race, color, or sex. " This was prior to the ratification of the XVAmendment, and I so numbered the proposition; but on furtherreflection I preferred an amendment in the exact form of thefifteenth, and early in the next Congress I submitted it, beingthe first proposition offered for a sixteenth amendment to theConstitution. My opinions about woman suffrage, however, date muchfarther back. The subject was first brought to my attention in abrief chapter on the "political non-existence of woman, " in MissMartineau's book on "Society in America, " which I read in 1847. She there pithily states the substance of all that has since beensaid respecting the logic of woman's right to the ballot, andfinding myself unable to answer it, I accepted it. On recentlyreferring to this chapter I find myself more impressed by its forcethan when I first read it. "The most principled Democratic writerson Government, " she said, "have on this subject sunk into fallaciesas disgraceful as any advocate of despotism has adduced. In fact, they have thus sunk, from being, for the moment, advocates ofdespotism. Jefferson in America, and James Mill at home, subside, for the occasion, to the level of the Emperor of Russia's catechismfor the young Poles. " This she makes unanswerably clear; but myinterest in the slavery question was awakened about the same time. I regarded it as the _previous_ question, and as less abstract andfar more immediately important and absorbing than that of suffragefor woman. For the sake of the negro I accepted Mr. Lincoln'sphilosophy of "one war at a time, " though always ready to show myhand; but when this was fairly out of the way, I was prepared toenlist actively in the next grand movement in behalf of the sacrednessand equality of human rights. 

CHAPTER XV. GRANT AND GREELEY. The new Cabinet--Seeds of party disaffection--Trip to California--Party degeneracy--The liberal Republican movement--Re-nominationof Grant--The Cincinnati convention--Perplexities of the situation--The canvass for Greeley--Its bitterness--Its peculiar features--The defeat--The vindication of Liberals--Visit to Chase and Sumner--Death of Greeley. 

The inaugural speech of Gen. Grant was a feeble performance, andvery unsatisfactory to his friends. When he announced his Cabinet, disappointment was universal among Republicans, and was greatlyincreased when he asked Congress to relieve A. T. Stewart, hisnominee for Secretary of the Treasury, from the disability wiselyimposed by the Act of Congress of 1789, forbidding the appointmentto that position of any one engaged "in carrying on the businessof trade or commerce. " Senator Sherman at once introduced a billto repeal this enactment, but Mr. Sumner vigorously opposed themeasure, and the President soon afterward sent a message to theSenate asking leave to withdraw his request as to Mr. Stewart. Itwas doubtless the prompt and decided stand taken by Mr. Sumner inthis matter which laid the foundation for the President's personalhostility to him, which so remarkably developed itself during thefollowing years. The seeds of a party feud were thus planted, andas the Administration continued to show its hand, bore witness toa vigorous growth. 

In June of this year I made a trip to California in search ofhealth, which I had lost through overwork, and was now paying thepenalty in a very distressing form of insomnia. I took one of thefirst through trains to the Pacific, and on reaching the State, Ifound sight-seeing and travel so irresistible a temptation, thatI lost the rest and quiet I so absolutely needed. I was constantlyon the wing; and I encountered at every point, the "settler, " whowas anxious to talk over the land squabbles of the State, withwhich I had had much to do in Congress, but now needed for a seasonto forget. I found that the half had not been told me respectingthe ravages of land-grabbing under the Swamp Land Act of 1850, andthe mal-administration of Mexican and Spanish grants. I was fullof the subject, and was obliged, also, to give particular attentionto the pre-emption of J. M. Hutchings, in the Yosemite Valley, forthe protection of which I had reported a bill which was then pending;and I came near losing my life in the valley through the fatigueI suffered in reaching it. After a stay of over two months inCalifornia, and a trip by steamer to Oregon and Washington Territory, I returned home early in September, but in no better health thanwhen I left; and a like experience attended a journey to Minnesotasoon afterward, where I was captured by leading railroad men whobelabored me over the land-grant to the St. Croix and Bayfieldrailroad, the revival of which I had aided in defeating at theprevious session of Congress. 

I returned to Washington in December, but physically unfit forlabor, spending most of the session in New York under the care ofa physician. I deeply regretted this, for the railway lobby wasin Washington in full force, as it was during the closing sessionof the Forty-first Congress, when I was equally unfit for business. I was not, however, without consolation. Under the popular reactionagainst the Land-grant system which I had done my part to create, the huge pile of land bills on the Speaker's table failed, savethe Texas Pacific project, which was carried by the most questionablemethods, and against such a general protest as clearly indicatedthe end of this policy. A vote of nearly two to one was carriedin the House in favor of a bill reported by the Land Committeedefining swamp and overflowed lands, and guarding against theenormous swindles that had disgraced the Land Department andafflicted honest settlers. A like vote was secured in favor ofthe bill to prevent the further disposition of the public landssave under the pre-emption and homestead laws, for which I hadlabored for years. Many thousands of acres had been saved fromthe clutches of monopolists by attaching to several important grantsthe condition that the lands should be sold only to actual settlers, in quantities not exceeding a quarter section, and for not morethan two dollars and fifty cents per acre. A very important reform, already referred to, had been made in our Indian treaty policy, bywhich lands relinquished by any tribe would henceforth fall underthe operation of our land laws, instead of being sold in a body tosome corporation or individual monopolist. The Southern Homesteadlaw had dedicated to actual settlement millions of acres of thepublic domain in the land States of the South, while the HomesteadAct of 1862 was splendidly vindicating the wisdom of its policy. Congress had declared forfeited and open to settlement a largegrant of lands in Louisiana for non-compliance with the conditionson which it was made, and the public domain had been saved fromfrightful spoilation by the fortunate defeat of a scheme of landbounties that would completely have overturned the policy of thepre-emption and homestead laws, while practically mocking the claimsof the soldiers. The opportunity, now and then, to strangle alegislative monster like this, or to further the passage of beneficentand far-reaching measures, is one of the real compensations ofpublic life. 

The final ratification of the Fifteenth Constitutional Amendment, which was declared in force on the thirtieth of March, 1870, perfectly consummated the mission of the Republican party, and leftits members untrammeled in dealing with new questions. In fact, the Republican movement in the beginning was a political combination, rather than a party. Its action was inspired less by a creed thanan object, and that object was to dedicate our National Territoriesto freedom, and denationalize slavery. Aside from this object, the members of the combination were hopelessly divided. Theorganization was created to deal with this single question, andwould not have existed without it. It was now regarded by many asa spent political force, although it had received a momentum whichthreatened to outlast its mission; and if it did not keep thepromise made in its platform of 1868, to reform the corruptions ofthe preceding Administration, and at the same time manfully wrestlewith the new problems of the time, it was morally certain todegenerate into a faction, led by base men, and held together byartful appeals to the memories of the past. Our tariff legislationcalled for a thorough revision. Our Civil Service was becoming asystem of political prostitution. Roguery and plunder, born ofthe multiplied temptations which the war furnished, had stealthilycrept into the management of public affairs, and claimed immunityfrom the right of search. What the country needed was not a stricterenforcement of party discipline, not military methods and thefostering of sectional hate, but oblivion of the past, and anearnest, intelligent, and catholic endeavor to grapple with thequestions of practical administration. 

