540 2- /OlUi tt'j! H , ' E 340 Copy i SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF ^W/SHflW JOHN M°LEAJS\ OF OHIO. uno h ' W-^ton Correspondent of the Boston "Atlas," have taken p :^i e r mT r in this forra> as aa act due to the -^ - *- ° f *- pure ana distinguished citizen.] Washington city, May, 184G. Washington, May 20th, 1 846. As a relief to the dry labor of politics, an occasional sketch of some of our distinguished men will, 1 trust, prove acceptable to the public. There IS no subject, upon which the people of a free Government should be better :ened, than the character, history, and qualities of those who direct lmimster the laws, and impart tone to popular opinion ; which justification for this departure from accustomed duties »ted to the « National Portrait Gallery" for many of the most which illustrate this hasty and imperfect sketch of one, pubhc and private virtues, distinguished abilities, untar- n, profound professional learning, and long and valuable Ury, furnish materials for some American Plutarch to ' posterity may justly cherish; and whose example in official station and social life, as a statesman, jurist, and 11 parties and all sects may be proud to emulate, r, honorable in proportion as it has been difficult, of be kept under, from poverty and neglect up to eminence, sant to every honest mind— most instructive to every in- V a history of individual self-elevation is especially V B every citizen of a Republic . If he be high , it may Aa land of diffused intelligence and freedom, fortune Bist vigor of capacity and strength of purpose. If he fa - ■ ■ : I I • • ■ ■ ' * 1 ,ltt L _ i be low, he can draw from the career of such a man as John McLean, of Ohio, confidence in himself, or hope for his boys; if he too, or they, have in them the spirit and the worth to emerge from obscurity and vanquish every original disadvantage. Merely as such a lesson to the proud , that they should be moderate; and to the humble, that they should never despond, we are about to relate, in a manner entirely brief and unadorned, the life of this excellent citizen. No man (it has long since been said) can be pronounced happy, until he is no more. Without waiting, however, for further good or ill, it is no venture to say, that he who, from such adverse beginnings, has shaped himself out by methods so blameless, a success and a reputation so enviable, has little to hope or to fear from the future chances of existence. They cannot rob him of ability, integrity, or of the past. Whatever else betide, he has lived and he has acted well ; he has been an official ex- ample and a judicial light; he has merited the esteem of times when few deserve well of any thing but party; and has won, and will keep, a high and a lasting place in the affection's of- his countrymen. John McLean, the son of a poor but honest and industrious Irishman who had migrated to this country just before the war of independence, was born on the 11th March, 1785, on a little farm in Morris county, New Jer- sey. The narrow circumstances of the family permitted him, however, to remain an inhabitant of the brave military State to which he owes his birth, scarcely long enough to have fixed on it any of his childish recollec- tions, or any thing more distinct than that general sentiment towards th natal soil , which warms every honest bosom. When he was only four ye old, some time in the year ITS'.), his father was led to seek to better his co; dition in a frontier home. Setting forth, therefore, in what was the fav< track of migration, and no doubt with that desolate, enough equipment cart and horse — a chair or two swung behind — annua put dangling bet \\ — a frying pan pendant at the side — a little bedding — a few household stuffs — some pieces of bacon, and certain curly-headed little ones to garnish the vehicle within — the usual (ravelling train of the mover, even down to this day— he made his way first of all to Morgantov. ,. in Virginia. There, whether experimentally, or to recruit by labor his means fur ;i burner march he took up his residence for about a year — just long enough to have quali- fied his sou, had he been of a voting age, to be a denizen of the ancient Dominion. Kentucky, however, Boon's newfound of the v. ■ ■■!.■!,•,■_ • .■ ■., i , -..; ,\ Hi, i [ • . - !;,:,-, >,( its fertility — (a! told a good deal less truly of many a region hard KjjKrive at, and sad to in- habit. To Kentucky, then, after dwelling only some twelve months-^n. \ Virginia^ our wanderers took their way. By what track they proceeded — whether by that land-route which went along the valley of Virginia, and thence to Cumberland gap, or by the easier way of the Ohio — is not learnt; but, either mode of journeying had abundant difficulties to task the endu- rance of the bold pioneers of a day, when roads and corn-fields were few; when Indians were, and steamboats were not. At first, the father settled temporarily on Jessamine, near where now stands the town of Nicholasville. Here he remained some two years; then, during 1793, removed to the neigh- borhood of Mayslick. At this latter section he continued to reside until 1797, when, evidently from these repeated changes of place, by no means yet well to do in the world, he once more migrated into the neighboring ter- ritory, then called the northwestern, and now the State of Ohio. There, however, he was able to acquire, in its state of nature, the farm now his son's, much of it destined to be stripped of its forest, and won to cultivation by the youth's own arm. At last, then, we have- him, a lad of twelve — hitherto the poor wayfarer through State after State, rather than the inhab- itant of any — fixed at that spot where he was to grow up to distinction. It does not seem that he had ever, up to this time, been sent to school ; and, indeed, that was a region and a day in which it could hardly be said, that " the school-master was abroad." If he was, the first elements that b^ej^hen taught were privation and toil; a rough, but solid old academy, much in fashion with people that could help going to it, but which many wise pupils. In it, we shall soap see that young McLean, imes the axe and the plough, took early his hard-handed degrees, ^Bright scholar in the " clearing'' and among die corn-rows-. ■fevever, the labors of the family had let some streaks and spots Hk) the deep and heavy woods about them; when the cabin ^komfOrtable; when fields begun to spread out around it; Hock enough to supply the wants of the simplest life had Hj| the father, though by this time burthened with a rather ^fcenced applying such little surplus as was left from their Khe giving his children a homely education. John was sent ; hood school, whenever work and weather would agree BWed for learning; and John, whose hands had already .shewn tli ^^Mknt.soon proved himself still apter of head. Much ber had John - for his age, and very little occasion, at his book, q he give the til ■mite him back again. In a word, he learnt at a g^eatpace; and with hi~B?y unusual proficiency grew what was still bet- ter the desire of know; 1 the will to obtain it, no matter at what cost $i tdjjfc bodily or menta' * His father, meantime, was still too straightened in his circumstances to afford him any thing better than the very limited tuition of the common school near him, got by snatches as the farm and the seasons permitted. Indifferent, however, as this make-shift schooling must generally be, the activity of the youth's own mind supplied all its interruptions and imper- a fections . In the fields, at his threshing floor, or guiding his team, or wielding the biting tool that levels the trees, his thoughts still pursued the subject of which he had got hold at school; and the necessary task of the day done, the voluntary one of the night began, for he became to himself that with- out which no one ever learns much — his own teacher — whenever he could get no more advanced one. Completing, in this way, at home whatever he had not been able to finish at school, he soon mastered all that could be taught within reach of his father's house; and at this point, had he been made of any but the best-stuff, he must have stopped, somewhere about his fourteenth year. Means to procure him at a distance that sort of education to which his own longings impelled the boy, his parents did not yet possess; but, u where there is a will there is a way," and the youngster soon made it for himself. His strong head had good limbs to it. Strung by familiarity with fatigue, and to both he joined a stout heart, fired with the idea of possible excel- lence, all the more grateful (o his thoughts, if he should owe it only to Ins exertions — a self-made man. To accomplish it there was but one^2«§ort — his arms (older scholars as has been seen than his noddle) must help the latter to the means of learning; he had worked hard for his father hitherto; he must now work for himself also, at all those spare times when hereto- fore he had been sent where this infection of knowledge fastened upon him. With his father's permission, then, he now began to clear land for the neighbors whenever work grew slack at home. In new settled countries, wages are always good; so that our learning-seeker an •umulated fast a fund for his board and tuition at a higher school. Month for month his axe must have won him enough for about, an equal time of instruction; for he seems to have Bet about this noble plan in his fourteenth vear, and by his sixteenth be had gained enough to maintain him -m-essively at the Rev. Matthew Wallace's and Mr. Stubbs', until he was eighteen. UnderUie care of these competent teachers he applied himself to a general course of the liberal studies, rind to the languages and mathematics in particular. In the two latter he made a very rapid progress — such, it is easy to see, as put him in a condition, when presently his funds were exhausted, to become again, in these more advanced subjects, his own teacher. By this time he had probably fixed his choice on the pursuit which he was in after-life so much to adorn, for we find him in his eighteenth year writing in the clerk's office of the county of Hamilton. To those unable to pursue, at the cost of procuring a lawyer's guidance, their preparation for the bar, this mechanical service — excellent to familiarize the novice with the ordinary forms of law — makes a frequent enough sort of apprenticeship; and the rather because, while the labor performed is instructive, it is also fairly compensated. Unaided as young McLean was by station or con- nexions, the little we know of fact renders it probable that his personal merits were already known and had raised up for him friends such as, great- ly to the honor of our country, early talent has so often found, no matter how forlorn in its situation. Seldom have they who had already risen failed to hold out a helping hand to the youthful struggles of such as Clay, or Webster, or McDuffie, or McLean. Some kindly influence of this sort, perhaps exerted by his late instructors, is betokened by the terms on which he appears to have been admitted into the clerk's office. It was stipulated on the one