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THE LAWYER 
 
 THE STATESMAN AND 
 
 THE SOLDIER 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE S. BOUTWELL 
 
 -^x 
 
 3 /^ 
 
 We value a man by the measure of his 
 fM ""^ strength at the place where he is strongest. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 
 1887 
 
 '^< 
 

 Copyright, 1887, 
 By GEORGE S. BOUTWELL. 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 The preparation of these sketches is due to 
 the circumstance that it is my fortune to have 
 had the acquaintance of the persons to whom 
 the sketches relate. These pages may show the 
 marks of friendship rather than the skill of the 
 biographer or the research of the historian. I 
 have written in obedience to the rule or maxim 
 that we value a man by the measure of his 
 strength at the place where he is strongest. 
 Human errors and weaknesses, from which none 
 of us are exempt, can not be set off properly 
 against great thoughts expressed or great acts 
 performed. Errors and weaknesses mar the man, 
 but they can not qualify the greatness achieved. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 RuFUS Choate, the Lawyer . . . . i 
 
 Daniel Webster, the Statesman . . .44 
 
 President Lincoln, the Statesman and Liberator 90 
 General Grant, the Soldier and Statesman . 150 
 
THE LAWYER, THE STATESMAN, 
 AND THE SOLDIER. 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE. 
 
 If in imagination we can command the pres- 
 ence of a man only less than six feet in height, with 
 a full, deep breast, high and unseemly shoulders, 
 hips and legs slender and in appearance weak, arms 
 long, hands and feet large and ill-formed, a head 
 broad, chaste, symmetrical, covered with a luxu- 
 riant suit of black, glossy, wavy hair, a face intel- 
 lectually handsome and equally attractive to men 
 and to women, a complexion dark and bronzed as 
 becomes the natives of the tropical isles of the East, 
 a beard scanty and vagrant, mouth and nose large, 
 lips thin and long, an eye black, gentle and winning 
 in repose, but brilliant, commanding, and persuasive 
 in moments of excitement — we shall have thus and 
 now created an imperfect picture of Rufus Choate 
 as he presented himself to his contemporaries when 
 his physical qualities had not been wasted by dis- 
 ease nor impaired by age. 
 
 And if from this sketch we are in doubt whether 
 
2 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 the subject of it was an attractive person, we should 
 realize that his manners and ways were as gentle as 
 the manners and ways of the best bred woman, that 
 to the young he was always kind and often affec- 
 tionate, to the aged respectful, and that to those 
 in authority he was ever deferential without being 
 or appearing to be a sycophant. 
 
 And to these charms of person and benignity of 
 manners we are to superadd a voice that in conver- 
 sation, debate, or oration was copious, command- 
 ing, sonorous, and emotional, responding like music 
 to every change of thought, and, in its variety of 
 tone and sweep of accent and emphasis, touching 
 and influencing not only the sentiments and feel- 
 ings but even the opinions and judgments of men. 
 His vocabulary knew no limits except those set 
 by the language itself ; and such was his facility in 
 its use as to extort from the stern Chief-Justice of 
 the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts the 
 remark, when told that Webster's new dictionary 
 contained many thousand additional words, " I beg 
 of you not to let Choate hear of it ! " 
 
 His gestures seemed extravagant often, but they 
 were justified usually by the wonderful rhetoric 
 which he commanded and so used that it was ac- 
 cepted as the natural, the inevitable outflow of his 
 mind. While he seldom made a plain statement of 
 the exact truth either in conversation or in arg-u- 
 
THE LAWYER, 
 m 
 
 ent, he yet expressed the truth by a manifest 
 exaggeration of the truth. 
 
 When he offered wine to friends and omitted to 
 join them, he said, - I keep a little wine in my 
 house, but as for myself I doij't drink a glass once 
 in a thousand years." Borrowing the language of 
 the profession in regard to challenges of jurors, he 
 said of a brother at the bar whose manners and 
 ways were disagreeable, '' Some persons we hate for 
 cause, but ^ * - we hate peremptorily." 
 
 Upon his return from the Senate of the United 
 States in 1842, standing in the doorway of a meet- 
 ing-house then nearly a century old in a country 
 town of Massachusetts, and speaking to the multi- 
 tude within and without the building, in explana- 
 tion and defense of the bankrupt law then recent- 
 ly enacted under the lead of the Whig party, he 
 emphasized and made attractive the restoration to 
 active business of the body of bankrupts by the ex- 
 clamation, - In an instant we created five hundred 
 thousand full-grown, able-bodied men!" 
 
 Mr. Choate's facility in the use of language, his 
 urbanity of manner, and his ability to express con- 
 tempt without wounding visibly the subject of it, 
 were illustrated when he was closing an argument 
 in behalf of a client who was seeking compensation 
 for injury to his person, his horse, carriage, and 
 larness. Mr. Choate discoursed of the injury to 
 
4 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 his client, to the horse, and to the carriage, and was 
 about taking his seat, when his junior touched him 
 and said, " You have omitted the harness." Though 
 annoyed by the suggestion of so insignificant a 
 matter, he turned to the jury and with his accus- 
 tomed urbanity, said—" Ah, Mr. Foreman and gen- 
 tlemen of the jury, the harness !— a safe, sound, 
 substantial, serviceable (pausing and dropping his 
 voice), second-hand harness," and sat down. 
 
 Mr. Choate lived and labored under the influ- 
 ence of that dainty and dangerous gift of nature 
 which finds relief only in physical excesses or in 
 unremitting intellectual work— a sensitive, nervous 
 organization. He seldom indulged himself in amuse- 
 ments and except when compelled by illness he had 
 no relaxation from the toils of public and profes- 
 sional life. 
 
 When warned by an associate that his constant 
 labors were imperiling his health, he said, '' I have 
 no alternative but the insane asylum." 
 
 Again, when asked how his constitution held out, 
 he answered : '' That was gone long ago ; I am 
 now living on the by-laws." 
 
 In Mr. Choate's nature there was a singular 
 mixture of timidity and professional courage. It is 
 said that in consultation with his associates he was 
 too often doubtful of success, but, when the excite- 
 ment of the trial was on, there were no indications 
 
THE LAWYER. 
 
 5 
 
 of fear. His movements, tones, and arguments 
 were those of an advocate accustomed to victory, 
 and confident alike in his cause and in the su- 
 premacy of his own powers. But his constitu- 
 tional timidity appeared in his politics and in his 
 political career. It was unfortunately conspicuous 
 in his controversy in the Senate with Mr. Clay, and 
 in his acceptance in 1856 of the candidacy of Mr. 
 Buchanan, manifestly through fear of a rupture 
 with the South. It can not be denied, however, 
 that his speech at Lowell in that year is full of 
 statesmanship mingled with solemn prophecies as 
 to the consequences of the slavery agitation, if only 
 we accept his thesis that it was better to endure 
 slavery than to suffer the horrors of civil war. In 
 his opinion then, Ave had only a choice of evils. He 
 chose to endure those we had, rather than to fly to 
 others he knew not of. Genius in oratory and ca- 
 pacity in statesmanship are not often combined in 
 the same person. 
 
 Nor can it be asserted with confidence that 
 any great orator was ever eminently successful in 
 the practicaal ffairs of government. 
 
 Cicero may have been an exception, but even 
 his career is open to question in that respect. Cer- 
 tainly the elder Pitt, Burke, Lamartine, Kossuth, 
 and Castelar are instances of failure, and some of 
 them are conspicuous examples. 
 
6 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 There is a rough side to government, and there 
 must be a quality of harshness in the nature of 
 those who administer governments successfully. 
 
 Mr. Choate's courtesy was unfailing. He sub- 
 mitted deferentially to the verdicts of juries and to 
 the opinions of the bench. He avoided personal 
 controversy with his brethren at the bar, and he 
 treated witnesses upon the stand, whether friendly 
 or hostile, with apparent kindly consideration. It 
 was only in argument that witnesses felt the force 
 and weight of his keen satire and persuasive logic. 
 His presence of mind never failed, and his ready 
 resources in the contests of the bar were not less 
 remarkable than the brilliancy of his arguments. 
 
 Perhaps no advocate ever received a heavier 
 blow from a witness than fell upon INIr. Choate 
 when managing the defense of a shipmaster who 
 was charged with the crime of robbing and sinking 
 his vessel in the waters of the Indian Ocean. The 
 mate had become a witness for the Government. 
 Robert Rantoul, Jr., was the prosecuting district 
 attorney. The mate was a party to the crime, and 
 it was the theory of his testimony to prove that the 
 captain originated the scheme, and that the mate 
 and his associates were persuaded by the captain 
 to engage in the undertaking. In the cross-exami- 
 nation Mr. Choate sought for the inducements and 
 representations to which the mate had yielded. 
 
THE LA WYER. 7 
 
 The answers of the mate were reluctantly given, 
 and he evidently held something back. At last Mr. 
 Choate laid his elbows upon the table, rested his 
 head upon his hands, and with a persuasive manner 
 and voice said, '' Now, my good fellow, will you 
 not tell us what the captain said that induced you 
 to engage in this business ? " The witness replied 
 with nervous impetuosity, and said, " He told us 
 there was a man in Boston named Choate who 
 would get us clear, if the money were found in our 
 boots ! " When the laughter and excitement had 
 subsided, Mr. Choate, without change of voice or 
 manner, said, *' Did my brother Rantoul tell you to 
 say that?" The witness, for a moment, was con- 
 founded by the address and personality of the ques- 
 tion, and after some delay said, " No." Mr. Choate 
 remarked, " We all knew he didn't, but why did 
 you hesitate about that, as you have about every- 
 thing you have told us to-day ? " The rencontre 
 left a wound on Mr. Choate, but the mode of 
 escape was as good as the circumstances of the 
 case permitted. 
 
 This incident in his career, and his successful 
 defense of Albert J. Tirrell for the murder of Ma- 
 ria Bickford, were the basis of the keen and almost 
 cruel attack made by Wendell Phillips, in his ora- 
 tion called " The Boston Idols." 
 
 The idols were Webster, Everett, and Choate. 
 
8 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 In approaching Choate, he erected a pantheon, in 
 which he put many of the great gods of jurispru- 
 dence, and accompanied their names with stately 
 encomiums. 
 
 Among these were D'Agesseau, Romilly, and 
 Mansfield. " Finally," said the orator, '' New Eng- 
 land shrieks, ' Here is Choate, who made it safe to 
 murder, and for whose health thieves asked before 
 they began to steal ! ' " 
 
 No greater tribute than this could be offered, 
 either by friendly or hostile voice, to the learning, 
 skill, and genius of an advocate ; but beneath the 
 spoken word there lurks the suggestion that there 
 are human powers so exalted and controUing that 
 they ought not to be employed in defense of per- 
 sons charged with crime. 
 
 All crimes are primarily against the Govern- 
 ment, whatever may be the personal circumstances 
 attending their commission. 
 
 The sufferers can in no case be their own aven- 
 gers. In the pursuit and prosecution of criminals 
 the resources of a state or of a nation are at the 
 command of the agents of the Government. Those 
 resources are always greater than the resources 
 of the most opulent individual. The Government 
 enacts the laws, creates the courts, ordains the 
 mode of procedure, furnishes the juries from its 
 body of citizens ; and, since the employment of Mr. 
 
THE LAWYER. 
 
 9 
 
 Webster to aid the Attorney-General of Massachu- 
 setts in the prosecution of the Knapps for the mur- 
 der of Joseph White, it has been thought not im- 
 proper for Governments to retain eminent counsel 
 and advocates to aid or even to lead in the trial 
 of persons charged with crime. The advantages 
 could not be greater if it were the maxim of Gov- 
 ernments that, for every crime committed, some 
 person should suffer a penalty. The ancient and 
 wiser maxim, that it is better that ninety - nine 
 guilty persons should escape than that one inno- 
 cent person should suffer, assumes that it is a 
 higher duty to protect the innocent than to punish 
 the guilty. And this duty always rests upon the 
 Government 
 
 It is, therefore, a wise pubhc policy which pro- 
 vides the means of defense for every person charged 
 with crime ; and a healthy pubhc sentiment will in 
 the end not only tolerate but it will support the ad- 
 vocate who undertakes the defense, even though 
 the accused for the moment may be enduring the 
 weight of an adverse and intolerant public judg- 
 ment. 
 
 It is a pubhc misfortune, whose effects run with 
 the ages, when great criminals even are brought to 
 the bar and tried and condemned without the sup- 
 port and aid of an able, vigorous, and persistent 
 defense. And it should ever be borne in mind that. 
 
lO RUFUS C HO ATE 
 
 in cases where the guilt of the party is beyond 
 question, he is entitled to the benefit of every de- 
 fense which the law authorizes ; and it should also 
 be borne in mind that, if those means are denied to 
 the guilty, the time will soon come when they will 
 not be a shield to the innocent. 
 
 The line of professional duty is clear. The at- 
 torney is an officer of the court. He is to obey the 
 law, and in his advice to chents he is always to di- 
 rect them in the fine of obedience to the law. Oth- 
 erwise, he becomes a participator in their guilt. 
 Usually, however, the attorney is not consulted un- i 
 til the law has been violated. The accused is then 
 entitled to every advantage and privilege which 
 the law allows. These the attorney and advocate 
 are to find and to employ with whatever of ability 
 they can command, and if in the end the ac- j 
 cused is found not guilty, the law presumes him 
 innocent ; but, whether so or not, the fault, if 
 fault there be, is with the Government and its 
 agents. 
 
 Lord Brougham, in his defense of Queen Caro- 
 line, went much further. He maintained the ex- 
 treme, revolutionary doctrine that it was the duty 
 of counsel to pursue the defense of clients even to 
 the destruction of the Government itself. This po- ] 
 sition, however, he quahfied subsequently by de- 
 claring that he assumed it as a menace to the king, 
 
THE LA WYER. 1 1 
 
 and for the purpose of staying the hand of the 
 prosecutors. 
 
 Mr. Choate's successful defense of Albert J. 
 Tirrell was followed by severe criticisms, and the 
 loss of public esteem among those whose narrow 
 ethics could not comprehend the true relations of 
 the Government to the individual members of 
 society. Tirrell was a young man of irregular 
 ways of life, and Maria Bickford was a young 
 woman of great beauty and some celebrity. That 
 Tirrell was her slayer there was no doubt. The 
 defense was somnambulism on the part of Tirrell, 
 and the habit was proved upon the testimony of 
 his family and associates. The defense relied also 
 on the absence of motive on the part of Tirrell. 
 
 Beyond this the witnesses for the Government, 
 who had knowledge of the facts occurring during 
 the night of the murder, and in the house where 
 the killing took place, were persons of ill repute. 
 The jury found the prisoner not guilty. The 
 public found him guilty, and the public made Mr. 
 Choate responsible for the verdict of the jury. 
 When Mr. Choate declined the defense of Pro- 
 fessor Webster, charged with the murder of Dr. 
 Parkman, his course was attributed to his dis- 
 inclination to again encounter the popular odium. 
 It is more probable, however, that Mr. Choate 
 declined the defense because Professor Webster 
 
12 RUFUS C HO ATE 
 
 was unwilling to rely upon the actual facts, and 
 on which his crime would have been reduced 
 from murder to manslaughter. 
 
 Although Mr. Choate was destitute of many 
 of the qualities of statesmanship, his views of 
 public questions were those of a statesman. He 
 was conservative in his opinions, a follower of 
 Hamilton, and an associate and friend of Web- 
 ster. If the Constitution of the country had been 
 the work of his own hand, his devotion to it 
 could not have been greater ; but he was terrified 
 by the thought that it was a band of iron which 
 might be broken but could never be changed. 
 The civil war, which he dreaded, but lived not to 
 see, wrought changes in the Constitution that he 
 would have welcomed. 
 
 Mr. Choate's last public service was in the Con- 
 stitutional Convention of Massachusetts of 1853. 
 In those days, in Massachusetts, we were blessed 
 with an excellent sergeant-at-arms, who, through 
 the agency of a boy blindfolded — a clairvoyant, no 
 doubt — was able usually to so draw the numbers 
 from a box as to secure a orQod seat for the leadinof 
 men of all parties. Mr. Choate drew an end-seat, .' 
 and it was my fortune to secure the next end-seat 
 immediately behind him. For about three months 
 we were thus associated. I enjoyed his con- 
 versation, observed his ways, and listened to 
 
 'I 
 
THE LAWYER. 1 3 
 
 his speeches, which were, in fact, alwa3's ora- 
 tions. 
 
 During the months of May, June, and July, Mr. 
 Choate attended to some professional business, pre- 
 pared and delivered his Dartmouth eulogy upon 
 Mr. Webster, and participated in the debates of the 
 convention. Worthy of especial notice w^ere his 
 speeches upon the judiciary and the representative 
 system. The speech on the judiciary was deUv- 
 ered on a hot day in July. During all his mature 
 years Mr. Choate was subject to severe headaches, 
 and they often followed or attended the excitement 
 of public efforts. That day he provided himself 
 with a bottle of bay-rum, with which he bathed his 
 head frequently and profusely. His gesticulations 
 were so vigorous that drops of bay-rum and per- 
 spiration were thrown from his hair and bespat- 
 tered his neighbors. His speeches were usually 
 written, if the characters he employed could be 
 called writing, inasmuch as they were illegible to 
 ever}^ one but himself. In the delivery, however, 
 he dealt only with the sheets which he took up and 
 held, and laid down in succession, without appear- 
 ing to read what was written. Probably a word 
 suggested an entire sentence or even a paragraph, 
 and thereupon his memory w-as quickened or his 
 mind repeated the process of thought pursued 
 when the sentence or paragraph was written. 
 
14 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 When engaged in the trial of causes he usually 
 ran two sets of notes. Upon one he minuted ques- 
 tions or topics to be used in the cross-examination 
 of witnesses, and upon the other he noted points or 
 illustrations for his argument to the jury. 
 
 Neither eloquence nor argument is exclusively 
 of the word spoken. The tones, the gestures, the 
 emphasis^ the accent, reveal the finer shades of 
 meaning on the one side and enforce the argument 
 on the other. Therefore, we can institute no com- 
 parison between the orators that we have heard 
 and the orators that we have not heard. In justice 
 we can only compare with one another the orators 
 that we have heard, and with one another the. 
 orators that we have not heard. 
 
 Mr. Choate was a student in the office of Will- 
 iam Wirt, and for a year he Avas a listener to the 
 arguments of William Pinckney in the Supreme 
 Court of the United States. On those models he 
 fashioned his career as an advocate, and on those 
 models he so improved, I imagine, as, in the end, 
 to defy rivalry and even comparison. But Mr. 
 Choate's laurels were gathered in a field where 
 there were many competitors both at the bar and 
 upon the rostrum. His antagonists and competi- 
 tors were Webster, Mason, Franklin Dexter, Hil- 
 lard, Dana, Everett, Phillips, and, whether at the 
 bar or upon the platform, he could have com- 
 
THE LAWYER, 1 5 
 
 manded an audience at the expense of each and all 
 of those gifted men. 
 
 To these I may add, out of my own personal 
 experience, the names of Henry Clay, J. McPher- 
 son Berrien, Thomas Corwin, Abraham Lincoln, 
 Georg-e Thompson, Louis Kossuth, as persons 
 quite unequal to contest with Rufus Choate for 
 supremacy in ability to interest, instruct, and con- 
 trol a popular assembly. 
 
 Of Mr. Choate it is to be said that his philoso- 
 phy and his powers of imagination passed not be- 
 yond the relations of men to men, and of men to 
 things. Hence, we shall seek in vain for idealistic 
 passages in his speeches and writings. We shall 
 find nothing that can be compared with Webster's 
 great passage in his eulogy on Jefferson and 
 Adams : 
 
 " A superior and commanding human intellect, 
 when Heaven vouchsafes so rare a gift, is not a 
 temporary flame burning brightly for a while and 
 then expiring, giving place to returning darkness ; 
 it is rather a spark of fervent heat as well as a radi- 
 ant light, vvdth power to enkindle the common mass 
 of human mind, so that when it glimmers in its 
 own decay, and finally goes out in death, no night 
 follows, but it leaves the world all light, all on fire, 
 from the potent contact of its own spirit." 
 
 Nor any passage which can be compared to 
 Buckle's tribute to men of thousfht and science : 
 
l6 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 " The discoveries of great men never leave us. 
 They are immortal. They contain those eternal 
 truths that survive the shock of empires, outlive 
 the struggles of rival creeds, and witness the decay 
 of successive religions. All these have their differ- 
 ent standards and their different measures — one 
 set of opinions for one age and another set for an- 
 other. They pass away like a dream. They are 
 as the fabric of a vision which leaves not a rack 
 behind. The discoveries of genius alone remain. 
 To them we owe all that we now have. They are 
 for all ages and all times. Never young and never 
 old, they bear the seeds of their own life. They 
 flow on in a perennial and undying stream. They 
 are essentially cumulative, and, giving birth to the 
 additions which they subsequently receive, they 
 thus influence the most distant posterity, and after 
 the lapse of centuries produce more effect than 
 they could do even at the moment of their promul- 
 
 It is a fortunate fact in the intellectual world 
 that the varieties of taste, power, and genius are so 
 many and distinguishing that comparisons elude us, 
 while contrasts are obvious to the most careless 
 observers.*"' Mr. Choate combined a rare subtilty of 
 observation and ingenuity of argument, gilded by 
 an affluent imagination found nowhere else but in 
 the fields of romance, with a clear and incisive logic 
 which charmed alike the rustic and the student, and 
 compelled the assent of the critic and the judge. 
 
THE LAWYER. 
 
 17 
 
 If it be admitted that Mr. Choate has left no 
 single passage that can be quoted by the side of the 
 choice extracts from ancient and modern orations, 
 it may nevertheless be claimed for him that his ar- 
 guments and speeches are well sustained from first 
 to last, and that the marks of rewriting and prun- 
 ing are nowhere to be found. Such were his in- 
 tellectual resources and such his mastery over his 
 faculties that what he wrought was finished as he 
 wrought. 
 
 Therefore, whatever selections we may make 
 from the speeches and orations of his maturer 
 years will express his quality and power, remem- 
 bering always that the effect of his personal ap- 
 pearance, gestures, and electrical voice can never 
 be comprehended by those who had not the for- 
 tune to see and to hear him. 
 
 In the Convention of 1853 a vigorous effort was 
 made to change the tenure of the judicial office 
 from a tenure of ''good behavior" to a term of 
 years. This change Mr. Choate resisted, and the 
 speech he then delivered presents him at his best 
 in the field of statesmanship. 
 
 His purpose he thus sets forth : 
 
 " I go for that system, if I can find it or help to 
 find it, which gives me the highest degree of assur- 
 ance, taking man as he is, at his strongest and at 
 his weakest, and in the average of the lot of hu- 
 
1 8 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 manity, that there shall be the best judge on every 
 bench of justice in the Commonwealth, through its 
 successive generations." 
 
 In a speech of two hours' duration he dealt 
 with the problem how to command and how to 
 keep upon the bench such a judge as he thus de- 
 scribed : 
 
 •'" In the first place, he should be profoundly 
 learned in all the learning of the law, and he must 
 know how to use that learning. Will any one stand 
 up here to deny this ? In this day, boastful, glori- 
 ous for its advancing, popular, professional, scien- 
 tific, and all education, will any one disgrace himself 
 by doubting the necessity of deep and continued 
 studies, and various and thorough attainments to 
 the bench ? He is to know not merely the law which 
 you make, and the Legislature makes, not constitu- 
 tional and statute law alone, but that other ampler, 
 that boundless jurisprudence, the common law, 
 which the successive generations of the State have 
 silently built up ; that old code of freedom which 
 we brought with us in the Maj-flower and Ara- 
 bella, but which, in the progress of centuries, we 
 have ameliorated and enriched, and adapted wisely 
 to the necessities of a busy, prosperous, and wealthy 
 community — that he must know. 
 
 "■ And where to find it ? In volumes which you 
 must count by hundreds, by thousands ; filling 
 libraries; exacting long labors — the labors of a 
 lifetime, abstracted from business, from politics ; 
 
THE LAWYER. 19 
 
 but assisted by taking part in an active judicial 
 administration ; such labors as produced the wis- 
 dom and won the fame of Parsons, and Marshall, 
 and Kent, and Story, and Holt, and Mansfield. If 
 your system of appointment and tenure does not 
 present a motive, a help for such labors and such 
 learning-, if it discourages, if it disparages them, in 
 so far it is a failure. 
 
 " In the next place, he must be a man not 
 merely upright ; not merely honest and well-inten- 
 tioned — this of course — but a man wdio will not 
 respect persons in judgment. And does not every 
 one here agree to this also ? Dismissing for a mo- 
 ment all theories about the mode of appointing 
 him, or the time for which he shall hold office, sure 
 I am we all demand that, as far as human virtue, 
 assisted by the best contrivances of human wis- 
 dom, can attain to it, he shall not respect persons in 
 judgment. He shall know nothing about the par- 
 ties, everything about the case. He shall do ever}^- 
 thing for justice, nothing for himself ; nothing for 
 his friend, nothing for his patrons, nothing for his 
 sovereign. 
 
 '' If, on one side, is the executive powxr and the 
 Legislature and the people — the sources of his hon- 
 ors, the givers of his daily bread — and on the other 
 an individual, nameless and odious, his eye is to see 
 neither great nor small, attending only to the trepi- 
 dations of the balance. If a law is passed by a 
 unanimous Legislature, clamored for by the general 
 voice of the public, and a cause is before him on it, 
 in which the whole community is on one side and 
 
20 RUFUS C HO ATE 
 
 an individual nameless or odious on the other, and 
 he believes it to be against the Constitution, he 
 must so declare it, or there is no judge. If Athens 
 comes there to demand that the cup of hemlock be 
 put to the lips of the wisest of men, and he believes 
 that he has not cori-uptcd the youth, nor omitted to zvor- 
 ship the gods of tJie city, nor introduced new divi^iities 
 of his ozi'n, he must deliver him, although the thun- 
 der light on the unterritied brow. 
 
 *' And, finally, he must possess the perfect confi- 
 dence of the community, that he bear not the sword 
 in vain. To be honest, to be no respecter of per- 
 sons, is not yet enough. He must be believed 
 such. 1 should be glad so far to indulge an old- 
 fashioned and cherished professional sentiment as 
 to say that I would have something venerable and 
 illustrious attach to his character and function, ni 
 the judgment and feelings of the Commonwealth. 
 
 " But if this should be thought a little above or 
 behind the time, I do not fear that I subject myself 
 to the ridicule of any one when I claim that he be 
 a man toward whom the love and trust and affection- 
 ate admiration of the people should flow ; not a man 
 perching for a winter and summer in our court- 
 houses and then gone forever ; but one to whose 
 benevolent face, and bland and dignified manners, 
 and firm administration of the whole learning of 
 the law, we become accustomed ; whom our eyes 
 anxiously, not in vain, explore when we enter the 
 temple of justice ; toward whom our attachment 
 and trust grow ever with the growth of his own 
 reputation : T would have him one who might look 
 
THE LAWYER. 21 
 
 back from the venerable last years of Mansfield or 
 Marshall and recall such testimonies as these to the 
 great and good judge : 
 
 " ' The young men saw me and hid themselves, and the aged 
 arose and stood up. 
 
 " * The princes refrained from talking, and laid their hand 
 upon their mouth. 
 
 " ' When the ear heard me, then it blessed me, and when the 
 eye saw me, it gave witness to me. 
 
 " ' Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, 
 and him that had none to help him. 
 
 '• ' The blessing of him that was ready to perish came upon 
 me, and I caused the widow's heart to sing for joy. 
 
 " ' I put on righteousness, and it clothed me. My judgment 
 was as a robe and a diadem. I was eyes to the blind, and feet 
 was I to the lame. 
 
 " ' I was a father to the poor, and the cause which I knew not 
 I searched out. 
 
 •' ' And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and I plucked the 
 spoil out of his teeth.' 
 
 '' Give to the community such a judge, and 
 1 care little who makes the rest of the Constitution, 
 or what party administers it. It will be a free gov- 
 ernment I know. Let us repose secure under the 
 shade of a learned, impartial, and trusted magis- 
 tracy, and we need no more." 
 
 There may be paragraphs in oratory, both an- 
 cient and modern, either more concise in expres- 
 sion, or more elevated in character, or more sublime 
 in the precepts taught, or more brilliant in imagery, 
 but in ease and ingenuity of argument, in aptness 
 
22 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 of illustration, in fertility of language and beauty 
 of diction combined, these passages may well chal- 
 lenge comparison with the best selections from ar- 
 gumentative orations. 
 
 Nor let it be forgotten that, for more than a 
 third of a century, in a professional practice which 
 was vast from the beginning to the end, Mr. Choate 
 exhibited constantly like qualities and powers. 
 
 A lay-member of the convention assigned as a 
 reason for favoring an elective judiciary that, in 
 some cases, as he alleged, erroneous decisions had 
 been pronounced from the bench. Mr. Choate 
 thus dealt with the objection, and thus closed his 
 speech : 
 
 " I have lost a good many cases, first and last, and 
 I hope to try and expect to lose a good many more ; 
 but I never heard a client in my life, however dis- 
 satisfied with the verdict or the charge, say a word 
 about changing the tenure of the judicial office. I 
 greatly doubt if I have heard as many as three 
 express themselves dissatisfied w^ith the judge ; 
 though, times without number, they have regret- 
 ted that he found himself compelled to go against 
 them. My own tenure I have often thought in 
 danger ; but I am yet to see the first client who 
 thought of meddling with that of the court. What 
 is true of those clients is true of the whole people 
 of Massachusetts. Sir, that people have two traits 
 of character— just as our political system, in which 
 
THE LAWYER. 
 
 23 
 
 that character is shown forth, has two great ends. 
 They love liberty ; that is one trait. They love it, 
 and they possess it to their hearts' content. Free 
 as storms to-day do they know it and feel it, every 
 one of them, from the sea to the Green Mountains. 
 But there is another side to their character, and 
 that is the old Anglo-Saxon instinct of property ; 
 the rational and the creditable desire to be secure 
 in life, in reputation, in the earnings of daily labor^ 
 in the little all which makes up the treasures and the 
 dear charities of the humblest home, the desire to 
 feel certain that when they come to die the last will 
 shall be kept, the smallest legacy of affection shall 
 reach its object, although the giver is in his grave ; 
 this desire, and the sound sense to know that a 
 learned, impartial, and honored judiciary is the only 
 means of having it indulged. They have nothing 
 timorous in them, as touching the largest liberty. 
 They rather like the exhilaration of crowding sail on 
 the noble old ship, and giving her to scud away be- 
 fore a fourteen-knot breeze ; but they know, too, 
 that if the storm comes on to blow, and the masts 
 go overboard, and the gun-deck is rolled under 
 water, and the lee-shore, edged with foam, thunders 
 under her stern, that the sheet-anchor and best 
 bower then are everything ! Give them good 
 ground-tackle, and they will carry her round the 
 world and back again, till there shall be no more 
 sea." 
 
 In this extract there is an exuberance of illus- 
 tration which passes the limits set by critics and 
 
24 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 careful writers, yet it was not only tolerated, it was 
 applauded by the ablest body of men ever assem- 
 bled in Massachusetts. 
 
 But, whatever may be the estimate of Mr. 
 Choate's career in the field of politics and states- 
 manship, it was his ambition to rule the twelve 
 men upon the panel, and his triumphs were won at 
 the bar. His vocation was the law ; politics and 
 statesmanship were avocations to which he turned 
 temporarily for relaxation, or under a sense of duty 
 to the public. To these, however, he never gave 
 his mind continuously and without reserve, nor 
 lent his powers in all their fullness. 
 
 Of the objects of human ambition, the pur- 
 pose to rule the twelve men upon the panel 
 may not be the highest, but it is an honorable 
 object, and in the case of Mr. Choate it was the 
 object to which his talents and genius were best 
 adapted. 
 
 The highest secular pursuit is statesmanship — 
 the government of a country. Those who frame 
 constitutions and make laws are of the higher de- 
 partment ; those who interpret and administer the 
 laws, both constitutional and statute laws, are in 
 the second department, but each department is 
 equally important to the public welfare. The 
 ability to frame constitutions and to enact laws 
 implies the capacity to discern legal distinctions, 
 
THE LA WYER. 25 
 
 and the learning and skill to protect rights and to 
 remedy wrongs by systematic agencies. 
 
 It is the object of governments to regulate the 
 relations of men to men, and of men to things, upon 
 ethical principles capable of general application. 
 The study of those principles and of their applica- 
 tion in different countries and in different ages is 
 the work of the lawyer and the necessity of the 
 statesman. Hence it is that in every country the 
 rule of the lawyer begins where and when the rule 
 of the soldier ends — not the rule of the profes- 
 sional lawyer exclusively, but of such as have 
 legal perceptions and that training which enables 
 them to apply legal principles in public affairs. In 
 all governments the end sought is dictated by the 
 ruling force, whether the body of the people, as in 
 some countries, or the hereditary dynast}^, as in 
 others. 
 
 In English-speaking countries, the statesman 
 devises the laws, the judge interprets them, and the 
 jury applies them in all courts of law, and not in- 
 frequently in courts of equity. Thus, finally, the 
 protection of the rights of liberty, property, and 
 reputation is confided to the twelve men upon the 
 panel. Hence the wisdom of the observation made 
 by Brougham that ^^ all we see about us, kings, 
 lords, and commons, the whole machinery of the 
 state, all the apparatus of the system and its various 
 
26 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 workings, end in simply bringing twelve good men 
 into a box."'^ But how are the twelve good men 
 to find the truth ? The judge knows nothing of the 
 case ; the jury know nothing of the case. The 
 attorneys and advocates are the eyes and ears of 
 the court — the agencies that develop the facts in 
 the presence of judge and jury, and thus enable 
 the judge to apply the law, and the jury to find 
 the facts. 
 
 If deprived of the agency and aid of attorneys, 
 the courts of justice would soon lose their value. 
 By jury-trials, the rights of men are decided, and, 
 as a verdict is not a precedent, the evils result- 
 ing from error are limited to the case at bar. The 
 rule of the twelve is a limited rule ; but the decis- 
 ions of the twelve, when massed and considered 
 together, touch and control nearly all the contro- 
 verted questions of society. 
 
 In this view of the importance of jury-trials, it 
 was not a low ambition, nor an unworthy purpose, 
 which led Mr. Choate to select that forum for the 
 development and exhibition of his powers, talents, 
 and genius. 
 
 The questions submitted to a jury are often 
 questions of magnitude, in a public sense, and they 
 are always questions of present and pressing im- 
 
 * *• Present State of the Law," February 7, 1828. 
 
THE LAWYER. 2/ 
 
 portance to the parties concerned. In the inves- 
 tigations incident to and necessary in the trial of 
 causes, not only is a knowledge of the law required, 
 but a knowledge also of the arts, industries, and 
 sciences of the world is essential to the advocate. 
 Beyond these qualifications even, there is a field for 
 the use — I do not say display — but a field for the 
 use of every variety of learning that can be gath- 
 ered by the most diligent student. In all these ac- 
 quisitions, Mr, Choate was the best-equipped advo- 
 cate ever known by the American bar. 
 
 For half a centur}^ he pursued his studies, spe- 
 cial and general, in season and out of season, by 
 day and by night, denying himself pleasures, amuse- 
 ments, relaxations even, dividing his time between 
 his library and the court-room. 
 