But this, in the very nature of the case, was not to be expected. The men who agreed to stand together in 1856, on a question whichwas now out of the way, and had postponed their differences oncurrent party questions for that purpose, were comparatively unfittedfor the task of civil administration in a time of peace. They hadhad no preparatory training, and the engrossing struggle throughwhich they had passed had, in fact, disqualified them for the work. While the issues of the war were retreating into the past themercenary element of Republicanism had gradually secured theascendancy, and completely appropriated the President. The mischiefsof war had crept into the conduct of civil affairs, and a thoroughschooling of the party in the use of power had familiarized it withmilitary ideas and habits, and committed it to loose and indefensibleopinions respecting the powers of the General Government. Themanagement of the Civil Service was an utter mockery of politicaldecency, while the animosities engendered by the war were nursedand coddled as the appointed means of uniting the party and coveringup its misdeeds. The demand for reform, as often as made, wasinstantly rebuked, and the men who uttered it branded as enemiesof the party and sympathizers with treason. It is needless to gointo details; but such was the drift of general demoralization thatthe chief founders and pre-eminent representatives of the party, Chase, Seward, Sumner and Greeley were obliged to desert it morethan a year before the end of Gen. Grant's first administration, as the only means of maintaining their honor and self-respect. MyCongressional term expired a little after Grant and Babcock hadinaugurated the San Domingo project, and Sumner had been degradedfrom the Chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Affairs to makeroom for Simon Cameron. The "irrepressible conflict" had justbegun to develop itself between the element of honesty and reformin the party, and the corrupt leadership which sought to makemerchandise of its good name, and hide its sins under the mantleof its past achievements. 

After the adjournment of the Forty-first Congress in March, 1871, I visited New York, where I called on Greeley. We took a drivetogether, and spent the evening at the house of a mutual friend, where we had a free political talk. He denounced the Administrationand the San Domingo project in a style which commanded my decidedapproval, for my original dislike of Grant had been ripening intodisgust and contempt, and, like Greeley, I had fully made up mymind that under no circumstance could I ever again give him mysupport. After my return home I wrote several articles for thePress in favor of a "new departure" in the principles of the party. Mr. Vallandigham had just given currency to this phrase by employingit to designate his proposed policy of Democratic acquiescence inthe XIV and XV Constitutional Amendments, which was seconded bythe "Missouri Republican, " and accepted by the party the followingyear. The "new departure" I commended to my own party was equallythorough, proposing the radical reform of its Tariff and LandPolicy, and its emancipation from the rule of great corporationsand monopolies; a thorough reform of its Civil Service, beginningwith a declaration in favor of the "one-term principle, " andcondemning the action of the President in employing the whole powerand patronage of his high office in securing his re-election fora second term by hurling from office honest, capable and faithfulmen, simply to make places for scalawags and thieves; and theunqualified repudiation of his conduct in heaping honors andemoluments upon his poor kin, while accepting presents of finehouses and other tempting gifts from unworthy men, who were paidoff in fat places. I did not favor the disbanding of the party, or ask that it should make war on Gen. Grant, but earnestly protestedagainst the policy that sought to Tammany-ize the organizationthrough his re-nomination. 

Returning to Washington on the meeting of Congress in December, Iconferred with Trumbull, Schurz and Sumner, respecting the situation, and the duty of Republicans in facing the party crisis which wasevidently approaching. During the session, I listened to the greatdebate in the Senate on Sumner's resolution of inquiry as to thesale of arms to the French, and was delighted with the replies ofSchurz and Sumner to Conkling and Morton. My dislike of thePresident steadily increased, and his disgraceful conduct towardsSumner and alliance with Morton, Conkling, Cameron, and theirassociates rendered it morally impossible for me any longer tofight under his banner. The situation became painfully embarrassing, since every indication seemed to point to his re-nomination as aforegone conclusion. But I clung to the hope that events would insome way order it otherwise. In February, I was strongly urged tobecome a candidate for Congressman at large under the new Congressionalapportionment; and although failing health unfitted me for activepolitics, to which I had no wish to return, I really wanted thecompliment of the nomination. The long-continued and wantonopposition which had been waged against me in my own party led meto covet it, and in the hope that General Grant's nomination mightyet be averted I allowed my friends to urge my claims, and tobelieve I would accept the honor if tendered, which I meant to doshould this hope be realized. I saw that I could secure it. Mystanding in my own party was better than ever before. The"Indianapolis Journal, " for the first time, espoused my cause, along with other leading Republican papers in different sectionsof the State. The impolicy and injustice of the warfare which hadlong been carried on against me in Indiana were so generally feltby all fair-minded Republicans that Senator Morton himself, thoughpersonally quite as hostile as ever, was constrained to call offhis forces, and favor a policy of conciliation. It was evidentthat my nomination was assured if I remained in the field; but astime wore on I saw that the re-nomination of General Grant hadbecome absolutely inevitable; and, as I could not support him Icould not honorably accept a position which would commit me in hisfavor. The convention was held on the 22d of February, and on theday before I sent a telegram peremptorily refusing to stand as acandidate; and I soon afterward formally committed myself to theLiberal Republican movement. I could not aid in the re-electionof Grant without sinning against decency and my own self-respect. I deplored the fact, but there was no other alternative. If ithad been morally possible, I would have supported him gladly. Ihad no personal grievances to complain of, and most sincerelyregretted the necessity which compelled my withdrawal from politicalassociations in which I had labored many long years, and throughseasons of great national danger. If I had consulted my own selfishambition I would have chosen a different course, since I knew bypainful experience the cost of party desertion, while the fact waswell known that the prizes of politics were within my reach, if Ihad sought them through the machinery of the Republican organizationand the support of General Grant. Had the party, having accomplishedthe work which called it into being, applied itself to the livingquestions of the times, and resolutely set its face against politicalcorruption and plunder, and had it freely tolerated honest differencesof opinion in its own ranks, treating the question of Grant's re-nomination as an open one, instead of making it a test of Republicanismand a cause for political excommunication, I could have avoided aseparation, at least at that time. I made it with many keen pangsof regret, for the history of the party had been honorable andglorious, and I had shared in its achievements. My revolt againstits discipline forcibly reminded me of the year 1848, and was byfar the severest political trial of my life. My new position notonly placed me in very strange relations to the Democrats, whosemisdeeds I had so earnestly denounced for years; but I could notfail to see that the great body of my old friends would now becomemy unrelenting foes. Their party intolerance would know no bounds, and I was not unmindful of its power; but there was no way ofescape, and with a sad heart, but an unflinching purpose, I resolvedto face the consequences of my decision. My chief regret was thatimpaired health deprived me of the strength and endurance I wouldnow sorely need in repelling wanton and very provoking assaults. 