part, that he should remain there three years, and on the other, that a certain portion of each day should be his own for study. These hours were assiduously devoted to self-improvement, or, under the general direc- tion of a distinguished barrister,* to preparation for his intended profession. It. seems that, besides, to form himself betimes for public effort, he resort- kM^anotlier voluntary agent of improvement that became highly useful to H^associated himself in a debating society, the first which had been ■p Cincinnati, and evidently not composed, as those theatres of lisputation and ill-taste too often are, of raw and vain youths only, Wkg maturer and cultivated men. That this must have been ;lear from what is still said of it, that it produced a number of "terwards distinguished themselves in the public service. Cer- ., whether saved by the presence in the body of better models Hgph usually contain , or secured by his own remarkable Hnent, he contracted none of the vices of style which are jpfiuch places. None of their loose declamation , their idealess fluency, i habits of high-sounding gabble. On the contrary, taking an active pai discussions, he appears greatly to have profited by them, not only in point of improvement, but of reputation- and finally came forth *Arthur St. Clair, son of the brave General who made that name so dear to the Northwest, and so memorable in its legends of: Indian vr ars. 6 from the training which they gave hiin like a wrestler from the ring 1 , with his manly strength mended into adroitness as formidable. It is evident that his learning, the promise of his personal character, must have commanded as much respect as his talents did expectation; for, in the spring of 1S07, just of his 22d year, and before yet he had been ad- mitted to the bar, his prospects had become good enough for him to form a marriage, as respectable in point of connexions, as amiable in the qualities of her* with whom it united him. In the fall of the same year, Mr. McLean, taking out his license to prac- tise law, established himself at Lebanon. There, succeeding at once, he rose within a few years to a lucrative practice, and almost as rapidly into the general confidence and regard which it has ever been his fortune to in- spire in all situations of life alike; for few ever joined more completely the qualities that enforce esteem with gentle manners and a popular spirit, such as befit the self-made man, the single author of all his own eminence — who, owing himself nothing to chance, and, on the other hand, with as little to resent against her gifts to others, views all men with a like eye, in the light of their personal merit only. We cannot, if we would, follow the steps of unsought popularity that gradually brought him into public life. We need hardly say what they were, after having said what he was; but it may be worth while, since the manners of that day are almost forgotten, to say what those steps wer^ffl&T They were no acts of the political trickster, no bargains of the pa^y huck- ster — packed conventions, with all their invisible machinery setlfce clock work, to go at the movers list . while the crowd sec nothing but xhe face, had nothing to do with his rise. It was no work of an intrigue — no shame- ful thing, begot in some dark corner of pretended democracy, and presently to be fathered upon the people, as if every fool or knave of politics, every public changeling or foundling must be their child . He had not quit honor and duty to run after public favor, for that had found him out without his looking for it. To be, rather than to seem, was still a fashion which the people lik'-d, and thought, more capable of doing them good in their affairs, than a base and shallow subserviency to their most, momentary fancies, or to the intimations of those in power, who issue orders and call them the "party." Yea, "the republican party. " Noi such was the republicanism of that day — the old, the Madismiian democracy — to which, from the first, • Rebecca, the daughter of Dr. Edwards, formerly of South Carolina. She died in an admirable wife, an exemplary Christian, and the mother'of many children. naturally consigned to it by all the circumstances of his life and character, Mr. McLean belonged. Elected to Congress, in October, 1812, by a very large majority over the entire vote of two competitors, he went in as a warm supporter of the ad- ministration of Mr. Madison, and of the policy of the war declared by the preceding Congress. Throughout the contest, he remained the firm advo- cate of all such patriotic sacrifices, and of all such vigorous measures, as were to bring 1 that war to an honorable and successful close. On the floor of the House of Representatives, then rendered, by the presence of John Randolph, of Mr. Stockton, of New Jersey, and others, the great battle-field of party opposition, he repeatedly lent die administration the aid of his vigorous but pursuasive eloquence, which never, in its own warm convic- tions, ceased to respect those of others; or forgot that, in the debates of free- men, it is as senseless as it is wrong, to resort to denunciation in order to co#ince those on whom reason has failed . We have said that he was elected in 1812. It was not, however, to the Congress then soon to hold its second session, but to that which was to suc- ceed it after the next 4th of March. This latter body was first assembled in extra session during the ensuing summer. Now, as declaring war is often an easier and a more popular task than that of finding means for car- rying it on, it had by this time come about, through certain mishaps to our jS^Qii the frontier, and through the exhaustion of the Treasury, conse- nt upon the failure of the Congress that voted the war to provide for its pences, that this second war Congress had much the worst part of the jjame to play. The one body had but rehearsed the war, the other was now to act it. 