 - The Bible was a book of constant study, and 
 his devotion to the New Testament in Greek led 
 Mr. Webster to say, as he examined the books upon 
 the shelves of Mr. Choate's library, " Thirteen edi- 
 tions of the Greek Testament, and not one copy of 
 the Constitution of your country I " He translated 
 the Greek and Latin classics, studied French law 
 and histor}^ in the language, and in English he read 
 everything from the Black- Letter to Dickens. The 
 four great men of England, in his estimation and in 
 their order, were Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, and 
 Burke. Indulging in exaggeration,, he wrote to 
 
28 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 Sumner, " Out of Burke might be cut fifty Mack- 
 intoshes, one hundred and seventy-five Macaulays, 
 forty Jeffreys, and two hundred and fifty Sir Robert 
 Peels, and leave him greater than Pitt and Fox to- 
 gether." 
 
 With a mind so given to exaggeration, it is 
 difficult to realize that he was a close • — not a 
 concise, but a close — logical reasoner, whose ar- 
 guments, whether to court or jury, were seldom 
 overloaded or embarrassed by imagery or illus- 
 trations. 
 
 Logic is the one quality, the one power, abso- 
 lutely essential to the advocate. Without this there 
 can be no success. There are advocates, however, 
 usually men of an inferior sort, but sometimes they 
 are men at once able and disingenuous, whose ar- 
 guments are logical in the parts but illogical in 
 their combinations. Mr. Choate's arguments were 
 logical in the parts and logical in the whole. His 
 competitors in the field of logic were Mason, Web- 
 ster, and Curtis, and he was the equal of either of 
 them in the propriety and scientific arrangement 
 of his arguments, though not in the power of state- 
 ment ; but in learning, in genius, in the capacity to 
 weave and unweave the webs of human testimon}^, 
 he was superior to either of these men, as he v/as to 
 all the lawyers of America of the generations to 
 which they belonged. 
 
THE LAWYER, 29 
 
 In addressing a court upon questions of law, or 
 even upon mixed questions of law and fact, it is 
 both wise and safe to limit the discussion to pivotal 
 propositions — those propositions on which the case 
 must be decided. In this faculty, Judge Curtis 
 excelled ; but so predominant was this quality in 
 him as to impair essentially his standing as a jury- 
 lawyer. In Mr. Webster, the logical power, the 
 power of statement, wealth of imagination, and pu- 
 rity and splendor of diction, were so combined as 
 to render him equally formidable before the court 
 and to the jury. But Mr. Choate excelled Mr. 
 Webster in the variety and extent of his learning, 
 in the facility and genius that he displayed in the 
 cross-examination of witnesses — a field in which 
 causes are sometimes won, but more frequently 
 lost — in his resources of argument, often designed 
 to meet the peculiarities of individual jurors, and 
 in his ability to repeat a thought with new illustra- 
 tions, and in a diction at once fresh and attrac- 
 tive. 
 
 Much may be assumed of a court, but of a jury 
 it can not be assumed that secondary considera- 
 tions may not have great weight, and therefore the 
 skillful advocate will sometimes dwell upon insig- 
 nificant topics, and in different forms present his 
 views to the various men upon the panel. In all 
 these things Mr. Choate was unsurpassed, and yet 
 
30 
 
 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 so great were his powers that his arguments were 
 never tedious, even to those who thought further 
 discussion unnecessar}^ 
 
 It is the misfortune of many men of large read- 
 ing, that, in the use of the knowledge thus acquired, 
 they show their dependence upon notes and com- 
 monplace-books — those aids to inferior intellects 
 and hindrances to growth in the young. What 
 Mr. Choate read he assimilated to himself, so that 
 in its use there were no betrayals of the sources. 
 His quotations were not many, and generally they 
 were brief and so apt that their omission seemed 
 impossible. When commonplace-books are dis- 
 carded by the student, he will then become self-re- 
 liant, and read with the purpose of holding in his 
 memory whatever may be worth possessing. 
 
 Mr. Choate seemed never to forget anything, 
 and his practice of wanting his arguments served 
 to fix in his memor}^ what he wrote, or to aid him 
 in reproducing it. But this habit must have been 
 due to a purpose, inasmuch as his powxr as an ex- 
 tempore speaker was not only adequate to all the 
 exigencies of professional life, but no distinction 
 could be made between his written and his unwrit- 
 ten arguments. 
 
 At the end the test of greatness is success, A 
 single triumph is not success either in the field or 
 the forum; but a series of victories due always to 
 
THE LAWYER, 3 1 
 
 plan, courage, and brilliancy of execution place 
 the actor above the region of criticism as to 
 the presence of extraordinary powers. Traits of 
 weakness there may be, errors there may be, 
 deficiencies there may be, but the whole must be 
 accepted as a form of greatness that neither ene- 
 mies nor critics can disturb. 
 
 For more than a quarter of a century Mr. 
 Choate was accustomed to deal with the most 
 important causes pending in the tribunals of the 
 country, and of every form known to our system 
 of jurisprudence, and always he was equal to the 
 cause and to the opposing advocate. Of the great 
 lawyers of this country, after Mr. Webster, whose 
 greatness as a lawyer was an inherent quality of 
 his greatness as a man, Mr. Pinckney and Mr. 
 Wirt would be first named. In a comparison of 
 the three, it is to be said that Mr. Choate had all 
 the logical power required by the case, and that in 
 learning, in resources and ingenuity of argument, 
 in exuberance of diction, in aptness and splendor of 
 illustration, neither Pinckney nor Wirt can be com- 
 pared with Choate. 
 
 There is a quality of poetry, and it is neither 
 the measure nor the rhythm, that not only adorns 
 prose arguments, but enlightens the understand- 
 ings of those who listen and those who read. The 
 speech of Antony over the body of Cr^sar may be 
 
32 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 SO condensed as at the same time to preserve the 
 logifc and destroy the effect. 
 
 In comparing the printed speeches of Wirt and 
 Pinckney with the printed speeches of Choate, 
 some allowance ought to be made in favor of the 
 first two, although it is probable that Wirt himself 
 reported his argument in the case of Gibbons and 
 Ogden, and Pinckney may have done the same 
 in the case of Hodges. Mr. Choate was a rapid 
 speaker, and the reporters were not always able to 
 follow him. Of the report of his argument in the 
 Dalton case he said, " Not verbally, not verbally, 
 but the general nonsense of the thing they have 
 got." 
 
 Of English advocates neither Erskine nor Cur- 
 ran nor North, who most resembled Choate in style, 
 can be compared with him in learning, whether in 
 the law or in general literature ; and the testimony 
 of the printed speeches is that he excelled them all 
 in grace of diction, in ingenuity of argument, and 
 in the capacity to command the aid of the better 
 sentiments of the mind and the more elevating 
 passions of the human heart without awakening 
 suspicion or arousing opposition by a statement 
 of the end sought, or by a suggestion of the pur- 
 pose in view. If Brougham's superior learning be 
 admitted, and in the law and general literature it is 
 not easy to imagine such superiority, the fact re- 
 
THE LAWYER. 33 
 
 mains that, in ease of composition, in the resources 
 of argument, in imagination, and in diction, he was 
 far inferior to Choate. 
 
 In a letter to Zachary Macaulay, in which he 
 gave advice for the education ol the son, afterward 
 Lord Macaulay, Brougham says that he wrote 
 the peroration of his defense of Queen Caroline 
 nineteen times before its delivery. Of Choate 
 nothing of the sort was true. He was in the habit 
 of transfixing passing thoughts and fugitive sen- 
 tences by writing, and for this purpose he often 
 left his bed in the night. Such passages may have 
 been rewritten in his speeches and arguments, but 
 there is no reason to suppose that beyond this he 
 subjected himself to the labor of revising and re- 
 writing. 
 
 Many years since I attended a meeting of the 
 Boston Scientific Club, at the house of Mr. Thomas 
 G. Carey. Mr. Carey was a gentleman of wealth 
 and taste, and his rooms were adorned with paint- 
 ings and works of art in which he was a connois- 
 seur. The evening was given to an essay upon 
 paintings, by Mr. Carey. Of that essay I have 
 preserved one thought onl}^ — that the finest paint- 
 ings are produced by the smallest outlay of pig- 
 ment and the fewest strokes of the brush. And it 
 is true that the absolutely great things in art, in 
 war, and in literature, are the products of abso- 
 
34 RUFUS CHOATE 
 
 lutely great men and by the ordinary movements 
 of great minds. 
 
 It is impossible to associate the thought of 
 study, or of what we call intellectual effort, with 
 the Sermon on the Mount. 
 
 The writings of Shakespeare show no marks of 
 paring and cutting, of reconstruction and rewrit- 
 ing. It is otherwise, however, with Bacon, Milton, 
 Addison, Johnson, Byron, and Brougham. 
 
 Of Choate's many arguments, only a few are 
 preserved, but they were prepared at the moment 
 and under the pressure of business. In great 
 causes he had many days, and not infrequently 
 weeks, for thought, but his time was occupied ne- 
 cessarily in the trial itself, leaving only spare mo- 
 ments and the night for the work of preparation. 
 
 Mr. Choate's powers and resources are best dis- 
 played in the report of the Dalton trial. This vvas 
 a libel for divorce by Frank Dalton against his 
 wife, Helen Maria Dalton, born Gove. 
 
 Mrs. Dalton was the daughter of a retired 
 merchant, and was married to Dalton in the year 
 1855, and at the age of about eighteen years. Soon 
 after her marriage she became intimate with a 
 young man named Sumner, which led finally to a 
 confession on her part, but of such a nature as to 
 be open to two interpretations. It led, however, to 
 an attack upon Sumner by Dalton, which was fol- 
 
THE LAWYER. 
 
 35 
 
 lowed by the death of Sumner, the arrest and im- 
 prisonment of Dalton for manslaughter, and his 
 conviction finally of a simple assault. Until about 
 the time of Dalton's release from prison, he ac- 
 cepted his wife's statement as an admission of 
 frivolity and indiscretion, of which she had re- 
 pented bitterly ; but his associations or reflections, 
 or both together, wrought an entire change in his 
 feelings and opinions, and he came finally to regard 
 his wife's confession as an admission of guilt. At 
 the trial, two persons, who were present at the 
 confession, so represented the interview between 
 Dalton and his wife. The cross-examination of 
 these witnesses by Mr. Durant, and the argument 
 of Mr. Choate, destroyed their testimony utterly. 
 
 Never in any cause were the genius and nobil- 
 ity of an advocate more conspicuous than in Mr. 
 Choate in that contest. He did not aim merely to 
 satisfy the twelve men upon the panel that Mrs. 
 Dalton was innocent, but it was his higher pur- 
 pose to satisfy Dalton that she was worthy to 
 be his wife, and it has been said that this pur- 
 pose he accomplished — and all against heavy 
 odds. 
 
 There were two swift witnesses, one of them 
 the brother-in-law of Dalton, to report the con- 
 fession ; and a wet-nurse, to testify to an attempt 
 on the part of Mrs. Dalton to destroy the fruit of 
 
36 RUFUS C HO ATE 
 
 her crime. The witnesses, one after another, were 
 extinguished literally, and Dalton was brought 
 finally to accept the advocate's view of the case. 
 Twice in the exordium of his argument does he 
 declaim against the folly of Mrs. Dalton, coupled 
 with a denial of the crime charged in the libel. This 
 is the refrain of his discourse, but always in fresh 
 language, as though the thought itself had never 
 before been used. Thus he commences : 
 
 " Mr. Foreman and Gentlemen: I congratu- 
 late you on approaching, at least, the close of this 
 case, so severe and painful to all of us. One effort 
 more of your indulgence I have to ask, and then 
 we shall retire from your presence, satisfied and 
 grateful that everything which candor and patience 
 and inteUigence can do for these afflicted suitors 
 has been done. 
 
 " It very rarely indeed happens, gentlemen, in 
 the trial of a civil controversy, that both parties 
 have an equal, or rather a vast interest that one of 
 them — in this case the defendant — should be clearly 
 proved to be entitled to your verdict. Unusual as 
 it is, in the view I take of this case, such a one is 
 now on trial. 
 
 '' To both of these parties it is of supreme impor- 
 tance, in the view that I take of it, that you should 
 find this young wife, erring, indiscreet, imprudent, 
 forgetful of herself, if it be so. but innocent of the 
 last and the greatest crime of a married woman. I 
 say to both parties it is important. I cannot deny, of 
 
THE LAWYER, 
 
 37 
 
 course, gentlemen, that her interest in such a result 
 is perhaps the greater of the two. For her, indeed, 
 it is not at all too much to say that everything is 
 staked upon the result. I can not, of course, hope, 
 I can not say, that any verdict which you can ren- 
 der in this case can give her back again the happy 
 and sunny life which seemed opening upon her two 
 years ago ; I can not say it, because I do not think 
 that any verdict you can render will ever enable 
 her to recall those wrecks of folly, and frivolity, and 
 vanity without a blush, without a tear ; I can not 
 desire that it should be so. But, gentlemen, whether 
 these grave and impressive proceedings shall ter- 
 minate by sending this young wife from your pres- 
 ence with the scarlet letter upon her brow ; whether 
 in this, her morning of life, her name shall be thus 
 publicly stricken from the roll of virtuous women, 
 her whole future darkened by dishonor and waylaid 
 by temptation ; her companions driven from her 
 side ; herself cast out, it may be, upon common so- 
 ciety, the sport of libertines, unassisted by public 
 opinion, or s)^mpathy, or self-respect — this certainly 
 rests with you. For her, therefore, I am surely 
 warranted in saying that more than her life is here 
 at stake. Whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever 
 things are lovely, whatsoever things are pure, what- 
 soever things are of good report, if there be any 
 virtue, if there be any praise, all the chances that 
 are to be left her in life, for winning and holding 
 these holy, beautiful, and needful things, rest with 
 you. . . . But is there not another person, gentlemen, 
 interested in these proceedings, with an equal or 
 
38 RUFUS C HO ATE 
 
 at least a supreme interest with the respondent, that 
 you shall be able by your verdict to say that Helen 
 Dalton is not guilty of the crime of adultery, and is 
 not that person her husband ? I do not say, gentle- 
 men, that he ought to feel or would feel grateful 
 for a verdict that should acquit her on any ground 
 of doubt or technicality, leaving everybody to sus- 
 pect her guilty ; I do not say that he would feel 
 contented with such a verdict as that, though I say 
 it would be her sacred right that such a verdict 
 should be rendered, if your minds were left in that 
 state. He must acquiesce whether the verdict is 
 satisfactory to him in that particular or not. But, 
 gentlemen, if 3^ou can here and now, on this evi- 
 dence, acquit your consciences and render a verdict 
 that shall assure this husband that a jury of Suffolk, 
 men of honor and spirit, some of them his personal 
 friends, believe that he has been the victim of a 
 cruel and groundless jealousy ; that they believe 
 that he has been led by that scandal that circulates 
 about him, and has influenced him everywhere ; 
 that he has been made to misconceive the nature 
 and overestimate the extent of the injury his wife 
 has done him ; if he could be made to believe and 
 see, as I believe you see and believe, and every 
 other human being sees and believes, that the story 
 b}^ which he has been induced to institute these 
 proceedings is falser than the coinage of hell ; if 
 you can thus enable him to see that, without dis- 
 honor, he may again take her to his bosom, let me 
 ask you if any other human being can do another 
 so great a kindness as this ? " 
 
THE LAWYER. 39 
 
 And thus Mr. Choate went on through two full 
 days, analyzing the evidence, crushing the adverse 
 witnesses, explaining disagreeable facts, admitting 
 and condemning the conduct of his client, but al- 
 ways denying the extreme guilt charged, and all 
 with a splendor of diction and ingenuity of argu- 
 ment to which the present generation of the habit- 
 uis of court-houses are strangers. 
 
 Never, elsewhere, not even in works of ethics or 
 romance, w^ere the nature and evils of flirtation so 
 set forth and at once condemned, explained, and, in 
 a degree, excused. Near the close of the argument, 
 jNIr. Choate said : 
 
 *' I leave her case, therefore, upon this statement, 
 and respectfully submit that, for both their sakes, 
 you will render a verdict promptly and joyfully in 
 favor of Helen Dalton — for both their sakes. There 
 is a future for them both together, I think; but if 
 that be not so — if it be that this matter has pro- 
 ceeded so far that her husband's affections have 
 been alienated, and that a happy life in her case has 
 become impracticable, yet, for all that, let there be 
 no divorce. For no levity, no vanity, no indiscre- 
 tion, let there be a divorce. ... If they may not be 
 dismissed then, gentlemen, to live again together, 
 for her sake and her parents', sustain her ; give her 
 back to self-respect and the assistance of that public 
 opinion which all of us require." 
 
 He closed with a quotation from one of Mrs. 
 
40 RUFUS C HO ATE 
 
 Dalton's letters to her husband : "■ Wishing you 
 much happiness and peace, with much love, if you 
 will accept it, I remain your wife," and added: 
 
 " So may she remain until that one of them to 
 whom it is appointed first to die, shall find the peace 
 of the grave! " 
 
 As the Dalton case was the outcome of hu- 
 man passions, so in the trial there were constant 
 appeals to the sympathies of the jury and the 
 public. 
 
 In the defense, Mr. Choate was not merely the 
 advocate ; his nature was such that he defended 
 Mrs. Dalton as though she had been his daughter 
 or sister. 
 
 But let it not be imagined that his success lay 
 in the nature and circumstances of the cause. He 
 was equally great upon constitutional questions, in 
 the domain of the common law, the patent law, 
 and in admiraltv. 
 
 He died in the fullness of his powers, when he 
 was less than sixty years of age, free from any 
 stain on his personal character, and with no just 
 imputation on his professional career. Endowed 
 as he was by nature with wonderful powers for 
 labor, for the acquisition of knowledge, and gifted 
 as. he was in all the arts of oratory, he takes rank 
 with the ablest advocates who have honored and 
 
THE LAWYER. 41 
 
 illustrated the profession of the law in modern 
 times. Most men in the profession toil for a liv- 
 ing, or for money, or for the transitory fame 
 which sometimes attends the career of a success- 
 ful lawyer. 
 
 Mr. Choate studied law as a science and prac- 
 ticed it as an art. He was indifferent to money, 
 indifferent to fame. He neglected the care of his 
 arguments and speeches, and he made only imper- 
 fect and desultory records of his services. Until 
 his association with his son-in-law, Mr. Bell, his 
 income was only sufficient to meet his moderate 
 expenditures in everything except books. In 185 1 
 I called at his house in the evening for professional 
 consultation, and with me went a country lawyer 
 who was not accustomed to the large libraries of 
 modern times. We were taken into Mr. Choate's 
 library, which filled two rooms in the second story 
 of the house. The partition had been cut away, 
 and thus at one glance we could see the extent of 
 the library, the files of books rising to the ceiling, 
 and occupying the larger part of the floor. Said 
 my associate, in amazement, *' What a collection 
 of books you have, Mr. Choate ! " 
 
 " Yes — more than I have paid for ; but that is 
 the bookseller's business, not mine." This was an 
 exhibition of his habit of extravagance in state- 
 m.ent. Let us not infer that he was indifferent to 
 
42 
 
 RUFUS C HO ATE 
 
 his pecuniary obligations, although he was indiffer- 
 ent to money as a possession. 
 
 In an acquaintance of nearly twenty years, I 
 was led to esteem Mr. Choate, perhaps to admire 
 him. Long ago I gave a half promise to myself 
 that I would make a mark upon the sands of time, 
 though slight it might be, as a tribute to his genius. 
 From that acquaintance I received the impression 
 that he was the ablest jury-lawyer that America 
 had then seen. Since his death I have had other 
 twenty years for observation and reflection, and 
 I announce my conclusion in one half-sentence — 
 that, for all the varied exigencies of professional 
 life, Rufus Choate was the best-equipped advocate 
 who ever stood in a judicial forum and spoke the 
 English language. 
 
 All this, and yet Mr. Choate's greatness was not 
 of the absolute. It was a greatness achieved. It 
 bore no relation to the supremacy of Shakespeare 
 who spurned teachers and schools, and who for 
 nearly three centuries has controlled art in litera- 
 ture and defied criticism. Mr. Choate's greatness 
 had only a remote relation to that of Webster, of 
 whom it may be said that we can not imagine a 
 condition of society in which his superiority Avould 
 not have been recognized, even if the training of 
 the schools had been wanting. 
 
 Mr, Choate, however, is a conspicuous example 
 
THE LAWYER. 43 
 
 of the influence of schools and culture upon a man 
 of genius endowed with the virtue of industry ; 
 and his career is an earnest, a sufficient protest 
 against the opinion that the schools and universi- 
 ties should not teach all literature as well as all 
 science, and in that literature all languages in which 
 its gems are found or which contribute to the lan- 
 guage that we speak. Not everything in literature 
 and science for everybody ; but there should be 
 somebody for everything, and, that there may be 
 somebody for everything, everything should be 
 taught. 
 
DANIEL WEBSTER. 
 
 In the month of January, 1839, I niade my first 
 visit to the city of Washington, and for the first 
 time I then saw and heard Mr. Webster. He had 
 reached the summit of his fame as an orator, 
 and it was then that in personal appearance he 
 fully justified the encomium bestowed upon him 
 by his friends and admirers who had crowned him 
 " the godlike Daniel." 
 
 I heard him make one or two brief common- 
 place observations in the Senate, but I had also 
 the privilege of hearing his argument before the 
 Supreme Court in the case of Smith vs. Richards, 
 reported in volume thirteen of Peters's reports. 
 His opponent was Mr. Crittenden, of Kentucky. 
 
 Mr. Webster appeared for the appellant, who 
 had appealed from the decree of the Circuit Court 
 for the Southern District of New York, by which 
 a contract for the sale of a gold-mine in Virginia 
 had been annulled, upon the ground that the vend- 
 er (Smith) made false representations at the time 
 of the sale in regard to material facts. 
 
THE STATESMAN. 
 
 45 
 
 The decree of the Circuit Court was affirmed 
 by the Supreme Court, three of the nine judges 
 — Story, McLean, and Baldwin — dissenting. Of 
 these nine judges, only three — Taney, Story, and 
 McLean — are now known, even to the profession. 
 Yet to an inexperienced person it was an awe- 
 inspiring tribunal. Nor has the impression then 
 produced upon me been removed by time and 
 experience. In like manner the court will estab- 
 lish and maintain its power over many successive 
 generations of American citizens. If the court 
 shall ever be in peril, its peril will be due to poli- 
 tics — to the disposition of its members either to 
 mingle in the political contests of the time, or to 
 seek political distinction and office. Happily, thus 
 far in our history, the small number of judges who 
 have attempted to step from the bench to the presi- 
 dency have been disappointed. 
 
 Speaking only of the past, it is to be noted as 
 a singular circumstance that the three most dis- 
 tinguished judges were active politicians when 
 they were appointed. 
 
 Marshall, Story, and Taney were pronounced 
 partisans, and upon political questions their opin- 
 ions as judges, were shaped or modified usually 
 by the views of the poHtician. The contrary 
 could not have been anticipated. It would not 
 often happen that a Federalist and a State-rights 
 
46 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 Democrat would agree upon questions testing 
 the scope of the powers of the national Gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 It Is the boast of a class of lawyers — not a nu- 
 merous class — that they seldom or never lose a 
 cause. Such has not been the experience of the 
 greatest nor of the purest of the profession. And 
 assuredly such was not Mr. Webster's experience. 
 Without claiming that I have made a complete 
 examination of the reports, it is safe to assume 
 that Mr. Webster failed in one half of the causes 
 that he argued in the Supreme Court of the United 
 States in the period of his largest practice. 
 
 With the increase of business, and with the 
 increase of the instruments and agencies for the 
 transaction of business, new questions will arise 
 inevitably. On those questions differences of opin- 
 ion must exist. 
 
 The general public is inclined to accept the 
 notion that an attorney is inexcusable, if he ad- 
 vises a suit in a bad cause, and that an advocate 
 is worthy of stripes if he defends a wicked client, 
 or appears on the wrong side of a contested case. 
 In presence of the circumstance that there are 
 differences of opinion in courts, sometimes upon 
 questions of pure law, sometimes upon the admissi- 
 bility of testimony, and sometimes upon the value 
 of evidence, it is not strange that attorneys and 
 
THE STATESMAN. 
 
 47 
 
 advocates, in advance of the trial and the tests of 
 judicial proceedings, are unable to estimate with 
 certainty the character of the causes that they are 
 called to promote or to defend. 
 
 Again, I heard Mr. Webster at the completion 
 of the Bunker Hill Monument, June 17, 1843. He 
 was then in his sixty-second year, but time had 
 not made any impression upon his vigorous physi- 
 cal organization, and his oratorical powers were 
 unimpaired. He spoke to an audience that 
 stretched far beyond the power of any merely 
 human voice. It was, however, an audience in 
 full sympathy with the occasion and with the 
 speaker. It was the last considerable gathering of 
 the survivors of the War of the Revolution. They 
 numbered but one hundred and eight. At the 
 dedication of the Acton Monument, in 185 1, only 
 two of that number survived ; and at the reception 
 of the Prince of Wales, in 1859, there remained 
 of those who fought at Bunker Hill only a Mr. 
 Farnham, whose life had been extended to about 
 one hundred years. 
 
 Mr. Webster had been called by President 
 Harrison to the head of the Cabinet in 1841, and 
 he continued in the office of the Secretary of the 
 Department of State under President Tyler until 
 May, 1843. 
 
 By his adherence to President Tyler he alien- 
 
48 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 ated his followers in Massachusetts, and in Septem- 
 ber, 1842, the Whig State Convention declared ''a 
 full and linal separation " between the Whig party 
 and the President. Mr. AVebster treated this ac- 
 tion as a censure of himself. In that he did not 
 err ; but he was not then disposed to submit to the 
 censure without answer, nor even without resist- 
 ance and threats of retaliation. His friends called 
 a meeting in Faneuil Hall. The meeting was held 
 September 30. The mayor of the city presided. 
 In the preceding August the Ashburton Treaty had 
 been signed. The apprehensions of war growing 
 out of the northeastern boundary controversy were 
 quieted, and Mr. Webster had thus arrested the 
 adverse drift of public sentiment. The mayor, in 
 his introductory address, said that Mr. Webster 
 might " be left to take care of his own honor and 
 reputation." With emphasis Mr. Webster adopted 
 the remark, and then proceeded to say that, as he 
 must bear the consequences of the decision, he had 
 *' better be trusted to make it." He asserted his 
 right to be counted as a Whig, and he intimated 
 that, if the issue were pressed, he would appeal to 
 the State of Massachusetts. His opponents wxre 
 not ready for an appeal to the State, and the tend- 
 ency of public sentiment was again in Mr, Web- 
 ster's favor, He resigned his seat m the Cabinet in 
 May, 1843, and in 1845 he was again elected a 
 
THE STATESMAN. 49 
 
 member of the Senate, and by the representatives 
 of the Whig party that had denounced him in 
 1842. 
 
 At the time of his election, Mr. Webster had 
 re-established his supremacy over the Whig party, 
 although the division between '' conscience Whigs " 
 and " cotton Whigs " was visible. 
 
 The differences between the two wings of the 
 party culminated in 1848 in the secession of the 
 anti-slavery men, who supported Van Buren and 
 Adams in the election of that year. 
 
 At the opening of the January session of the 
 Legislature of Massachusetts for the year 1847, 
 Fletcher Webster, the eldest of Mr. Webster's 
 sons, took his seat in the House of Representatives 
 as a member from the city of Boston. 
 
 Caleb Gushing was returned from the towm of 
 Newburyport. Mr. Gushing had been a Whig. 
 He was a member of Gongress at the time of 
 President Tyler's defection, wdien he became one 
 of the Tyler body-guard, or Omnibus party, as the 
 supporters of Tyler in the national House of Rep- 
 resentatives were called. In November, 1846, 
 when he was elected to the Legislature, he had 
 only recently returned from Ghina, where, as 
 commissioner appointed by President Tyler, he 
 had negotiated an important treaty with that 
 countiy. 
 
50 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 On the first day of the session of the Legisla- 
 ture, Mr. Gushing introduced a resolution to appro- 
 priate twenty thousand dollars to aid in equipping 
 a regiment for the war in Mexico. The regiment 
 had been raised, the company -officers had been 
 chosen, and Mr. Gushing had either been appointed 
 colonel, or there was a general impression that he 
 was to have the command. Money, however, was 
 more necessary than officers. The war was un- 
 popular in Massachusetts, and the Whig party, 
 with here and there an exception, was hostile to 
 the appropriation. 
 
 The resolution was sent to a special committee, 
 of which Mr. Gushing was the chairman, and of 
 which I was made a member. According to the 
 then prevailing custom, the committee was com- 
 posed, in the majority, of friends of the measure. 
 Gonsequently, the resolution was reported, with a 
 recommendation in its favor. 
 
 Mr. Webster's youngest son, Edward, was a 
 captain in the regiment. It was natural, therefore, 
 that Fletcher Webster should support the resolu- 
 tion. It was understood, also, that Mr. Webster 
 favored the appropriation. In the discussion, 
 Fletcher Webster made one remark that indi- 
 cated the presence of his father's blood. In urg- 
 ing the passage of the resolution, he assured his 
 Whig associates that they would be required to 
 
THE STATESMAN, 5 1 
 
 explain their votes against the appropriation, and 
 he then said, with emphasis, "' and explanations are 
 always disagreeable." 
 
 Fletcher Webster was a man of more than ordi- 
 nary ability, but he was weighted by his father's 
 pre-eminence, and he realized, whenever he spoke, 
 that comparisons were instituted to his disadvan- 
 tage. Again, while he was not under the average 
 of men in height and weight, he felt his inferiority 
 to his father in these particulars ; and he once said 
 to me that a man could '' come to but little unless 
 he was of good size and appearance." 
 
 The acquaintance I thus formed with Fletcher 
 Webster may have been the cause of some kind- 
 nesses which Mr. Webster extended to me. 
 
 Within a few weeks after Mr. Webster deliv- 
 ered his speech of the 7th of March, 1850, he vis- 
 ited Boston, and took rooms at the Revere House. 
 The Legislature was then in session, and J. Thomas 
 Stevenson, as the friend of Mr. Webster, gave in- 
 formal invitations to members to call upon Mr. 
 Webster on an evening named. 
 
 His speech of the 7th of March had alienated 
 the Whigs generally, and a small number only vent- 
 ured to call upon their old chief. The Demo- 
 cratic members of the Legislature were free from 
 constraint. I called with others, and it w^as then 
 that I was introduced to hin^. He wore the dress 
 
52 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 known as his court dress. Time had wrought 
 great changes in the seven preceding years. His 
 form was erect, his hair retained its dark color, 
 but he had lost flesh, his cheeks were sunken, and 
 the black circles around his large eyes were more 
 distinct than they had been in 1843. The marks 
 of physical beauty had disappeared; but the evi- 
 dences of majesty of person and greatness of intel- 
 lect remained. As I stood before him I estimated 
 his height, which was then less than five feet and 
 eleven inches. His speech of the 7th of March 
 had destroyed his hold upon the Whig party of the 
 State, and it had destroyed the hold of the Whig 
 party upon the State itself. 
 
 During this visit Mr. Webster's friends peti- 
 tioned the city government for the use of Faneuil 
 Hall, that Mr. Webster might explain and defend 
 his speech of the 7th of March. 
 
 The prayer of the petition was rejected. The 
 city government was in the hands of the Whig 
 party, and John P. Bigelow, whose sister was the 
 wife of Abbott Lav/rence, was the mayor. The 
 responsibility for the indignity was laid upon Mr. 
 Lawrence and the wing of the party that he repre- 
 sented. To Mr. Webster Faneuil Hall was conse- 
 crated ground, and the refusal of the city govern- 
 ment to open its doors to him and his friends was 
 an indignity which he never forgot and which he 
 
THE STATESMAN. 53 
 
 never forgave. The act of the city government 
 was not only unwise — it was an act for which there 
 was neither defense nor excuse. For a third of a 
 century Mr. Webster had been the chief person- 
 age in Massachusetts, and in intellectual power he 
 was the first person in the republic. 
 
 He had defended Massachusetts in her history ; 
 he had again and again vindicated her public 
 policy ; and the city of Boston was largely indebted 
 to him for its business prosperity and for its emi- 
 nent rank and influence in the councils of the na- 
 tion. If his speech had been much more offensive 
 than it was, the city which he had represented and 
 honored, and to which he was deeply attached, 
 should have given him an opportunity to explain 
 and defend the course that he had chosen to pursue. 
 
 In the month of September, 185 1, railway com- 
 munication with Canada was established, and the 
 State of Massachusetts and the city of Boston 
 joined in celebrating the event. 
 
 Mr. Webster was then Secretary of State under 
 President Fillmore. The President and three mem- 
 bers of his Cabinet, Webster, Stuart, and Conrad, 
 accepted the invitation to be present. Lord Elgin, 
 Governor-General of Canada ; Sir Francis Hincks, 
 Attorney - General ; Mr. Joseph Howe, of Nova 
 Scotia, and other colonial officials, were present. 
 Mr. Webster arrived in Boston several days in ad- 
 
54 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 vance of the President, and took rooms at the 
 Revere House. When I called upon him he said 
 that he should cheerfully appear, if invited to do 
 so, whenever the State appeared, but that he should 
 have nothing to do with the city. He also said 
 that upon the arrival of the President it would be 
 a pleasure to him to introduce the members of the 
 State government. 
 
 Upon the arrival of Mr. Fillmore, the members 
 of the State government went to the Revere House 
 at about one o'clock in the afternoon. We were 
 met by Mr. Stevenson, who informed Mr. Webster 
 of our presence. He soon appeared, dressed in his 
 court suit. We passed to the reception - room, 
 where we found Mayor Bigelow engaged in intro- 
 ducing the members of the city government. Mr. 
 Webster paid no attention to the mayor, but he 
 took possession of the floor, and in a loud voice he 
 proceeded to announce the names of the gentlemen 
 that he had in charge. 
 
 His only apparent regret was the fact that they 
 were not more numerous. It is difficult to compre- 
 hend the hauteur of Mr. Webster's bearing, or the 
 weight of the indignity that he heaped upon the 
 mayor and his associates. Mr. Webster was en- 
 titled to precedence, but he asserted himself as 
 though the mayor were an offensive intruder and 
 too low or too base for notice. 
 
THE STATESMAN. 55 
 
 The day following our introduction the Presi- 
 dent and the members of his Cabinet were received 
 by the State authorities. It fell to me to make a 
 speech of welcome. I prepared my speech, and 
 gave it to the newspapers, but by an oversight, 
 which I can not explain, I omitted all reference to 
 Mr. Webster, although I had given a sentence to 
 his associates who were present. At about eleven 
 o'clock in the morning the fact of the omission oc- 
 curred to me. I then prepared a paragraph, and 
 sent it to the printers. 
 
 At the reception the President was upon my 
 right upon the dais, Secretaries Conrad and Stuart 
 sat upon his right, and Mr. Webster had a seat 
 upon my left. Neither Conrad nor Stuart gave 
 any recognition of my allusion to them ; but when 
 I referred to Mr. Webster, he rose from his seat 
 immediately, and in return the immense audience re- 
 sponded with cheers such as had often greeted him 
 in his brightest days. In that act he exhibited the 
 quality of the gentleman and the skill of the actor. 
 