I attended the Liberal Republican Convention at Cincinnati on thefirst of May, where I was delighted to meet troops of the old FreeSoilers of 1848 and 1852. It was a mass convention of Republicans, suddenly called together without the power of money or the help ofparty machinery, and prompted by a burning desire to rebuke thescandals of Gen. Grant's administration, and rescue both the partyand the country from political corruption and misrule. It was aspontaneous and independent movement, and its success necessarilydepended upon the wisdom of its action and not the force of partyobligation. There were doubtless political schemers and mercenariesin attendance, but the rank and file were unquestionably conscientiousand patriotic, and profoundly in earnest. I never saw a finerlooking body assembled. It was a more formidable popular demonstrationthan the famous Convention at Buffalo, in 1848, and gave promiseof more immediate and decisive results. There was a very widespreadfeeling that the Cincinnati ticket would win, and the friends ofGen. Grant could not disguise their apprehension. The thoughtseemed to inspire every one that a way was now fortunately openedfor hastening the end of sectional strife and purifying theadministration of public affairs. The capital speech of StanleyMatthews, on accepting the temporary chairmanship of the Convention, was but the echo of the feeling of the Convention, and its confidentprophecy of victory. "Parties, " said he, "can not live on theirreputations. It was remarked, I believe, by Sir Walter Raleigh, in reference to the strife of ancestry, that those who boasted mostof their progenitors were like the plant he had discovered inAmerica, the best part was under ground. " He declared that "thetime has come when it is the voice of an exceedingly large andinfluential portion of the American people that they will no longerbe dogs to wear the collar of a party. " All that now seemed wantingwas wise leadership, and a fair expression of the real wish andpurpose of the Convention. 

The principal candidates were Charles Francis Adams, Horace Greeley, Lyman Trumbull, David Davis, and B. Gratz Brown. Mr. Chase stillhad a lingering form of the Presidential fever, and his particularfriends were lying in wait for a timely opportunity to bring himforward; but his claims were not seriously considered. The friendsof Judge Davis did him much damage by furnishing transportationand supplies for large Western delegations, who very noisily pressedhis claims in the Convention. With prudent leadership his chancesfor the nomination would have been good, and he would have been avery formidable candidate; but he was "smothered by his friends. "The really formidable candidates were Adams and Greeley, and duringthe first and second days the chances were decidedly in favor ofthe former. On the evening of the second day Mr. Brown and Gen. Blair arrived in the city, pretending that they had come for thepurpose of arranging a trouble in the Missouri delegation; buttheir real purpose was to throw the strength of Brown, who wasfound to have no chance for the first place, in favor of Greeley, who had said some very flattering words of Brown some time beforein a letter published in a Missouri newspaper. This new movementfurther included the nomination of Brown for the second place onthe ticket, and was largely aimed at Carl Schurz, who was an Adamsman, and had refused, though personally very friendly to Brown, toback his claims for the Presidential nomination. It seemed to bea lucky hit for Greeley, who secured the nomination; but the realcause of Mr. Adams' defeat, after all, was the folly of Trumbull'sfriends, who preferred Adams to Greeley, in holding on to theirman in the vain hope of his nomination. They could have nominatedAdams on the fourth or fifth ballot, if they had given him theirvotes, as they saw when it was too late. Greeley regretted Brown'snomination, and afterward expressed his preference for anothergentleman from the West; and he had, of course, nothing to do withthe movement which placed him on the ticket. 

I was woefully disappointed in the work of the Convention, havinglittle faith in the success of Greeley, and being entirely confidentthat Adams could be elected if nominated. I still think he wouldhave been, and that the work of reform would thus have been thoroughlyinaugurated, and the whole current of American politics radicallychanged. The time was ripe for it. His defeat was a wet blanketupon many of the leading spirits of the Convention and theirfollowers. The disappointment of some of these was unspeakablybitter and agonizing. Stanley Matthews, illustrating his proverbialinstability in politics, and forgetting his brave resolve no longer"to wear the collar of a party, " abruptly deserted to the enemy. The "New York Nation" also suddenly changed front, giving its feeblesupport to General Grant, and its malignant hostility to Greeley. The leading Free Traders in the Convention who had enlisted zealouslyfor Adams became indifferent or hostile. Many of the best informedof the Liberal leaders felt that a magnificent opportunity to launchthe work of reform and crown it with success had been madly thrownaway. With the zealous friends of Mr. Adams it was a season ofinfinite vexation; but for me there was no backward step. Thenewborn movement had blundered, but Republicanism under the leadof Grant remained as odious as ever. It was still the duty of itsenemies to oppose it, and no other method of doing this was leftthem than through the organization just formed. That a movementso suddenly extemporized should make mistakes was by no meanssurprising, while there was a fairly implied obligation on the partof those who had joined in its organization to abide by its action, if not wantonly recreant to the principles that had inspired it. The hearts of the liberal masses were for Greeley, and if he couldnot be elected, which was by no means certain, his supporters couldat least make their organized protest against the mal-administrationof the party in power. 

I attended the Democratic State Convention of Indiana on the twelfthof June, which was one of the largest and most enthusiastic everheld in the State. The masses seemed to have completely brokenaway from their old moorings, and to be rejoicing in their escape, while their leaders, many of them reluctantly, accepted the situation. Both were surprisingly friendly to me, and their purpose was tonominate me as one of the candidates for Congressman-at-large, whichthey would have done by acclamation if I had consented. I was muchcheered by such tokens of union and fraternity in facing the commonenemy. The State campaign was finely opened at Indianapolis onthe eleventh of July, where I presented the issues of the canvassfrom the Liberal standpoint; and I continued almost constantly onthe stump till the State election in October, having splendidaudiences, and gathering strength and inspiration from the prevailingenthusiasm of the canvass. The meetings toward the close were realovations, strikingly reminding me of the campaign of 1856. Up tothe time of the North Carolina election I had strong hopes ofvictory; but owing to the alarm which had seized the Grant men onaccount of Greeley's unexpected popularity, and the lavish expenditureof their money which followed, the tide was turned, and was neverafterward checked in its course. They became unspeakably bitterand venomous, and I never before encountered such torrents of abuseand defamation, outstripping, as it seemed to me, even the rabidnesswhich confronted the Abolitionists in their early experience. Atone of my appointments a number of colored men came armed withrevolvers, and breathing the spirit of war which Senator Mortonwas doing his utmost to kindle. He had been telling the peopleeverywhere that Greeley and his followers were all Rebels, seekingto undo the work of the war, to re-enslave the negro, and saddleupon the country the rebel debt; and these colored men, heedinghis logic, thought that killing Rebels now was as proper a businessas during the war, and would probably have begun their work ofmurder if they had not been restrained by the more prudent counselof their white brethren. Even in one of the old towns in EasternIndiana which had been long known as the headquarters of Abolitionism, a large supply of eggs was provided for my entertainment when Iwent there to speak for Greeley; and they were not thrown at mesimply because the fear of a reaction against the party would bethe result. The Democrats in this canvass were rather handsomelytreated; but the fierceness and fury of the Grant men toward theLiberal Republicans were unrelieved by a single element of honoror fair play. 