'Twas nearly the difference between a parade and a cam- paign. Taxes were now to be laid upon a people whose chief productions were suddenly cut off from all their usual markets — armies were to be re- cruited, more fit to command than to be raised up — vigor and efficiency to he given t( whole system of the public forces — confidence to be main- Hpc mind, already beginning to be disheartened. All these were duties whig the utmost legislative wisdom, firmness, and eloquence. Elder leade jtwere, and one especially, by his courage, his abilities, nimate all minds, the main support in council of all that .'rying hour, who admirably met and sustained the necessities of all that contest. Seconding, however, with like patriotism, if with experience yet inferior, their efforts, Mr. McLean lent the public cause a very able and valued support, whether in debate, or in the laborious details of business, for which his application, his sagacity, and his power of system qualified 8 him so remarkably. His various speeches of that time, we need scarcely to refer to; for if the principles of that day are so far forgotten that our modern "progressives" can claim them for their own, how can we expect mere speeches, though applauded and admired then, to be remembered? We shall, then, only mention two in particular, as connected with most praiseworthy measure? which he originated. At the extra session he intro- duced, supported, and carried, in a manner to add much to his reputation r the law then passed to indemnify individuals for property taken for the pub- lic service and lost. The difficulties made about paying for the wagons and other private property, put at the command of the Government by the public spirit of multitudes of the Ohio people, and destroyed in Gen. Har- rison's movements, or taken in Gen. Hull's surrender, showed the necessity of such an enactment. Mr. McLean urged that the conduct of these suf- ferers — their voluntary aid to the public service — their exposure of their per- sons, along with their property, gave them a claim, not only of the higtest merit and justice, but of the most imperative policy and expediency, at. a time when the Government had need, above all things, to encourage — nay, if possible, to reward — every instance of patriotism in its citizens. At the ensuing session, always with the same heed for the poor and suf- fering, he introduced a resolution, instructing a committee to inquire into the expediency of giving pensions to the widows of officers and soldiers who had fallen in the military service. Such provision was accor made by law. Besides important measures like these, he was, during this Congress, an> active and useful member of two leading committees; one, that-'of foreign relations, always important, but then of the highest importance, and his- presence on which shows how high he at once ranked; the other, the com- mittee on public lands. On both these branches of congressional service he distinguished himself much. During his first winter in Congress the. following fact occurred, to which, he is said to look back with peculiar pleasure. Perhaps it so affected him from the habitual kindness of his nature, and love of assisting whomever he saw wronged ; perhaps the fact, that his own father was an adopted citi- zen enlisted his especial sympathies; though, indeed, as the case was man- ifestly against the whole spirit of our laws, we need look no further fqr motives to a man always as scrupulously just as Judge McLean. A Mr, McKeon, of New York,* had been nominated by Mr. Madison to the * He was the father of the Hon. John MeKeun, kite M. C from that City. Senate for a captaincy or lieutenantcy in the army. Before that body his rejection had been procured on the ground of his being an Irishman. He was and never ceased to be a stranger to Mr. McLean, though they after- wards corresponded. As soon, however, as he heard of the cause of the rejection, he took up the matter of his own accord with the greatest zeal, brought it to the President's particular attention, remonstrated with many members, and at last, by dint of much effort, procured him to be renomi- nated and confirmed. Capt. McKeon was not only a man of great worth, but in due time proved himself an excellent officer; distinguished himself in arms; and finally rose during the war to the rank of major. Were we, after mentioning the party associations of Mr. McLean in Congress, to pass on without an exacter explanation, we might leave with many, who have not considered how different were the former from the present exactions of political creeds, the idea that he was a thorough- going party man; that the first thing that he did, when he had made up his mind as to the side with which he should best like to act, was to hand over his conscience to their keeping, and let them, according to the day's work, deal him back as much or as little as was wanted; that, in short, he was a politician of the entire or swinish school, or of the sink- or-swim sort. Far from it ! In the first place, that blessed kind of party is *i subsequent discovery in pure politics; secondly, therefore, none such {•agisted; and thirdly, if it had, he was not a man to give himself over to it^hpdy and