 ' In his speech in reply he gave a very distinct 
 indorsement to my administration of the affairs of 
 the State, but not upon partisan grounds. The 
 election in 185 1 was hotly contested, and I attribute 
 my success to the support which Mr. Webster 
 gave to me in that speech and privately to his 
 friends. 
 
56 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 In the month of May, 1852, the clergy of the 
 Methodist Church held a National Convention in 
 Boston. Mr. Webster was invited to make an ad- 
 dress to the convention. The meeting was held in 
 Faneuil Hall. It was Mr. Webster's last appear- 
 ance on that historical stage. He was then a can- 
 -didate for the presidency. It was understood that 
 the occasion was designed to promote his ambition 
 in that respect, but the time had passed when his 
 appearance in public could advance his political 
 fortunes. Age, disappointments, and disease had 
 wrought terrible changes in his condition and ap- 
 pearance. His form was wasted, his voice, once 
 electric and commanding, had lost its power and 
 cadence, and his intellectual faculties were slow in 
 movement and lacking in force. In the reception- 
 room he welcomed his old friend Thomas H. Per- 
 kins, in the tones of voice which in former da3^s 
 had charmed audiences that took but little interest 
 in his methodical arguments. Mr. Webster had 
 prepared the heads of his remarks upon sheets of 
 note-paper, and his son Fletcher sat in front df 
 him, and handed the sheets to his father, one by 
 one, as the topics were treated. There were a few 
 occasions when Mr. Webster's voice rang through 
 the hall Avith something of its old-time force and 
 tones, but generally he could not be heard at the 
 distance of twenty feet. Indeed, many of his words 
 
THE STATESMAN. 57 
 
 were inaudible to those who were upon the plat- 
 form. 
 
 The ambition of Mr. Webster and of his friends 
 was not promoted by his appearance upon a stage 
 where in his better days he had achieved many 
 signal triumphs. 
 
 Mr. Webster returned to Washington, where he 
 awaited the action of the Whig Convention that 
 assembled at Baltimore. There can be no doubt 
 that the nomination of General Scott was a severe 
 disappointment. That he should have anticipated 
 his own nomination is an additional evidence of the 
 infatuation which takes possession of men Avhose 
 thoughts are directed to the presidency. Mr. 
 Webster's friends, and probably Mr. Webster him- 
 self, anticipated that the South would recognize 
 its obligation for his speech of the 7th of March, 
 1850. From the South, however, he received no 
 support. His disappointment must have been bit- 
 ter, but his " midnight speech," as it was called, was 
 a masterpiece of self-control under trying circum- 
 stances, and an exhibition of his genius as an orator, 
 which equaled the best efforts of his best days. 
 
 Upon the nomination of General Scott his 
 friends called upon him for a speech, and after 
 hstening to him they called upon Mr. Webster, in 
 the hope that they might obtain his indorsement 
 of the proceedings. 
 
58 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 He was then impaired seriously in health and in 
 spirits he was broken completely. His speech is 
 worthy of notice as a singularly graceful effort, and 
 as the last brilliant spark of his expiring genius : 
 
 '■' I thank you, fellow-citizens, for your friendly 
 and respectful call. I am very glad to see you. 
 
 " Some of you have been engaged in an ardu- 
 ous public duty at Baltimore, the object of your 
 meeting being the selection of a fit person to be 
 supported for the office of President of the United 
 States. Others of you take an interest in the result 
 of the deliberations of that assembly of Whigs. It 
 so happened that my name among others was pre- 
 sented on the occasion. Another candidate, how- 
 ever, was preferred. 
 
 *^ I have only to say, gentlemen, that the con- 
 vention did, I doubt not, what it thought best, and 
 exercised its discretion in the important matter 
 committed to it. The result has caused me no per- 
 sonal feeling whatever, nor any change of conduct 
 or purpose. 
 
 " What I have been I am in principle and in char- 
 acter; and what I am, I hope to continue to be. 
 
 *' Circumstances or opponents may triumph over 
 my fortunes, but they will not triumph over my 
 temper or my self-respect. 
 
 '* Gentlemen, this is a serene and beautiful night. 
 Ten thousand thousand of the lights of heaven 
 illuminate the firmament. They rule the night. A 
 few hours hence their glory will be extinguished. 
 
THE STATESMAN, ^q 
 
 * Ye stars that glitter in the skies, 
 And gayly dance before my eyes, 
 What are ye when the sun shall rise ? ' 
 
 " Gentlemen, there is not one among you who 
 will sleep better to-night than I shall. If I wake I 
 shall learn the hour from the constellations, and 1 
 shall rise in the morning, God willing, with the lark ; 
 and though the lark is a better songster than I am, 
 yet he will not leave the dew and the daisies and 
 spring upward to greet the purpling east with a 
 more blithe and jocund spirit than I possess. Gen- 
 tlemen, I again repeat my thanks for this mark of 
 your respect, and commend 3'ou to the enjoyment 
 of a quiet and satisfactory repose. May God bless 
 you all!"^ 
 
 General Scott was not indorsed, the Whig 
 party was neither applauded nor condemned, and 
 his own purposes were carefully concealed. In his 
 reference to the night and the stars there was a 
 touch of sarcasm, which was repeated when he 
 commended his hearers "to the enjoyment of a 
 quiet and satisfactory repose." 
 
 His career as a politician was ended, and in his 
 place as Secretary of State there remained nothing 
 of importance to be considered. 
 
 * This speech was corrected by Mr. Webster and published in the 
 Boston " Transcript," with a note that it had tlieretofore been printed 
 in a mutilated form. 
 5 
 
6o DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 He returned to Massachusetts, broken in spirit, 
 if not altogether crushed. 
 
 During his final illness in October, 1852, he dic- 
 tated a letter to me in behalf of a neighbor, and the 
 foreman on his farm at Marshfield, for whom he 
 wished an appointment as justice of the peace. 
 It was his last effort to express his thoughts or 
 wishes upon paper. After the funeral of Mr. Web- 
 ster, I received the letter with a note from Mr. 
 Abbott, his Secretary, in which he said that Mr. 
 Webster was unable to affix his signature to the 
 communication. 
 
 In the case of Mr. Webster, death did not de- 
 stroy nor even qualify the physical marks of his 
 intellectual greatness. When he lay in his coffin, 
 under the elms at Marshfield, his form appeared as 
 majestic as when he stood upon the rostrum in 
 Faneuil Hall. His brow was massive, his eyes 
 were large, deep sunken, and surrounded by a 
 dark circle. His face was emaciated, but the en- 
 graved lines of toil and care remained. He seemed 
 a giant in repose. 
 
 In Mr. Webster great power of argument and 
 a lofty imagination were combined. In argument 
 he spoke as one having a right to speak and to be 
 heard, and, if he ever descended to personalities, it 
 was only when he was under great provocation. 
 
THE STATESMAN. 6 1 
 
 In many qualities, considered individually, Mr. 
 Webster has been surpassed ; but in absolute great- 
 ness of intellect, our search for his equal must be 
 far and wide, not only among his contemporaries, 
 but through the whole domain of histor3^ As Sec- 
 retary of State he was not a distinguished nor even 
 a successful administrator, and the only evidence of 
 his originating or organizing faculty is contained 
 in the crimes act, passed in the year 1825. There 
 are incidents in his career which warrant the con- 
 clusion that he had a dislike to the details of busi- 
 ness, and there can be no doubt that in the later 
 years of his life he rehed upon others even in the 
 preparation of his arguments and speeches. 
 
 At the time of the death of Judge Story, the 
 statement was made that among his papers were 
 seventy-five letters from Mr. Webster asking for 
 suggestions and opinions upon legal points and 
 topics. 
 
 But given a case, a cause, a question, a subject 
 for argument, and Mr. Webster was without a peer, 
 whether he was called to the attack or the defense. 
 His premiership does not rest upon any one speech 
 or argument. His first great argument of histori- 
 cal record Avas made in the Dartmouth College 
 case, in the year 18 18. He Avas then in the thirty- 
 seventh year of his age. He had already reached 
 a high position as a lawyer, but it is manifest that 
 
62 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 his great faculties did not mature at an early pe- 
 riod. His college style of writing was vicious, and 
 we may assume that his imagination and logical 
 faculties w^ere not blended into harmony without 
 the influence of time and great self-discipHne. 
 
 Indeed, his Latin peroration in the Dartmouth 
 College case could not be justified, nor would any 
 advocate now venture upon a similar experiment 
 in the presence of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. A long line of historical speeches and 
 arguments followed, some of which contain pas- 
 sages of enduring value as literary productions. 
 They can be read as lessons in the schools, and 
 recited by the youth of the land. There are con- 
 stant changes in the public taste and judgment in 
 literar}^ matters, and books that are read with 
 avidity by one generation are wholly neglected by 
 a succeeding generation ; but w^e can not imagine 
 a time nor a condition of society when Webster's 
 morning drum-beat passage will lose its charm. 
 His description of a superior human intellect in 
 his eulogy on Adams and JefTerson is so true, so 
 graphic, and so grand, that it must always com- 
 mand the admiration of the reader. Without ex- 
 aggeration he has painted the scene of the mur- 
 der of Captain White, and given voice to the 
 thoughts and sentiments of the assassin, in manner 
 and form so truthful and attractive that his words 
 
THE STATESMAN. 63 
 
 must find a place in the living literature of future 
 times. 
 
 He created a speech for John Adams, which 
 has deceived attentive readers and students. In 
 the peroration to his speech in reply to Hayne, he 
 sketched a picture of the civil war as it was seen 
 by the succeeding generation. His fears led him 
 to apprehend a dissolution of the Union in the event 
 of a civil, sectional war, growing out of the system 
 of slavery, but his hopes triumphed over his fears, 
 and he closed with the utterance which has, as we 
 trust, become imperishable truth : '' Liberty and 
 union, now and forever, one and inseparable." 
 
 Mr. Webster's emotional nature was strong, and, 
 in his speech in support of General Harrison as 
 the ''log -cabin candidate," he made a touching 
 allusion to his birthplace and to the devotion of his 
 father to his home and his country. 
 
 By way of ridicule and reproach, the Demo- 
 cratic party had styled General Harrison the *' log- 
 cabin candidate." 
 
 The Whig party accepted the designation, and 
 it became the watchword of the canvass and the 
 sign under which the party triumphed. Said Mr. 
 Webster : 
 
 '' Let him be the log-cabin candidate. What 
 you say in scorn, we will shout with all our lungs ! " 
 
64 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 He then turned to reflections suggested by his 
 own experience : 
 
 " It did not happen to me to be born in a log- 
 cabin ; but my elder brothers and sisters were born 
 in a log-cabin, raised amid the snow-drifts of New 
 Hampshire, at a period so early that, when the 
 smoke first rose from its rude chimney, and curled 
 over the frozen hills, there was no similar evidence 
 of a white man's habitation between it and the 
 settlements on the rivers of Canada. ... I weep 
 to think that none of those who inhabited it are 
 now among the living ; and if ever I am ashamed 
 of it, or if I ever fail in affectionate veneration for 
 him who reared it, and defended it against savage 
 violence and destruction, cherished all the domestic 
 virtues beneath its roof, and, through the fire and 
 blood of a seven years' Revolutionary War, shrunk 
 from no danger, no toil, no sacrifices, to save his 
 country, and to raise his children to a condition 
 better than his own, may my name and the name 
 of my posterity be blotted forever from the memory 
 of mankind." 
 
 These passages are not of the best of Mr. Web- 
 ster's literary efforts, but they show the nature and 
 depth of his attachment to his family and his 
 country. 
 
 In respect to Mr. Webster's powers of argu- 
 ment as a close technical lawyer, he may be read 
 at his best in the case of Ogden and Saunders. 
 
THE STATESMAN. 65 
 
 Although the question was a constitutional ques- 
 tion, the argument was within narrow limits. The 
 Supreme Court had already decided that it was 
 not competent for a State to pass a bankrupt law 
 by which debtors should be discharged from pre- 
 existing contracts. 
 
 In the case of Ogden and Saunders, the court 
 was called to decide whether a State could pass an 
 act by which debtors could be relieved from con- 
 tracts made subsequent to the date of the law. 
 
 With great ingenuity of reasoning Mr. Webster 
 contended that a State had no more power to im- 
 pair a future contract than it had to impair a prior 
 contract. The court, by a majority, held that the 
 obligation of a contract made subsequent to the 
 passage of the bankrupt law, was not impaired by 
 a provision that the obligor might be discharged 
 from his obligation, although he had not performed 
 it. Chief-Justice Marshall and Justices Darrall and 
 Story dissented. In support of this doctrine, final- 
 ly accepted by the majority of the court, it was ar- 
 gued at the bar that, upon the passage of a bank- 
 rupt law by a State, the statute was imported into 
 and became a part of all subsequent contracts. 
 
 This theory was assailed by Mr. Webster in an 
 unanswerable argument, but the court appears to 
 have accepted the theory in substance, if not in 
 terms. The leading opinion by the majority was 
 
66 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 given by Mr. Justice Washington, and he relied 
 upon a technical distinction between a contract and 
 the obligation of a contract. 
 
 He maintained that the contract was the work 
 of the parties, but that the obligation of a con- 
 tract was the creature of the law. This is an error 
 both in law and ethics. The obligation of a con- 
 tract is what is declared to be the mind of the par- 
 ties as it is expressed in the contract. 
 
 It is the province of the law to find, by judicial 
 processes, the nature and extent of the obligation 
 assumed by the parties, and then to enforce the 
 performance of the obligation. The law creates 
 nothing. It has no power to create either the obli- 
 gation or the contract. 
 
 Possibly the error of the court may be found in 
 the original opinion, Sturgis vs. Crowninshield. 
 In that case it was held that a State might pass a 
 bankrupt law, subject to the condition that existing 
 contracts could not be affected. 
 
 The Constitution gave to Congress power to 
 pass a tiniform system of bankruptcy ; and it also 
 provided that a State should not pass any law im- 
 pairing the obligation of contracts. 
 
 As these provisions are of the same instrument, 
 they should have been considered together, and a 
 conclusion should have been reached which was 
 reasonable and which would also give effect to the 
 
THE STATESMAN. 6/ 
 
 language employed. The court might have said 
 that the grant of power to Congress to establish a 
 uniform system of bankruptcy was equivalent to 
 the denial of the power to the States to estabHsh a 
 State system. This construction was open to two 
 objections, one of pubhc convenience and the other 
 of constitutional interpretation. 
 
 If Congress should neglect to enact and main- 
 tain a uniform system of bankruptcy, as, in fact, it 
 has neglected to enact and maintain such a system 
 for much the larger part of our national exist- 
 ence, the denial of any power to the States would 
 have resulted in a serious and irremediable incon- 
 venience. And next, inasmuch as the Constitution 
 contains many inhibitions upon the powers of the 
 States, and as the power to pass bankrupt acts is 
 not among them, there was no tenable ground on 
 which the court could add to the disabiHties of 
 the States. 
 
 The power of the court was thus limited to a 
 definition of the bankrupt law which a State might 
 pass. In the nature of our system there was one 
 limitation to the powers of the States. A State 
 bankrupt law could not be uniform inasmuch as 
 the jurisdiction of a State is limited to its own citi- 
 zens and to contracts made under its laws. 
 
 It miofht therefore with reason have been held 
 that the power granted by Congress to estabhsh a 
 
68 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 uniform system of bankruptcy was designed to sup- 
 plement the power reserved to the States. 
 
 Again, it is not unreasonable to assume that the 
 right of a State to enact a bankrupt law is the same 
 in its nature and quality as the power granted to 
 Congress, subject only to the necessary limitation 
 that it can not be uniform. 
 
 There are also two other considerations lead- 
 ing to the same conclusion. In England, and in the 
 States under the Confederation, it was a recognized 
 power of a government to relieve a debtor from 
 his debts under a bankrupt system. It is also to be 
 observed that, by virtue of each of the three bank- 
 rupt laws of the United States, the power to grant 
 to debtors a full and free discharge from all their 
 debts and obligations has been conferred upon the 
 courts. In presence of these authorities, and upon 
 a fair construction of the Constitution, the Supreme 
 Court might have held that the grant of power 
 to Congress was supplementary of the power ex- 
 isting in the States, and that a bankrupt law en- 
 acted by a State could operate upon its citizens as 
 a bankrupt law enacted by Congress could oper- 
 ate upon the citizens of the United States. 
 
 A system of bankruptcy has an adequate foun- 
 dation in public morals. A government should 
 not require its citizens or subjects to attempt im- 
 possibihties. It must happen often that men en- 
 
THE STATESMAN. 69 
 
 g-aged in large undertakings become insolvent, and 
 under such circumstances that it is practically im- 
 possible for them to meet their liabilities in full 
 either in the present or the future. 
 
 In such a condition it is against public policy to 
 hold such persons in semi-servitude. Their abili- 
 ties and services have a value not to themselves 
 mereW, put to the public also. 
 
 In the case of Sturgis vs. Crowninshield (4 
 Wheaton, 122), the court held that a State bank- 
 rupt law which provided for the discharge of the 
 debtor from the obligation of a contract existing at 
 the time the statute was enacted, was unconstitu- 
 tional, and upon the ground that it was a violation 
 of the provision which denies to States the power 
 to pass any law impairing the obligation of con- 
 tracts. 
 
 In the case of Ogden and Saunders the court 
 was called to decide the question, Can a State, by 
 virtue of a bankrupt law, relieve a debtor from the 
 obligation of a contract made subsequent to the 
 passage of the law? 
 
 It seems an absurdity to maintain that the ex- 
 isting laws in regard to the enforcement of con- 
 tracts are incorporated into every contract be- 
 tween individuals ; but in the case of Ogden and 
 Saunders the court was driven to that conclusion, 
 in substance, and the theory was announced in the 
 
70 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 opinion of Mr. Justice Washington. Mr. Webster 
 combated that view, and he was sustained by 
 Chief-Justice Marshall. 
 
 A law speaks in the present tense, and it does 
 not speak until there is a case. Manifestly the 
 obliofation of a contract does not arise from the 
 statute, but from the intent of the parties of which 
 the contract is the evidence. Consequently, the 
 obligation is the same when there is a bankrupt 
 law in force as when there is no such law ; and 
 consequently, also, a law which sets aside or annuls 
 or qualifies the obligation, necessarily impairs that 
 obligation, and that without reference to the con- 
 dition of the law when the contract was made. 
 Otherwise parties and the court would search the 
 statutes for the nature of a contract obligation in- 
 stead of examining the contract itself. It might 
 have been a reasonable construction for the court 
 to have held that contracts, which in their nature 
 and by usage, were subject to the operation of a 
 bankrupt law were excepted out of the inhibition 
 to States in regard to contracts. 
 
 It is a noticeable feature of Mr. Webster's ca- 
 reer that two of his most important forensic efforts 
 were made in criminal causes, one for the defense 
 and one for the prosecution. 
 
 In 1817 he defended two young men named 
 Kenniston, who were charged with assaulting and 
 
THE STATESMAN, yi 
 
 robbing one Goodridge upon the highway between 
 the town of Exeter, in the State of New Hamp- 
 shire, and Newbury port, Massachusetts. Good- 
 ridge was wounded in the hand by a pistol-shot, 
 and he claimed that a considerable sum of money 
 had been taken from him. By Mr. Webster's skill 
 he was at once put upon the defensive. Persons 
 charged with crimes of the nature of robbery, 
 arson, or murder, are usually driven to account for 
 their existence and doings at the time when the 
 crime was committed. Goodridge was called to 
 stand a similar test. He was four or four and a 
 half hours on the way from Exeter to Newbury- 
 port, when he could have driven over the road in 
 two or two and a half hours. This delay Good- 
 ridge was unable to explain. It was shown that 
 money and papers were found in the house occu- 
 pied by the accused, but only in places to which 
 Goodridge had had access. 
 
 The verdict by which the accused were acquit- 
 ted was received by the public as a verdict of 
 guilty against Goodridge. 
 
 At the trial of the Knapps, in 1830, Mr. Web- 
 ster, who appeared in behalf of the government, 
 had occasion to refer to the Goodridge case. In 
 that case, Judge William Prescott, father of the 
 historian, was retained by the government to aid in 
 the prosecution. When Mr. Webster appeared for 
 
72 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 the government at the trial of the Knapps, the 
 counsel for the accused complained of his presence, 
 and said that he had been brought there to hurry 
 the court and jury "against the law and beyond 
 the evidence." In his long career at the bar, in 
 Congress, and in general politics, he never allowed 
 a personal imputation to rest for a day without re- 
 ply and rebuke. He asserted himself in his reply 
 to Hayne, in his defense against the attacks of 
 Ingersoll, in his scornful denunciation of the reso- 
 lutions of the Whig party of Massachusetts in 1842, 
 and in his many letters and speeches in justifica- 
 tion of his speech of the 7th of March, 1850. 
 
 In reply to the aspersions cast upon him by the 
 counsel for the Knapps, he indulged in deferential 
 compliments to the court, assuring the members 
 that if he made the attempt it would be impossible 
 to carry them against the law ; and to the jury he 
 said that they could '' not be hurried beyond the 
 evidence." Turning to the counsel for the prison- 
 ers, and referring to the Goodridge robbery, he 
 said : 
 
 '' I remember that the learned head of the Suf- 
 folk bar, Mr. Prescott, came down in aid of the 
 ofBcers of the government. This was regarded as 
 neither strange nor improper. The counsel for the 
 prisoners, in that case, contented themselves with 
 answering his arguments, as far as they were able, 
 instead of carping at his presence." 
 
THE STATESMAN, 73 
 
 The murder of Captain White was committed 
 by Richard Crowninshield, for a sum of money to 
 be paid by Joseph J. Knapp, Jr. John Francis 
 Knapp, his brother, was a party to the conspiracy. 
 After the arrest of the parties, Joseph made a full 
 confession to the Rev. Mr. Colman. When Crown- 
 inshield heard of the confession, he committed 
 suicide. He had declared previously that he 
 would never submit himself to the degradation of 
 a public execution. It may be true, also, that he 
 thought that by his death his associates might es- 
 cape conviction vipon the charge of murder. As 
 the law then stood, the accessories could not be 
 convicted until after the conviction of the princi- 
 pal. Crowninshield was the principal and the 
 Knapps were accessories. It was proved that 
 Frank Knapp stood at the corner of Brown Street 
 at the time of the murder, and at a point where he 
 had a full view of the house. It was also proved 
 that he met Crowninshield as he came from the 
 house, that they walked together for a time, and 
 that they were together when Crowninshield hid 
 the club, v/ith which he had struck the fatal blow, 
 under the steps of a church. 
 
 It was the theory of the government that Frank 
 Knapp Avas at Brov/n Street for the purpose of aid- 
 ing Crowninshield in case of necessity, and upon 
 that theory he was convicted as a principal. The 
 
74 
 
 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 final and more deliberate opinion is that he was not 
 there for any such purpose. In an interview that 
 he had with Crowninshield the preceding after- 
 noon, Crowninshield had said that he did not feel 
 like doing the work that night ; and the probability 
 is, that there was no arrangement for aid on the part 
 of Knapp, and that it was only a restless, intense 
 interest in the matter that carried him to a place of 
 observation. Joseph Knapp repudiated his confes- 
 sion, which he had been led to believe would 
 secure a commutation of punishment if not pardon 
 for his crime, and he and his brother were con- 
 victed and executed. 
 
 The murder of Captain White was a tragedy 
 as horrid as any recorded in play or history ; the 
 suicide of Richard Crowninshield was a tragedy 
 with a quality of heroism in it ; and there is some- 
 thing which appeals to the better elements of our 
 human nature in the final decision of Joseph 
 Knapp, in refusing to save himself at the sacrifice 
 of his brother's life. 
 
 It is not an easy task to select one from Mr. 
 Webster's many speeches, and with confidence as- 
 sign pre-eminence to that one. With hesitation 
 I give the first place to his argument in the trial 
 of Frank Knapp. It presents six great features. 
 First of all, his description of the murder scene. 
 Next, his essay on the secret, which he closes in 
 
THE STATESMAN. 75 
 
 these words : " It must be confessed, it will be con- 
 fessed ; there is no refuge from confession but sui- 
 cide, and suicide is confession." Then came his 
 analysis of the evidence, which could not have 
 been surpassed by Mr. Choate, who was the un- 
 rivaled master of that branch of the profession. 
 Then w^e have his summary of the evidence which 
 he marshaled as the equivalent of the confession of 
 Joseph, as it had been related by Mr. Colman, but 
 which was of doubtful competency : 
 
 " Compare what you learn from this confession 
 with what you before knew. 
 
 '' As to its being proposed by Joseph, was not 
 that before known ? 
 
 '' As to Richard being in the house alone, was 
 not that known ? 
 
 " As to the daggers, was not that known ? 
 
 '' As to the time of the murder, was not that 
 known ? 
 
 " As to his being out that night, was not that 
 known ? 
 
 " As to his returning afterward, was not that 
 known ? 
 
 '' As to the club, was not that known ? " 
 
 Then came his summary in propositions as de- 
 duced from the mass of evidence : 
 
 '* Gentlemen, I think you can not doubt there 
 was a conspiracy formed for the purpose of com- 
 6 
 
;6 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 mitting this murder, and who the conspirators 
 were. 
 
 " That you can not doubt that the Crownin- 
 shields and the Knapps were the parties in this con- 
 spiracy. 
 
 " That you can not doubt that the prisoner at 
 the bar knew that the murder was to be done on 
 the night of the 6th of April. 
 
 " That you can not doubt that the murderers of 
 Captain White were the suspicious persons seen in 
 and about Brown Street on that night. 
 
 " That you can not doubt that Richard Crown- 
 inshield was the perpetrator of that crime. 
 
 " That you can not doubt tliat the prisoner at 
 the bar was in Brown Street on that night. 
 
 '' If there, then it must be by agreement, to 
 countenance, to aid the perpetrator. And if so, 
 then he is guilty as principal." 
 
 He then gave to the jury some solemn admo- 
 nitions as to the obligations resting upon them. 
 Among other observations, was this : 
 
 *' There is no evil that we can not either face or 
 fly from, but the consciousness of duty disregarded. 
 A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipres- 
 ent, like the Deity." 
 
 The number of speeches that are equally sus- 
 tained in all their parts is not large. The argu- 
 ment in the Knapp trial is an exception in that re- 
 spect to speeches generally and to Mr. Webster's 
 especially. 
 
THE STATESMAN. yy 
 
 In most of Mr. Webster's arguments and ora- 
 tions there are spaces which are uninteresting to 
 the reader, and in their deHvery they were unin- 
 teresting to the hearer. Indeed, Mr. Webster was 
 accustomed to pass over portions of his addresses 
 as if they were of very trifling consequence. In 
 the Knapp trial his whole nature was alive. The 
 deed was a horrible one ; the public excitement was 
 intense ; the circumstances connected with the dis- 
 covery of the criminals were extraordinary ; and, 
 finally, the name of a person, with whom Mr. Web- 
 ster's family had relations had been mentioned in 
 connection with the crime. 
 
 These facts, one and all, tended to produce in 
 Mr. Webster's mind a fixed purpose to secure the 
 conviction of the real criminals. 
 
 Mr. Webster's intellectual power was so great 
 that he dominated over ordinary men, and juries 
 were often unable to avoid the conclusions to which 
 he invited them. 
 
 In 1 82 1 he was retained to defend Judge Pres- 
 cott before the Massachusetts Senate, upon articles 
 of impeachment preferred by the House of Repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 Much of his argument is devoted to an exami- 
 nation of the evidence which related to fees and 
 extra sessions of the court held by the request and 
 at the cost of suitors. 
 
78 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 The prosecution had its origin in personal hos- 
 tility and political feeling. Prescott was convicted, 
 and upon proofs which the Senate could not disre- 
 gard ; but the proofs related to a state of facts 
 which the House of Representatives might have 
 passed over without formal notice. Mr. Webster's 
 closing appeal to the Senate is embraced within 
 the limits of twelve or fifteen hundred words, and 
 it is a rare specimen of ethical, special pleading. 
 It was without influence with the Senate, but it 
 might have been effectual if it had been addressed 
 to a jury. 
 
 For twenty years Mr. Webster was the recog- 
 nized head of the American bar, and yet he was 
 not a learned man, nor a lawyer of long-continued 
 experience in the profession. He was admitted to 
 practice in 1805, and in 18 12 he was elected to 
 Congress. From that time onward his professional 
 career was broken and unsystematic. His pre- 
 eminence was due to his intellectual supremacy, 
 and to the adaptation of his faculties to a pursuit 
 which finds its strongest support in the experience 
 of ages and the purest human reason. 
 
 The learning that is essential to the lawyer may 
 be, and usually it is, useful to the statesman. It is 
 also true that the practice of the profession in its 
 higher departments is a fit preparation for success- 
 ful work in the field of statesmanship. Previous to 
 
THE STATESMAN. 
 
 79 
 
 the year 1830, when Mr. Webster made his speech 
 in reply to Hayne, he had served six years in Con- 
 gress; he had been a leading member of the Massa- 
 chusetts Constitutional Convention of 1820; he had 
 discussed important questions of constitutional law 
 before the Supreme Court of the United States ; 
 and in every place and upon all questions he had 
 shown overmastering ability ; but the support 
 which he then gave to General Jackson, in his effort 
 to suppress nullification, placed him at once and 
 without debate in the first class of American states- 
 men. From that time onward, until the day of his 
 death, his only rivals were Clay and Calhoun. 
 They were rivals in the opinion of the masses, but 
 neither of them was his equal in intellectual power. 
 And, aside from this consideration, the claim to 
 statesmanship can not be made for Mr. Calhoun. 
 He identified himself with the institution of slav- 
 ery, and, subsequent to the close of the war with 
 Great Britain, his policy never comprehended the 
 Avhole country. To the section and to the interest 
 that he represented he left a legacy of individual 
 and pubUc suffering such as has not fallen to the 
 lot of any people since the early Christians were 
 hidden in the Catacombs or slaughtered in the 
 amphitheatre of ancient Rome. 
 
 The gift of statesmanship and the power of the 
 statesman can not be denied to Mr. Clay. He was 
 
8o DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 an early and, in the main, a consistent advocate 
 of the system of protection to American indus- 
 try ; he supported a national bank ; he favored 
 a plan of internal improvements, and the improve- 
 ment of the rivers and harbors of the country, at 
 the public expense. All these measures have, in 
 principle, been accepted by the country. His 
 policy is sustained by one of the great parties, and 
 it receives a partial or qualified support from the 
 other great party. It is, however, a singular com- 
 ment upon Mr. Clay's influence that the State which 
 he represented in the House, in the Senate, in the 
 Cabinet, and upon a foreign mission, gives no sup- 
 port to the great measures with which he was iden- 
 tified during the whole of his public life. Mr. 
 Clay's policy survives in that section of the country 
 to which he did not belong and which he did not 
 represent. 
 
 Mr. Webster was known as the defender of the 
 Constitution ; and that he was, for he well knew 
 that the Union would stand as long as the Consti- 
 tution was observed. The Union was the main 
 thought of his speech in reply to Hayne, and he 
 never failed to return to that thought in all his sub- 
 sequent addresses. 
 
 Calhoun's teachings tended to the destruction 
 of the Union ; Webster's teachings tended to its 
 preservation. 
 
THE STATESMAN, 8 1 
 
 Upon Calhoun, more than upon any other man, 
 rests the responsibility for the civil war. Mr. Web- 
 ster strove to avert the evils of war, and, although 
 his efforts were in vain, yet his speeches, and es- 
 pecially his speech of 1830, educated a generation 
 of men in the free States to the duty of maintaining 
 the Constitution and the Union under it. 
 
 In political sentiment the armies of the South 
 represented Mr. Calhoun, and the armies of the 
 North represented Mr. Webster. It is no doubt 
 true, as to the North, that the physical facts were 
 such that the scheme of the South would have been 
 resisted if Mr. Webster had never spoken ; but it 
 is equally true that Mr. Webster infused his spirit 
 of attachment to the Union into the whole body of 
 thinkers and readers in the Northern section of 
 the country. 
 
 When Mr. Webster made his speech of the 7th 
 of March, 1850, he was far along in the sixty- 
 eighth year of his age. He was a candidate for 
 the presidency. His motives may not have been 
 clear, even to himself. Ambition and a sense of 
 duty may have been so blended that he did not 
 realize how far his sense of duty was controlled 
 by his wish to conciliate interests that theretofore 
 had been hostile. As there were bodies of intelli- 
 gent, patriotic persons in the North who shared 
 his apprehensions and who supported his policy, 
 
82 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 it is reasonable to assume that Mr. Webster acted 
 upon liis judgment, and without reference to per- 
 sonal considerations. 
 
 The settlement of the northeastern boundary 
 dispute, in 1842, was Mr. Webster's work. It was 
 stated by Mr. Webster, in substance, that the Presi- 
 dent left the business to him, and it is neither un- 
 reasonable nor unjust to assume that Mr. Tyler 
 was wholly indifferent to the question of territory, 
 which was the real difficulty in the negotiations. 
 As to Mr. Webster, he had to negotiate with three 
 parties — Great Britain, Maine, and Massachusetts. 
 Maine claimed jurisdiction, and Maine and Massa- 
 chusetts claimed property in the lands, some of 
 which were ceded to Great Britain. 
 
 It can not be said of Mr. Webster that he origi- 
 nated any important public policy, but in ability 
 to maintain a policy that he had embraced he was 
 far superior to his Whig associates. Mr. Webster 
 was a conservative by nature, and hence it came 
 to pass that he opposed the system of protection 
 when commerce was the chief interest of New 
 England ; and hence it was that he defended the 
 system of protection when, by the policy of the 
 Government, the capital of New England had been 
 invested in manufactures. He had no respect for 
 the claim that political economy is a cosmopolitan 
 science, and hence he favored such legislation as 
 
THE STATESMAN. 83 
 
 promised the best results to the people of the 
 United States. In that he did not err. The max- 
 im, '' Buy where you can buy cheapest and sell 
 where you can sell dearest," is often a fallacy as a 
 measure of public policy. It is the duty of a gov- 
 ernment to favor that public policy which will se- 
 cure to the laborer for each day's labor the largest 
 return in the necessaries, conveniences, and com- 
 forts of personal and family life. This the policy 
 of protection has done. If we compare the labor- 
 ing-classes, in their condition, since 1861, with 
 their condition during the previous sixty years, we 
 shall find that there has been a continuous im- 
 provement. It can be said, also, that the laboring- 
 classes of Europe have advanced in the last twen- 
 ty-five years. The remark is true ; but the value 
 of the remark is qualified by the fact that the 
 improvement in Europe has been much less than 
 in America, and by the important circumstances 
 that the higher wages and better condition of 
 American laborers have drawn to America large 
 classes of farmers and artisans, thereby improv- 
 ing the condition of those who remained at 
 home. 
 
 In diplomatic debate Mr. Webster has not been 
 surpassed by any one who has held the office of 
 Secretary of State, but the questions that he was 
 called to consider were much inferior in impor- 
 
84 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 tance to those which subsequently engaged the 
 attention of Mr. Seward and Mr. Fish. 
 