This was pre-eminently true in Indiana, and especially so as tomyself. The leaders of Grant, borrowing the spirit of the campaign, set all the canons of decency at defiance. "Sore head, " "Renegade, ""Apostate, " "Rebel, " and "deadbeat, " were the compliments constantlylavished. Garbled extracts from my old war speeches were plentifullyscattered over the State, as if we had been still in the midst ofthe bloody conflict, and I had suddenly betrayed the country toits enemies. Garbled and forged letters were peddled and paradedover the State by windy political blatherskites, who were hired topropagate the calumnies of their employers. In fact, my previouspolitical experience supplied no precedent for this warfare of myformer Republican friends. But I was not unprepared for it, andfully availed myself of the right of self-defense and counterattack. I would not make myself a blackguard, but I met my assailantsin every encounter with the weapons of argument and invective, andstretched them on the rack of my ridicule; while their prolongedhowl bore witness to the effectiveness of my work. My whole heartwas in it. The fervor and enthusiasm of earlier years came backto me, and a kindred courage and faith armed me with the strengthwhich the work of the canvass demanded. 

The novelty of the canvass was indeed remarkable in all respects. The Liberal Republicans had not changed any of their politicalopinions, nor deserted any principle they had ever espoused, touchingthe questions of slavery and the war; and yet they were now in thefiercest antagonism with the men who had been politically associatedwith them ever since the organization of the party, and who hadtrusted and honored them through all the struggles of the past. They were branded as "Apostates" from their anti-slavery faith;but slavery had perished forever, and every man of them would havebeen found fighting it as before, if it had been practicable tocall it back to life; while many of their assailants had distinguishedthemselves by mobbing Abolitionism in the day of its weakness. How could men apostatize from a cause which they had served withunflinching fidelity until it was completely triumphant? And howwas it possible to fall from political grace by withdrawing fromthe fellowship of the knaves and traders that formed the body-guardof the President, and were using the Republican party as theinstrument of wholesale schemes of jobbery and pelf? To chargethe Liberal Republicans with apostasy because they had the moralcourage to disown and denounce these men was to invent a definitionof the term which would have made all the great apostates of history"honorable men. "

They were called "Rebels"; but the war had been over seven yearsand a half, and if the clock of our politics could have been setback and the bloody conflict re-instated, every Liberal would havebeen shouting, as before, for its vigorous prosecution. No mandoubted this who was capable of taking care of himself without thehelp of a guardian. 

It was charged that "they changed sides" in politics; but the sidesthemselves had been changed by events, and the substitution of newissues for the old, and nobody could deny this who was not besottedby party devil-worship or the density of his political ignorance. 

They were called "sore-heads" and "disappointed place-hunters;"but the Liberal leaders, in rebelling against their party in thenoon-day of its power, and when honors were within their grasp, were obliged to "put away ambition" and taste political death, andthus courageously illustrate the truth that "the duties of lifeare more than life. " The charge was as glaringly stupid as it wasflagrantly false. 

But the novelty of this canvass was equally manifest in the politicalfellowships it necessitated. While facing the savage warfare oftheir former friends Liberal Republicans were suddenly brought intothe most friendly and intimate relations with the men whose recreancyto humanity they had unsparingly denounced for years. They werenow working with these men because the subjects on which they hadbeen divided were withdrawn, and the country had entered upon anew dispensation. The mollifying influence of peace, aided, nodoubt, by the organized roguery which in the name of Republicanismheld the Nation by the throat, unveiled to Liberals a new politicalhorizon, and they gladly exchanged the key-note of hate and warfor that of fraternity and reunion. They saw that the spirit ofwrath which had so moved the Northern States during the conflictwas no longer in order. The more they pondered the policy ofamnesty and followed up the work of the canvass the more thoroughlythey became reconstructed in heart. They discovered that the menwhom they had been denouncing with such hot indignation for so manyyears were, after all, very much like other people. Personallyand socially they seemed quite as kindly and as estimable as themen on the other side, while very many of them had undoubtedlyespoused the cause of slavery under a mistaken view of theirconstitutional obligations, and as a phase of patriotism, whilesincerely condemning it on principle. Besides, Democrats had donea very large and indispensable work in the war for the Union, andthey now stood upon common ground with the Republicans touchingthe questions on which they had differed. On these questions theparty platforms were identical. If their position was accepted asa necessity and not from choice, they were only a little behindthe Republicans, who, as a party, only espoused the cause of thenegro under the whip and spur of military necessity, and not thepromptings of humanity. In the light of such considerations itwas not strange that the Greeley men gladly accepted their deliverancefrom the glamour which was blinding the eyes of their old associatesto the policy of reconciliation and peace, and blocking up thepathway of greatly needed reforms. 

Soon after the State election I resumed my work on the stump, whichincluded a series of appointment in Kansas, where I addressed byfar the most enthusiastic meetings of the campaign. My welcome tothe State was made singularly cordial by the part I had played inCongress in opposing enormous schemes of land monopoly and plunder, which had been concocted by some of her own public servants in theinterest of railway corporations and Indian rings. On my returnto Indiana the signs of defeat in November became alarming, andthey were justified by the result. It was overwhelming and stunning. Democrats and Liberals were completely dismayed and bewildered. The cause of Mr. Greeley's defeat, speaking generally, was theperfectly unscrupulous and desperate hostility of the party forwhich he had done more than any other man, living or dead; but thedisaster resulted, more immediately, from the stupid and criminaldefection of the Bourbon element in the Democratic party, whichcould not be rallied under the banner of an old anti-slavery chief. Thousands of this class, who sincerely hated Abolitionism, andloved negro slavery more than they loved their country, voteddirectly for Grant, while still greater numbers declined to voteat all. Mr. Greeley's own explanation of the result, which he gaveto a friend soon after the election, was as follows: "I was anAbolitionist for years, when it was as much as one's life was wortheven here in New York, to be an Abolitionist; and the negroes haveall voted against me. Whatever of talents and energy I havepossessed I have freely contributed all my life long to Protection;to the cause of our manufactures. And the manufacturers haveexpended millions to defeat me. I even made myself ridiculous inthe opinion of many whose good wishes I desired by showing fairplay and giving a fair field in the 'Tribune' to Woman's Rights;and the women have all gone against me!"

Greeley, however, received nearly three million votes, beingconsiderably more than Governor Seymour had received four yearsbefore; but General Grant, who had been unanimously nominated byhis party, was elected by two hundred and eighty-six electoralvotes, and a popular majority of nearly three quarters of a million, carrying thirty-one of the thirty-seven States. To the sincerefriends of political reform the situation seemed hopeless. ThePresident was re-crowned our King, and political corruption hadnow received so emphatic a premium that honesty was tempted to giveup the struggle in despair. His champions were already talkingabout a "third term, " while the Republican party had become therepresentative and champion of great corporations, and the instrumentof organized political corruption and theft. 