soul; when among parties an honest one could be found 7 pursuing the needful public good, with that he would have acted. Such a .party vi^as rallied under Mr. Madison, when Mr. McLean, first came into public life; and it he supported in all measures which he deliber- ately, approved. Certainly his feelings always inclined him to them; but if his judgment opposed them, they got not his voice. In a word, he was no indiscriminate supporter of even that honest administration; for the honestest government commits its errors, is misled by wrong influences, and tends to fall into a reign of persons. To check such a tendency, by the pidividual judgment and independence, is the business of a representative of the people; not to yield to it and strengthen the mischief, by associating himself in it. He was incapable of that sort of desertion of duty — incapable of advocating a thing merely because it was popular, or proposed by those who were popular; and of doing whatever the dominant party desired, merely because it was the dominant party. Accordingly, if the journals of that period will be searched for his votes, it will be found that they were uniformly feiven with a reference to principle mainly. He i 10 often in this firm pursuance of his own clear convictions differed from his friends in particular measures; but so highly were both his purposes and his sagacity estimated, that these occasional refusals to go with party, in- stead of alienating any from him, served only to increase the respect in which he was held in Congress, and to add to the confidence placed in him by his constituents. Thus, in the fall of 1815 he was again returned to Congress, by the same large vote; about the same time, though barely of age to be eligible to the U.S. Senate, he was strongly solicited to become a candidate for a seat in that body. He declined it, however, as then offering so good a field neither for usefulness nor distinction as the House. The former body has risen since; the latter fallen immeasurably. In 1816 his State desired to transfer his services to the bench of the Su- preme Court ; and as besides that to such public calls he has always held it a citizen's duty to yield, he had by this time found that the expenses of a Washington residence, and his absence from professional employment dur- ing half the year, left him hardly enough to make both ends of the year meet, he consented to the change. The confidence now reposed in him on all sides is abundantly signified by the fact that he was elected to that high judicial trust by an unanimous vote. The appointment was found, when he came to assume his new duties^ a"i£ admirable one; his mind and character alike fitted him for his new tions. The cast of the former was remarkable for clearness, exact n tience to investigate, and comprehensiveness to seize in its principles the most perplexed and difficult matter; that of the latter had been ever and in all things distinguished for' an unvarying love and practice of justice and duty. He continued to occupy this important, station for about six years, with a reputation and a popularity steadily increasing. With these, how- ever, grew another thing which , though it lias equal delights, is by no means equally exempt from inconveniences; his family became large, and the dif- ficulty of giving them such an education as he was determined they should have, serious; for his fortune had not yet by any means grown into one proportioned to his dignities. When, therefore, in 1^22, President Mon- roe (who had become acquainted with his fitness for the office services on the Congressional committee connected with it,) offered him the , place of Commissioner of the Land Office, Mr. McLean accepted it, as one not only putting him in possession of a better income, but in a situatioa where it could be much more advantageously employed for the benefit of his children. Here the very capacity for his duties which he fifolayed served to abridg 11 his continuance in them. A yet more important branch of the public ser- vice had fallen into inefficiency and ruin. A man fit to give its administra- tion a new vigor and method was wanting; and Mr. Monroe thought he had found in Mr. McLean just the person for the undertaking. In the sum- mer of 1S23, therefore, he offered him the appointment of Postmaster Gen- eral. That si! nation was then by no means an inviting one. Though not yet advanced, either as to rank or emoluments, into a department which gave its chief a seat in the cabinet, it bore the reproach without the honor of forming a part of the administration; so that its head, without a compen- sating dignity or power, shared the odium of measures in which he had no voice, and incurred the calumny of facts for which he was in no manner responsible. Its labors were severe; but, however useful, of that common place sort, the performance of which was thought incapable of winning for any man the praise of talents. Besides all this, its affairs were in confusion , its^nances embarrassed, and the public confidence in it almost ruined. The friends of Mr. McLean were alarmed at the idea of his taking the command of a ship that seemed so nearly foundering. They insisted that it was an office in which no man had gained reputation; that it was a dull, dreary toil, of details the most disagreeable, which no ingenuity could me- thodize, nor scarcely any perseverance master; and that, in short, he would wear out his health, and make a sacrifice of his public standing, if he un- Mfetook it. There are men, however, whom alarms and doubts like these cann7jftfnght