 Mr. Webster had a successful career, although, 
 in his ambition to become President, he was disap- 
 pointed. Such failures have been frequent ; and as 
 the attainment of the office is not in all cases a 
 success, so the failure to attain it is not in all cases 
 a misfortune. He was at once the head of the 
 American bar, the first English-speaking orator 
 when his powers were at their maturity, and a 
 recognized master in the list of American states- 
 men. 
 
 Mr. Webster was one of the last of a long line 
 of American statesmen who, in the presence of 
 slavery, strove to preserve liberty and the Union, 
 and of that long line he was the greatest. For 
 seventy years the thoughtful men of all parties 
 were forced to consider the system of slavery 
 in America, its relations to the Union, and its inher- 
 ent antagonism to the principles on which the Gov- 
 ernment was founded. Of all Mr. Webster's con- 
 temporaries no one was more susceptible than he 
 to these influences. By nature, by education, and 
 upon his mature judgment, he was opposed to 
 every form of human servitude. In 1820 he anath- 
 ematized slavery in invectives fierce and strong as 
 any which ever fell from the lips of Clarkson, Wil- 
 berforce, Phillips, or Garrison. 
 
THE STATESMAN, 85 
 
 No martyr was ever more devoted to his faith 
 than was Mr. Webster to the Union of the States, 
 and to its service he had contributed the best 
 thoughts of his Hfe and the most brilliant passages 
 of his orations. There can be no reasonable doubt 
 that in 1850, to Mr. Webster's eye, the ways seemed 
 to part. He thought that the Union was in peril, 
 and that the further agitation of the slavery ques- 
 tion would add to the peril. 
 
 Slavery had given birth to one form of civiliza- 
 tion, and freedom had given birth to another, and 
 from the beginning the rule of the continent was 
 the prize for which the parties had contended. 
 Each succeeding census made clear and more clear 
 the truth that time was on the side of liberty, and 
 that a postponement of the struggle would be fatal 
 to slavery. Hence each census from 1820 to i860, 
 inclusive, with the exception of that of 1840, when 
 the public mind was preoccupied with grave ques- 
 tions of finance, wrought a crisis which menaced 
 the public peace. On two occasions Mr. Webster 
 met the peril and controlled it: First, in 1830, 
 when he chose his place with General Jackson, 
 and won imperishable fame on the floor of the 
 Senate ; and again in 1850, when he secured a post- 
 ponement of the contest, but at the sacrifice of his 
 popularity and the ruin of his political fortunes. 
 
 Mr. Webster claimed that the postponement of 
 
86 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 the struggle would result in the supremacy of 
 liberty and the preservation of the Union ; and 
 it would be unjust to den}^ to him that foresight, 
 statesmanship, and patriotism which the claim in- 
 volves. It is true, indeed, that he did not antici- 
 pate the immediate abolition of slavery. His 
 thoughts and poHcy contemplated only peaceful 
 measures — first, the limitation of the system, and 
 then the gradual emancipation of the slaves. 
 
 The compromise measures of 1850 gave the 
 North ten years of time, and those years were 
 years of preparation for the struggle of i860 and 
 the war of the rebellion. 
 
 In these ten years the public mind was edu- 
 cated and the body of the people were prepared 
 for the solution of the problem, whether by peace 
 or war. If the contest had been precipitated m 
 1850, the result might have been a division of the 
 republic, and for the continent there would have 
 been neither union nor liberty. 
 
 It is not just to Mr. Webster to assume that he 
 builded better than he knew. He builded as he 
 knew. 
 
 At the moment of his death his policy appeared 
 to be acceptable to the country ; but, in less than 
 two years, old compromises were violated, and it 
 was then idle and in vain to make appeals in be- 
 half of the new. In the review we must admit 
 
THE STATESMAN. 8/ 
 
 that the processes of compromise from the forma- 
 tion of the Constitution to the opening- of the re- 
 bellion were calculated to preserve liberty and the 
 Union, and, in the end, to render them one and in- 
 separable. 
 
 The incidental results were disagreeable, but 
 they were also temporary. The end was freedom 
 for the continent, and a continent included Avithin 
 the limits of the Union. Thus liberty and the 
 Union became one and inseparable. 
 
 For twenty years Mr. Webster was the chief 
 personage in Massachusetts, in New England, in 
 the republic. In politics he had competitors ; 
 but in diplomacy, in logical precision and force, 
 in knowledge of the Constitution, in ability 
 to deal with the gravest questions of law and 
 statesmanship, in that genius by whose power he 
 adorned whatever he said with an imagery as bold 
 and magnificent as that of Milton and as true to 
 nature as that of Shakespeare, he was without an 
 equal or a rival. Wherever he stood, he was great ; 
 and the demand Avhich he made for public consid- 
 eration was based on that greatness. 
 
 Mr. Webster was not an unconscious bearer of 
 a royal intellect, and at the end he was forced to 
 look with something of contempt upon that public 
 sentiment which advanced inferior men and denied 
 to him the chiefest honor of the republic. 
 
88 DANIEL WEBSTER 
 
 When Mr. Webster spoke at Plymouth in 1820, 
 when he spoke in the Senate ol 1830, there were 
 men living w^ho had heard Burke, and Fox, and 
 Sheridan ; and with them only, of all English-speak- 
 ing orators, was he contrasted or compared. And 
 if, for the moment, we can command the whole range 
 of history, it is difficult to summon another orator 
 who, in the Senate, and in the contest of 1830, could 
 have met so completely the demand of the occa- 
 sion, and justified his cause and the conduct of it 
 to future ages. And if, again, for the moment we 
 can command the whole range of history, can its 
 ten great orators be named, and Mr. Webster be 
 excluded from the list? Of those who have spoken 
 the English language, he is inferior only to Burke ; 
 and if the position which Macaulay assigns to 
 Burke shall be sustained by the continuing judg- 
 ment of mankind, then will Mr. Webster's country- 
 men claim for him the second place on the page of 
 universal history. 
 
 An orator is not made by a single happy 
 paragraph, nor born of one fortunate speech. 
 He is to live in the public eye through a 
 long period of time, and he must deal temper- 
 ately, forcibly, persuasively, wisely, with a va- 
 riety of questions touching the public interests 
 or relating to the public welfare. All these 
 conditions, and whatever else may be demanded 
 
THE STATESMAN. 89 
 
 of the orator, were fully met in Mr. Webster's 
 career. 
 
 Mr. Webster was great in intellect, majestic in 
 his person, great in his friendships, great in his 
 enmities. 
 
 His fame rests upon the intellectual forces that 
 he possessed, and the nature and extent of the uses 
 to which they were applied. A public man can 
 not choose his career. He must deal with the 
 questions of his own generation. It was Mr. 
 Webster's fortune to be called to the study and 
 discussion of a new Constitution framed for a new 
 people. In the main his views have been sustained 
 by judicial decisions and sanctioned by the course 
 of political events. 
 
 The virtue of a written constitution is in the 
 interpretation given to it. Mr. Webster spoke for 
 national life, for national power, for public honor, 
 for public virtue. 
 
 His views of the Constitution are to be consid- 
 ered by all who shall study that Constitution and 
 by all who are called to interpret it. He has thus 
 become a worker in all the future of the republic. 
 
 The two great orators of antiquity pleaded the 
 cause of dying states, but it was Mr. Webster's 
 better fortune to aid in giving form and character 
 to a young and growing nation. 
 
PRESIDENT LINCOLN. 
 
 When Anson Burlingame was in this country 
 the last time, he gave me an account of his life 
 in China, his relations with the principal person- 
 ages there, and said, finally : ^' When I die they 
 will erect monuments and temples to my memory. 
 However much I may now protest, they will do 
 that." This, we are told, the people and Govern- 
 ment of China have done. 
 
 Gratitude to public benefactors is the common 
 sentiment of mankind. It has found expression 
 in every age ; it finds expression in every condi- 
 tion of society. Monuments and temples seem to 
 belong to the age of art rather than to the age 
 of letters; but reflection teaches us that letters 
 can not fully express the obligations of the learned 
 even, to their chief benefactors, and only in a less 
 degree can epitaphs, essays, and histories satisfy 
 those w^ho have not the opportunity and culture 
 to read and understand them. Moreover, monu- 
 ments and temples in honor of the dead express 
 the sentiments of their contemporaries v/ho sur- 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 91 
 
 vive ; and the sentiments of contemporaries, when 
 freed from passion, crystallize, usually, into opinion 
 — the fixed, continuing opinion of mankind. Na- 
 poleon must ever remain great ; Washington, good 
 and great ; Burke, the first of English orators ; 
 the younger Pitt, the chief of English statesmen ; 
 and Henry VIII, a dark character in British his- 
 tory. Time and reflection, the competing fame 
 of new and illustrious men, the antiquarian and 
 the critic, may modify the first-formed opinion, 
 but seldom or never is it changed. The judg- 
 ment rendered at the grave is a just judgment 
 usually, but whether so or not it is not often 
 disturbed. 
 
 The fame of noble men is at once the most 
 enduring and the most valuable public posses- 
 sion. Of the distant past it is all of value that 
 remains ; and of the recent past, the verdant 
 fields, the villages, cities, and institutions of cult- 
 ure and government are only monuments which 
 men of that past have reared to their own fame. 
 History is but the account of men : the earth, 
 even, is but a mighty theatre on which human 
 actors, great and small, have played their parts. 
 
 Superior talents and favoring circumstances 
 have secured for a few persons that special recog- 
 nition called immortality ; that is, a knowledge of 
 
 quahties . and actions attributed to an individual 
 
 7 
 
92 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 whose name is preserved and transmitted, with that 
 knowledge, from one generation to another. This 
 immortality may be nothing to the dead, but the 
 record furnishes examples and inspiring facts, 
 especially for the young, by which they are en- 
 couraged and stimulated to lead lives worthy of 
 the illustrious men of the past. Herein is the 
 value, and the chief value, of monuments, temples, 
 histories, and panegyrics. If the highest use of 
 sinners is, by their evil lives and bad examples, 
 to keep saints to their duty, so it is also that the 
 immortality accorded to those who were scourges 
 rather than benefactors serves as a w^arning to 
 men who strive to write their names upon the 
 page of history. But the world really cherishes 
 only the memory of those who were good as well 
 as great, and hence it is the effort of panegyrists 
 and hero-worshipers to place their idols in that 
 attitude before mankind. The immortal lew are 
 those who have identified themselves with con- 
 tests and principles in which men of all times are 
 interested ; or who have so expressed the wish or 
 thought or purpose of mankind that their words 
 both enlighten and satisfy the thoughtful of every 
 age. When we consider how much is demanded 
 of aspirants for lasting fame, we can understand 
 the statement that that century is rich which adds 
 more than one name to the short list of persons 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 93 
 
 who, in an historical sense, are immortal. In that 
 sense those only are immortal whose fame passes 
 beyond the country, beyond the race, beyond the 
 language, beyond the century, and far outspreads 
 all knowledge of the details of local and national 
 history. 
 
 The empire of Japan sent accredited to the 
 United States, as its first minister resident, Ari 
 Nori Mori, a young man of extraordinary ability, 
 and then only twenty -four years of age. A few 
 months before Japan Avas opened to intercourse 
 with other nations, an elder brother of Mori lived 
 for a time as a student at Jeddo, the capital of 
 the empire. Upon his return to his home in the 
 country he informed the family that he had heard 
 of a new and distant nation of Avhich Washing- 
 ton, the greatest and best of men, was the founder, 
 savior, and father. Beyond this he had heard 
 little of the country or the man, but this brief 
 statement so inspired the younger brother to know 
 more of the man and of the country, that he re- 
 solved to leave his native land without delay, and 
 in disobedience both to parental rule and public 
 law. In this single fact we see what fame is in 
 its largest sense, and we realize also the power 
 of a single character to influence others, even 
 where there is no tie of country, of language, of 
 race, or any except that which gives unity to the 
 
94 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 whole family of man. If, then, the acquisition of 
 fame in a large sense be so difficult, is it wise 
 thus to present the subject to the young? May 
 they not be deterred from those manly efforts 
 w^hich are the prerequisites of success? I answer, 
 Fame is not a proper object of human effort, and 
 its pursuit is the most unwise of human under- 
 takings. I am not now moralizing; I am trying 
 to state the account as a worldly transaction. 
 Moreover, there is a distinction between the fame 
 of which I have spoken and contemporaneous 
 recognition of one's capacity and fitness to per- 
 form important private or public service. This 
 is reputation rather than fame, and it may well 
 be sought by honorable effort, and it should be 
 prized by every one as an object of virtuous am- 
 bition. Success, however, is not so often gained 
 by direct effort as by careful, systematic, thorough 
 preparation for duty. The world is not so loaded 
 with genius, nor even with talent, that opportu- 
 nities are wanting for all those who have capacity 
 for public service. 
 
 Mr. Bancroft gave voice to the considerate 
 judgment of mankind when, in conversation, he 
 said, " Beyond question. General Washington, in- 
 tellectually, is the first of Americans." If this 
 statement be open to question, the question springs 
 from the limitation, for beyond doubt Washington 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 95 
 
 is the first of Americans. His pre-eminence, his 
 greatness, appear in the fact that his faculties and 
 powers were so fully developed, so evenly ad- 
 justed and nicely balanced that, in all the various 
 and difficult duties of military and civil life, he 
 never for an instant failed to meet the demand 
 which his position and the attendant circum- 
 stances made upon him. This was the opinion 
 of his contemporaries. His pre-eminence was felt 
 and recognized by the leaders of the savage tribes 
 of America, by the most sagacious statesmen and 
 wisest observers in foreign lands, and by all of 
 his countrymen who were able to escape the in- 
 fluence of passion and to consider passing events 
 in the light of pure reason. 
 
 It is the glory of Washington that he was the 
 first great miHtary chief who did not exhibit the 
 military spirit ; and in this he has given to his 
 country an example and a rule of the highest 
 value. The problem of republics is to develop 
 military capacity without fostering the military 
 spirit. This Washington did in himself, and this 
 also his country has done. The zeal of the young 
 men of the republic to enter the military service 
 for the defense of the Union, and the satisfaction 
 with which they accepted peace and returned to 
 the employments of peace, all in obedience to the 
 example of Washington, are his highest praise. 
 
PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 Washington was also an illustration of the 
 axiom in government that the faculties and quali- 
 ties essential to a military leader are the highest 
 endowments of a ruler in time of peace; and the 
 instincts of men are in harmony with this historic 
 and philosophic truth. The time that has passed 
 since the public career and natural Hfe of Wash- 
 ington ended has not dimmed the luster of his 
 fame, nor qualified in the least that general judg- 
 ment on which he was raised to an equahty with 
 the most renowned personages of ancient and 
 modern times. 
 
 With this estimate, not an unusual nor an exag- 
 gerated estimate, I venture to claim for Abraham 
 Lincoln the place next to Washington, whether we 
 have regard to private character, to intellectual 
 qualities, to public services, or to the weight of 
 obligation laid upon the country and upon man- 
 kind. Between Washington and Lincoln there 
 were two full generations of men ; but, of them 
 all, I see not one who can be compared with 
 either. 
 
 Submitting this opinion in advance of all evi- 
 dence, I proceed to deal with those qualities, op- 
 portunities, characteristics, and services on which 
 Lincoln's claim rests for the broad and most en- 
 during fame of w^hich I have spoken. We are 
 attracted naturally by the career of a man who 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 97 
 
 has passed from the humblest condition in early 
 life to stations of honor and fame in maturer years. 
 With Lincoln this space was the broadest possible 
 in civilized life. His childhood was spent in a 
 cabin upon a mud floor, and his youth and early 
 manhood were checkered with more than the usual 
 share of vicissitudes and disappointments. The 
 chief blessing of his early life was his step-mother, 
 Sally Bush, who, by her affectionate treatment and 
 wuse conduct, did much to elevate the character 
 of the class of women to which she belonged. His 
 opportunities for training in the schools were few, 
 and his hours of study were limited. The books 
 that he could obtain were read and re-read, and a 
 grammar and geometry were his constant com- 
 panions for a time ; but his means of education 
 bore no logical relation to the position he finally 
 reached as a thinker, writer, and speaker. Lincoln 
 is a witness for the man WilUam Shakespeare 
 against those hostile and illogical critics who deny 
 to him the authorship of the plays that bear his 
 name, because they can not comprehend the way 
 of reaching such results without the aid of books, 
 teachers, and universities. When they show simi- 
 lar results reached by the aid of books, teachers, 
 and universities, or even by their aid chiefly, they 
 will then have one fact tending to prove that 
 such results can not be reached w^ithout such 
 
98 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 aids ; but in the absence of the proof we must 
 accept Shakespeare and Lincohi, and confess our 
 ignorance of the processes by which their great- 
 ness was attained. 
 
 Books, schools, and universities are helps to 
 all, and they are needed by each and all in the 
 ratio of the absence of natural capacity. By the 
 processes of reason employed to show that Shake- 
 speare did not write '' Hamlet," it may be proved 
 that Lincoln did not compose the speech which 
 he pronounced at Gettysburg. The parallel be- 
 tween Shakespeare and Lincoln is good to this 
 extent. The products of the pen of Lincoln im- 
 ply a degree of culture in schools which he never 
 had, and a process of reasoning upon that impli- 
 cation leads to the conclusion that he was not 
 the author of what bears his name. We know 
 that this conclusion would be false, and we may 
 therefore question the soundness of a similar pro- 
 cess of reasoning in the case of Shakespeare. 
 
 The world gives too much credit to self-made 
 men. Not much is due to those who are so 
 largely endowed by Nature that they at once 
 outrun their contemporaries who are alwa3^s on 
 the crutches of books and authorities, and but a 
 little more is due to the larger class who, in iso- 
 lation and privation, acquire the knowledge that 
 is gained, usually, only in the schools. In the 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 99 
 
 end, however, we judge the man as a whole and 
 as a result, for there is no trustworthy analysis 
 by which we can decide how much is due to 
 Nature, how much to personal effort, and how 
 much to circumstances. Of all the self-made men 
 of America, Lincoln owed least to books, schools, 
 and society. Washington owed much to these, 
 and all his self-assertion, which was considerable, 
 in society, in the army, and in civil affairs, was 
 the assertion of a trained man. Lincoln asserted 
 nothing but his capacity, when it was his duty, to 
 decide w^hat was wise and what was right. He 
 claimed nothing for himself, in his personal char- 
 acter, in the nature of deference from others, and 
 too little, perhaps, for the great office he held. 
 The schools create nothing ; they only bring out 
 what is ; but, as long as the mass of mankind 
 think otherwise, an untrained person like Lincoln 
 has an immense advantage over the scholar in 
 the contest for immortality. In this particular, 
 however, the instincts of men have a large share 
 of w^isdom in them. When we speak of human 
 greatness we mean natural, innate faculty and 
 power. We distinguish the gift of God from the 
 culture of the schools. The unlearned give the 
 schools too much credit in the work of developing 
 power and forming character; the learned, per- 
 haps, give them too little. But, whether judged 
 
100 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 by the learned or the unlearned, Lincoln is the 
 most commanding figure in the ranks of self-made 
 men which America has yet produced. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln possessed the almost divine fac- 
 ulty of interpreting the will of the people with- 
 out any expression by them. We often hear of 
 the influence of the atmosphere of Washington 
 upon the public men residing there. It never 
 affected him. He was of all men most independ- 
 ent of locality and social influences. He was 
 wholly self-contained in all that concerned his 
 opinions upon public questions and in all his 
 judgments of the popular will. Conditions being 
 given, he could anticipate the popular will and 
 conduct. When the proceedings of the conven- 
 tion of dissenting Republicans, which assembled 
 at Cleveland in 1864, were mentioned to him and 
 his opinion sought, he told the story of two fresh 
 Irishmen who attempted to find a tree-toad that 
 they heard in the forest, and how, after a fruitless 
 hunt, one of them consoled himself and his com- 
 panion with the expression, '' An' faith it was noth- 
 ing but a noise." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln's goodness of nature was bound- 
 less. In childhood it showed itself in unfeigned 
 aversion to every form of cruelty to animal life. 
 When he was President it found expression in 
 that memorable letter to Mrs. Bixby, of Boston, 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. loi 
 
 who had given, irrevocably given, as was then 
 supposed, five sons to the country. The letter 
 was dated November 21, 1864, before the excite- 
 ment of his second election was over: 
 
 '' Dear Madam : I have been shown, in the 
 files of the War Department, a statement, of the 
 Adjutant-General of Massachusetts, that you are 
 the mother of five sons who have died gloriously 
 on the field of battle. I feel how weak and fruit- 
 less must be any words of mine which should 
 attempt to beguile you from a loss so over- 
 v/helming. But I can not refrain from tendering 
 to you the consolation that may be found in the 
 thanks of the republic they died to save. I pray 
 that our heavenly Father may assuage the anguish 
 of your bereavement, and leave you only the cher- 
 ished memory of the loved and lost, and the sol- 
 emn pride that must be yours to have laid so 
 costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom. 
 ** Yours, very sincerely and respectfully, 
 
 ''Abraham Lincoln. 
 
 " To Mrs. Bixby, Boston, Massachusetts." 
 
 I imagine that all history and all literature 
 may be searched, and in vain, for a funereal tribute 
 so touching, so comprehensive, so fortunate in 
 expression as this. 
 
 If we have been moved to laughter by a sim- 
 
I02 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 pie story, and to tears by a pathetic strain, we 
 can understand what Lincoln was to all, and espe- 
 cially to the common people who were his fellows 
 in everything except his greatness, when he moved, 
 spoke, and acted among them. It would be a 
 reflection upon the human race if men did not 
 recognize something w^orthy of enduring fame in 
 one whose kindness and sympathy were so com- 
 prehensive as to include the insect on the one 
 side and the noble, but bereaved, mother on the 
 other. To the soldiers, General Thomas was " Old 
 Holdfast," General Hooker was '' Fighting Joe," 
 and Mr. Lincoln was " Father Abraham." These 
 names were due to personal qualities which the 
 soldiers observed, admired, and applauded. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was a mirth-making, genial, melan- 
 choly man. By these characteristics he enlisted 
 sympathy for himself at once, while his moral 
 qualities and intellectual pre-eminence commanded 
 respect. Mr. Lincoln's wit and mirth will give him 
 a passport to the thoughts and hearts of millions 
 who would take no interest in the sterner and 
 more practical parts of his character. He used 
 his faculties for mirth and wit to relieve the mel- 
 ancholy of his life, to parry unwelcome inquiries, 
 and, in the debates of pohtics and the bar, to 
 worry his opponents. In debate he often so com- 
 bined wit, satire, and statement, that his opponent 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 103 
 
 at once appeared ridiculous and illogical. Mr. 
 Douglas was often the victim of these sallies in 
 the great debate for the Senate before the people 
 of Illinois, and before the people of the country, 
 in the year 1858. Douglas constantly asserted 
 that abolition would be followed by amalgama- 
 tion, and that the Republican party designed to 
 repeal the law^s of Illinois which prohibited the 
 marriage of blacks and whites. This was a for- 
 midable appeal, to the prejudices of the people 
 of Southern Illinois especially. '' I protest now 
 and forever," said Lincoln, " against that counter- 
 feit logic which presumes that because I did not 
 want a negro woman for a slave, I do, necessari- 
 ly, want her for a wife. I have never had the 
 least apprehension that I or my friends would 
 marry negroes if there were no law to keep them 
 from it ; but, as Judge Douglas and his friends 
 seem to be in great apprehension that they might, 
 if there were no law to keep them from it, I give 
 him the most solemn pledge that I will, to the 
 very last, stand by the law of this State, which 
 forbids the marrying of white people with ne- 
 groes." Thus, in two sentences, did Mr. Lincoln 
 overthrow Douglas in his logic, and render him 
 ridiculous in his position. 
 
 Douglas claimed special credit for the defeat 
 of the Lecompton bill, although five sixths of the 
 
104 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 votes were given by the Republican party. Said 
 Lincoln : '' Why is he entitled to more credit than 
 others for the performance of that good act, unless 
 there was something in the antecedents of the Re- 
 publicans that might induce every one to expect 
 them to join in that good work, and, at the same 
 time, leading them to doubt that he would ? Does 
 he place his superior claim to credit on the ground 
 that he performed a good act which was never 
 expected of him?" He then gave Mr. Douglas 
 the benefit of a specific application of the parable 
 of the lost sheep. 
 
 In the last debate at Alton, October 15, 1858, 
 Mr. Douglas proceeded to show that Buchanan 
 was guilty of gross inconsistencies of position. 
 Lincoln did not defend Buchanan, but, after he 
 had stated the fact that Douglas had been on 
 both sides of the Missouri Compromise, he added : 
 '•'■ I want to know if Buchanan has not as much 
 right to be inconsistent as Douglas has ? Has 
 Douglas the exclusive right in this country of 
 being 011 all sides of all questions ? Is nobody al- 
 lowed that high privilege but himself? Is he to 
 have an entire monopoly on that subject ? " 
 
 There are three methods in debate of sustain- 
 ing and enforcing opinions, and the faculty and 
 facility of using these several methods are the 
 tests of intellectual quality in writers and speak- 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 105 
 
 ers. First, and lowest intellectually, are those who 
 rely upon authority. They gather and marshal 
 the sayings of their predecessors, and ask their 
 hearers and readers to indorse the positions taken, 
 not because they are reasonable and right under 
 the process of demonstration, but because many 
 persons in other times have thought them to be 
 right and reasonable. As this is the work of the 
 mere student, and does not imply either philoso- 
 phy or the faculty of reasoning, those who rely 
 exclusively upon authority are in the third class 
 of intellectual men. Next, and of a much higher 
 order, are the writers and speakers who state the 
 facts of a case, apply settled principles to them, 
 and by sound processes of reasoning maintain the 
 positions taken. But high above all are the men 
 who, by statement pure and simple, or by state- 
 ment argumentative, carry conviction to thought- 
 ful minds. Unquestionably Mr. Lincoln belongs 
 to this class. Those who remember Douglas's 
 theory in regard to " squatter sovereignty," which 
 he sometimes dignified by calling it the " sacred 
 right of self-government," will appreciate the force 
 of Lincoln's statement of the scheme in these 
 words : " The phrase, * sacred right of self-govern- 
 ment,' though expressive of the only rightful basis 
 of any government, was so perverted in the at- 
 tempted use of it as to amount to just this: That 
 
I06 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 if any one man choose to enslave another^ no third 
 man shall be allowed to object T 
 
 In the field of argumentative statement, Mr. 
 Webster, at the time of his death, had had no 
 rival in America; but he has left nothing more 
 exact, explicit, and convincing than this extract 
 from Lincoln's first speech of the great debate. 
 Here is a statement in less than twenty words, 
 If any 07te man choose to enslave another, ?to third 
 mail shall be allowed to object, which embodies the 
 substance of the opinion of the Supreme Court 
 of the United States in the case of Dred Scott, 
 the theory of the Kansas-Nebraska bill, and ex- 
 poses the sophistr}^ which Douglas had woven 
 into his arguments on '' squatter sovereignty." 
 
 Douglas constantl}^ appealed to the prejudices 
 of the people, and arrayed them against the doc- 
 trine of negro equality. Lincoln, in reply, after 
 asserting their equality under the Declaration of 
 Independence, added, '' In the right to eat the 
 bread, without the leave of anybody else, which 
 his own hand earns, he is my equal, and the equal 
 of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living 
 man." Douglas often said — and he commanded 
 the cheers of his supporters when he said it — " I 
 do not care whether slavery is voted up or voted 
 down." In his final speech at Alton, Lincoln re- 
 viewed the histor}^ of the churches and of the 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 107 
 
 Government in connection with slavery, and he 
 then asked : *' Is it not a false statesmanship that 
 undertakes to build up a system of poHcy upon 
 the basis of caring nothing about the very thing 
 that everybody does care the most about?" He 
 then, in the same speech, assailed Douglas's posi- 
 tion in an argument, which is but a series of state- 
 ments, and, as a whole, it is, in its logic and moral 
 sentiment, the equal of anything in the language : 
 " He may say he doesn't care whether an indif- 
 ferent thing is voted up or down, but he must 
 logically have a choice betw^een a right thing 
 and a wrong thing. He contends that whatever 
 community wants slaves has a right to have them. 
 So they have, if it is not a wrong. But, if it is 
 a wrong, he can not say people have a right to 
 do wrong. He says that, upon the score of equal- 
 ity, slaves should be allowed to go into a new 
 Territory like other property. This is strictly 
 logical, if there is no difference between it and 
 other property. If it and other property are 
 equal, his argument is entirely logical. But, if 
 you insist that one is wrong and the other right, 
 there is no use to institute a comparison between 
 right and wrong. You may turn over everything 
 in the Democratic poHcy, from beginning to end 
 — whether in the shape it takes on the statute- 
 book, in the shape it takes in the Dred Scott de- 
 
I08 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 cision, in the shape it takes in conversation, or in 
 the shape it takes in short, maxim-like arguments 
 — it everywhere carefully excludes the idea that 
 there is anything wrong in it. That is the real 
 issue. That is the issue that will continue in this 
 country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas 
 and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal strug- 
 gle between these two principles, right and wrong, 
 throughout the world. They are the two princi- 
 ples that have stood face to face from the begin- 
 ning of time, and will ever continue to struggle. 
 The one is the common right of humanity, and 
 the other the divine right of kings. It is the 
 same principle in whatever shape it develops it- 
 self. It is the same spirit that says, ' You work 
 and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it.' No mat- 
 ter in what shape it comes, w^hether from the 
 mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people 
 of his own nation and live by the fruit of their 
 labor, or from one race of men as an apology for 
 enslaving another race, it is the same tj^rannical 
 principle." 
 
 To the Democrat w^ho admitted that slavery 
 was a wrong, Mr. Lincoln addressed himself thus : 
 *' You never treat it as a wrong. You must not 
 say anything about it in the free States, because 
 it is not here. You must not say anything about 
 it in the slave States, because it is there. You 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 109 
 
 must not say anything about it in the pulpit, be- 
 cause that is religion, and has nothing to do with 
 it. You must not say anything about it in poli- 
 tics, because that will disturb the security of my 
 place. There is no place to talk about it as being 
 wrong, although you say yourself it is a wrong." 
 Among the rude people with whom Lincoln 
 passed his youth and early manhood, his personal 
 courage was often tested, and usually in support 
 of the rights or pretensions of others, or in behalf 
 of the weak, the wronged, or the dependent. In 
 later years his moral characteristics were subjected 
 to tests equally severe. Mr. Lincoln was not an 
 agitator like Garrison, Phillips, and O'Connell, and 
 as a reformer he belonged to the class of moder- 
 ate men, such as Peel and Gladstone ; but in no 
 condition did he ever confound right with wrong, 
 or speak of injustice with bated breath. His first 
 printed paper was a plea for temperance ; and his 
 second, a eulogy upon the Union. His positive, 
 personal hostility to slavery goes back to the year 
 1 83 1, when he arrived at New Orleans as a la- 
 borer upon a flat-boat. '' There it was," says 
 Hanks, his companion, '* we saw negroes chained, 
 maltreated, w^hipped, and scourged. Lincoln saw 
 it, said nothing much, was silent from feeling, was 
 sad, looked bad, felt bad, was thoughtful and ab- 
 stracted. I can sa}^, knowing it, that it was on 
 
no PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 this trip that he formed his opinion of slavery. 
 It run its iron in him then and there, May, 1831. 
 I have heard him say so often and often." In 
 1850, he said to his partner, Mr. Stuart: ''The 
 time will come when we must all be Democrats 
 or abolitionists. When that time comes, my mind 
 is made up. The slavery question can't be com- 
 promised." In 1855, he said: ''Our progress in 
 degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As 
 a nation we began by declaring that all men are 
 created equal. We now practically read it all men 
 are created equal except negroes^ In his Ottawa 
 speech of 1858, he read an extract from his speech 
 at Peoria, made in 1854, in these words : " This 
 declared indifference, but as I must think real zeal 
 for the spread of slavery, I can not but hate. I 
 hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slav- 
 ery itself. I hate it because it deprives our re- 
 publican example of its just influence in the world, 
 enables the enemies of free institutions with plausi- 
 bility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes the real 
 friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and, 
 especially, because it forces so many really good 
 men among ourselves into an open war with the 
 very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criti- 
 cising the Declaration of Independence, and in- 
 sisting that there is no right principle of action 
 but self-interest." 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. m 
 
 These extracts prepare the reader for the most 
 important utterance by Mr. Lincoln previous to 
 his elevation to the presidency. 
 
 The Republican Convention of the State of 
 Illinois met at Springfield, June 17, 1858, and 
 nominated Mr. Lincoln for the seat in the Senate 
 of the United States then held by Stephen A. 
 Douglas. This action was expected, and Mr. 
 Lincoln had prepared himself to accept the nomi- 
 nation in a speech Avhich he foresaw would be 
 the pivot of the debate with Judge Douglas. That 
 speech he submitted to a council of at least twelve 
 of his personal and political friends, all of whom 
 advised him to omit or to change materially the 
 first paragraph. This Ah*. Lincoln refused to do, 
 even when challenged by the opinion that it 
 would cost him his seat in the Senate. It did 
 cost him his seat in the Senate, but the speech 
 would have been delivered had he foreseen that 
 it would cost him much more. After its delivery, 
 and while the canvass was going on, he said to 
 his friends ; '' You may think that speech was a 
 mistake, but I never have believed it was, and 
 you will see the day when you will consider it 
 was the wisest thing I ever said. If I had to 
 draw a pen across and erase my whole life from 
 existence, and I had one poor gift or choice left 
 as to what I should save from the wreck, I should 
 
1 1 2 PRESIDENT LIXCOLN 
 
 choose that speech, and leave it to the world un- 
 erased." These are the words that he prized so 
 highly, and which, for the time, cost him so much : 
 '' If we could first know where we are and whither 
 we are tending, we could better judge what to 
 do and how to do it. We are now far into the 
 fifth year since a policy was initiated with the 
 avowed object and confident promise of putting 
 an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation 
 of that policy, that agitation has not only not 
 ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my 
 opinion it will not cease until a crisis shall have 
 been reached and passed. ' A house divided 
 against itself can not stand.' I believe this Gov- 
 ernment can not endure permanently, half slave 
 and half free. I do not expect the Union to be 
 dissolved; I do not expect the house to fall; but 
 I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will 
 become all one thing or all the other; either the 
 opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread 
 of it, and place it where the public mind shall 
 rest in the belief that it is in the course of ulti- 
 mate extinction, or its advocates will push it for- 
 ward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the 
 States, old as well as new, North as well as South." 
 To the pro-slavery, sensitive, prejudiced, Union- 
 saving classes it was not difficult to interpret this 
 paragraph in a highly offensive sense. The phrase, 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 113 
 
 " A house divided against itself can not stand," was 
 interpreted as a declaration against the Union. It 
 was, in fact, a declaration of the existence of the 
 irrepressible conflict. 
 
 Douglas availed himself of the opportunity to 
 excite the prejudices of the people, and thus se- 
 cured his re-election to the Senate. Mr. Lincoln 
 had a higher object : he sought to change public 
 sentiment. No man ever lived who better under- 
 stood the means of affecting public sentiment, or 
 more highly appreciated its power and impor- 
 tance. At Ottawa he said : " In this and like com- 
 munities public sentiment is everything. With 
 public sentiment nothing can fail ; without it noth- 
 ing can succeed. Consequently, he who molds 
 public sentiment goes deeper than he who enacts 
 statutes or pronounces decisions. He makes stat- 
 utes and decisions possible or impossible to be 
 executed." 
 