And yet this fight of Liberals and Democrats was not in vain. Theyplanted the seed which ripened into a great popular victory fouryears later, while the policy of reconciliation for which theybattled against overwhelming odds was hastened by their labors, and has been finally accepted by the country. They were stillfurther and more completely vindicated by the misdeeds of the partythey had sought to defeat. The spectacle of our public affairsbecame so revolting that before the middle of General Grant's secondterm all the great Republican States in the North were lost to theparty, while leading Republicans began to agitate the question ofremanding the States of the South to territorial rule, on accountof their disordered condition. At the end of this term the Republicanmajority in the Senate had dwindled from fifty-four to seventeen, while in the House the majority of one hundred and four had beenwiped out to give place to a Democratic majority of seventy-seven. No vindication of the maligned Liberals of 1872 could have beenmore complete, while it summoned to the bar of history the partywhose action had thus brought shame upon the Nation and a stainupon Republican institutions. 

After the presidential election I went to Washington, where I metChief Justice Chase in the Supreme Court and accepted an invitationto dine with him. He looked so wasted and prematurely old that Iscarcely knew him. He was very genial, however, and our longpolitical talk was exceedingly enjoyable. It seemed to afford himmuch satisfaction to show me a recently reported dissenting opinionof his in which he re-asserted his favorite principle of Staterights. I only met him once afterward, and this was at theinauguration of General Grant. I called on Mr. Sumner the sameevening, and found him in a wretched state of health, which wasaggravated by the free use of poisonous drugs. He seemed very muchdepressed, politically. He had lost caste with the great partythat had so long idolized him, and which he had done so much tocreate and inspire. He had been deserted by the colored race, towhose service he had unselfishly dedicated his life. He had beendegraded from his honored place at the head of the Senate Committeeon Foreign Relations, and for no other reason than the faithfuland conscientious performance of his public duty. He had beenrebuked by the Legislature of his own State. His case strikinglysuggested that of John Quincy Adams in 1807, when the anathemas ofMassachusetts were showered upon him for leaving the Federalistparty when it had accomplished its mission and survived its character, and joining the supporters of Jefferson. I sympathized with himprofoundly; but his case was not so infinitely sad as that of poorGreeley, over whose death, however, the whole Nation seemed to bein mourning. He had greatly overtaxed himself in his masterly andbrilliant campaign on the stump, in which he displayed unrivaledintellectual resources and versatility. He had exhausted himselfin watching by the bedside of his dying wife. He had been assailedas the enemy of his country by the party which he had done morethan any man in the Nation to organize. He had been hunted to hisgrave by political assassins whose calumnies broke his heart. Hewas scarcely less a martyr than Lincoln, or less honored after hisdeath, and his graceless defamers now seemed to think they couldatone for their crime by singing his praises. It is easy to speakwell of the dead. It is very easy, even for base and recreantcharacters, to laud a man's virtues after he has gone to his graveand can no longer stand in their path. It is far easier to praisethe dead than do justice to the living; and it was not strange, therefore, that eminent clergymen and doctors of divinity who hadsilently witnessed the peltings of Mr. Greeley by demagogues andmercenaries during the canvass now poured out their eloquence athis grave. What he had sorely needed and was religiously entitledto was the sympathy and succor of good men while he lived, andespecially in his heroic struggle for political reconciliation andreform. The circumstances of his death made it peculiarly touchingand sacramental, and I was inexpressibly glad that I had foughthis battle so unflinchingly, and defended him everywhere againsthis conscienceless assailants. 

CHAPTER XVI. CONCLUDING NOTES. Party changes caused by the slavery issue--Notable men in Congressduring the war--Sketches of prominent men in the Senate and House--Scenes and incidents--Butler and Bingham--Cox and Butler--JudgeKelley and Van Wyck--Lovejoy and Wickliffe--Washburne and Donnelly--Oakes Ames--Abolitionism in Washington early in the war--Life atthe capital--The new dispensation and its problems. 

In the early part of the period covered by the preceding chaptersour political parties were divided on mere questions of policy andmethods of administration. Trade, Currency, Internal Improvements, and the Public Lands were the absorbing issues, while both partiestook their stand against the humanitarian movement which subsequentlyput those issues completely in abeyance, and compelled the countryto face a question involving not merely the policy of governing, but the existence of the Government itself. When the slaveryquestion finally forced its way into recognition it naturallybrought to the front a new class of public men, and their numbers, as I have shown, steadily increased in each Congress from the year1845 till the outbreak of the Rebellion in 1861. The Congresswhich came into power with Mr. Lincoln did not fully represent theanti-slavery spirit of the Northern States, but it was a decidedimprovement upon its predecessors. In the Senate were such men asCollamer, Fessenden, Doolittle, Baker, Browning, Anthony, Grimes, Hale, Harlan, Sherman, Trumbull, Sumner, Wade, Henry Wilson, Chandler, Lane of Indiana, Harris of New York, Andrew Johnson, B. Gratz Brown and Howard. In the House were Conkling, Bingham, Colfax, Dawes, Grow, Hickman, Kelley, Potter, Lovejoy, Pike ofMaine, Ashley, Rollins of Missouri, Shellabarger, Thaddeus Stevens, Elihu B. Washburne, Isaac N. Arnold and James F. Wilson. 

During the Rebellion and the years immediately following, Ferry ofConnecticut, Creswell, Edmonds, Conkling, Morgan, Morton, Yates, Carpenter, Hamlin, Henderson, Morrill of Maine, and Schurz, wereadded to the prominent men of the Senate and Boutwell, Blair, HenryWinter Davis, Deming, Jenckes, Garfield, Schenck, Banks, Orth, Raymond, Butler, Hoar, McCrary, to the list in the House. Duringthis period the Democrats had in the Senate such men as Bayard, Garrett Davis, Hicks, Saulsbury, Buckalew, Hendricks, Bright, ReverdyJohnson, Thurman, and F. P. Blair; and in the House, S. S. Cox, Crittenden, Holman, Kerr, Pendleton, Richardson, Vallandigham, Niblack, Voorhees, Brooks, Randall, and Woodward. The men whocontrolled Congress during these years of trial were not theintellectual equals of the famous leaders who figured in the greatcrisis of 1850, but they were a different and generally a bettertype. They were summoned to the public service to deal withtremendous problems, and lifted up and ennobled by the great causethey were commissioned to serve. It did more for them than it waspossible for them to do for it. It took hold on the very foundationsof the Government, and electrified all the springs of our nationallife; and although great mistakes were made, and the fervor of thisperiod was followed by a sickening dispensation of demoralizedpolitics, it was a great privilege to be permitted to share in thegrand battle for the Nation's life, and the work of radical re-adjustment which followed. 

I have already referred to several of the conspicuous characterswhose names I have grouped. Such men as Collamer, Fessenden, Browning and Trumbull, were among the famous lawyers and conservativeson the Republican side of the Senate. They were conscientious andunflinching partisans, but were studiously anxious to save theUnion according to the Constitution, and deprecated all extremeand doubtful measures. Opposed to them stood Sumner, Wade, Chandler, and their radical associates, who believed in saving the Union atall hazards, and that not even the Constitution should be allowedto stay the arm of the Government in blasting the power of theRebels. It was perhaps fortunate for the country that thesedivisions existed, and held each other in check. Mr. Collamer wasthe impersonation of logical force and the beau ideal of a lawyerand judge. There was a sort of majesty in the figure and brow ofFessenden when addressing the Senate, and his sarcasm was as keenas it was inimitable; but his nature was kindly, and his integrityperfect. Trumbull was a less commanding figure, but he greatlyhonored his position as chairman of the Judiciary Committee of theSenate, and his memory will be held in perpetual remembrance asthe author of the Civil Rights Bill and of the XIII Amendment tothe Constitution. Sumner, I think, was the purest man in theSenate, if not the ablest. He was pre-eminently the hero of duty, and the servant of what he believed to be the truth. No man couldhave made a more absolute surrender of himself to his country inthe great conflict which threatened its life. His weary and jadedlook always excited my sympathy, for he seemed to be sacrificingall the joys of life, and life itself, in his zeal for the publicservice. I knew Wade more intimately than any man in the Senate, through my association with him as a member of the same Committeefor successive years, and was always interested in his personaltraits and peculiarities. He was "a man of uncommon downrightness. "There was even a sort of fascination about his profanity. It hadin it a spontaniety and heartiness which made it almost seem theecho of a virtue. It was unlike the profane words of ThaddeusStevens, which were frequently carried on the shafts of his witand lost in the laughter it provoked. Edmunds, now so famous asa lawyer, and leader in the Senate, and so well known by his reputedresemblance to St. Jerome, was simply respectable on his firstappearance; but his ability, industry, and constant devotion tohis duties soon gave him rank among the prominent men in that body. Grimes of Iowa was one of the really strong men of this period, while Harlan, his colleague, possessed a vigor and grasp of mindwhich I think the public never fully accorded him. Lane of Indianawas full of patriotic ardor, and like Baker of Oregon, had the raregift of eloquent impromptu speech. Henry Wilson earned the gratitudeof his country by his unswerving loyalty to freedom, and his greatlabors and invaluable services as chairman of the Military Committee. Howard ranked among the first lawyers and most faithful men in thebody, and no man had a clearer grasp of the issues of the war. Henderson was a strong man, whose integrity and political independencewere afterward abundantly proved. Doolittle was a man of vigor, and made a good record as a Republican, but he naturally belongedto the other side of the Senate, and finally found his way to it, through the quarrel with Johnson. 

Garrett Davis was always an interesting figure. His volubility oftalk bordered on the miraculous; and whenever he began to swathethe Senate in his interminable rhetoric it awakened the laughteror the despair of everybody on the floor or in the galleries. Bayard and Thurman were recognized as the strong men on their sideof the Senate in the Forty-first Congress. Buckalew was one ofthe really sterling men of his party, but he was a modest man, andonly appreciated by those who knew him intimately. As a leadingDemocrat, Hendricks stood well in the Senate. He was so cautiousand diplomatic in temper and so genial and conciliatory in hismanner that he glided smoothly through the rugged conflict ofopinions in which his side of the chamber was unavoidably involved. B. Gratz Brown was known as an intense radical, but he made littlemark in this crisis. He wrote out elaborate and scholarly essayswhich he read to the Senate, but they received slight attentionfrom members, and seemed to bear little fruit. Carpenter, Schurzand Morton took their seats after the war, and were not long infinding honorable recognition. Carpenter was as brilliant andversatile in intellect as he was naturally eloquent in speech andwayward in morals. Carl Schurz displayed ability in the famousdebate with Morton and Conkling on the sale of arms to the French, and his political independence in 1872 gave him great prominenceas a Liberal Republican leader; but that virtue has been lessconspicuously illustrated in later years. Morton became famoussoon after he entered the Senate. The "logic of events" hadrevolutionized the opinions so vigorously espoused by him only afew months before, and his great speech on reconstruction, in whichhe avowed and defended his change of base, brought him into greatprominence, and multiplied his friends in every section of thecountry. 

In the House, Roscoe Conkling was recognized as a man of considerabletalent and great self-esteem. I have elsewhere referred to hispassage at arms with Blaine. He never linked his name with anyimportant principle or policy, and was singularly wanting in thequalities of a party leader. No one questioned his personalintegrity, but in later years he was prompt and zealous in thedefense of the worst abuses which found shelter in his party. Mr. Sherman was shrewd, wiry and diplomatic, but gave little promiseof the career he has since achieved through ambition, industry andfavoring conditions. Shellabarger was one of the ablest men inthe House, and was so rated. He was always faithful and vigilant, and I have before given an instance of this in his timely actionon the question of reconstruction. Mr. Blaine, during the firstyears of his service, showed little activity. He spoke but seldomand briefly, but always with vigor and effect. He steadily grewinto favor with his party in the House as a man of force, butwithout seeming to strive for it. I think his abilities were neverfully appreciated till he became speaker. His personal magnetismwas as remarkable as his readiness to serve a friend was unfailing;but, like Mr. Conkling, he never identified himself with any greatlegislative measure. 

Henry Winter Davis was the most formidable debater in the House. He was full of resources, while the rapidity of his utterance andthe impetuosity of his speech bore down every thing before it. The fire and force of his personality seemed to make him irresistible, and can only be likened to the power displayed by Mr. Blaine inthe House, in his later and palmier years. When Gen. Garfieldentered the Thirty-eighth Congress there was a winning modesty inhis demeanor. I was interested in his first effort on the floor, which was brief, and marked by evident diffidence. He was notlong, however, in recovering his self-possession, and soon engagedactively in general debate. His oratory, at first, was the reverseof winning, owing to the peculiar intonation of his voice, butgradually improved, while his hunger for knowledge, unflaggingindustry, and ambition for distinction, gradually revealed themselvesas very clearly defined traits. During the first years of hisservice the singular grasp of his mind was not appreciated, but itwas easy to see that he was growing, and that a man of his politicalambition and great industry could not be satisfied with any positionof political mediocrity. His situation as a Representative of theNineteenth Ohio District was exceedingly favorable to his aspirations, as it was the custom of that district to continue a man in itsservice when once installed, and its overwhelming majority relievedhim of all concern about the result. He could thus give his wholetime and thought to the study of politics, and the mastery of thosehistorical and literary pursuits which he afterward made so availablein the finish and embellishment of his speeches. 

As a parliamentary leader, Mr. Stevens, of course, was always thecentral figure in the House. No possible emergency could disconcerthim. Whether the attack came from friend or foe, or in whateverform, he was ready, on the instant, to repel it and turn the tablescompletely upon his assailant. He exercised the most absolutefreedom of speech, making his thrusts with the same coolness at"unrighteous copperheads and self-righteous Republicans. " Inreferring to the moderate and deprecatory views of Colfax and Olin, in January, 1863, he said he had always been fifteen years inadvance of his party, but never so far ahead that its members didnot overtake him. His keenest thrusts were frequently made in sucha tone and manner as to disarm them of their sting, and createuniversal merriment. When Whaley of West Virginia begged him, importunately, to yield the floor a moment for a brief statement, while Mr. Stevens was much engrossed with an important discussion, he finally gave way, saying, "Mr. Speaker, I yield to the gentlemanfrom West Virginia for a few feeble remarks. " When he lost histemper and waged war in earnest his invective was absolutelyremorseless, as in the example I have given of it in a previouschapter. 