 I have quoted thus freely from Mr. Lincoln, 
 that we may appreciate his moral courage ; that 
 we may rest in the opinion that he was an early, 
 constant, consistent advocate of human liberty, 
 and that we might enjoy the charm of his tran- 
 scendently clear thought, convincing logic, and 
 power of statement. When he became President, 
 and w^as called to bear the chief burden in the 
 struggle for liberty and the Union, he was never 
 
114 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 dismayed by the condition of public affairs, nor 
 disturbed by apprehensions for his personal safety. 
 He was like a soldier in the field, enhsted for 
 duty, and danger was, of course, incident to it. 
 I was alone with Mr. Lincoln more than two 
 hours of the Sunday next after Pope's defeat in 
 August, 1862. That was the darkest day of the 
 sad years of the war. McClellan had failed upon 
 the Peninsula. Pope's army, re-enforced by the 
 remains of the Army of the Peninsula, had been 
 driven within the fortifications of Washington. 
 Our losses of men had been enormous, but most 
 serious of all was the loss of' confidence in com- 
 manders. The army did not confide in Pope, and 
 the authorities did not confide in McClellan. In 
 that crisis Lincoln surrendered his own judgment 
 to the opinion of the army, and re-established 
 McClellan in command. When the business to 
 which I had been summoned by the President 
 was over — strange business for the time : the ap- 
 pointment of assessors and collectors of internal 
 revenue — he was kind enough to ask my opinion 
 as to the command of the army. The way was 
 thus opened for conversation, and for me to say 
 at the end that I thought our success depended 
 upon the emancipation of the slaves. To this he 
 said : " You would not have it done now, would 
 you? Must we not wait for something like a 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR, 
 
 115 
 
 victory?" This was the second and most explicit 
 intimation to me of his purpose in regard to slav- 
 ery. In the preceding July or early in August, 
 at an interview upon business connected with my 
 official duties, he said, '' Let me read two letters," 
 and taking them from a pigeon-hole over his table 
 he proceeded at once to do what he had proposed. 
 I have not seen the letters in print. His cor- 
 respondent w^as a gentleman in Louisiana, who 
 claimed to be a Union man. He tendered his 
 advice to the President in regard to the reorgan- 
 ization of that State, and he labored zealously to 
 impress upon him the dangers and evils of eman- 
 cipation. The reply of the President is only im- 
 portant from the fact that when he came to that 
 part of his correspondent's letter he used this ex- 
 pression : " You must not expect me to give up 
 this Government without playing my last card." 
 Emancipation was his last card. He waited for 
 the time when two facts or events should coincide. 
 Mr. Lincoln was as devoted to the Constitution 
 as was ever Mr. Webster. In his view, a military 
 necessity was the only ground on which the over- 
 throw of slavery in the States could be justified. 
 Next he waited for a public sentiment in the 
 loyal States not only demanding emancipation but 
 giving full assurance that the act would be sus- 
 tained to the end. As for himself, I can not doubt 
 
Il6 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 that he had contemplated the policy of eman- 
 cipation lor many months, and anticipated the 
 time when he should adopt it. At his inter- 
 view with the Chicago clergy he stated the reas- 
 ons against emancipation, and stated them so for- 
 cibly that the clergy were not prepared to an- 
 swer them ; but the accredited account of the 
 interview contains conclusive proof that Mr. 
 Lincoln then contemplated issuing the procla- 
 mation. 
 
 It may be remembered by the reader that in 
 the political campaign of 1862, a prominent leader 
 of the People's part}^ the late Judge Joel Parker, of 
 Cambridge, Massachusetts, said in public that Mr. 
 Lincoln issued the proclamation under the influ- 
 ence of the loyal Governors who met at Altoona 
 in September of that year. As I was about to 
 leave Washington in the month of October to 
 take part in the canvass, I mentioned to the Presi- 
 dent the fact that such a statement had been 
 made. He at once said : '' I never thought of the 
 meeting of the Governors. The truth is just this: 
 When Lee came over the river, I made a resolu- 
 tion that if McClellan drove him back 1 would 
 send the proclamation after him. The battle of 
 Antietam was fought Wednesday, and until Sat- 
 urday I could not find out whether we had 
 gained a victory or lost a battle. It was then too 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. n; 
 
 late to issue the proclamation that day, and the 
 fact is I fixed it up a little Sunday, and Monday 
 I let them have it." 
 
 Men will probably entertain different opinions 
 of one part of Lincoln's character. He not only 
 possessed the apparently innate faculty of com- 
 prehending the tendency, purposes, and opinions 
 of masses of men, but he observed and measured 
 with accuracy the peculiarities of individuals who 
 were about him, and made those individuals, some- 
 times through their peculiarities and sometimes in 
 spite of them, the instruments or agents of his 
 own views. Of the three chief men in his Cabi- 
 net, Seward, Chase, and Stanton, Mr. Stanton was 
 the only one who never thus yielded to this power 
 of the President. The reason was creditable alike 
 to the President and to Mr. Stanton. Mr. Stanton 
 was frank and fearless in his office, devoted to 
 duty, destitute of ambition, and uncompromising 
 in his views touching emancipation and the sup- 
 pression of the rebellion. The popular sentiment 
 of the day made no impression upon him. He 
 was always ready for every forward movement, 
 and he could never be reconciled to a backward 
 step, either in the field or the Cabinet. It is no 
 injustice to Mr. Seward and Mr. Chase to say that 
 they had ambitions which, under some circum- 
 stances, might disturb the judgment. These am- 
 
Il8 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 bitions and their tendencies could not escape the 
 notice of the President. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was indifferent to those matters of 
 government that were relatively unimportant ; but 
 he devoted himself with conscientious diligence 
 to the graver questions and topics of official duty, 
 and, in the first months of his administration, at 
 a moment of supreme peril, by his pre-eminent 
 wisdom, of which there remains indubitable proof, 
 he saved the country from a foreign war. I refer 
 to the letter of instruction to Mr. Adams, written 
 in May, 1861, and relating to the proclamation of 
 the Government of Great Britain recognizing the 
 belligerent character of the Confederate States. 
 
 In the greatest exigencies his power of judg- 
 ing immediately and wisely did not desert him. 
 On the eve of the battle of Gettysburg, General 
 Hooker resigned the command of the army. This 
 act was a painful, a terrible surprise to Mr. Stan- 
 ton and the President. Mr. Stanton's account to 
 me was this : *' When I received the dispatch my 
 heart sank within me, and I was more depressed 
 than at any other moment of the war. I could not 
 say that any other officer knew General Hooker's 
 plans, or the position even of the various divisions 
 of the army. I sent for the President to come 
 to the War Office at once. It was in the even- 
 ing, but the President soon appeared. I handed 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 119 
 
 him the dispatch. As he read it his face became 
 hke lead. I said, ' What shall be done ? ' He 
 replied, instantly, 'Accept his resignation.'" In 
 secret, and without consulting any one else, the 
 President and Secretary of War canvassed the 
 merits of the various officers of the army, and 
 decided to place General Meade in command. Of 
 this decision General Meade was informed by a 
 dispatch sent by a special messenger, who reached 
 his quarters before the break of day the next 
 morning. It may be interesting to know the 
 grounds on which the President decided to pro- 
 mote General Meade. 
 
 First : That he was a good soldier, if not a 
 brilliant one. 
 
 Second : That he was a native of Pennsylvania, 
 and that State at that moment was the battle-field 
 of the Union. 
 
 Third : The President apprehended that a de- 
 mand would be made for the restoration of Gen- 
 eral McClellan, and this he desired to prevent by 
 the selection of a man who represented the same 
 political opinions in the army and in the country. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln entertained advanced thoughts and 
 opinions upon all worthy topics of public con- 
 cern ; indeed, his opinions were in advance, usu- 
 ally, of his acts as a public man. This is but 
 another mode of stating the truth, that he pos- 
 
I20 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 sessed the faculty of foreseeing the course of pub- 
 lic opinion — a faculty essential to statesmen in 
 popular governments. 
 
 In 1853, in a campaign letter, he said : *' I go 
 for all sharing the privileges of government who 
 assist in bearing its burdens. Consequently, I go 
 for admitting all whites to the right of suffrage 
 who pay taxes or bear arms, by no means exclud- 
 ing females." In 1854, he said : " Labor is prior 
 to and independent of capital. Capital is only 
 the fruit of labor, and could never have existed 
 if labor had not first existed. Labor is the sup- 
 port of capital, and deserves much the higher 
 consideration." In April of the same year, he 
 said : '' I am naturally antislavery. If slavery is 
 not wrong, nothing is wrong. I can not remem- 
 ber when I did not so think and feel." In his 
 last public utterance he declared himself in favor 
 of extending the elective franchise to colored 
 men. 
 
 Thus he died, without one limitation in his 
 expressed opinions of the rights of men which 
 the historian or eulogist will desire to suppress 
 or to qualify. It is to be said further of this 
 many-sided man, and most opulent in natural 
 resources, that he takes rank with the first logi- 
 cians and orators of every age. His mastery over 
 Douglas in the debate of 1858 was complete. 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 121 
 
 While President, and by successive letters, he 
 effectually repelled the attacks and silenced the 
 criticisms of the New York Committee, of which 
 Erastus Corning was the head, that condemned 
 illegal arrests and the suspension of the writ of 
 habeas corpus; of the Union Committee of the 
 State of Illinois, that proposed to save the Union 
 if slavery could be saved with it ; of the Demo- 
 cratic Convention of the State of Ohio, that de- 
 nounced the arrest of Vallandingham ; and of 
 Horace Greeley himself, when he complained of 
 the pohcy the President seemed to be pursuing 
 on the subject of emancipation. 
 
 As I approach my conclusion, I ask a judg- 
 ment upon Mr. Lincoln, not as a competitor with 
 Mr. Douglas for a seat in the Senate of the United 
 States, but as a competitor for fame with the first 
 orators of this and other countries, of this and 
 other ages. 
 
 In support of this view I quote the closing 
 paragraph of his first speech in the canvass of 
 1858 : " Our cause, then, must be intrusted to 
 and conducted by its own undoubted friends, 
 those whose hands are free, whose hearts are in 
 the work, who do care for the result. Two years 
 ago the Republicans of the nation mustered over 
 thirteen hundred thousand strong. We did this 
 under the single impulse of resistance to a com- 
 
122 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 mon danger, with every external circumstance 
 against us. Of strange, discordant, and even hos- 
 tile elements, we gathered from the four winds, 
 and formed and fought the battle through, under 
 the constant, hot fire of a disciplined, proud, and 
 pampered enemy. Did we brave all then to fal- 
 ter now ? Now, when that same enemy is waver- 
 ing, dissevered, and belligerent ? The result is 
 not doubtful. We shall not fail ; if we stand firm 
 we shall not fail. Wise counsels may accelerate 
 or mistakes delay it, but sooner or later the vic- 
 tory is sure to come." We all remember his 
 simple, earnest, persuasive appeals to the South, 
 in his first inaugural address. At the end he 
 says : '' I am loath to close. We are not enemies, 
 but friends. We must not be enemies. Though 
 passion may have strained, it must not break our 
 bonds of affection. The mystic cords of memory, 
 stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave 
 to every living heart and hearthstone all over this 
 broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union 
 when again touched, as surely they will be, by 
 the better angels of our nature." There is noth- 
 ing elsewhere in our literature of plaintive en- 
 treaty to be compared with this. It combines the 
 eloquence of the orator with the imager}^ and 
 inspiration of the poet. But the three great pa- 
 pers on which Lincoln's fame will be carried 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 123 
 
 along the ages are the proclamation of emancipa- 
 tion, his oration at Gettysburg, and his second 
 inaugural address. The oration ranks with the 
 noblest productions of antiquity, and rivals the 
 fmest passages of Grattan, Burke, or Webster. 
 This is not the opinion of Americans only, but 
 of the cultivated in other countries, whose judg- 
 ment anticipates the judgment of posterity. 
 
 When we consider the place, the occasion, the 
 man, and, more than all, when we consider the 
 oration itself, can wx doubt that it ranks with 
 the first of American classics ? That literature is 
 immortal which commands a permanent place in 
 the schools of a country, and is there any com^ 
 position more certain of that destiny than Lin- 
 coln's oration at Gettysburg ? '' Fourscore and 
 seven years ago, our fathers brought forth upon 
 this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty 
 and dedicated to the proposition that all men are 
 created equal. Now, we are engaged in a great 
 civil war, testing whether that nation, or any 
 nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long 
 endure. We are met on a great battle-field of 
 that war. We are met to dedicate a portion of 
 it as the final resting-place of those who have 
 given their lives that that nation might live. It 
 is altogether fitting and proper that we should 
 do this. But in a larger sense we can not dedi- 
 
124 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 cate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow 
 this ground. The brave men, living and dead, 
 who struggled here, have consecrated it far above 
 our power to add or detract. The world will 
 little note nor long remember Avhat we say here, 
 but it can never forget what they did here. It 
 is for us, the living, rather to be dedicated here 
 to the unfinished work that they have thus far so 
 nobly carried on. It is rather for us to be here 
 dedicated to the great task remaining before us ; 
 that from these honored dead we take increased 
 devotion to the cause for which they here gave 
 the last full measure of devotion ; that we here 
 highly resolve that these dead shall not have died 
 in vain ; that the nation shall, under God, have a 
 new birth of freedom, and that government of the 
 people, by the people, for the people, shall not 
 perish from the earth." But if all that Lincoln 
 said and was should fail to carry his name and 
 character to future ages, the emancipation of four 
 million human beings by his single official act is 
 a passport to all of immortality that earth can 
 give. There is no other individual act performed 
 by any person on this continent that can be com- 
 pared with it. The Declaration of Independence, 
 the Constitution, were each the w^ork of bodies 
 of men. The Proclamation of Emancipation in 
 this respect stands alone. The responsibility w^as 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 125 
 
 wholly upon Lincoln ; the glory is chiefly his. 
 No one can now say whether the Declaration of 
 Independence, or the Constitution of the United 
 States, or the Proclamation of Emancipation was 
 the highest, best gift to the country and to man- 
 kind. With the curse of slavery in America there 
 was no hope for republican institutions in other 
 countries. In the presence of slavery the Decla- 
 ration of Independence had lost its power; prac- 
 tically, it had become a lie. In the presence of 
 slavery we were to the rest of mankind and to 
 ourselves a nation of hypocrites. The gift of free- 
 dom to four million negroes was not more valu- 
 able to them than to us ; and not more valuable 
 to us than to the friends of liberty in other parts 
 of the world. 
 
 In these days, when politicians and parties are 
 odious to many thoughtful and earnest-minded 
 persons, it may not be amiss to look at Mr. Lin- 
 coln as a politician and partisan. These he was, 
 first of all and always. He had political convic- 
 tions that were ineradicable, and they were wholly 
 partisan. As the rebellion became formidable, the 
 Republican party became the party of the Union ; 
 and, as the party of the Union, with Mr. Lincoln 
 at its head, it was from first to last the only 
 political organization in the country that consist- 
 ently, persistentl}^ and without qualification of 
 
126 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 purpose, met, and in the end successfully met, 
 every demand of the enemies of the GoA^ernment, 
 whether proffered in diplomatic notes or on the 
 field of battle. He struggled first for the Union, 
 and then for the overthrow of slavery as the only 
 formidable enemy of the Union. These were his 
 tests of political fellowship, and he carefully ex- 
 cluded from place every man who could not bear 
 them. He accepted the great and most manifest 
 lesson of free governments, that every wise and 
 vigorous administration represents the majority 
 party, and that the best days of every free country 
 are those days wlien a party takes and wields 
 power by a popular verdict, and guards itself at 
 every step against the assaults of a scrutinizing 
 and vigorous opposition. He accepted the essen- 
 tial truths that a free government is a political 
 organization, and that the political opinions of 
 those intrusted with its administration, as to what 
 the Government should be and do, are of more 
 consequence to the country than even their knowl- 
 edge of orthography and etymology. As a con- 
 sequence, he accepted the proposition that every 
 place of executive discretion or of eminent ad- 
 ministrative power should be occupied by the 
 friends of the Government. This, not because the 
 spoils belong to the victors, but for the elevated 
 and sufficient reason that the chief offices of state 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR, 127 
 
 are instrumentalities and agencies by wliich the 
 majority carry out their principles, perfect their 
 measures, and render their policy acceptable to 
 the country ; and also for the further reason 
 that in case of failure the administration is with- 
 out excuse. The entire public policy of Mr. Lin- 
 coln was the natural outgrowth of his political 
 principles as a RepubHcan. Through the influ- 
 ence of experience and the exercise of power the 
 politician ripened into the statesman, but the ideas, 
 principles, and purposes of the statesman were the 
 ideas, principles, and purposes of the partisan 
 politician. In prosecuting the war for the Union, 
 in the steps taken for the emancipation of the 
 slaves, Mr. Lincoln appeared to follow rather than 
 to lead the Republican party. But his own views 
 were more advanced usually than those of his 
 party, and he waited patiently and confidently for 
 the healthy movements of public sentiment which 
 he well knew were in the right direction. No 
 man w^as ever more firmly or consistently the 
 representative of a party than was Mr. Lincoln, 
 and his acknowledged greatness is due, first, 
 to the wisdom and justice of the principles 
 and measures of the political party that he 
 represented ; and, secondly, to his fidelity in 
 every hour of his administration, and in every 
 crisis of public affairs, to the principles, ideas, 
 
128 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 and measures of the party with which he was 
 identified. 
 
 Having seen Mr. Lincoln as frontiersman, poli- 
 tician, lawyer, stump-speaker, orator, statesman, 
 and patriot, it only remains for us to contemplate 
 him as an historical personage. First of all, it is 
 to be said that Mr. Lincoln is next in fame to 
 Washington, and it is by no means certain that 
 history Avill not assign to Lincoln an equal place, 
 and this Avithout any qualification of the claims or 
 disparagement in any way of the virtues of the 
 Father of his country. The measure of Wash- 
 ington's fame is full ; but for many centuries, and 
 over vast spaces of the globe, and among all peo- 
 ples passing from barbarism or semi-servitude to 
 civilization and freedom, Mr. Lincoln will be hailed 
 as the Liberator. In all governments struggling 
 for existence, his example will be a guide and a 
 help. Neither the gift of prophecy nor the qual- 
 ity of imagination is needed to forecast the steady 
 growth of Lincoln's fame. At the close of the 
 twentieth century the United States will contain 
 one hundred and fifty or two hundred million 
 inhabitants, and from one fourth to one third of 
 the population of the globe will then use the Eng- 
 lish language. To all these and to all their de- 
 scendants Mr. Lincoln will be one of the three 
 great characters of American history, while to the 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR, 129 
 
 unnumbered millions of the negro race in the 
 United States, in Africa, in South America, and 
 in the islands of the sea, he will be the great 
 figure of all ages and of every nation. His fame 
 will increase and spread with the knowledge of 
 republican institutions, with the expansion and 
 power of the English-speaking race, and with the 
 deeper respect which civilization will create for 
 whatever is attractive in personal character, wise 
 in the administration of public affairs, just in pol- 
 icy, or liberal and comprehensive in the exercise 
 of constitutional and extra-constitutional powers. 
 
 It was but an inadequate recognition of the 
 character and services of Mr. Lincoln that was 
 made by the patriots of Rome when they chose 
 a fragment from the wall of Servius Tullius and 
 sent it to the President with this inscription : " To 
 Abraham Lincoln, President for the second time 
 of the American Republic, citizens of Rome pre- 
 sent this stone, from the wall of Servius Tullius, 
 by which the memory of each of those brave as- 
 serters of Liberty may be associated. Anno 1865." 
 The final and nobler tribute to Mr. Lincoln is yet 
 to be rendered, not by a single city nor by the 
 patriots of a single country. A knowledge of his 
 life and character is to be carried by civilization 
 into every nation and to every people. Under 
 him, and largely through his acts and influence, 
 
130 PRESIDENT LINCOLN, j, 
 
 justice became the vital force of the republic. 
 The war established our power. The policy of 
 Mr. Lincoln and those who acted with him se- 
 cured the reign of justice ultimately in our do- 
 mestic affairs. Possessing power and exhibiting 
 justice, the nation should pursue a policy of peace. 
 Power, Justice, and Peace ; in them is the glory 
 of the regenerated republic. 
 
PRESIDENT LINCOLN.* 
 
 The nation is bowed down to-day under the 
 weight of a solemn and appalling sorrow, such as 
 never before rested upon a great people. It is not 
 the presence of death merely ; with that we have 
 become familiar. It is not the loss of a leader only 
 that we mourn, nor of a statesman who had exhib- 
 ited wisdom in great trials, in vast enterprises of 
 war, and in delicate negotiations for the preser- 
 vation of peace with foreign countries ; but of a 
 twice-chosen and twice-ordained ruler, in whom 
 these great qualities were found, and to which 
 were added the personal courage of the soldier 
 and the moral heroism of the Christian. 
 
 Judged by this generation in other lands, and 
 by other generations in future times, Abraham 
 Lincoln will be esteemed as the wisest of rulers 
 and the most fortunate of men. To him and to his 
 fame the manner of his death is nothing ; to the 
 country and to the whole civilized family of man, it 
 
 * Eulogy delivered before the city government of Lowell, Massa- 
 chusetts, April 19, 1865, 
 
132 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 is the most appalling of tragical events. The rising 
 sun of the day following that night of unexam- 
 pled crime, revealed to us the nation's loss ; but, 
 stunned by the shock, the people were unable to 
 comprehend the magnitude of the calamity. As 
 the last rays of the setting sun ghded into the 
 calm twilight of evening, the continent was stilled 
 into silence by its horror of the crime, and its 
 sense of the greatness of the loss sustained. 
 
 To the human eye, Abraham Lincoln seems to 
 have been specially designated by Divine Providence 
 for the performance of a great work. His origin 
 was humble, his means of education stinted. He was 
 without wealth, and he did not enjoy the support 
 of influential friends. Much the larger part of his 
 life was spent in private pursuits, and he never ex- 
 hibited even the common human desire for pubHc 
 employment, leadership, and fame. His ambition 
 concerning the great office that he held was fully 
 satisfied ; and the triumph of his moderate and 
 reasonable expectations was not even marred by 
 the untimely and bloody hand of the assassin. 
 During the canvass of 1864, and with the modesty 
 of a child, he said : '' I can not say that I wish to 
 perform the duties of President for four years 
 more ; but I should be gratified by the approval 
 of the people of what I have done." This he re- 
 ceived ; and, however precious it may have been to 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 133 
 
 him, it is a more precious memory to the people 
 themselves. 
 
 His public life was embraced in the period of 
 about six years. This statement does not include 
 his brief service in the Legislature of the State of 
 Illinois, nor his service as a subordinate officer in 
 one of the frontier Indian wars, nor his single term 
 of service in the House of Representatives of the 
 United States nearly twenty years ago. In none 
 of those places did he attract the attention of the 
 country, nor did the experience acquired fit him 
 specially for the great duties to which he was 
 called finally. He was nearly fifty years of age 
 when he entered upon the contest, henceforth his- 
 torical, for a seat in the Senate from the State of 
 Illinois. This was the commencement of his pub- 
 lic life, and from that time forward he gained and 
 grew in the estimation of his countrymen. At the 
 moment of his death, he enjoyed the confidence of 
 all loyal men, including those even who did not 
 openly give him their support ; and there were 
 many who came at last to regard him as a divinely 
 appointed leader of the people. The speeches 
 which he delivered in that contest are faithful ex- 
 ponents of his character, his principles, and his ca- 
 pacity. His statements of opinion were clear and 
 unequivocal ; his reasoning was logical and har- 
 monious ; and his principles, as then expressed, 
 
134 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 were consonant with the declaration, subsequently 
 made, that '' each man has the right by nature to 
 be the equal politically of any other man." He 
 was then, as ever, chary of predictions concerning 
 the future ; but it was in his opening speech that 
 he declared his conviction, which was in truth a 
 prophecy, that this nation could not remain perma- 
 nently half slave and half free. 
 
 In that long and arduous contest with one of 
 the foremost men of the country, Mr. Lincoln 
 made no remark which he w^as unable to defend, 
 nor could he, by any force of argument, be driven 
 from a position that he had taken. It was then 
 that those who heard or read the debate observed 
 the richness of his nature in mirth and wit Avhich 
 charmed his friends without wounding his oppo- 
 nents, and which he used with wonderful sagacity 
 in illustrating his own arguments, or in weakening, 
 or even at times in overthrowing, the arguments of 
 his antagonist. And yet it can not be doubted 
 that for many years, if not from his very 3^outh, 
 Mr. Lincoln w^as a melancholy man. He seemed 
 to bear about with him the weight of coming cares, 
 and to sit in gloom, as though his path of life was 
 darkened by an unwelcome shadow. His fondness 
 for story and love for mirth were the compensation 
 which Nature gave. 
 
 In the midst of overburdening cares, these char- 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 135 
 
 acteristics were a daily relief ; and yet it is but 
 just to say that he often used an appropriate story 
 as a means of foiling a too inquisitive visitor, or of 
 changing" or ending a conversation which he did 
 not desire to pursue. 
 
 During the first French Revolution, when the 
 streets of Paris were stained with human blood, 
 the inhabitants, w^omen and men, flocked to places 
 of amusement. To the mass of mankind, and es- 
 pecially to the inexperienced, this conduct appears 
 frivolous, or as the exhibition of a criminal indiffer- 
 ence to the miseries of individuals and the calami- 
 ties of the public. But such are the horrors of 
 war, the pressure of responsibilit}^ that men often 
 seek refuge and relief in amusements from which 
 in ordinary times they w^ould turn aside. 
 
 In Mr. Lincoln's speeches of 1858 there are 
 passages w^hich suggest to the mind the classic 
 models of ancient da3's, although they may not in 
 any proper sense rise to an equality with them. 
 His style of writing was as simple as were his own 
 habits and manners ; and no person ever excelled 
 him in clearness of expression. Hence he was un- 
 derstood and appreciated by all classes. The 
 Proclamation of Emancipation, his address at the 
 dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg, and his 
 touching letter to the widowed mother who had 
 given five sons to the country, are memorable 
 
136 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 as evidences of his intellectual and moral great- 
 ness. 
 
 His speeches of 1858 are marked for the precis- 
 ion with which he stated his own positions, and for 
 the firmness exhibited whenever his opponent en- 
 deavored to worry him from his chosen ground, 
 or, by artifice, or argument, or persuasion, to in- 
 duce him to advance a step beyond. 
 
 His administration, as far as he himself was con- 
 cerned, was inaugurated upon the doctrines and 
 principles of the great debate. He recognized the 
 obligation to return fugitives from slavery, and it 
 was no part of his purpose to interfere with slavery 
 in the States where it existed. It must remain for 
 the historian and biographer, who may have access 
 to private and personal sources of knowledge, to 
 inform the country and the world how far Mr. Lin- 
 coln, when he entered upon his duties as President, 
 comprehended the magnitude of the struggle in 
 which the nation was about to engage. 
 
 The circumstance that his first call for volun- 
 teers was for seventy-five thousand men only, is 
 not valuable as evidence one way or the other. 
 The number was quite equal to our supply of arms 
 and material of w^ar, and altogether too large for 
 the experience of the men then at the head of 
 military affairs. The number was sufficient to 
 show his purpose, the purpose to which he adhered 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 137 
 
 through all the trials and vicissitudes of this event- 
 ful contest. His purpose was the suppression of 
 the rebellion, both as a civil organization and as an 
 armed military force, and the re-establishment of 
 the authority of the United States over the terri- 
 tory of the Union. There yet remain, in the minds 
 of men who were acquainted with Mr. Lincoln in 
 the spring and summer of 1861, the recollection of 
 expressions made by him which indicate that there 
 were then vague thoughts in his mind that it 
 might be his lot under Providence to bring the 
 slaves of the country out of their bondage. But, 
 however this may have been, he never deviated 
 from his purpose to suppress the rebellion ; and he 
 conscientiously applied the means at his command 
 to the attainment of that end. Thus, step by step, 
 he advanced, until in his own judgment, in the 
 judgment of the country, and of the best portion of 
 mankind in other civilized nations, the emancipa- 
 tion of the slaves was a necessary means for the 
 successful prosecution of the war. Mr. Lincoln 
 was not insensible to the justice of emancipation; 
 he saw its wisdom as a measure of public policy ; 
 but he delayed the proclamation until he was fully 
 convinced that it offered the only chance of avert- 
 ing a foreign war, suppressing the rebellion, and 
 restoring the Union of the States. 
 
 In the great struggle of 1862, Mr. Lincoln ex- 
 
138 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 hibited a twofold character. He was personally 
 the enemy of slavery, and he ardently desired its 
 abolition ; but he also regarded his oath of office, 
 and steadily refused to recognize the existence of 
 any right to proclaim emancipation while other 
 means of saving the republic remained. He 
 sought the path of duty, and he walked fearlessly 
 in it. Until he was satisfied of the necessity of 
 emancipation, no earthly power could have led 
 him to issue the proclamation ; and, after its is- 
 sue, no earthly power could have induced him 
 to retract or to qualify it. When an effort was 
 made to persuade him to qualify the proclama- 
 tion, he said, in reference to the blacks, "■ My 
 word is out to these people, and I can't take it 
 back ! " 
 
 It has been common, in representative govern- 
 ments, for men to be advanced to great positions 
 without any sufficient evidence existing of their 
 ability to perform the corresponding duties, and it 
 has often happened that the occupant has not been 
 elevated, while the office has been sadly de- 
 graded. It was observed by those who visited 
 Mr. Lincoln on the day following his nomination 
 at Chicago, in June, i860, that he would prove, in 
 the event of his election, either a great success or 
 a great failure. 
 
 This prediction was based upon the single fact 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 139 
 
 that he was different from ordinary men, and it did 
 not contain, as an element of the opinion, any 
 knowledge of his peculiar characteristics. History 
 will accept the first branch of the alternative opin- 
 ion, and pronounce his administration a great suc- 
 cess. To this success Mr. Lincoln most largely 
 contributed, and this in spite of pecuHarities which 
 appeared to amount to defects in a great ruler in 
 troublous times. 
 
 Never were words uttered which contained 
 less truth than those which fell from the hps of the 
 assassin — " Sic semper tyrannis ! " — as he passed, in 
 the presence of a,n excited and bewildered crowd, 
 from the spot where he had committed the foulest 
 of murders, to the stage of the theatre whence he 
 made his escape. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln exercised power with positive re- 
 luctance and unfeigned distaste. He shrank from 
 the exhibition of any authority that was oppressive, 
 harsh, or even disagreeable, to a human being. He 
 passed an entire night in anxious thought and 
 prayerful deliberation before he could sanction the 
 execution of Gordon, the slave-dealer, although he 
 had been tried, found guilty, and sentenced to 
 death. There is but little doubt, such was the 
 kindness of Mr. Lincoln's nature, that he desired 
 to close the war, and restore the Union, without 
 exacting the forfeit of a single life as a punishment 
 
 10 
 
140 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 for the great crime of which the leaders in this 
 rebellion are guilty. 
 
 Could this liberal policy have been carried out, 
 it would have been the theme of perpetual eulogy, 
 and its author would have received the acclama- 
 tion of all races and classes of men. . 
 
 Mr. Lincoln had not in his nature, or in the 
 habits of his life, any element or feature of tyranny. 
 He had no love of power for the sake of power. 
 He preferred that every man should act as might 
 seem to him best ; and when, in the discharge of 
 his duties, he was called to enforce penalties, or 
 even to remove men from place, he suffered more 
 usually than did the subjects of his authority. It 
 is easy to understand that this peculiarity was 
 sometimes an obstacle to the vigorous administra- 
 tion of affairs. But, on the other hand, it must 
 have happened occasionally that these delays led 
 to a better judgment in the end. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was, in the best sense of the ex- 
 pression, an industrious man. Whatever he ex- 
 amined, he examined carefully and thoroughly. 
 His patience was unlimited. He listened atten- 
 tively to advice, though it is probable that he sel- 
 dom asked it. For nearly fifty years before he en- 
 tered upon the duties of President, he had relied 
 upon himself ; and it is said that, in the practice of 
 his profession, he never sought opinions or sugges- 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 141 
 
 tions from his brethren, except as they were associ- 
 ated with him in particular causes. He had the 
 acuteness of the lawyer and the fairness of the 
 judge. The case must be intricate indeed which 
 he did not easily analyze, so as to distinguish and 
 estimate whatever was meritorious or otherwise in 
 it. He saw also through the motives of men. He 
 easily fathomed those around him, and acted in the 
 end as though he understood their dispositions 
 toward himself. 
 
 He appeared to possess an intuitive knowledge 
 of the opinions and purposes of the people. His 
 sense of justice was exact ; and, if he ever failed to 
 be guided by it, the departure was due to the kind- 
 ness of his nature, which always prompted him to 
 look with the compassion of a parent upon the 
 unfortunate — the guilty as well as the innocent. 
 He was cautious in forming opinions, and dis- 
 inclined to disclose his purposes until the mo- 
 ment of action arrived. He examined every sub- 
 ject of importance with conscientious care ; his 
 conclusions were formed under a solemn sense of 
 duty ; and while that sense of duty remained, he 
 was firm in resisting all counter-influences. In 
 unimportant matters, not involving principles or 
 the character of his public policy, he yielded 
 readily to the wishes of those around him ; and 
 thus they who knew him or heard of him in these 
 
142 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 relations only, were misled as to his true char- 
 acter. 
 
 No magistrate or ruler ever labored more zeal- 
 ously to place his measures and policy upon the 
 sure foundation of right ; and no magistrate or 
 ruler ever adhered to his measures and policy with 
 more firmness as long as he felt sure of the founda- 
 tion. His last public address is a memorable illus- 
 tration of these traits of character. 
 
 The charmed cord by w^hich he attached all to 
 him who enjoyed his acquaintance, even in the 
 slightest degree, was the absence of all pretension 
 in manners, conversation, or personal appearance. 
 This was not humihty, either real or assumed ; but 
 it was due to an innate and ever-present conscious- 
 ness of the equality of men. He accorded to every 
 one w^ho approached him, whatever his business 
 or station in life, such hearing and attention as 
 circumstances permitted. For himself he asked 
 nothing of the nature of personal consideration. 
 In the multiplicity of his cares, in his daily atten- 
 tion to cases touching the reputation and rights 
 of humble and unknown men, in the patience 
 with which he listened to the narratives of heart- 
 broken women, wdiose husbands, or sons, or broth- 
 ers, had fallen under arrest, or into disgrace in the 
 military or naval service of the country, he w^as in- 
 deed the servant and the friend of all. 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 143 
 
 The inexorable rules of military discipline were 
 sometimes disregarded by him ; he sought to make 
 an open way for justice through the forms and 
 technicalities of courts-martial, bureaus, and depart- 
 ments ; and it is not unlikely that the public serv- 
 ice may have received detriment occasionally by 
 the too free use of the power to pardon and to re- 
 store. But the nation could well afford the indul- 
 gence of his overkind nature in these particulars ; 
 for by this kindness of nature he drew the people 
 to him, and thus opinions were harmonized, the re- 
 public was strengthened, and the power of its ene- 
 mies sensibly diminished. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln never despaired of the republic. 
 During the dark days of July, August, and Sep- 
 tember, 1862, he was not dismayed by the disasters 
 which befell our arms. His confidence was not in 
 our military strength alone ; he looked to the Lord 
 of hosts for the final delivery of the people. 
 