I have before referred to the oratory of Bingham. He was a readerof books and a master of English. He loved poetry, and was one ofthe most genial and companionable of men, but he was irritable andcrispy in temper, and a formidable customer in debate. He hadseveral angry bouts with Butler, in one of which he spoke sneeringlyof the "hero of Fort Fisher, " to which Butler replied that thegentleman from Ohio had shown his prowess in the hanging of Mrs. Surratt, an innocent woman, upon the scaffold. Bingham retortedthat such a charge was "only fit to come from a man who lives ina bottle, and is fed with a spoon. " He was often dogmatic andlacking in coolness and balance, but in later years he showeduncommon tact in extricating himself from the odium threatened byhis connection with the Credit Mobilier scheme. 

One of the really strong men in the House was John Hickman, ofPennsylvania, who had been a prominent figure in Congress duringBuchanan's administration. He was a man of brains, courage, andworth. Potter was a true and brave man, whose acceptance of achallenge from Roger A. Pryor, and choice of butcher knives as theweapons of warfare, had made him very popular at the North. Rollinsof Missouri was an eloquent man, of superior ability and attainments, and large political experience. Pike of Maine was one of the firstmen in the House, but too honest and independent to sacrifice hisconvictions for the sake of success. Deming of Connecticut was aman of real calibre, and on rare occasions electrified the Houseby his speeches, but he lacked industry. One of the finest debatersin the House was Henry J. Raymond. He displayed very decided powerin the debate on Reconstruction, and very effectively exposed theweakness of the Republicans in practically dealing with the RebelStates as if they were at once in and out of the Union. Among themost striking figures in the House were Butler and Cox, whosecontests were greatly relished. They were well matched, andalternately carried off the prize of victory. Butler, in the firstonset, achieved a decided triumph in his reply to a very personalassault by Cox. "As to the vituperation of the member from NewYork, " said he, "he will hear my answer to him by every boy thatwhistles it on the street, and every hand-organ, 'Shoo, fly, don'tbodder me'!" Cox, for the time, was extinguished, but patientlywatched his opportunity till he found his revenge, which Butlerafterward frankly acknowledged. For a time there was bad bloodbetween them, but they finally became friends, and I think socontinued. 

General Banks was always a notable personality. His erect figure, military eye, and splendid voice secured for him the admiringattention of the galleries whenever he addressed the House. Ashleyof Ohio who took the lead in the impeachment movement, in which hewas so zealous that he became known as "Impeachment Ashley, " wasanother picturesque figure. His fine _physique, _ frolicsome face, and luxuriant suit of curly brown hair singled him out among thebald heads of the body as one of its most attractive members. Boutwell impressed the House as a man of solid qualities, and aformidable debater. He acquitted himself admirably in his defenseof Butler against a savage attack by Brooks. Blair was a man ofability, independence, and courage, of which his record in theHouse gave ample proof. Wilson of Iowa was a young man when heentered Congress, but soon gave proof of his ability, and took rankas one of the best lawyers on the Judiciary Committee. JudgeKelley, since known as the "Father of the House, " and one of thefathers of the Greenback movement, first attracted attention bythe wonderful volume and power of his voice. It filled the entireHall, and subdued all rival sounds; but to the surprise of everybody, he met with more than his match when he was followed, one day, byVan Wyck, of New York, who triumphantly carried off the palm. Kelley's voice was little more than a zephyr, in comparison withthe roar and thunder that followed it and called forth shouts oflaughter, while Kelley quietly occupied his seat as if in dumbamazement at what had happened. 

James Brooks was always a conspicuous figure on the Democratic sideof the House. I first knew him in the log cabin days of 1840, andafterward served with him in the Congress of 1849. He was a manof ability, a genuine hater of the negro, and a bitter partisan;but I never saw any reason to doubt his personal integrity, and Ithink the affair which threw so dark a cloud over his reputationin later years was a surprise to all who knew him. Michael C. Kerrwas one of the very first men in the House, and a man of rare purityand worth. Randall, like Garfield, was a growing man during thewar, and through his ambition, natural abilities, and Congressionaltraining, he became one of the chief magnates of his party. Pendleton was counted an able man, and made his mark as a BourbonDemocrat and the champion of hard money; but he subsequently spoiledhis financial record by his scheme for flooding the country withgreenbacks. Vallandigham was conspicuous for his intellectualvigor, passionate earnestness, and hatred of Abolitionism. He hadthe courage of his opinions. The Republicans hated him consumedly. He was a member of the House Committee on Public Lands, whichreported the Homestead Bill, and I remember that no Republicanmember, except the chairman, showed the slightest disposition torecognize him. After the war was ended, however, and the work ofreconstruction was accomplished, his temper and qualities seemedto have spent much of their force. He was among the very first toplead for acquiescence and the policy of reconciliation; and ifhis life had been spared I believe his catholic spirit and activeleadership in the "New Departure" would have re-instated him inthe sincere regard of men of all parties. Lovejoy was the mostimpassioned orator in the House. His speeches were remarkable fortheir pungency and wit, and when the question of slavery was underdiscussion his soul took fire. He hated slavery with the animosityof a regular Puritan, and when he talked about it everybody listened. Wickliffe of Kentucky was one of the most offensive representativesof the Border State policy, and whenever he spoke Lovejoy was sureto follow. As often as Wickliffe got the floor it was noticed thatLovejoy's brow was immediately darkened in token of the impendingstrife, while his friends and enemies prepared themselves for thescene. Wickliffe was a large, fierce-looking man, with a shrillvoice, and quite as belligerent as Lovejoy; and their contests werefrequent, and always enjoyed by the House, and for some time becamea regular feature of its business. 

Elihu B. Washburne was conspicuous as the champion of economy. Herivaled Holman as the "watch-dog of the treasury" and the enemy ofland-grants. He was a man of force, and rendered valuable serviceto the country, but he assumed such airs of superior virtue, andfrequently lectured the House in so magisterial a tone as to makehimself a little unpopular with members. This was strikinglyillustrated in 1868, in his controversy with Donnelly of Minnesotaagainst whom he had made some dishonorable charges through aMinnesota newspaper. Donnelly was an Irishman, a wit, and anexceedingly versatile genius, and when it became known that he wasto defend himself in the House against Washburne's charges, and makea counter attack, every member was in his seat, although the weatherwas intensely hot and no legislative business was to be transacted. Donnelly had fully prepared himself, and such a castigation as headministered, has rarely, if ever, been witnessed in a legislativebody. He kept a ceaseless and overwhelming fire of wit, irony, and ridicule, for nearly two hours, during which the membersfrequently laughed and sometimes applauded, while Washburne sat paleand mute under the infliction. The tables were turned upon him, although portions of Donnelly's tirade were unparliamentary, andindefensible on the score of coarseness and bad taste. No member, however, raised any point of order; but the friends of Mr. Washburneafterward surrounded Donnelly, and by artful appeals to his goodnature prevailed upon him to suppress a portion of the speech, andto proffer statements which tended to destroy its effect and torestore to Washburne the ground he had lost. The House had its fun, while Washburne deigned no reply except to re-affirm his charges, and Donnelly's friends were vexed at his needless surrender of hisvantage-ground. It was an odd and unexpected _denouement_ of avery remarkable exhibition. 

Oakes Ames was one of the members of the House with whom I was bestacquainted. I thought I knew him well, and I never had the slightestreason to suspect his public or private integrity. Personally andsocially he was one of the kindliest men I ever knew, and I wasgreatly surprised when I learned of his connection with the CreditMobilier project. It first found its way into politics through aspeech of Horace Greeley near the close of the canvass of 1872, but it had been fully exposed by Washburn of Wisconsin in a speechin Congress in the year 1868. The history of its connection withAmerican politics and politicians forms an exceedingly interestingand curious chapter. The fate of the men involved in it seems likea perfect travesty of justice and fair play. Some of them havegone down under the waves of popular condemnation. Others, occupyingsubstantially the same position, according to the evidence, havemade their escape and even been honored and trusted by the public, while still others are quietly whiling away their lives under theshadow of suspicion. The case affords a strange commentary uponthe principle of historic justice. 

One of the most remarkable facts connected with the first years ofthe war was the descent of the Abolitionists upon Washington. Theysecured the hall of the Smithsonian Institute for their meetings, which they held weekly, and at which the Rev. John Pierpont presided. It was with much difficulty that the hall was procured, and one ofthe conditions of granting it was that it should be distinctlyunderstood and announced that the Smithsonian Institute was to bein no way responsible for anything that might be said by thespeakers. This was very emphatically insisted on by ProfessorHenry, and was duly announced at the first meeting. At the following, and each succeeding lecture, Mr. Pierpont regularly made the sameannouncement. These gatherings were largely attended and veryenthusiastic; and as the anti-slavery tide constantly grew stronger, the weekly announcement that "the Smithsonian Institute desires itto be distinctly understood that it is not to be held responsiblefor the utterances of the speakers, " awakened the sense of theludicrous, and called forth rounds of applause and explosions oflaughter by the audience, in front of which Professor Henry wasseated. Each meeting thus began with a frolic of good humor, whichMr. Pierpont evidently enjoyed, for he made his announcement witha gravity which naturally provoked the mirth which followed. Thesemeetings were addressed by Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, RalphWaldo Emerson, Dr. Brownson, and other notable men, and were enjoyedas a sort of jubilee by the men and women who attended them. 

The services in the Hall of Representatives each Sabbath formedthe fitting counterpart of these proceedings. The crowds inattendance filled every part of the floor and galleries, and werefull of enthusiasm. The most terrific arraignment of slavery Iever listened to was by Rev. Dr. George B. Cheever, in the courseof these services. He was a man of great ability, unquenchablezeal, fervid eloquence, and an Old Testament Christian who wassometimes called the Prophet Isaiah of the anti-slavery cause. Hecarried his religion courageously into politics, and while arraigningslavery as the grand rebel, he also severely criticised the managementof the war and the Border State policy of the President. The mostpronounced anti-slavery sermons were also preached in the Capitalby Dr. Boynton, Mr. Channing and others, while the Hutchinson familyoccasionally entertained the public with their anti-slavery songs. All this must have been sufficiently shocking to the slave-holdingpolitics and theology of the city, whose slumbers were thus rudelydisturbed. 

There was a peculiar fascination about life in Washington duringthe war. The city itself was unattractive. Its ragged appearance, wretched streets, and sanitary condition were the reproach of itscitizens, who could have had no dream of the Washington of to-day;but it was a great military as well as political center. Our troopswere pouring in from every loyal State, and the drum-beat was heardnight and day, while the political and social element hitherto inthe ascendant, was completely submerged by the great flood fromthe North. The city was surrounded, and in part occupied byhospitals, and for a time many of the principal churches weresurrendered to the use of our sick and wounded soldiers, whosenumbers were fearfully swelled after each great battle. The imminentperil to which the Capital was repeatedly exposed, and the constantlychanging fortunes of the war, added greatly to the interest of thecrisis, and marked the alternations of hope and fear among thefriends and enemies of the Union. But notwithstanding the seriousnessof the times, there was a goodly measure of real social life. Human nature demanded some relaxation from the dreadful strain andburden of the great conflict, and this was partially found in thelevees of the President and Cabinet ministers, and the receptionsof the Speaker, which were largely attended and greatly enjoyed;and this enjoyment was doubtless much enhanced by the peculiar bondof union and feeling of brotherhood which the state of the countryawakened among its friends. The most pleasant of these occasions, however, were the weekly receptions of the Speaker. Those ofSpeaker Grow were somewhat marred, and sometimes interrupted, byhis failing health, but the receptions of Mr. Colfax were singularlydelightful. He discharged the duties of his great office withmarked ability and fairness, and was personally very popular; andthere always gathered about him on these occasions an assemblageof charming and congenial people, whose genuine cordiality was arebuke to the insincerity so often witnessed in social life. 

But I need not further pursue these personal details, nor lingerover the by-gones of a grand epoch. We have entered upon a newdispensation. The withdrawal of the slavery question from thestrife of parties has changed the face of our politics as completelyas did its introduction. The transition from an abnormal andrevolutionary period to the regular and orderly administration ofaffairs, has been as remarkable as the intervention of the greatquestion which eclipsed every other till it compelled its ownsolution. Although this transition has given birth to an era of"slack-water politics, " it has gradually brought the country faceto face with new problems, some of which are quite as vital to theexistence and welfare of the Republic as those which have taxedthe statesmanship of the past. The tyranny of industrial domination, which borrows its life from the alliance of concentrated capitalwith labor-saving machinery, must be overthrown. Commercialfeudalism, wielding its power through the machinery of greatcorporations which are practically endowed with life officers andthe right of hereditary succession and control the makers andexpounders of our laws, must be subordinated to the will of thepeople. The system of agricultural serfdom called Land Monopoly, which is now putting on new forms of danger in the rapid multiplicationof great estates and the purchase of vast bodies of lands by foreigncapitalists, must be resisted as a still more formidable foe ofdemocratic Government. The legalized robbery now carried on inthe name of Protection to American labor must be overthrown. Thesystem of spoils and plunder must also be destroyed, in order thatfreedom itself may be rescued from the perilous activities quickenedinto life by its own spirit, and the conduct of public affairsinspired by the great moralities which dignify public life. 

These are the problems which appeal to the present generation, andespecially to the honorable ambition of young men now entering uponpublic life. Their solution is certain, because they are directlyin the path of progress, and progress is a law; but whether itshall be heralded by the kindly agencies of peace or the harshpower of war, must depend upon the wise and timely use of opportunities. The result is certain, since justice can not finally be defeated;but the circumstances of the struggle and the cost of its triumphare committed to the people, who can scarcely fail to find bothinstruction and warning in the story of the anti-slavery conflict. 

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