 Following this attempt to analyze Mr. Lincoln's 
 intellectual and moral character, it remains to be 
 said that neither this analysis, nor the statements 
 with which it is connected, furnish any just idea of 
 the man. He was more, he was greater, he was 
 wiser, he was better, than the ideal man which we 
 should be authorized to create from the qualities 
 disclosed by the analysis. And so, possibly, there 
 will ever remain an apparent dissimilitude between 
 
144 
 
 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 the appreciable individual qualities of the man and 
 the man himself. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln was a wise man ; but he had not 
 the wisdom of the ancient philosophers, who de- 
 clared it to be the knowledge of things both divine 
 and human, together with the causes on which 
 they depend ; but he was rather an illustration of 
 the proverb of Solomon, " The fear of the Lord is 
 the instruction of wisdom." 
 
 Mr. Lincoln must ever be named among the 
 great personages of history. He will be con- 
 trasted rather than compared with those with 
 whom he is thus to be associated ; and, when com.- 
 pared with any, he is most likely to be compared 
 with the Father of his Country. If this be so, then 
 his rank is already fixed and secure. In many par- 
 ticulars he differs from other great men. When 
 his important public services began, he was more 
 than fifty years of age ; while Cromwell was only 
 forty years old when called from retirement, and 
 most eminent men in civil and military life have 
 been distinguished at an earlier age. He had 
 neither military fame nor military experience. He 
 was taken from private life, and advanced to the 
 Presidency, upon a pure question or declaration of 
 public policy — the non-extension of slavery. He en- 
 tered upon his great office in the presence of assas- 
 sins and traitors ; and, from that day to the day of 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 145 
 
 his death, he dwelt in their presence and faithfully 
 performed his duties. He conducted the affairs of 
 the republic in the most perilous of times. In the 
 short period of four years he called three million 
 men into the military service of his country. Dur- 
 ing his administration a rebellion, in which eleven 
 States and six million people were involved, was 
 effectually overthrown. But the great act which 
 secures to his name all the immortality which earth 
 can bestow, is the Proclamation of Emancipation. 
 The knowledge of that deed can never die. On 
 this continent it will be associated with the Decla- 
 ration of Independence, and with that alone. One 
 made a nation independent ; the other made a race 
 free. 
 
 There are four million people in this country 
 who now regard Abraham Lincoln as their deliv- 
 erer from bondage, and whose posterity, through 
 all the coming centuries, will render tribute of 
 praise to his name and memory. But his fame in 
 connection with the Proclamation of Emancipation 
 will not be left to the care of those who have been 
 the recipients of the boon of freedom. The white 
 people of the South will yet rejoice in the knowl- 
 edge of their own deliverance through this gift to 
 the now-despised colored man. And, finally, the 
 people of the United States, of the American Conti- 
 nent, together with the whole family of civilized 
 
146 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 man, will join in honors to the memory of him who 
 freed a race and saved a nation. 
 
 What fame that is human merely can be more 
 secure? What glory that is of earth can be more 
 enduring? What deed for good can be more wide- 
 spread ? 
 
 The influence of the great act of his life will 
 extend to every continent and to all races. It will 
 advance with civilization into Africa ; it will shake 
 and finally overthrow slavery in the dominions of 
 Spain and in the Empire of Brazil ; and at last, in 
 that it saved a republic, and perpetuated a free 
 representative government as an example and 
 model for mankind, it will undermine the monarchi- 
 cal, aristocratic, and despotic institutions of Europe 
 and Asia. What fame that is human merely can 
 be more secure ? What glory that is of earth can 
 be more enduring? What deed for good can be 
 more wide-spread ? 
 
 Yet this great act rested on a foundation on 
 which all may stand. In the place where he was, 
 he did that which, in his judgment, duty to his 
 country and to his God required. This is, indeed, 
 his highest praise, and the only eulogy that his life 
 demands. 
 
 That he had greater opportunities than other 
 men, was his responsibility and burden ; that he 
 used his great opportunities for the preservation 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 H7 
 
 of his country and the reUef of the oppressed, is his 
 own glor}'. 
 
 Had Mr. Lincoln been permitted to reach the 
 age attained by Jefferson or Adams, his death 
 would have produced a profound impression upon 
 his countrymen. 
 
 Had he now, in the opening months of his sec- 
 ond administration, fallen by accident or yielded to 
 disease, the nation would have been bowed down 
 in inexpressible grief. Every loyal heart would 
 have been burdened with a weight of sorrow, and 
 every loyal household would have felt as though a 
 place had been made vacant at its own hearth- 
 stone. 
 
 That he has now fallen by the hand of an assas- 
 sin is in itself a horror too appalling for contempla- 
 tion. Had the deed been committed in ancient 
 Greece or Rome, w^e could not now read the his- 
 torian's record without a shudder and a tear. All 
 those qualities in the illustrious victim which we 
 cherish were spurs, ever goading the conspirators 
 on to the consummation of their crime. 
 
 His love of country and of liberty, his devotion 
 to duty, his firmness and persistency in the right, 
 his kindness of heart, and his spirit of mercy, were 
 all reasons or inducements influencing the purposes 
 of the conspirators. Neither greatness nor good- 
 ness was a shield. Had he been greater and bet- 
 
148 PRESIDENT LINCOLN 
 
 ter and wiser than he was, his fate would have 
 been the same. 
 
 In this hour of calamity, let not the thirst for 
 vengeance take possession of our souls. But jus- 
 tice should be done. The circle of conspirators is 
 already broken and entered by the officers of the 
 law, and mankind will finally be permitted to see 
 who were the authors and who the perpetrators of 
 this great crime. For the members of this circle, 
 whether it be small or large, and whomsoever it 
 may include, there should be neither compassion 
 nor mercy, but justice and only justice. Judged as 
 men judge, this crime is too great for pardon. 
 The criminals can find no protection or harbor in 
 any civilized country. Let the Government pursue 
 them with its full power until the last one disap- 
 pears from earth. Vex every sea, visit every isl- 
 and, traverse every continent ; let there be no abid- 
 ing-place for these criminals between the Arctic 
 seas and the Antarctic pole ! 
 
 This, Justice demands, as she sits in judgment 
 upon this unparalleled crime. 
 
 One duty and one consolation remain. He who 
 destroyed slavery was himself by slavery de- 
 stroyed. Whoever the assassin, and however nu- 
 merous the conspirators, love of slavery was the 
 evil spirit which had entered into these men and 
 taken possession of them. Slavery is the source 
 
THE STATESMAN AND LIBERATOR. 
 
 149 
 
 and fountain of the crime, and all they who have 
 given their support to slavery are in some degree 
 responsible for the awful deed. Let, then, the 
 nation purify itself from this the foulest of sins. 
 And this is our duty. 
 
 In the providence of God, Mr. Lincoln was per- 
 mitted to do more than any other man of this cent- 
 ury for his country, for liberty, and for mankind. 
 Mr. Lincoln is dead ; but the nation lives, and the 
 providence of God ever continues. No single life 
 w^as ever yet essential to the life of a nation. This 
 is our consolation and ground for confidence in the 
 future. 
 
GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 The representative, republican system of gov- 
 ernment in the United States is no longer an ex- 
 periment. In the period of the existence of this 
 government, now nearly a hundred years, its Con- 
 stitution has been perfected, its methods of admin- 
 istration improved, its faculties enlarged, its pow- 
 ers tested, and the limits of its authority and ju- 
 risdiction ascertained and established either by a 
 recognized public opinion, or by the force of ac- 
 cepted judicial decisions. 
 
 While there are with us differences of opinion 
 upon measures of administration, there are no sub- 
 stantial differences of opinion as to the funda- 
 mental principles of the government under which 
 we are living. In this respect we are distinguished 
 favorably from every other great government, un- 
 less a parallel can be found in the Oriental world. 
 In England, Russia, Germany, and France, there 
 are bodies of men who would welcome the over- 
 throw of the existing forms of governn^ent, and 
 the advent of a new order of things. 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 151 
 
 No system that is of human origin can be estab- 
 lished more firmly than is the republican system of 
 government in the United States. This result is 
 due in part to the wisdom of men, but it is due in 
 a larger degree, probably, to what we are accus- 
 tomed to call the force of events. But as the 
 events of which we speak are dependent, either 
 presently or remotely, upon the acts of men, it fol- 
 lows that the policy and doings of rulers of states, 
 and the achievements of leaders of armies, whose 
 acts may have tended to create, to preserve, or to 
 destroy states, must always engage the attention 
 of mankind. 
 
 It is therefore my purpose to consider some of 
 the events in the career of General Grant which 
 have contributed to the final and favorable solu- 
 tion of the problems that vexed the founders of this 
 Government. 
 
 In the first century of our national life three 
 persons have been elected to the presidency who 
 are, and Vt^ho will continue to be, the three great 
 figures in American history : The Founder of the 
 Republic ; the Liberator of the Republic ; the 
 Savior of the Republic — 
 
 Washington, Lincoln, and Grant. 
 They were not rivals in deeds ; and if some re- 
 semblances in character may be found, it is yet 
 
152 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 true that they touched one another at a few points 
 only. 
 
 As a soldier, Washington was equal to the de- 
 mand made upon him ; and as a recognized leader 
 in the organization of a government upon ideas 
 and principles for which there was no precedent, 
 his pre-eminence is established. 
 
 Lincoln's fame rests upon his pure patriotism, 
 his unyielding courage, and his great act of eman- 
 cipation which made the restoration of the Union 
 possible upon the basis of the equality of men in 
 the States, and the equality of States in the Union. 
 
 The world-wide fame of General Grant rests 
 upon his military achievements. As a soldier he 
 has no equal in our history ; and as a commander 
 of armies he must be numbered in the first ten of 
 whom the annals of mankind have taken notice. 
 
 I speak of General Grant as his friend, and in 
 the hope that ultimately the world may see him 
 on the page of history as he appeared to those 
 who w^ere near him when he was among the living. 
 But I am not to use the language of bereave- 
 ment, nor indulge myself in the utterance of fu- 
 nereal phrases. The days of mourning are over 
 with the great public, and henceforth mankind will 
 contemplate General Grant as an historical charac- 
 ter only. 
 
 '' The glory dies not, and the grief is past." 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 153 
 
 The greatness of men is manifested in what 
 they are, in what they do, and in their capacity for 
 foreseeing what is to be. 
 
 This test is applied to all the living, either by 
 the family, or the neighborhood, or the State, or 
 the nation ; and it is applied to all the dead whose 
 names and deeds finds a place in history. From 
 that test we are not to shrink in this discussion. 
 Things not attempted, or attempted and not ac- 
 complished, do not necessarily, nor even naturally, 
 furnish either a test or a measure of a man's ca- 
 pacities. We value a machine by the measure of 
 its strength at its weakest point ; but we value a 
 man by the measure of his strength at the place 
 where he is strongest. Of absolute human great- 
 ness we have had no example ; nor has it been the 
 fortune of any man to be pre-eminent in a variety 
 of ways. Usually the pre-eminence achieved has 
 been limited to a single line of effort or sphere of 
 duty. 
 
 The greatness of men is not found in a repeti- 
 tion of what has been done or said in other ages or 
 by other men. The demand is for some new 
 thought ; some advance in scientific knowledge ; 
 some progress in art ; some new idea in govern- 
 ment ; some feat, or stratagem, or campaign in 
 war for which no precedent could be found in the 
 ages ; or some word or deed or policy by which 
 
154 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 nations are created, regenerated, or saved. And 
 from this test we are not to shrink in considering 
 the career of General Grant. 
 
 Greatness is not so much an acquisition as an 
 endowment. The schools can not go beyond the 
 known. They teach what has been accomplished. 
 The sphere of the truly great man is outside or 
 beyond the known. In that sphere the rules of 
 the schools must be disregarded, or their teach- 
 ings must be extended. 
 
 The influence of a great man will outlast the 
 civilization in which he acts, of which he is a part, 
 and to whose power he contributes. It may even 
 outlive all knowledge of his name, it may course 
 throusrh unseen channels when nationalities, once 
 vigorous, when forms of government once stable 
 and controlling, when religions once believed and 
 adored, have passed away and disappeared abso- 
 lutely from the knowledge of men. All this can 
 not be said or predicated of any living man, nor can 
 any person assume as much of any contemporary, 
 living or dead. This test is not in the present ; it 
 can only be made in the far-distant future. Nor 
 can this claim be urged for any mere soldier, what- 
 ever his deeds, or however wide-spread may be his 
 fame. The achievements of war must be inter- 
 woven with the fortunes of mankind in times of 
 peace, and they must so work in institutions and 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 155 
 
 through the ages as to increase the happiness, ele- 
 vate the character, and advance the destiny of men 
 in nations, or promote the progress of the race 
 generall3^ 
 
 In this particular the fortunes of General 
 Washington and General Grant are identical in 
 kind although they do not correspond in degree. 
 Washington's career in war was followed by the 
 successful reorganization of the States of the Con- 
 federacy of 1778, into a more perfect Union, but 
 still a Union in which there were serious defects. 
 
 The basis of our system of government is 
 found in the institutions of England and in the in- 
 stitutions of the colonies. The independent judi- 
 ciary ; the single executive, responsible to the peo- 
 ple through the legislative branch of the Govern- 
 ment ; the Legislature composed of two Houses, of 
 equal powers in matters of legislation; and the 
 equality of States as constituents of the nation, 
 were all recognized as institutional features whose 
 incorporation into the new Constitution was a ne- 
 cessity arising from our history, traditions, and ex- 
 perience. 
 
 The debates of the Convention of 1787, the ar- 
 guments of " The Federalist," and the commentaries 
 of Story upon the Constitution, all show that the 
 field for invention was limited. Our fathers bor- 
 rowed freely from Great Britain : they accepted 
 
156 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 the lessons derived from the experience of the 
 colonies, and especially the lesson taught by the 
 failure of the Confederation. And, finally, they 
 made concessions, not always without misgivings, 
 and especially were there misgivings in reference 
 to the concessions relating to the institution of 
 slavery. 
 
 In 1787 there was a general impression that a 
 new form of government was indispensable, but 
 there was a wide difference of opinion as to what 
 that government should be. There Avas a senti- 
 ment of nationality, but that sentiment was subor- 
 dinated generally to the hereditary attachment of the 
 masses to the respective colonies and States. Some 
 of the leaders feared that the sovereignty and pow- 
 ers of the States would be absorbed by the General 
 Government, while others apprehended that the 
 Union under the new Constitution would crumble 
 and fall from its own inherent weakness. To 
 Washington is the country most largely indebted 
 for the spirit of conciliation and for the mutual 
 confidence which led the people to ratify the work 
 of the Convention. 
 
 When Washington came to the presidency, the 
 questions of pressing and paramount importance 
 were these : The maintenance of the public credit ; 
 the payment of the public debt ; the preservation of 
 peace, while we asserted and vindicated all our just 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 
 
 157 
 
 rights as one of the family of nations ; and, finally, 
 the organization of States, discordant in opinion 
 and sensitive to every movement affecting their in- 
 dependence and sovereignty, into a compact politi- 
 cal Union, capable of furnishing adequate protec- 
 tion, to citizens and States, against domestic vio- 
 lence and foreign foes. 
 
 All this was the work of administration when 
 the Constitution had been prepared by the Con- 
 vention, when it had been ratified by the people, 
 and when the skeleton framework of the Govern- 
 ment had been brought together ; and all this was 
 accomplished during the presidency of General 
 Washington. 
 
 The claim of Washington to the appellation of 
 '' Founder of the Republic " rests not alone nor 
 chiefly upon his services as commander of the 
 armies, nor upon his services as President of the 
 Constitutional Convention, but rather upon his fore- 
 seeing, conservative, organizing qualities and facul- 
 ties manifested most clearly when he became Presi- 
 dent of the United States. 
 
 When General Grant became President, seven 
 only of the eleven States then recently in rebellion 
 had been admitted to representation in Congress. 
 Georgia, Texas, Mississippi, and Virginia, were 
 still held in a territorial condition and subject to 
 military rule. The preceding three years had been 
 
158 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 marked by a bitter contest between the executive 
 and legislative branches of the Government. In 
 ordinary times such a contest would affect perni- 
 ciously the welfare of a people. From 1866 to 
 1869 it was impossible for either party to the con- 
 test to originate and execute successfully any 
 system of reconstruction. The larger body of the 
 white inhabitants of the South took sides with 
 the President; the majority of the voters of the 
 old free States sustained the policy of Congress. 
 Under these diverse influences the restoration of 
 the States of the South was postponed, divisions 
 of opinion were promoted, which soon ripened into 
 bitter hostilities, all business interests languished, 
 and the day of substantial prosperity for the war- 
 stricken region of our country seemed farther away 
 than when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. 
 
 These evil influences were not limited by the 
 boundaries of the States that had been in rebellion. 
 The public revenues were either not collected, or 
 they \vere squandered or plundered on the way to 
 the Treasury. The payments on the public debt 
 for the year 1868 did not exceed twenty-five mill- 
 ion dollars, while the total liabilities of the nation, 
 liquidated and unliquidated, were not less than 
 three thousand million. The annual interest ac- 
 count exceeded one hundred and thirty million 
 dollars. 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN, 159 
 
 The public credit was so impaired that coin 
 bonds, bearing interest at the rate of six per cent, 
 were sold at eighty-three cents on the dollar ; the 
 doctrine of repudiation was taught openly ; and in- 
 telligent communities accepted the notion that the 
 issue of irredeemable paper money was a safe and 
 wise public policy. The country was divided, not 
 very unequally, upon the question of extending the 
 right of suffrage to the negro population of the 
 South. The 27th day of February, 1869, five days 
 before the inauguration of General Grant, Congress 
 submitted to the States the question of the ratifica- 
 tion of the proposition that is now the fifteenth 
 amendment to the Constitution of the United 
 States. Its fate was uncertain. By the fourteenth 
 amendment a State was tolerated in denying to 
 portions of its adult male citizens the right of suf- 
 frage if it would therefor consent to a proportion- 
 ate loss of its representation in Congress and in the 
 electoral college. It was an expedient adopted 
 during the transition period between slavery and 
 freedom. It was an expedient, moreover, that 
 would have been fruitful in controversies if it had 
 not been abrogated by the ratification of the fif- 
 teenth amendment. 
 
 In addition to these domestic difficulties our re- 
 lations with France were disturbed by the recollec- 
 tion that Napoleon had attempted to place Maxi- 
 
l6o GENERAL GRANT 
 
 milian upon a throne in Mexico in defiance of the 
 Monroe doctrine, and at a moment when we were 
 incapable of decisive action ; the abolition of slav- 
 ery in the United States and the revolutionary con- 
 dition of affairs in Cuba had impaired our friendly 
 relations with Spain ; while with Great Britain 
 there were causes of alienation and bitterness 
 which, at any moment, might have led to the sus- 
 pension of diplomatic intercourse. 
 
 This is but an imperfect summary of the diffi- 
 culties, foreign and domestic, which confronted 
 General Grant on the day of his inauguration. 
 Assuredly they were less formidable than those 
 which Mr. Lincoln had been called to meet in 1861, 
 but, with that exception, they were the most seri- 
 ous difficulties that had waited upon an}^ Adminis- 
 tration since 1789. 
 
 Foreseeing is the primary element of statesman- 
 ship. This power General Grant possessed. In 
 his inaugural address he said : " The country hav- 
 ing just emerged from a great rebellion, many ques- 
 tions will come before it for settlement in the next 
 four years which preceding Administrations have 
 never had to deal with." He specified the ques- 
 tions, and he implored the country to deal with 
 them " without prejudice, hate, or sectional pride." 
 Again he said : 
 
 *' A great debt has been contracted in securing 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN i6l 
 
 to us and our posterity the Union. . . . To pro- 
 tect the national honor every dollar of government 
 indebtedness should be paid in gold, unless other- 
 wise expressly stipulated in the contract. . . . Let 
 it be understood that no repudiator of one farthing 
 of our public debt will be trusted in public place, 
 and it will go far toward strengthening a credit 
 which ought to be the best in the world, and will 
 ultimately enable us to replace the debt with bonds 
 bearing less interest than we now pay." Thus 
 clearly did he forecast the financial policy of his 
 Administration, and to that policy his Administra- 
 tion adhered. At its close, one fifth part of the 
 public debt had been paid, the interest had been 
 reduced in a greater ratio, the public credit was so 
 established that bonds bearing interest at four per 
 cent were at par, and the clamor for repudiation 
 was hushed absolutely. 
 
 " In regard to foreign policy," he said, '* I would 
 deal with nations as equitable law requires individ- 
 uals to deal with each other." And he then served 
 notice on ambassadors, kings, and emperors in these 
 words : ^^ If others depart from this rule in their deal- 
 ings with us, we may be compelled to follozv their prec- 
 edent!' There was no departure from the rule, 
 and at the close of his Administration every inter- 
 national question had been adjusted amicably. 
 
 Thus and then, and for the first time in the his- 
 
1 62 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 tory of the republic, every foreign question affect- 
 ing the interests or rights of the nation was trans- 
 ferred from the field of diplomacy and debate to 
 the realm of fixed law. Questions between nations 
 imply controversy, and controversies may and often 
 they do develop into alienation and war. 
 
 As neither General Grant nor the American 
 people put any responsibility upon the French na- 
 tion for the invasion of Mexico, the downfall of 
 Napoleon quieted all feeling on that subject. 
 
 A rigid observance of our neutrality, during the 
 rebellion in Cuba, preserved and strengthened our 
 friendly relations with Spain, and enabled the Ad- 
 ministration to protest, and with effect, against the 
 system of slavery in the Spanish colonies. 
 
 With England we had one open question, as old 
 as our Government, which had given rise to acri- 
 monious correspondence in many Administrations. 
 The Island of San Juan, on the Pacific, had been 
 subject to joint armed occupancy for nearly a quar- 
 ter of a century. By the treaty with Great Britain 
 of the 8th of May, 1871, that question was referred 
 to the arbitration of the Emperor of Germany, 
 who sustained the claim of the United States. 
 
 By the same treaty the claims against Great 
 Britain growing out of the destruction of our 
 commerce during the civil war, by vessels al- 
 leged to have been fitted out or to have obtained 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 163 
 
 supplies in British ports, were referred to arbi- 
 tration. 
 
 The value of the arbitration was not so much 
 in the adequate award that was made by the arbi- 
 trators, as in the example and precedent furnished 
 and already followed by other nations as a means 
 of avoiding war ; and especially in the case of the 
 reference by Germany and Spain of the question of 
 the jurisdiction of the Carohne Islands to the head 
 of the Cathohc Church. But I should be unjust to 
 the living, and I should misinterpret the sentiments 
 and opinions which General Grant entertained and 
 often expressed, if I did not say that the Administra- 
 tion and the country were largely, most largely, 
 indebted to Hamilton Fish for the successful com- 
 pletion of these great undertakings in diplomacy. 
 But I should be equally unjust to General Grant if 
 I were to omit the statement that the policy of these 
 negotiations was in harmony wdth his opinions, or 
 that from time to time he contributed by sugges- 
 tion and counsel to the result reached finally. Un- 
 der our system the President is the responsible 
 head of the Government ; and while he can not, m 
 the nature of his duties, supervise the details of the 
 business of the departments, he does give direc- 
 tion to the policy of the Government, and most es- 
 pecially in its foreign affairs. 
 
 As in those affairs nothing can be accomplished 
 
164 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 without his authority and consent, so at the end he 
 should receive the praise, as he must, in case of 
 failure, bear the blame. 
 
 The treaty of 1871 provided for the settlement 
 of all the pending questions between Great Britain 
 and the United States ; and it was a circumstance 
 of unusual distinction that the terms of settlement 
 were at the moment acceptable to the authorities 
 and people of both countries. 
 
 The treaty of peace of 1783 left open lor debate 
 and controversy three questions of signal impor- 
 tance — the northeastern boundary, the fisheries, 
 and the navigation of the Mississippi River. 
 
 The treaty of 1794 gave rise to bitter party con- 
 tests m the United States ; it interrupted our 
 friendly relations with France; and, finally, it 
 brought us to the verge of war with our ancient 
 ally. 
 
 The purchase of Louisiana in 1803 was de- 
 nounced as an unconstitutional proceeding, and 
 eminent statesmen were filled with alarm at the ex- 
 tension of a territory which, as they thought, was 
 already too vast for one government. 
 
 The treaty of peace concluded at Ghent, in the 
 month of December, 18 14, left open the question 
 on which the War of 18 12 had been declared. 
 
 The Ashburton - Webster treaty of 1842, by 
 which the controversy in regard to our north- 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN, 165 
 
 eastern boundary was ended, and the danger of 
 war with Great Britain averted, gave rise to disa- 
 greeable criticisms in Congress, and to violent op- 
 position in the State of Maine, whose claims to ju- 
 risdiction were limited at points on its frontier. 
 
 The treaty of 1846, by which an effort was 
 made to fix our northern line from the lakes to 
 the Pacific Ocean, left to the two countries the in- 
 heritance of the San Juan controversy. 
 
 The treaty of 1871 with Great Britain takes 
 rank as the third in importance of all the treaties to 
 which the United States has been a party. First 
 of all, the treaty of 1778 with France, of friendship 
 and alliance ; then the treaty of peace with Great 
 Britain of 1783, by which our independence was 
 acknowledged and the foundations of our future 
 greatness were laid. 
 
 Nor in this statement do I forget the signal ad- 
 vantages which have resulted from the treaty of 
 1803, by which the vast though not well-defined 
 Territory of Louisiana was added to the domain 
 of the republic. 
 
 Its acquisition was followed by some evils. 
 Those evils were temporary ; the advantages were 
 permanent. But the treaty did not originate any 
 rule, nor settle any question of international law ; 
 it did not quiet any controversy ; it did not avert 
 any present pressing danger. Nevertheless, within 
 
1 66 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 the limits fixed by circumstances, the Louisiana 
 treaty must ever be regarded as one of the wisest 
 measures of American diplomacy. 
 
 To the world at large, however, the treaty of 
 1 87 1 may prove to be the most important of any. 
 
 Our grievance against Great Britain was as 
 serious as any grievance possible that did not arise 
 from the actual invasion of territory. 
 
 The allegation then was — and the judgment at 
 Geneva sustained the allegation — that Great Brit- 
 ain had covertly given aid and comfort to the re- 
 bellion, and that by that aid our commerce had 
 been driven from the ocean, our prestige impaired 
 seriously, and the commercial supremacy of Eng- 
 land re-established for an indefinite period of 
 time. Ancient hostilities were renewed, tradi- 
 tional prejudices were revived, and the war spirit 
 of the nation might have been aroused easily and 
 speedily. 
 
 By some the suggestion was made that England 
 should be required to withdraw her flag from this 
 continent. From others came the suggestion that 
 we should lie in wait, and at a favorable moment 
 retaliate upon British commerce. 
 
 To neither of these suggestions did General 
 Grant give ear or voice. Trained to the art of 
 war, acquainted with its perils and its horrors, the 
 recipient of all the renown that nations can bestow 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN, 167 
 
 upon a successful military chieftain, he was more 
 than all a man of peace. 
 
 From the commencement of his Administration 
 he felt assured of an ultimate settlement upon a 
 basis honorable to the United States and not dis- 
 creditable to Great Britain. 
 
 And may I not turn aside for a moment to in- 
 dulge in the reflection that, under Providence, this 
 great example may tend to the peace of nations ? 
 All Europe is oppressed by taxes and debts, and 
 for every acre of her arable ground there is an 
 armed man. This policy, if continued, can end 
 only in general repudiation and universal disaster. 
 
 It may not be possible to avoid war. The in- 
 trigues of rulers, the ambitions of successful poli- 
 ticians and soldiers, the passions of the multitude, 
 may involve nations in war ; but the treaty of 1871 
 furnishes some security for the peace of the world. 
 Or, if so much can not be assumed, it furnishes 
 ground for the hope that considerate rulers will 
 imitate the example and accept for guidance the 
 new rules of international law which are embodied 
 in the Treaty of Washington. 
 
 I pass now to the consideration of a topic on 
 which differences of opinion exist. 
 
 Five days before the inauguration of General 
 Grant, Congress adopted a resolution by which the 
 proposition now embodied in the fifteenth amend- 
 
1 68 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 ment to the Constitution was submitted to the 
 States. 
 
 In his inaugural address General Grant said : 
 *' The question of suffrage is one which is likely to 
 agitate the public so long as a portion of the citi- 
 zens of the nation are excluded from its privileges 
 in any State. It seems to me very desirable that 
 this question should be settled now, and 1 enter- 
 tain the hope and the desire that it may be by the 
 ratification of the fifteenth article of amendment 
 to the Constitution." 
 
 General Grant was then at the height of his 
 power and influence in the country. The incom- 
 ing of his Administration marked a new epoch in 
 public affairs. His political supporters, however, 
 were not agreed in advocacy of the measure, and 
 his opponents generally were hostile to the ratifi- 
 cation of the amendment. If the President had 
 been indifferent to its success, the proposition 
 would have been lost. On that subject, however, 
 his judgment w^as fixed and his purpose clear. 
 Nor in that case was his judgment affected by the 
 opinions or wishes of others. 
 
 He did not originate the measure, but his re- 
 sponsibility for the ratification of the proposed 
 amendment is greater than that of any other per- 
 son, living or dead. His reason for the recommen- 
 dation is a living reason, and not unworthy present 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 169 
 
 consideration by the whole country : " TJie question 
 of suffrage is one which is likely to agitate the public 
 so long as a portion of the citizens of the nation are 
 excluded from its privileges in an} Stated 
 
 This is at once a prediction and a warning. 
 The voice of the oppressed will at some time be 
 heard. The demand of justice will at some mo- 
 ment be answered. Slavery employed its vast, 
 concentrated power, re-enforced by the authority of 
 the Government, for more than half a century, in 
 an effort to stifle opinions, to suppress freedom of 
 thought, of debate, and of political action, and the 
 end was an inglorious failure and a retribution of 
 blood. 
 
 The fifteenth amendment embodies the funda- 
 mental idea of republican, American liberty. It is 
 the constitutional security for the political equal- 
 ity of men in the States, and without such equality 
 there can be no equality of States in the Union. 
 The injustice of men may delay, but the final result 
 is not doubtful, nor even distant. 
 
 In these latter days the South has justly and 
 freely accorded to General Grant high praise for 
 the conditions and terms of the surrender at Ap- 
 pomattox. The circumstances of that occasion 
 gave great dignity to the act, but the act itself was 
 but the natural expression of the innate character 
 of General Grant. In the nature of things the 
 
I70 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 leaders of Southern opinion could not have under- 
 stood the hero of Appomattox in the year 1869; 
 but if it had then been given to them to see him as 
 he was, and if they had accepted the constitutional 
 amendments as binding and everywhere operative, 
 all of constitutional power that he could have com- 
 manded would have been used in aid of their re- 
 habilitation as States, and for the speedy develop- 
 ment of their resources. 
 
 General Grant was free from malice, and he 
 was kind and compassionate by nature. It is diffi- 
 cult to comprehend the qualities of a man who 
 could be moved by a narrative of individual suffer- 
 ing, and who yet could sleep while surrounded by 
 the horrors of the battles of the Wilderness. 
 
 The solution of the difficulty must be found in 
 the fact that he possessed a philosophical temper- 
 ament which enabled him to look upon the con- 
 sequences of war as of the inevitable, and to feel 
 that his duties, as the organizer and director of 
 armies, required him to suppress not only all mani- 
 festations of sympathy, but also to suppress the feel- 
 ing itself. And this of a man whose devotion to 
 his family, to his friends, to his country, was abso- 
 lute. 
 
 It is an error to assume that General Grant en- 
 joyed the exercise of power, but it is true that he 
 enjoyed the possession of power as the evidence of 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 
 
 i;i 
 
 the public confidence. And it is an error of the 
 gravest sort to assume that he had an ambition for 
 the possession of arbitrary power. When the Ku- 
 klux bands were engaged in their work of outrage 
 and murder in the South, he sent a message to me 
 requesting me to call at the Executive Mansion. 
 When I met him, he said he had sent for me to ac- 
 company him to the Capitol. On the way he in- 
 formed me that he had promised Senators that he 
 would send a message to Congress asking for addi- 
 tional legislation for the suppression of the Ku-klux 
 organizations. " But the public mind," said he, " is 
 already disturbed by the charge that I am exercis- 
 ing despotic powers in the South ; and therefore 
 I am unwilling to ask for additional legislation." 
 Upon arriving at the Capitol, he sent for Senators 
 and members, to whom he made known his change 
 of opinion. With great vmanimity they combated 
 his views, relying mainly upon the proposition that 
 it would be easier to defend the needed legislation 
 than to defend the President in the steps that he 
 might be compelled to take in the absence of spe- 
 cific authority. 
 
 While the discussion went on. General Grant 
 turned to the table and wrote a message to Con- 
 gress in favor of the proposed legislation. In the 
 mean time, the Secretary of State and two other 
 members of the Cabinet had arrived. Upon con- 
 
 12 
 
1^2 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 sultation, one word only in the message was 
 changfed. This circumstance shows his disinclina- 
 tion to seek power, and it illustrates his facility in 
 the use of his faculties when surrounded by dis- 
 tracting influences. 
 
 In the administration of a government it hap- 
 pens occasionally that a person in office, or a per- 
 son named as a candidate for an office, suffers un- 
 justly through erroneous or false representations 
 concerning him. 
 
 In General Grant's first term, a few persons 
 were removed from office in the Treasury Depart- 
 ment under such circumstances. When a case was 
 within his knowledge, he never abandoned the per- 
 son until some reparation had been made. Possi- 
 bly the recollection of the wrong he had himself 
 suffered might have quickened his sensibilities in 
 that respect. 
 
 And let no one count these incidents as trifles, 
 for they reveal the manner of man that General 
 Grant was. 
 
 For the pomp and show of military life he had no 
 taste whatever. He shunned military displays and 
 reviews while in Europe. When in active service, 
 his dress was plain, and he seldom wore a sword. 
 He scarcely recognized the cheers of the soldiers, 
 and he never sought them. His knowledge of 
 military literature must have been limited. In 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 173 
 
 many conversations that I had with him he never 
 spoke of any miUtary operation that did not relate 
 to our civil war, or to the war with Mexico. When 
 the citizens of Boston were about to give a Ubrary 
 to General Grant, Mr. Hooper sought to ascertain, 
 quietly, what military books the General owned, 
 that duplicates might be avoided. He found that 
 his library was barren of military works. 
 
 His respectable but not distinguished standing 
 in his class at West Point was due to his mathemat- 
 ical powers, and not to his habits of study, nor to 
 his attainments in other departments. He read 
 novels, indulged his taste for sketching and paint- 
 ing, of Avhich two specimens have been preserved, 
 and he scanned the newspapers in the hope that 
 Congress had abolished the school, that he might 
 abandon military life without dishonor. 
 
 He obeyed the order to proceed to Mexico 
 upon the idea that he was bound in honor to serve 
 eight years in the army. Otherwise, he would 
 have tendered his resignation at the close of his 
 term at West Point. 
 
 General Grant was not a soldier from taste ; his 
 education at West Point was accepted, rather than 
 sought ; and he Avas not stimulated by the history 
 and literature of war. 
 
 His appointment to the Military Academy was 
 an incident which had no relation to his wishes nor 
 
174 
 
 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 to the opinions of any one as to his fitness for a 
 military career. General Hamer, the member of 
 Congress, and Mr. Jesse Grant, the father, were 
 estranged from each other. Upon the failure of 
 General Hamer's first appointee, he named young 
 Grant as a tender of reconciliation. Ignorant of 
 the names and persons of Jesse Grant's children, 
 he combined in the letter of appointment the 
 names of two of the boys, and thus gave to Gen- 
 eral Grant the initials U. S., which he was com- 
 pelled to carry through his course at the Acad- 
 emy, though always under protest. Finally, Gen- 
 eral Grant accepted with satisfaction, and as a 
 tribute to his mother, the change which General 
 Hamer had made. This change of name, though 
 wholly accidental and against the wishes of Gen- 
 eral Grant, was made the occasion of serious at- 
 tacks upon his character in the campaign of 1868. 
 In estimating General Grant's claims to be con- 
 sidered a statesman, it is to be said, first, that states- 
 manship does not consist in the ability to look with 
 equal favor upon the contending parties in politics. 
 General Grant was a party man. He was not in- 
 tense in his feelings, and he was always moderate 
 in the expression of his opinions. In early life he 
 was a Whig. He thought that the war with Mexi- 
 co was an unjust undertaking, and he took a part 
 in it under a sense of duty to the Government that 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 175 
 
 had given him his education. He voted for Mr. 
 Buchanan in 1856, but for personal rather than po- 
 litical reasons. 
 
 At the opening of the war, he saw the issue, and 
 he accepted it. 
 
 In a letter to Mr. Washburne, dated August, 
 1863, he said : '' It became patent to my mind early 
 in the rebellion that the North and South could 
 never live at peace with each other except as one 
 nation, and that without slavery. As anxious as I 
 am to see peace established, I would not therefore 
 be willing to see any settlement until this question 
 is forever settled." 
 
 This was a view, not of the soldier, but of the 
 statesman, and yet, there were men in the North, 
 in August, 1863, who were called statesmen, who 
 did not see that slavery was the cause of the war, 
 and that a permanent peace could be secured 
 only by its destruction. 
 
 If statesmanship be limited to those who pursue 
 their objects in politics and government by indi- 
 rect methods, then General Grant had no claim to 
 be called a statesman. His methods were as direct 
 in peace as they were in war. When he spoke, the 
 hearer knev/ exactly what the speaker then thought. 
 And if the subject of conversation concerned the 
 hearer, he might assume, safely, that he would be 
 advised at once of any change of opinion or purpose. 
 
176 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 When he thought it unwise to express his views 
 or to declare his opinions he had the power to re- 
 main silent. Reticence, however, was not the 
 habit of his life nor the dictate of his nature, but 
 a custom to which he fled when his views wxre not 
 matured, or w^hen the expression of them might 
 affect unfavorably a public measure or the for- 
 tunes of an individual. 
 
 He avoided councils' of war, but by informal 
 conferences he gathered the views and received 
 the suggestions of the officers about him. Conse- 
 quently, the orders that he gave did not overrule 
 the publicly-expressed opinions of any of his asso- 
 ciates. 
 
 He had neither obstinacy nor pride of opinion. 
 At a critical moment in our foreign affairs the 
 President had received the impression that a new 
 policy in an important particular would be wise, or 
 he was at least considering the m.easure, and he 
 brought it to the attention of the Cabinet. When 
 two members had expressed opinions adverse to 
 the suggestion, and given their reasons, the Presi- 
 dent introduced a new topic, and he never again 
 referred to the subject. 
 
 In a limited sense he carried military ideas into 
 civil affairs. When and where he conferred power 
 he reposed trust and placed responsibility. 
 
 Neither as General of the Army, nor as Presi- 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 
 
 177 
 
 dent of the United States, did he assume to himself 
 credit for what had been done by others. Indeed, 
 he often accorded to his subordinates a larger 
 share of credit than they claimed. And there is 
 no surer test than this of real greatness. 
 
 Those who reach results only b}^ dull, continu- 
 ous labor are like the men who gather wealth by 
 slow and tedious processes. Every gain stands for 
 so much toil — burdensome toil, never to be forgot- 
 ten. The great things of life are the products of 
 truly great men. The labor with them is slight ; 
 the recollection is not husbanded ; and there is al- 
 w^ays present the consciousness that other equally 
 important results might be attained easily. Such 
 men are not misers of deeds ; they are not jealous ; 
 they are not harassed by the fear of rivals. They 
 concede much to others, and they demand for 
 themselves only what is freely accorded. 
 
 If wc pause here, and exclude from our 
 thoughts the Administrations of Washington and 
 Lincoln, will General Grant suffer as a civil magis- 
 trate by a comparison with any other President of 
 the Republic ? 
 
 As a man, who more humane, more modest, 
 more considerate of the rights of the humble ? 
 
 As a magistrate, who more just in small things 
 as well as great, or more devoted to peace, or 
 more advanced in his ideas of Indian policy, or 
 
178 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 more scrupulous in the assertion of every national 
 right, or more vigorous in the maintenance of the 
 public faith, or more jealous of the honor of the 
 country ? 
 
 And which of all the other Administrations has 
 done as much to diminish the public burdens, to 
 lift up and to sustain the public credit ; and which 
 of them all has done as much to ameliorate the bar- 
 barism of war, or by a conspicuous example to 
 avert war itself ? 
 
 And, except Washington and Lincoln, who of 
 all the long line of Presidents, to so great an extent, 
 possessed the confidence and commanded the re- 
 spect of princes and peoples throughout the civil- 
 ized world? 
 
 In one particular General Grant was more fort- 
 unate in his experience than either General Wash- 
 ington or Mr. Lincoln. He visited the principal 
 countries of the world, and he saw and conversed 
 with their rulers. In foreign lands he made ad- 
 dresses to public bodies, and, although he was not 
 an orator, and although he was destitute of art or 
 rhetoric in speech, he never uttered a sentence that 
 an enemy could criticise or that a friend would 
 blush to repeat. Educated by his knowledge of 
 other forms of government and by an acquaintance 
 with rulers — greater, I imagine, than was ever en- 
 joyed by any other person — he returned from his 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 179 
 
 travels not less an American in habit, in sentiment, 
 in devotion to the country, than when he left Ga- 
 lena in 1 86 1. 
 
 In the literary-political use of the word. General 
 Grant was not a statesman. He was not learned 
 in international law ; he was not acquainted with 
 the diplomatic history of Europe, nor can it be 
 claimed that he was conversant with the diplomatic 
 history of his own country. 
 
 He could not have originated and he would not 
 have accepted any process or scheme of indirection 
 in the business of government. His claim to states- 
 manship rests where his military fame rests. His 
 qualities were practical. He saw things as they 
 were. There was no glamour before his eyes, and 
 he estimated the results of passing events Avith a 
 degree of accuracy that seemed prophetic. But, 
 more than all, his sense of justice could not be 
 warped. Therefore he exacted of others only 
 what they were bound to yield, and he was ready 
 to grant to others what was right without delay 
 and without debate. His statesmanship had no 
 other art or magic in it than what may be found in 
 the neighborhood relations of an honest country- 
 people. 
 
 In General Grant's military career there were 
 great days — steps by which he ascended to the 
 heights at once so conspicuous and dazzling. 
 
l8o GENERAL GRANT 
 
 And begone forever the absurd idea that he was 
 the child of luck, the favorite of Fortune ; and 
 begone the notion that, when he came to places 
 of power and trust, places of power and trust 
 were free from responsibiUty, peril, or danger of 
 ruin ! For twelve years in Avar and in peace, and 
 for a period of three years and more when there 
 was neither war nor peace, he stood in elevated 
 and responsible places, and always exhibiting un- 
 bounded patriotism with adequate ability in peace, 
 and an absolute supremacy of generalship in 
 war. 
 
 These are not the accidents of any man's life. 
 They are the natural results of innate power. 
 
 If, then. General Grant's successful military ca- 
 reer was not an accident, it may be possible to dis- 
 cover some of the qualities or faculties on which 
 his success was based. First of all, his skill to 
 plan a movement or a campaign, and his ability to 
 execute his plan, were in harmony. The ability to 
 plan with coolness and care, and the power to exe- 
 cute with energy, celerity, and continuing fortitude, 
 are not often combined in the same person. In all 
 these qualities General Grant was highly endowed. 
 His mind was occupied during the winter of 1862 
 -61 with the plan of the campaign which ended 
 with the commencement of the siege of Vicksburg 
 in May, 1863. Sherman's march to the sea was 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. i8i 
 
 forecast in a letter to General Sherman dated the 
 4th day of April, 1864. 
 
 Next, his topographical faculty was only less 
 than real genius. In a military sense, his cam- 
 paigns were in an unknown country. The region 
 south of the Ohio and Potomac was, in a large 
 part, destitute of good roads. It was covered by 
 forests miles in extent and traversed by ranges of 
 mountains in some sections and by rivers and bay- 
 ous in others. No just comparison can be insti- 
 tuted between military operations in Europe, 
 where well-built roads are described in books and 
 laid down on maps, and kindred operations in the 
 bottom-lands of the Mississippi, or in the wilder- 
 nesses and swamps of Virginia, or the mountain- 
 regions of Tennessee and Alabama, 
 
 The results indicate that General Grant could 
 estimate with a reasonable degree of accuracy the 
 value of a given number of men for defensive or 
 offensive war. Very rarely was it true that his 
 force at any given point was inadequate, and not 
 often was there an excess. At the close of a 
 day, whether his forces had been hard pressed or 
 were victorious, his judgment was accurate, usu- 
 ally, as to the condition of the opposing army. 
 Added to these high qualities, and in addition to 
 a power, quality, or faculty, which can not be de- 
 scribed nor specified, he had faith in the justice of 
 
l82 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 the national cause and faith in its ultimate tri- 
 umph. 
 
 His experience in Mexico had enlarged, and, 
 without exaggeration, we may say that it had per- 
 fected, his training at West Point. He served un- 
 der General Taylor and then under General Scott. 
 In his own language, he was in as many battles in 
 Mexico as it was possible for any one man to be in. 
 On several occasions he distinguished himself by 
 his courage, and by manifestations of that tact for 
 which he became conspicuous in the war of the re- 
 beUion. He left Mexico with an exalted opinion of 
 the military abilities of Taylor and Scott, and that 
 opinion he retained to the end of his life. He has 
 left, however, one criticism upon the conduct of 
 the war in Mexico. General Scott moved his army 
 from Vera Cruz in four divisions, a day apart, and 
 upon the same line. This order General Grant 
 criticises ; but he also criticises all his own cam- 
 paigns, and says, finally, that the campaign against 
 Vicksburg is the only one which in his opinion 
 could not have been improved. General Grant 
 made mistakes, but it may not be judicious for a 
 civihan who never saw a battle, or for an officer 
 who never won a battle, to marshal the mistakes ol 
 a general who never lost a battle. 
 
 When the blood of the men of Middlesex and 
 Essex was shed in the streets of Baltimore, General 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 183 
 
 Grant was eight days less than thirty-nine years of 
 age. President Lincoln had already issued his call 
 for seventy-five thousand men. General Grant re- 
 sponded to that call, and by his neighbors and 
 townsmen, although he was not a voter, he was 
 chosen to preside at a public meeting. By the aid 
 of a prompter, but with a stammering tongue, he 
 was able to state the purpose for which the people 
 had convened. That was his first great day. Not 
 distinguished by anj^thing that he said or did. 
 Not distinguished by his tender of service to the 
 country. Tens on tens of thousands were then 
 tendering their services and crowding forward for 
 duty. To him and to the country it was a great 
 day in the circumstance that it made possible his 
 future career of usefulness and glory. In a mili- 
 tary sense he was already a veteran. He had had 
 fifteen years of training and service. But he made 
 no demand for place ; none for consideration on 
 that account. No claim — no pretension. His 
 neighbors and the authorities were left to form 
 their own estimate of the value of his experience. 
 But that day he gained a place to stand, and from 
 it he moved the world. 
 
 He declined the captaincy of the company 
 raised at Galena, but he went with it to Spring- 
 field, where he was employed first in instructing a 
 clerk in the army methods of keeping accounts, 
 
1 84 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 and then in mustering and drilling the Illinois regi- 
 ments for duty. Toward the end of May he made 
 a tender of his services to the country through 
 Lorenzo Thomas, then Adjutant- General of the 
 Army of the United States. The letter was 
 neither answered nor filed, and only recently was 
 it rescued from the rubbish of the War Depart- 
 ment ! General Pope offered his aid, but General 
 Grant declined, saying that he Avould not receive 
 indorsements for the privilege of fighting for his 
 country. Upon the second call for three hundred 
 thousand men, Governor Yates commissioned Grant 
 as colonel of the Twenty-first Illinois Regiment. 
 
 For the purposes of discipline the colonel 
 marched his regiment from Springfield to Quincy. 
 From thence it was moved to Mexico, Missouri, 
 where Grant came to the command of three regi- 
 ments. Just then, and upon an inspiration and 
 without General Grant's knowledge, and in viola- 
 tion of the civil-service rules, the Illinois delega- 
 tion in Congress recommended his promotion to 
 the rank of brigadier-general. 
 
 His career had now commenced. He was as- 
 signed to a military district and to the command of 
 an army larger than that of General Scott when he 
 entered the city of Mexico — an army of brave 
 men, but of men not yet disciplined to the hard- 
 ships and duties of military life. 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 185 
 
 The battle of Belmont was fought the 7th day 
 of November. That was Grant's second great day. 
 Then his quaUties as a commander were for the 
 first time tested. His army was composed of raw 
 recruits — brave men, stimulated to the verge of in- 
 subordination, by an anxious resolve to engage the 
 enemy. General Grant had two purposes in view : 
 First, to destroy the encampment at Belmont as a 
 means of preventing the re-enforcement of Sterling 
 Price, the Confederate commander in Missouri ; 
 and, second, to discipline his troops by actual expe- 
 rience in war. The battle of Belmont was bravely 
 Avon ; but, when won, the discipline of the army was 
 lost, and only the genius of the commander saved 
 it from a disgraceful defeat that would have ended 
 in its dispersion or capture. General Grant was 
 the last man to leave the field, and he escaped capt- 
 ure by running his horse from the bank of the 
 river to the boat across a single gangway-plank. 
 
 Grant's winter-quarters were in Cairo, at the 
 junction of the Ohio and the Mississippi Rivers. 
 The Confederate troops still occupied Columbus, 
 Kentucky, a few miles below Cairo. There were 
 expeditions during the winter, and in the month of 
 January General Grant reached the conclusion that 
 the true line of operations was up the Tennessee 
 and Cumberland Rivers, on which were situated 
 Forts Henry and Donelson. That he might ob- 
 
1 86 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 tain the sanction and authority of General Halleck, 
 then in command of the department, he went to St. 
 Louis and attempted to lay his plan before him. 
 Without waiting for a full statement, General Hal- 
 leck cut short the conversation, as if the plan were 
 preposterous. Before the end of the month, how- 
 ever. General Grant obtained the co-operation of 
 Admiral Foote, and then Halleck yielded to their 
 joint request. In less than twenty days thereafter 
 Forts Henry and Donelson had fallen under the 
 combined operations of the army and the navy. 
 By the surrender of Donelson about fifteen thou- 
 sand men became prisoners of war, and all the 
 material of the fort fell into our hands. The 
 Confederate loss by capture, death, and deser- 
 tion, could not have been less than twenty thou- 
 sand men. 
 
 That was Grant's third great day. Great in 
 the development of the character of the man, and 
 great in the position attained. His letter to Gen- 
 eral Buckner, in answer to the proposition for an 
 armistice, reads like the letter of Cromwell to the 
 parsons of Edinburgh, and it is the most remark- 
 able production to be found in military literature 
 since the three memorable words of Julius Csesar: 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN, 187 
 
 Headquarters, Ariniy in the Field, 
 
 Camp near Fort Donelson, 
 
 February 16, 1862. 
 
 General S. B. Buckner, Confederate Army : 
 
 Sir: Yours of this date, proposing armistice 
 and appointment of commissioners to settle terms 
 of capitulation, is just received. No terms except 
 an immediate and unconditional surrender can be 
 accepted. I propose to move immediately upon 
 your works. 
 
 I am, sir, very respectfully. 
 
 Your obedient servant, 
 U. S. Grant, Brigadier-General. 
 
 That day General Grant passed out from the 
 ranks of the merely trained soldiers, and by uni- 
 versal acclaim he was admitted into the small body 
 of tested, trusted, and successful commanders. 
 
 From that day forth he was to the nation the 
 military chieftain on whom implicit reliance could 
 be placed. And from that day forth the troops 
 under his immediate command never apprehended 
 a disastrous defeat, whatever might be the hard- 
 ships and struggles and losses of a da}' or of a 
 campaign. 
 
 Then for the first time the magnitude of things 
 already accomplished revealed to General Grant 
 the possibilities of the future — a future, filled with 
 13 
 
1 88 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 greater events even, then opened, though indis- 
 tinctly, before him. 
 
 Of all his countrymen, one only, as far as we 
 have knowledge, and he his superior officer, hesi- 
 tated to award due honor for what had been done, 
 and he, upon the poor pretext that General Grant 
 had neglected to report the force and condition 
 of his command, suspended him from duty. 
 
 The 4th day of March, 1862, General Halleck 
 suspended General Grant; and on the 13th day of 
 the same month of March, with something of ex- 
 planation and something of apology, he restored 
 him to his command. Those nine days were sad, 
 dreary days, when tears stood in the eyes of the 
 discarded chieftain, but from his lips there was not 
 one word of complaint. 
 
 The battle of Shiloh began Sunday, the 6th of 
 April, and, although at the close of that day of 
 blood our troops were still upon the field, our 
 lines had been forced back toward the river, and 
 a mile of ground had been lost. General Grant 
 was lame and on crutches, from an injury caused 
 by the fall of his horse ; but he passed the night 
 under a tree, exposed to a drenching rain, because 
 he could not bear the sight of the wounded and 
 dying men who were sheltered under a roof near by. 
 
 At the end of the next day a decisive victory 
 had been achieved. 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 189 
 
 Important events followed. 
 
 General Halleck assumed the command of the 
 army in the field. In a few weeks thereafter he 
 was made general-in-chief. He then transferred 
 his headquarters to the city of Washington, but 
 it was not until the 25th of October that General 
 Grant was assigned to the command of the de- 
 partment. Then for the first time Avas he in a 
 position to devise and to act upon a comprehen- 
 sive plan. 
 
 The rebel garrisons in Kentuck}^ had then been 
 abandoned. The Cumberland River was open to 
 a point above Nashville, and the Tennessee was 
 in our possession from its mouth to Eastport. 
 
 Much had been accomplished, but the Missis- 
 sippi River was still held by the rebels at Vicks- 
 burg and Port Hudson. After the battle and vic- 
 tory at Corinth, in October, the movement on 
 Vicksburg began. 
 
 The winter was spent in unsuccessful attempts 
 to overcome the impediments interposed by the 
 streams and bayous on the east and on the west 
 of the Mississippi River, but in that winter, filled 
 with toil, and suffering, and sacrifices, the final 
 and successful plan of operations was matured. 
 
 General Grant originated the plan, and he be- 
 lieved in the possibility of its successful execution. 
 And never was a commander better supported by 
 
190 
 
 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 his subordinates ; and never, perhaps, was there a 
 body of men, the officers, the rank and file, more 
 united or more resolute in the purpose to accom- 
 plish what had been undertaken. 
 
 The passage of the batteries on the Mississippi 
 River at Vicksburg by the gunboats and trans- 
 ports, the march of the army on the west bank of 
 the river, the bridging of bayous, the crossing of 
 the Mississippi, the landing upon the river-bottom 
 between Bruinsburg and Grand Gulf, when the 
 forces of the enemy within a circuit of fifty miles 
 numbered not less than sixty thousand men, the 
 battle and capture of the Highlands of Port Gib- 
 son, the battles and victories of Raymond, of Jack- 
 son, of Champion's Hill, of Black River Bridge, 
 the final investment of Vicksburg, and all between 
 the 1 6th of April and the 19th day of May, con- 
 stitute a dramatic chapter in military history for 
 which no parallel can be found in the annals of 
 modern warfare. 
 
 To be sure, Vicksburg had not fallen, but its 
 capture was made certain. The Confederate forces 
 had been divided. One army was within the forti- 
 fications of the town, and soon to be subject to a 
 close siege on all sides. The other army was to 
 the south of the Big Black River, where it was 
 confronted by General Sherman at the head of an 
 adequate force. 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN, 
 
 191 
 
 In a few weeks, at farthest, Vicksburg and the 
 army of Pemberton must surrender; the Missis- 
 sippi River be opened for military purposes ; the 
 Confederacy divided, the suppKes for the armies 
 of the East diminished materially, and the down- 
 fall of the Confederacy itself made certain beyond 
 the possibilities of chance or fate. 
 
 The surrender of Vicksburg, the 4th day of 
 July, 1863, brought that memorable campaign to 
 a close ; and with its close and the victory at 
 Gettysburg all thought of failure was banished 
 from the minds of the loyal citizens of the North. 
 
 From this we turn now to his next great day. 
 
 The fatal battle of Chickamauga was fought on 
 the 19th and 20th days of September, 1863. Rose- 
 crans retreated with his disorganized army to 
 Chattanooga, soon to be followed by General 
 George H. Thomas, who had held his ground 
 at Chickamauga. The Confederates established 
 themselves on Lookout Mountain, at the south- 
 w^est and west of the town, and also upon Mis- 
 sionary Ridge, which commanded the valley from 
 the east and northeast. 
 
 General Bragg, then in command of the Con- 
 federate forces, constructed immediately a line of 
 earthworks from the northerly point on Lookout 
 Mountain to a point on Missionary Ridge near its 
 southwestern extremity, and thence along the 
 
192 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 Ridge to the north end. To the west was the 
 long line of the Tennessee River, disappearing at 
 the base of Lookout Mountain. 
 
 To the north was the only open passage 
 through which supplies were received from Nash- 
 ville over a devastated country and by a circui- 
 tous route not less than sixty miles in length. By 
 the 20th of October the army was on half-rations, 
 the animals were exhausted, and many thousands 
 had died of starvation. A retreat under such cir- 
 cumstances would have resulted in the loss of the 
 army. At that moment the Department of the 
 Mississippi was created, which included all the ter- 
 ritory west of the AUeghanies, except the depart- 
 ment of General Banks in the southwest, and Gen- 
 eral Grant was placed in command. General Rose- 
 crans was relieved immediately, and General 
 George H. Thomas was assigned to his place. 
 
 General Grant reached Chattanooga on the 
 23d day of October, at nightfall. At that time 
 the Confederate authorities, civil and military, had 
 no doubt about the surrender of our army in a few 
 days, and upon such terms as they should dictate. 
 This was the opinion of Jefferson Davis, who had 
 visited the theatre of war the 15th day of October. 
 On the 24th of October, the day after Grant's ar- 
 rival, the orders of detail were issued for raising 
 the siege of Chattanooga ; and, on the 27th, the or- 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 193 
 
 ders had been so far executed that the Army of 
 the Cumberland was free to receive supplies and 
 re-enforcements, and as early as the 29th of October 
 it was on an independent footing, with an abun- 
 dance of supplies and material of war, and prepar- 
 ing for an offensive movement. That movement 
 was made, and it terminated in the battle and vic- 
 tory of Missionary Ridge. General Grant's own 
 words are not an exaggeration : '' It would have 
 been a victory to have got the army away from 
 Chattanooga safely. It Avas manifold greater to 
 defeat, and nearly destroy, the besieging army." 
 
 The fruits of the victory were six thousand 
 prisoners, forty pieces of artillery, seven thousand 
 stands of small-arms, and large quantities of other 
 material of war. 
 
 The siege of Knoxville was raised and Burnside 
 was set free, without a struggle, and without other 
 assistance. Is it too much to claim that the Army 
 of the Cumberland was saved by the presence and 
 genius of General Grant? And, if not, then the 
 day that he raised the siege of Chattanooga was a 
 memorable day in his career. 
 
 He then came to the command of all the armies 
 of the republic — numbering a million men — a 
 greater force than ever elsewhere or at any other 
 time recognized the rule and leadership of one 
 man. Proportionately great was the field of opera- 
 
194 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 tions. Its boundaries were the line oi tlic Missis- 
 sippi River, the frontier from beyond the Missis- 
 sippi to the Atlantic Ocean, then along the coast 
 of the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico to Texas, 
 with one army penetrating to the center of the 
 Confederacy and others moving upon and besieg- 
 ing Richmond ; and all without instructions from 
 the President or War Department, and all without 
 the aid of a council of war. The end was the 
 surrender of Lee and the army of brave men who 
 had stood at the gateway of the Confederacy for 
 four years : Richmond fell, the leaders of the 
 rebellion were dispersed, and the Union was 
 saved. 
 
 That was the great day of General Grant's life, 
 and of the results of that day's doings no power, 
 that is human merely, can form a just estimate. 
 He lived to see the Union he had so contributed to 
 save compacted and in a good degree harmonized. 
 Not onl}^ had the institution of slavery disap- 
 peared, but the ancient faith in the economy and 
 rightfulness of slavery had disappeared also. Of 
 all the millions of his fellow-citizens there was not 
 one in power or station who ventured to avow his 
 hostility to the Union, or to the fundamental insti- 
 tutions of the Government under which we are 
 living. These are the fruits of a victory to be en- 
 joyed by us and by our successors through many. 
 
THE SOLDIER AND STATESMAN. 195 
 
 many generations — fruits to be shared equally by 
 the vanquished and b}^ the victors. 
 
 From that day forth the United States has been 
 recognized as one of the leading nations of the 
 world. Upon the opening of the rebellion in 1861, 
 the enemies of republican institutions accepted the 
 event with satisfaction, as furnishing proof conclu- 
 sive that such institutions could not be maintained. 
 The surrender of Lee in 1865 banished that idea 
 from the minds of statesmen the world over. 
 
 The tendency now everywhere is to local self- 
 government, the aggregation of small states, the 
 concentration of powers for national and interna- 
 tional purposes, coupled with a system of responsi- 
 bility on the part of the Executive. 
 
 It was the theory of dynastic rulers that pop- 
 ular governments were limited to small states. 
 That error has now passed away, but by all former 
 generations of European statesmen the United 
 States was not treated as an exception. 
 
 At present the attention of the world is fixed 
 upon our system of government. Here institutions 
 are free ; here everywhere there is local self-gov- 
 ernment ; here, generally, the equal political rights 
 of men are acknowledged ; here our institutions 
 recognize no distinctions of race, and the thought 
 of such distinctions is fast disappearing from the 
 public mind ; and here the central Government is 
 
1^6 GENERAL GRANT 
 
 endowed with ample powers for every exigency 
 of national life. Here every man is a citizen, and 
 every citizen is at the same time a member of the 
 ruling class and a member of the subject class. 
 The germs of this policy of national life, minute in 
 its details and comprehensive in its scope, are 
 found in the institutions of the colonies North and 
 South, but their development was delayed until 
 the Confederacy was overthrown, slavery de- 
 stroyed, and the extreme doctrine of State rights 
 had perished. 
 
 The new Government rests upon co-ordinate 
 political propositions — the equality of men in the 
 States and the equality of States in the Union. 
 The old Constitution recognized the equality of 
 States, but there was no national citizenship and no 
 recognition of the equality of men. 
 
 Neither in principle nor in public policy was 
 the change as important from the rule of George 
 the Third to the Administration of General Wash- 
 ington, as from the Administration of James Buch- 
 anan to that of General Grant at the commence- 
 ment of his second term. 
 
 In this later period old ideas disappeared ; old 
 institutions crumbled and fell ; new ideas were de- 
 veloped, and new institutions were created. 
 
 The overthrow of the Confederacy made possi- 
 ble all these changes. The future of America was 
 
THE SOLDIER ANL STATESMAN. 197 
 
 shaped by that event. The nation accepted the 
 new ideas, it created new institutions, and it entered 
 upon a new career. 
 
 It is not for this day nor for this generation 
 to estimate General Grant's share in contributing 
 to these events so accompUshed. 
 
 The Proclamation of Emancipation was made 
 practical, absolute, and irreversible by the victories 
 of General Grant. The Proclamation of Emanci- 
 pation made the victories of General Grant possi- 
 ble. Thus, by the combined labors of Lincoln and 
 Grant, the system of slavery was abolished, and the 
 Union re-established on the basis of the equality of 
 men in the States and the equality of States in the 
 Union. Thus are they united in fame, and thus 
 are they destined to a common inheritance of 
 glory. 
 
 History will reject the language of eulogy, but 
 it must deal with the important events which sig- 
 nalize General Grant's military career. And can 
 it fail to place him with the small number of great 
 generals since Julius Csesar ? 
 
 The successes of life are not accidents. For 
 four years General Grant was tested by the se- 
 verest ordeals. Other men might have saved the 
 country ; but he only had the opportunity and the 
 capacity to save the country. If, upon the record 
 of General Grant, we deny to him intellectual pow- 
 
198 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 er of a high order, as well as genius in affairs of 
 war, we have then no longer a test of greatness or 
 superiority among men. 
 
 Thus have I attempted to communicate my im- 
 pressions concerning General Grant. I knew him 
 when he was in health, in prosperit}^ and in power. 
 I knew him when he was borne down by adversity 
 and assailed by a fatal disease. In all conditions he 
 was the same man. No change of fortune could 
 change his character. He was imperturbable in 
 spirit, obedient to the demands of justice, constant 
 and faithful in his friendships, and to the last he 
 was devoted to the country that he had served 
 and saved. 
 
GENERAL GRANT— THIRD TERM.^ 
 
 In politics, morals, and law there is a field for 
 presumption. The field is a limited one, usually, 
 but within it the conclusions drawn are as trust- 
 worthy as are those which, in the broader field of 
 testimony, rest upon positive proof. 
 
 In politics, and in the light of this day, no pre- 
 sumption can be more just and reasonable than the 
 presumption that every Democrat is opposed to 
 the election of General Grant to the presidency for 
 a third time. And this opposition by Democrats 
 is not on account of the example of Washington, or 
 of the tradition of a century, or of the resolution of 
 the House of Representatives of 1875; for they 
 were quite as fiercely opposed to his first election 
 in 1868, to his second election in 1872, when the ex- 
 ample of Washington was inapplicable, when the 
 tradition of the fathers could not be cited, when 
 the resolution of the House of Representatives did 
 not exist. 
 
 Among Democrats the most conspicuous Demo- 
 
 * From " The North American Review," April, 1880. 
 
200 GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 crat in this opposition to General Grant was Judge 
 Black, of Pennsylvania ; and, in the March number 
 of *' The North American Review," he gives his 
 friends the benefit of his argument against the 
 third election of General Grant, and inflicts upon 
 his enemies the full force of his passions. He has 
 seen nothing good or even hopeful in the events 
 of the last twenty years ; and he has read of noth- 
 ing bad in the annals of Rome, where chiefly his 
 studies appear to have been, whether as republic or 
 empire, which he does not apprehend for America 
 in case of the election of General Grant for a third 
 term. His argument against the election of any 
 person to the presidency a third time is based 
 upon the example of Washington and the declara- 
 tions of Jefferson. The authorities are good, and, 
 when there was no trustworthy history, either for 
 example or warning, except that of ancient Rome 
 and the histories of the mediaeval and feudal states 
 of Europe, the argument itself was not bad. 
 
 In the course of his article Judge Black has 
 made many references to ancient Rome. His ex- 
 cellence herein is admitted. At best I can make 
 but one. Gibbon says of the various modes of 
 worship which prevailed in the Roman world that 
 ''all were considered by the people as equall}^ true, 
 by the philosophers as equally false, and by the 
 magistrates as equally useful." There is no vio- 
 
THIRD TERM, 201 
 
 lence in the assumption that Judge Black has been 
 so absorbed by the thought that the example of 
 Washington and the teachings of Jefferson could 
 be made useful to the Democratic party in this its 
 exigency, that he has neglected to consider with 
 care the question whether, after a century of expe- 
 rience in free popular government, it is indeed true 
 that the example of Washington in this respect is 
 the only remaining bulwark for the protection of 
 our assailed and imperiled liberties. If this be so, 
 then the reputation of Washington will need a 
 more ardent — perhaps I may not be permitted to 
 say a more able — defender than even Judge Black 
 himself. 
 
 Washington was President of the Convention 
 which framed the Constitution of the United 
 States. That Constitution makes every male citi- 
 zen who has attained the age of thirty-fiv^e years 
 eliofible and re-elisrible, without limitation as to 
 times, to the office of President of the United 
 States. If the peril to the country from the re- 
 peated election of the same person to the presi- 
 dency was believed by Washington and his associ- 
 ates to be such as Judge Black now represents it, 
 then Washington and his associates are AvhoUy 
 without excuse in their neglect of a great public 
 duty. Nor is it an answer or defense to say that 
 Washington intended to leave an example to his 
 
202 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 countrymen which, in the course of time, would, as 
 a tradition, become as powerful for the protection 
 of their rights and liberties as would be a written 
 constitutional inhibition. Life is uncertain ; death 
 is certain ; and in 1787 Washington could have had 
 no assurance that he would be permitted by Divine 
 Providence to hold the office of President for eight 
 3^ears, and at the close to give an example of volun- 
 tary abstention from w^orldly honors which should 
 not only receive the approval of the living genera- 
 tion, but also command the respect and obedience 
 of his countrymen in all ages of the republic. 
 
 Mr. Jefferson was not a member of the Conven- 
 tion, and it is well known that its proceedings in 
 many particulars were not approved by him. But 
 to Mr. Jefferson, more than to any one else, is the 
 country indebted for the first eleven articles of 
 amendment to the Constitution — articles designed 
 to render the liberties of the people more secure 
 against the encroachments of power. But these 
 amendments are silent in regard to the presidential 
 office. Provision is made, however, that persons 
 charged w^ith crime shall have a perpetual consti- 
 tutional right to compulsory process for obtaining 
 witnesses in their favor ; that in all suits at com- 
 mon law, where the value in controversy exceeds 
 twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be 
 preserved ; and yet no constitutional safeguard is 
 
THIRD TERM, 
 
 203 
 
 erected against a manifest peril, a continuing men- 
 ace to the institutions and liberties of an entire 
 people. 
 
 If Washington and Jefferson estimated the peril 
 as Judge Black now says the peril was estimated 
 by them, and as in fact the peril really is, who is 
 sufficient to offer a defense, an excuse, or even an 
 apology for the Father of his Country or the Apos- 
 tle of Liberty? The original Constitution was 
 wrought out '\\\ the presence and under the lead of 
 Washington, and the amendments were framed at 
 the dictation of Jefferson. Eight words in the 
 Constitution or in an amendment would have fur- 
 nished ample protection for all time. The words 
 are not there, and why not? Surely not because 
 Washington and Jefferson were not patriotic men, 
 nor because they were not far-seeing men, but be- 
 cause upon reflection they thought it unwise to 
 place any limitation upon the power of the people 
 to elect their rulers at stated times and in pre- 
 scribed ways. The country is not lacking in ven- 
 eration for Washington and Jefferson. That ven- 
 eration will survive the criticism of Judge Howe, 
 it will outlive the defense of Judge Black. And 
 may one inquire whether there is anything in the 
 example of Washington which warrants the opin- 
 ion that this Government has not constitutional 
 power to protect its own life ; or anything in the 
 
204 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 teachings of Jefferson inconsistent with the emanci, 
 pation of the slaves, their elevation to citizenship, 
 their equality under the Constitution of the coun« 
 try ; or if there is anything in the example or 
 teachings of Washington or Jefferson which justi- 
 fies Judge Black and the party that he represents 
 in the attempt that was made to overthrow the 
 Union, in the resistance to emancipation, and in the 
 continuing effort to subvert the Government by 
 the forcible suppression of the popular will? In 
 every age there are those who build the tombs of 
 the prophets and garnish the sepulchres of the 
 righteous, and yet deny justice to the living gener- 
 ation of men. 
 
 If Judge Black^s argument against a third term 
 shall receive only that degree of favor which has 
 been accorded to his public teachings for the last 
 twenty years, he may be assured that the chief rea- 
 son is to be found in the conduct of the party with 
 which he is identified. That conduct has awak- 
 ened the most serious apprehensions in the public 
 mind touching the security of property and of per- 
 sonal political rights ; and these apprehensions not 
 only justify but require the people to place the 
 helm of government in the hands of the man best 
 qualified to guide the ship of state safely through 
 stormy seas. In quiet times the tradition of the 
 fathers would be respected, and this without a 
 
THIRD TERM, 
 
 205 
 
 careful examination of its value or of its applica- 
 bility to modern affairs. It is to the teachings of 
 Judge Black, and the associates of Judge Black, 
 that the country is indebted for the circumstances 
 in our public life which compel us to canvass the 
 tradition upon its merits, to examine the circum- 
 stances in which it had its origin, ancj to consider 
 and determine whether its authority is such, or its 
 intrinsic value such, that in a grave exigency in 
 public affairs, and in obedience to that tradition 
 alone, the man best qualified to protect personal 
 rights and to defend public interests shall be ex- 
 cluded from the public service. If a strong man 
 is needed at the head of the Government, the ne- 
 cessity arises from the circumstance that the spirit 
 of rebellion, of resistance to the Constitution, is 
 manifested by a large class of citizens. Those citi- 
 zens, without exception, are Democrats, and they 
 receive aid and encouragement from the Demo, 
 cratic part3^ It is the purpose of the Republican 
 party to suppress that spirit ; to render it power- 
 less, absolutely, both in personal and in public 
 affairs. And it may happen that, in accomplishing 
 this result, the example of Washington and the 
 tradition of the fathers will be disregarded. I ad- 
 mit the example, I recognize the tradition, and, 
 with these admissions, it is my purpose to consider 
 their binding force upon the country, their histori- 
 
2o6 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 cal origin, their intrinsic value as guides in public 
 affairs. 
 
 There has been a serious effort to establish the 
 proposition that what is called '' the tradition of 
 the fathers " is as binding upon the country as a 
 limitation upon the power of the people would be 
 if the restriction \vere a part of the Constitution 
 itself. Judge Black sustains the notion, and gives 
 to it the benefit of his rhetoric and his emphasis. 
 Statement alone is sufficient upon this point. Argu- 
 ment is unnecessary. The opinions of Washington 
 and Jefferson are entitled to the highest considera- 
 tion as opinions — nothing more. We refuse to al- 
 low the hands of dead men to control the soil of 
 the country ; and shall we without inquiry, w^ith- 
 out a judgment of our own, permit the opinions of 
 dead men to control the thought and the policy of 
 the country? We have changed, indeed in some 
 particulars we have annihilated, the Constitution 
 of Washington, the Constitution of the fathers, 
 and therefor take equal honor for ourselves and 
 for them, in the belief that if they were among us 
 they would accept and ratify with acclaim the 
 changes that have been made. 
 
 And is the unwritten law more sacred? May 
 the people annul the written law of the fathers, 
 and still be bound perpetually by their traditions ? 
 It would not be strange if in these later days, and 
 
THIRD TERM. 
 
 207 
 
 for a particular reason, the importance of Washing- 
 ton's example had been unduly magnified. When 
 he prepared his Farewell xA.ddress to his country- 
 men, the most important document that ever came 
 from his pen, he omitted all reference to his own 
 example in retiring from the presidential office 
 at the end of the second term, as imposing upon 
 all his successors a corresponding practice. In 
 November, 1806, the Legislature of Vermont nomi- 
 nated Mr. Jefferson for a third election to the 
 presidency. If he had then realized the dangers 
 of such a proceeding as they are now set forth by 
 Judge Black, would he have waited till December, 
 1807, before he announced his purpose not to be a 
 candidate for re-election? 
 
 It is a satisfaction that, even at this somewhat 
 advanced stage of the discussion, I am in accord 
 with Judge Black upon one point. He says, '' The 
 mere authority of names, however great, ought not 
 to command our assent." This is a sound proposi- 
 tion in ethics, in politics, and in law. i\ll through 
 these weary pages I am endeavoring to demon- 
 strate its wisdom in matters of politics, and I re- 
 lieve the tediousness of the hour by a single illus- 
 tration designed to show its importance in matters 
 of law. 
 
 Judge Black, speaking of real estate, and not of 
 politics, says, " A lease for years, renewable and 
 
2o8 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 always renewed, gives the tenant an estate without 
 end, and makes him lord of the fee." This sen- 
 tence is admirably turned, and its rhetoric is above 
 criticism or complaint : but as a legal proposition 
 it is only true when some words, possibly implied 
 by the writer, are clearly expressed. It should 
 be written, " A lease for years, renewable at the 
 will of the tenant, and always renewed, gives the 
 tenant an estate without end, and makes him lord 
 of the fee"; and, thus written, its inapplicability 
 to the question under discussion is fully exposed. 
 The tenure of the office of President of the United 
 States is not renewable at the will of the tenant, 
 and therefore the tenant can never become lord of 
 the fee. It is only renewable at the will of the 
 lord of the fee — the people ; and, being so renew- 
 able only, the fee must ever remain in the lord, 
 however often the lease may be renewed. 
 
 But it is not open to doubt that there has been 
 a general disinclination in the American public 
 mind to the election of the same person to the 
 presidency a third time ; and there is as little 
 doubt that that disinclination is less general and 
 less vigorous than it was three years ago. It is, 
 however, as old as the Government. It had its 
 roots in the experience of the colonists. In Europe 
 hereditary power had fostered standing armies, 
 and standing armies had maintained hereditary 
 
THIRD TERM. 209 
 
 power. Both ^vere the enemies of personal liberty 
 and popular rights. It was the purpose of the 
 founders of our Government to render standinsf 
 armies unnecessary, and the possession of heredi- 
 tary power impossible. If the experience of a 
 century is an adequate test, the end they sought 
 has been attained. They had observed, also, that 
 the possession of power, by virtue of ofhce, for un- 
 limited periods of time, tended to the establish- 
 ment of dynastic systems and to their recognition 
 by the people. Hence provision was made in all 
 our Constitutions, State and national, for frequent 
 elections in the legislative and executive depart- 
 ments of Government. But these apprehensions, 
 whether v/ise or not, did not lead the founders of 
 the republic to the adoption of a system which 
 limited the powers of the people or cast a doubt 
 upon their capacity for self-government. 
 
 The term of the presidential ofhce was limited 
 to four years, but the constitutional ability of the 
 people to continue one person in the ofhce through 
 many terms was admitted without limit. If the 
 men who framed the Constitution apprehended 
 evils from a third or even a second election of the 
 same person to the presidency, they accepted those 
 possible evils in preference to a limitation of the 
 power of the people in the choice of their rulers. 
 The tenure of office is fixed, but the Constitution 
 
2IO GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 is silent upon the question whether it is wise or 
 unwise to continue the same person in office for 
 more than one term. 
 
 Washington avoided a third term, and his ex- 
 ample has had large influence in leading the coun- 
 try to accept the opinion that a contrary policy is 
 fraught with danger to the public liberties. Wash- 
 ington's motives and reasons are not clear. He 
 was, however, no longer young. His best years 
 had been spent in the public service, and he natu- 
 rally yearned for the peace and quiet of private 
 life. Nor can there be a doubt that, superadded to 
 these personal considerations, was the thought that 
 his example might serve as a restraint in case of 
 the appearance of a popular leader who should 
 seek to subvert the Government through succes- 
 sive elections to the presidency. 
 
 The system of government which Washington 
 and his associates had inaugurated w'as a novel 
 system. Government of the people, by the peo- 
 ple, and for the people was an experiment. No 
 one could then foresay what their capacity would 
 prove to be in emergencies, or even in quiet times. 
 The power of rulers in dynastic countries Avas 
 much more absolute a century ago than it now is, 
 and the extent of that power measured the danger 
 to which, in the estimation of our fathers, free peo- 
 ples wxre exposed. 
 
THIRD TERM, 211 
 
 Washington's example was set off and made 
 impressive by the phenomenon of a Corsican cor- 
 poral passing at a bound, as it were, from the ruins 
 of a republic to the throne of an empire, displacing 
 kings and rulers, and founding a family dynasty 
 that has lasted nearly a century, either in power 
 or contending for power. 
 
 The experience of Europe gave rise to the 
 opinion in America that it is dangerous to permit 
 the same person to continue in the chief executive 
 office for a long period of time ; but the tradition- 
 ary idea that the danger-line in the presidential 
 office is the line between the second and third 
 terms, is due to the influence of Washington's 
 example. 
 
 Aside from governments in which office is con- 
 ferred by popular suffrage constitutionally enjoyed 
 and exercised, there are three methods of gaining 
 and holding power: 
 
 I. Physical force. 2. The claim of a right to 
 rule, sometimes called the divine right to rule, 
 which is the result of the enjoyment of power in 
 a family for a long period of time. 3. Recognized 
 mental and moral supremacy. 
 
 As to the first mode — the establishment of a 
 personal or family government in the United States 
 by physical force — it is to be said that the success 
 of such an undertaking, or even its attempt, is too 
 
212 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 remote in the logic of events, and too improbable 
 when judged by experience or tested by reason, 
 to warrant argument or to command attention. 
 The destruction of a government is always a pos- 
 sible fact, and no one can predict the consequences ; 
 but, if its overthrow is by force, the aggressive 
 actors are parties out of powxr, and its defense, 
 whether vigorous or weak, is by those in power. 
 
 Moreover, it is to be said that the opportunity 
 for a president to seize the Government by force 
 is as great in the first or second term as it can be 
 in the third ; and the probability that a man who 
 had not been tem.pted, or who had not yielded, in 
 the first and second terms would prove faithless 
 in the third, is a view of human nature contrary to 
 all human experience. And there is less prob- 
 ability that the possession of the presidency for 
 eight, or twelve, or twenty years would induce 
 even one person in the United States to admit a 
 divine right to rule either in the occupant of the 
 office or his family. 
 
 Lastly, if mental or moral supremacy were rec- 
 ognized, that recognition would find expression in 
 the United States by an election through constitu- 
 tional means. 
 
 There are two theories of political action, the- 
 ories inconsistent with each other, both unsound 
 and both maintained and propagated by the same 
 
THIRD TERM, 21 3 
 
 body of theorists in matters of government. One 
 theory is that men in subordinate places should be 
 continued in those places as long as they are faith- 
 ful and competent, and this without regard to 
 their political opinions or to the qualifications of 
 contestants; and the other theory is that in the 
 chief place of government, where experience, ca- 
 pacity, and integrity are of more consequence than 
 in any subordinate place, the occupant should be 
 excluded after four or certainly after eight years' 
 experience, however competent, wise, and just he 
 may have proved himself to be. If a public pohcy 
 were to be based upon reason, the stronger argu- 
 ments would be found in favor of continuing the 
 President in office as long as his services were ac- 
 ceptable to the people. 
 
 In truth, however, there is no field for argu- 
 ment. No man has a right to an office, but it is 
 the right of the people to select men for place who 
 in their opinion are best qualified to do the work 
 they wish to have done. 
 
 Where, by the Constitution, appointments are 
 vested in the President, in the courts, or in the 
 heads of departments, the same right rests in those 
 constitutional agents of the people ; and it becomes 
 their duty to continue men in office when the pub- 
 lic interests will be best promoted by so doing, and 
 to remove men from office when their places can 
 
214 
 
 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 be supplied by persons more capable of rendering 
 efficient service. There can be no title to office, 
 and there ought to be no rule of absolute exclusion 
 from office. 
 
 In public affairs, as in private life, it is true usu- 
 ally that our apprehensions are not awakened by 
 the dangers that actually menace us. Executive 
 power and the influence of office-holders are the 
 dangers apprehended that now most excite the 
 public mind. It may not be out of place to say 
 that there are less than eighty thousand office-hold- 
 ers under the national Government, and that of 
 these not twenty thousand are appointed by the 
 President directly, the rest receiving their commis- 
 sions from heads of department and the courts. 
 This army of office-holders numbers one to about 
 six hundred inhabitants, and there are probably 
 not another eighty thousand intelligent men in the 
 country whose political influence is less than theirs. 
 If they support an Administration, they are char- 
 acterized as sycophants ; if they put themselves in 
 opposition to it, they are branded as ingrates ; and 
 if they are silent, they are treated as cowards. 
 There is indeed no place in politics for an office- 
 holder by executive appointment where he can 
 exert the influence that is accorded to an inde- 
 pendent, energetic private citizen. Office-holders 
 should be free to express their opinions ; above all; 
 
THIRD TERM. 21 5 
 
 they should be free from any constraint proceeding 
 from the appointing power ; but in no aspect of af- 
 fairs are they a dangerous class in our politics. 
 And it is a kindred weakness to suppose that the lib- 
 erties of the country are in danger from executive 
 powers. Executive authority is diminishing in 
 China, Japan, Russia, Germany, and England, and 
 in all those countries the jurisdiction of the legisla- 
 tive branches of government is broader, firmer, 
 and more respected than ever before. With us 
 power tends toward Congress, and in Congress to 
 the House of Representatives. In these four years 
 we have seen the just and proper authority of the 
 President restrained and paralyzed by the House 
 of Representatives, and during the Administration 
 of Andrew Johnson his dispositions and purposes 
 were checked and thwarted by the same branch of 
 the Government. 
 
 The liberties of the country can not be subverted 
 as long as that branch of the Government which 
 can open and close the Treasury of the nation at its 
 sovereign will is true to its duty ; and that branch 
 will remain true to its duty while the constituency 
 is both intelligent and honest. I venture to assert 
 that there is no present danger from the compara- 
 tively small body of office-holders, none from presi- 
 dential patronage, and nothing of imminent peril, 
 indeed, from the numerous evils marshaled under 
 
2i6 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 the term maladministration^ from which no country 
 is ever entirely free. 
 
 With these observations upon questions of 
 minor importance, I turn to the one topic of su- 
 preme interest and of real peril — the purpose of 
 the old slaveholding class to subvert the Govern- 
 ment by securing the rule of a minority, first in 
 the South, and then consequently in all the affairs 
 of the repubhc ; and I shall then proceed to 
 show how this purpose may be most successfully 
 thwarted by the election of General Grant. 
 
 We all know that this undertaking in the end 
 must prove a failure ; but the speedy overthrow of 
 the scheme, and the speedy dissipation of the idea 
 on which the scheme rests, are essential to the rep- 
 utation and welfare of the country. On the other 
 hand, the prosecution of the scheme is an obstacle 
 to business, a constant peril to the public peace, a 
 direct assault upon the interests of labor in every 
 section, and a menace to free government in all 
 parts of the world. It is a delusion, a criminal de- 
 lusion, to accept the notion that there can be un- 
 broken peace and continuing prosperity while any 
 number of citizens are, as a public policy of com- 
 munities and States, deprived of their equal rights. 
 
 And it is a delusion not less criminal and even 
 more dangerous to accept the suggestion that the 
 old free States, containing a majority of the people 
 
THIRD TERM. 
 
 217 
 
 of the country, will peacefully, and through a 
 series of years, submit to the rule of men in the 
 executive and legislative branches of the Govern- 
 ment, who take office and wield power through 
 proceedings that are systematically tainted with 
 fraud or crimsoned with innocent blood. 
 
 It is clearly established beyond the demands of 
 legal or moral proof that there are persons in the 
 Senate of the United States who have no better 
 right in equity to the places they occupy than they 
 have to seats in the Commons of Great Britain. 
 The same is true of the House of Representatives, 
 and these persons constitute the majority in each 
 branch. Thus has our former indifference to the 
 fortunes of our brethren in the South been visited 
 by a direct penalty upon ourselves. 
 
 I proceed now to state our demand of the 
 South, and in that statement I disclose also the evil 
 of which we complain. 
 
 Our demand, speaking generally, is, that in all 
 the States of the Union every person who has a 
 right to vote shall be permitted to vote ; that his 
 vote shall be counted ; that it shall be honestly val- 
 ued ; and that the governments created by the ma- 
 jorities shall be set up and recognized. The con- 
 test is upon this proposition, and upon this propo- 
 sition the contest will be waged until it is accepted, 
 practically, in all parts of the Union. Not from 
 
2i8 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 hostility to the South will this contest be carried 
 on ; but in regard to the rights of our fellow-citi- 
 zens there and in defense of our rights as citizens 
 of the republic will the contest be prosecuted to 
 the end, whether near or remote. Under the S3^s- 
 tem of suppression and wrong now existing, the 
 vote of a white citizen in South Carolina or Mis- 
 sissippi is, as a fact in government, equal to the 
 votes of three . citizens in Massachusetts, New 
 York, or Illinois. Such inequahty can not long 
 continue, but, if its long continuance were possible, 
 it would work the destruction of the Government 
 itself. The issue, then, is a vital one ; and, if the 
 ultimate result be not uncertain, then the more im- 
 portant it is to bring the contest to a close speedily. 
 Delay gives birth to hopes that must perish, embit- 
 ters the contestants, and checks or paralyzes pri- 
 vate and public prosperity. 
 
 There is not a citizen of the North who is free 
 from responsibility or beyond the reach of this evil. 
 It touches with its malignant hand the humblest 
 laborer and the wealthiest capitalist. The laborer 
 of the South is driven in poverty from his home, 
 and the laborer of the North is cursed with an un- 
 natural and unhealthy competition. Capital loaned 
 or used in the South is without security. It finds 
 no protection either in local justice or in public 
 faith. By the force of events the laboring popula- 
 
THIRD TERM. 219 
 
 tion of the South is driven into the North, and by 
 the force of the same events the South is closed to 
 the labor and capital of the world. In many as- 
 pects the South is the chief sufferer. Even now it 
 approaches the admission that the abohtion of 
 slav^ery was a good, and in twenty years more it 
 will accept the truth that there was no way to 
 prosperity except through justice to the black 
 man. 
 
 As States multiply, as population increases, as 
 representative constituencies are enlarged, the 
 power of the individual voter and of the State 
 diminishes. When the population of the Union 
 was but three million and the States were but 
 thirteen, the voice of Massachusetts in the Senate 
 was as two to twenty-six. In less than a hundred 
 years, two thirds of her power, speaking relatively 
 and numerically, have disappeared. Her vote in 
 the Senate is now only two in seventy-six, or one in 
 thirty-eight. 
 
 During the same period, however, the means of 
 communication and of influence have increased 
 even more rapidly than has been the increase of 
 population. Maine and California are nearer to 
 each other than were New Hampshire and Penn- 
 sylvania a hundred years ago ; and there are now 
 no States so distant from the capital of the country 
 as were South Carolina and Georgia when the 
 15 
 
220 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 Union was formed. The articles of " The Feder- 
 alist " were delayed through successive weeks be- 
 fore they reached impatient readers in distant parts 
 of the country, while now the news of the morning, 
 the market, the courts, the Congress, is furnished 
 with equal accuracy and fullness in Washington, in 
 Maine, in Texas, in California, and in Oregon. If 
 the power of the individual ballot is less than it 
 once was, the idea behind the ballot has gained a 
 hundred-fold in opportunity for development and 
 influence. 
 
 We are now, therefore, more concerned about 
 the idea which directs the ballot than we are about 
 the name, residence, or race of the voter. All 
 opinions and all politics have become local, and all 
 opinions and all politics have become national. 
 Political outrages in Maine, Louisiana, and South 
 Carolina disturb and endanger the poHtical rights 
 of men in every voting precinct and school dis- 
 trict of the Union. The sovereignty of the States 
 is not disputed seriously ; the supremacy, the neces- 
 sary, the inevitable, the constitutional supremacy 
 of the nation is everywhere more and more recog- 
 nized ; but there are communities which deny to 
 the General Government the power to protect a 
 citizen of the United States in his political rights 
 against domestic violence, and yet have no scruples 
 about invoking the aid of the Union against yellow 
 
THIRD TERM, 221 
 
 fever imported from Havana, or pleuro-pneumonia 
 threatened from Holland or Liverpool. 
 
 We are engaged in warm debate over an an- 
 cient tradition, whose origin is uncertain and 
 whose value is doubtful ; we vex the public ear 
 with discussions touching appointments to office, 
 the dangers of executive patronage, the power of 
 office-holders, the duties on quinine and steel ; and 
 yield a quiet submission to the rule of a Senate and 
 House of Representatives whose majorities were 
 secured by the grossest usurpations, made possible 
 only by the perpetration of the bloodiest of crimes. 
 
 In fine, public attention and the powers of Gov- 
 ernment are directed to topics of minor and tem- 
 porary importance, while the real peril to which 
 the country is exposed is either denied, or its con- 
 sideration is avoided, or its importance is dwarfed. 
 
 If any words of mine can have value in the con- 
 test now opening, those words must relate to the 
 issue I thus foreshadow. 
 
 The questions which I now treat as relatively 
 unimportant would be worthy of earnest public 
 consideration in ordinary times; but the grave 
 question — the gravest of all questions — now is. 
 Shall this Government be destroyed or subverted perina- 
 7iently by the usurpations of a minority ? 
 
 It may be unpleasant to revive recollections of 
 the war, but the war itself is intimately connected 
 
222 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 with recent events which have all the ear-marks of 
 a powerful and continuing- conspiracy. By the 
 prosecution of the war, or as resulting from its 
 successful issue, the Union was saved, slavery was 
 destroyed, the blacks were enfranchised, the repre-. 
 sentative power of the old slave States was in- 
 creased, and all by the efforts and concessions of the 
 Republican party. More than this : By the magna- 
 nimity of the same party the authors and leaders of 
 the rebellion were not only relieved from the pun- 
 ishment, and the peril of punishment, due to their 
 crimes, but they were restored to their temporal pos- 
 sessions, and, with few exceptions, to all their polit- 
 ical rights. How has this magnanimity been re- 
 paid ? By the seizure of State after State through 
 bloody scenes of crime and by criminal processes 
 of fraud. Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, Missis- 
 sippi, and South Carolina have been subjugated to 
 the Democratic party, by the perpetration of the 
 basest of crimes. Power thus acquired in those 
 States is perpetuated in the hands of an armed 
 minority by the continual practice of frauds which 
 the majority, intimidated by the recollection of the 
 bloody past, dare not either resist or expose. The 
 conspirators, encouraged by their successes in the 
 old slave States, and warned by the accumulating 
 evidences of an adverse public sentiment in the 
 North, sought, in their desperation, to render their 
 
THIRD TERM, 223 
 
 supremacy absolute by the fraudulent seizure of 
 the always free and intelligent State of Maine. 
 There they have met their first defeat, but the pro- 
 cesses employed connect the conspiracy in Maine 
 and the conspiracy of the South with as much cer- 
 tainty as we connect the drifting icebergs of the 
 Atlantic with the frozen seas of the North. 
 
 The patriotic men of the country are thus 
 brought face to face with a great conspiracy which 
 embraces the entire republic within the theatre of 
 its operations. The central force of that conspiracy 
 is the old slave powder. Its purpose is to subju- 
 gate the Government to the ideas and policy of 
 the slaveholding class. The chief means by which 
 this policy can be made successful is the entire 
 suppression of the negro vote in the fifteen old 
 slave States. For the time this has been accom- 
 plished, and the result is seen in a Democratic Sen- 
 ate and a Democratic House of Representatives. 
 Shall the presidency also be filled by a Democrat, 
 and by the same means ? 
 
 This conspiracy is within the Democratic party, 
 and the Democratic party is its ally. It is, there- 
 fore, quite unimportant to inquire whether the con- 
 spiracy embrace the entire party or not ; it is 
 enough that the party is subservient to the con- 
 spiracy. The conspiracy triumphs when the party 
 succeeds. The volumes of testimony taken in 
 
224 
 
 GENERAL GRANT. 
 
 Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Georgia, 
 Alabama, and South Carolina prove the existence 
 of the conspiracy. They prove, also, that its 
 agents were sometimes White-Leaguers, sometimes 
 Ku-klux, and sometimes Regulators, but that their 
 acts and policy were always the same. As the con- 
 spiracy operates within and gives direction to the 
 Democratic party, it is manifest that the Republi- 
 can party is the only political organization which 
 has either the disposition or the ability to change 
 the course of events. And it must be admitted 
 that the Republican party enters the contest defy- 
 ing a conspiracy which is already triumphant in 
 the South. Of the fifteen old slave States it has 
 usurped power in six, and suppressed freedom of 
 political action in all the rest. A free vote and an 
 honest count would insure the election of a Repub- 
 lican President and majorities in the Senate and 
 House of Representatives. This vote can not be 
 had, and the Republican party of the North is 
 thereby deprived of the aid of its natural and trust- 
 worth}' allies in the South. The conspiracy has 
 made the South a unit, and the sole reliance of the 
 Republican party is upon the North. In this exi- 
 gency that party must nominate a candidate who 
 can command an election, and who, when elected, 
 will possess abiUty and courage to meet and master 
 the difficulties that are sure to confront him. As it 
 
THIRD TERM, 225 
 
 was certain in i860 that the controlling force in the 
 Democratic party contemplated rebellion, so now in 
 1880, it is as certain that the controlling force in the 
 Democratic party contemplates the inauguration of 
 the candidate of that party, whether he is or is not 
 duly elected. The gravity of this contest can not 
 be exaggerated. We know beforehand that the 
 election of the Democratic candidate by honest 
 means is an impossibility ; and yet the declaration 
 of his election by the House and the Senate can be 
 averted only by a victory on the part of the Re- 
 publicans so decisive as to leave no ground for 
 criticism or claim. Such claim is least likely to be 
 made when the Repubhcan party is under the lead 
 of General Grant. General Grant is a man of 
 peace ; but his capacity and firmness in defense of 
 the rights and liberties of his country have been so 
 often tested in great exigencies, that no further 
 evidence is required either by friends or enemies. 
 
 If it be conceded that the States of the South, 
 where the conspirators have usurped the govern- 
 ments and suppressed the ballot, are to be counted 
 for the Democratic candidate, then the entire bur- 
 den of the contest is thrown upon the State of 
 New York. Without New York the Republican 
 party can not succeed ; with New York the Re- 
 publican party is sure of success. 
 
 The State of New York, in its position, in its 
 
226 GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 population, in its intelligence, in its industries, in its 
 wealth, is the representative American State. The 
 RepubUcans of that State, appreciating the solem- 
 nity of the crisis and the importance of their posi- 
 tion, have declared their purpose to support Gen- 
 eral Grant for the presidency. 
 
 This purpose has not been formed hastily, nor 
 has the expression of it been secured by extraordi- 
 nary means. Something may be due to leadership, 
 but men in masses do not change their opinions at 
 the dictation of leaders. I place Mr. Conkling 
 among the first of American statesmen, but I 
 should do great injustice to his constituents if I as- 
 serted or admitted that they advocate or accept 
 the nomination of General Grant under the influ- 
 ence of his lead. Indeed, not only in New York, 
 but throughout the entire North, the voters, the 
 rank and file of the party, as they are often desig- 
 nated, are more uniformly in favor of General 
 Grant than are the leaders. 
 
 They feel, they know, indeed, that every im- 
 portant pubHc interest will be safe in his hands. If 
 the industry of the country can be promoted, he is 
 its friend. If the public credit is assailed, he will 
 stand in its defense. If a dishonest financial policy 
 is proposed, he will not hesitate to resist it. If the 
 lawful authority of the national Government is dis- 
 puted, he will marshal and use all the resources of 
 
THIRD TERM. 227 
 
 that Government for the maintenance of that au- 
 thority. And if the constitutional rights of citi- 
 zens are invaded, he will employ every constitu- 
 tional power for their protection. No doubt other 
 persons proposed as candidates might act in these 
 matters precisely as General Grant would act, but 
 there is no one of them all who can command as 
 great a following. Beyond all others, he repre- 
 sents the military spirit and the patriotic sentiment 
 of the country. Almost to the exclusion of every 
 other, his name is known and revered by the col- 
 ored men of the South. It may not be possible to 
 redeem a single State from the domination of mill- 
 tary rule, but something will be gained if the vic- 
 tims of the usurpation are led to make one serious 
 effort more in defense of their rights. On the 
 other hand, the violators of law in the South fear 
 General Grant more than they fear any one else. 
 To them he is the representative of that power by 
 which the rebellion was overthrown, the Union re- 
 established, and slavery abolished. His mastery 
 over great difficulties in the past has taught them 
 the important lesson that he will confront with con- 
 fidence such difficulties as may arise in the future. 
 To the friends of law and order the nomination 
 of Geiieral Grant is the best security that can now 
 be had for peace and quiet ; to the enemies of law 
 and order his nomination means the exercise of 
 
228 GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 power and the administration of justice. Of this 
 they may be assured. 
 
 Most men who have been advanced to places of 
 honor and trust have been charged with ambition. 
 General Grant has not escaped the charge. The 
 ambition to acquire the faculty of honorably serv- 
 ing the public is a virtue ; the ambition to rise to 
 power by the overthrow of the public liberties is 
 a crime. General Grant may fairly claim the vir- 
 tue, and the suggestion that the crime can be laid 
 at his door is but the grossest calumny. In a pub- 
 lic experience of nearly forty years I have known 
 something of public men, and among them all I 
 can not recall one who gave more careful attention 
 to every subject within the sphere of his duty. 
 
 It may not be possible for any man to give 
 such assurances of fidelity to his country as to dis- 
 arm criticism and suppress the spirit of malignity. 
 General Grant has done all that it was possible for 
 him to do, and no one has done more. He entered 
 the service early in the war, and without regard to 
 rank or position. He, was never advanced upon 
 his own solicitation. He gave everything he had, 
 including the hazard of his life, to the service of 
 his country. He was placed at the head of our 
 armies by President Lincoln, and at the head of 
 our armies he brought the war to a conclusion. 
 When the hour of victory came he was the trusted 
 
THIRD TERM. 229 
 
 leader of a million enthusiastic, trained, veteran 
 warriors, and first of all he suggested and earnest- 
 ly urged the disbandment of this immense force, 
 and their speedy return to the arts and pursuits of 
 peace. Now, in private life, crowned with every 
 honor which his own or other lands can confer, he 
 neither seeks nor shuns further public service. In 
 the contest going on he takes no part. If by the 
 unsolicited votes of his countrymen he is again 
 called to the presidency, there ought not to be 
 even one citizen base enough to suggest that he is 
 animated by any purpose inconsistent with the 
 constitutional requirements of the office. 
 
 This article is already burdened with the per- 
 sonality of the writer, but, as the evil can not now 
 be remedied, I venture to increase it. 
 
 My relations to General Grant are those of sin- 
 cere friendship ; but, aside from that friendship, I 
 recognize no personal obligation binding me to 
 him. When he tendered me a place in his Cabi- 
 net, I declined it definitively ; and it was only when, 
 in peculiar circumstances, a further refusal seemed 
 wholly inconsistent with my duty as a citizen and 
 as a supporter of the Administration, that I ac- 
 cepted office. My position was an independent 
 one, and I can now pass judgment upon General 
 Grant with entire freedom. Pending the election 
 in November last, I spoke at Bunker Hill ; and 
 
230 GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 what I then said concerning General Grant I now 
 repeat : 
 
 " For the first time since General Grant left the 
 office of President, I speak his name in public, and 
 I do so now because I notice that many persons, 
 from whom I did not expect so early a recognition 
 of his character and services, have announced that 
 they are disposed to support him for the presi- 
 dency in 1880, or indicated the opinion that they 
 expect his nomination and election. I may say, 
 without assuming anything, that I have enjoyed 
 the friendship of General Grant for many years, 
 and I am not anxious that he should be again 
 President of the United States. But I foresee that 
 he is likely to be President. I do not know that 
 the purpose to elect him is universal, but it appears 
 to be very strong among the members of the Re- 
 publican party, and I am disposed to see why it is 
 that they look to General Grant. The instincts of 
 great bodies of men usually have some good foun- 
 dation, especially when the public sentiment runs 
 for a long time in one direction, and there is no 
 apparent moving force to the current. General 
 Grant has been around the world. He has been in 
 all the principal countries of Europe and of Asia, 
 and if in those countries severally there has been 
 one person, the ruler perhaps, who has been esti- 
 mated as a more important personage than General 
 
THIRD TERM. 23 1 
 
 Grant, it appears to be but a repetition of what oc- 
 curred in Greece when a vote was taken among 
 the commanders upon the question who was first 
 and who was second. Each officer voted for him- 
 self first, and Themistocles second. If you con- 
 sider General Grant's career, it is not too much to 
 say that, in a military point of view, he is among 
 the first six men of whom history has preserved 
 any account ; and if in future ages there shall be 
 those who claim for him the first place, it will not 
 be an extraordinary thing. Do you consider that 
 he commanded more men for a period of fifteen 
 months than were ever under the command of any 
 other general in ancient or modern times since the 
 days of Xerxes? That the theatre of his opera- 
 tions was as large as the entire scope of Napoleon's 
 campaigns from Egypt to Russia? That he never 
 received a suggestion or an order from a superior 
 in office after he became Lieutenant-General of the 
 Army? That he never held a council of war? 
 That he conducted operations at the same time up 
 and down the Mississippi River, across the conti- 
 nent, along the coast from Annapolis to Galveston, 
 and penetrated the Confederacy at two or three 
 points at the same time ? That never, never in the 
 field, where he was in command personally, w^ere 
 the troops under his orders routed, though they 
 were often shattered and afflicted by the severities 
 
232 GENERAL GRANT, 
 
 of the enemy's attacks? That they were never 
 disheartened, discouraged, or demoralized, and 
 that he brought to a successful conclusion the 
 greatest war of modern times? Is it strange, 
 then, that in all countries, even when stripped 
 of the dignities of oflfice and the formalities of 
 power, he everywhere has been recognized as 
 the first personage on the surface of the earth ? 
 Under these circumstances, is it strange that the 
 Republican party of this country turns to him ? I 
 have said this of General Grant, not because I want 
 him nominated for the presidency. I think it has 
 responsibilities from which he may well shrink. I 
 do not know that an election will add to his fame. 
 I am sure it will not increase his happiness. But 
 there have been times when even in Massachusetts, 
 and in Republican assemblies, it was not easy to 
 represent General Grant as he is — a man of imper- 
 turbable spirit, full of patriotism, animated by a 
 plain and loving sense of justice, and anxious — 
 more anxious, perhaps, than any other American 
 citizen — for the perpetuity of our institutions, for 
 the preservation of our national honor, and for 
 the glory and prosperity of his country." 
 
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